Game Mechanics - Country and the Government - Country prestige | Country and the Government Empire: TW Guide

Major countries are characterized by a prestige level.

Prestige is a information about how developed is your country. If you will have strong army and navy and you will be good at new technologies you'll get prestige points (and your country is more powerful).

The best way to develop is to make a war. It will force you to make some army (sometimes you have to build some ships). You will need gold for this, so be sure that your agriculture and industry are in very good condition - build some farms and factories in your provinces. All of this can be supported with technology. Put some intelligent men in laboratories and force them to work there. Inventing some interesting technologies can result in more developed country. In addition you will gain some prestige points.

Sometimes prestige level can be the only win condition. You can set the option "prestige win" in the options (then you have to have the best prestige level at the end of the XVIII century).

This the diagram from the end of the Austrian campaign. As we can see: you can have high prestige level only because of the army.