Das Heilige Römische Reich

Welcome to the 'Das Heilige Römische Reich - Features' thread!

I realised that we never explained our features in detail, or at least not in one place, so in here we will provide an in-depth look at the mod's features.

I hope it will answer lots of questions.

This thread will always cover the most recent release (v0.7 in this case).

Here we go!

1) Imperial Tax / Reichssteuer

Description: The term 'Imperial Tax / Reichssteuer' covers numerous things that provided the Emperor with wealth (while AFAIK there was never a thing called Imperial Tax): Emperors collected 'tax' for their coronation voyage to Rome for example, for weddings, cities paid to keep special rights and so on. To keep things simple, I have united all these things in this feature.

Feature: Every not banned HRE faction leader pays 250 florins per turn as long as he is not losing money. Thereof, the Emperor gets 200 florins. The difference is lost due to corruption, wages, ... etc.

2) Imperial Coronation / Kaiserkrönung

Description: The history and meaning of the HRE's head's titles is a long and complicated one. One concept that held true for at least most of the medieval age was that the elected ruler was called 'King of the Romans' / 'Rex Romanorum' / 'Römischer König'. He could also get the title of Emperor if crowned by the pope. 'By the Pope' became 'by a pope' when it became habbit to install Anti-popes on every occassion.

Feature: After a lord of the HRE has won the elections, he becomes 'German King'. If he travels to Rome and is not excommunicated, he gets the 'Imperial Crown' / 'Reichskrone' ancillary, which gives a huge bonus on many things, as well as the 'Holy Roman Emperor' title. If he is excommunicated, an Antipope may also crown him either in Rome if the King conquered it, or in Milan if he is allied to it. In both cases both the King and the Antipope need to be in the same place for the coronation.

3) Antipope / Gegenpapst

Description: On many occasions there were two or more popes at once. Usually one was more or less the 'rightful' pope while the other has been installed by enemies of the papacy.

Feature: An excommunicated Emperor may install an Antipope by clicking one of his Cardinals and following the advisor's instructions. The new Antipope will get a considerable boost in piety, making him one of the top-candidates for the next papal elections. He will also be able to crown the current Emperor. Needless to say that this will not increase your standing with the 'real' pope!

4) Imperial Elections / Kaiser(Königs)wahlen

Description: The title of King / Emperor was never hereditary in the HRE. While it was de facto like this during the reign of the Salian and (most of the time) Hohenstaufen dynasties, it became more and more common for the mighty lords of the HRE to elect their ruler. These lords evolved into the 'Elector Counts' (Kurfürsten). Long after that practice became common, it became codified law in the 'Golden Bull' (Goldene Bulle) in the mid 13th century by emperor Karl IV.

Feature: When the current Emperor dies, his son (if there is one) will become one of the candidates. The other will be the strongest (measured by 'overal score') not banned HRE faction leader.

Five faction leaders are Elector Counts who may vote in the elections. This title is hereditary and can not be 'conquered' by defeating a faction that holds that title. Elector counts that have been banned may not vote. Elector counts that are also candidates always vote for themselves. Otherwise, they vote based on their own realm compared to the candidates' realms. In general, Elector Counts prefer WEAKER candidates over stronger ones.

The candidate who gets more votes becomes King. In case of a tie, the son of the last emperor becomes king. Should one of the candidates die during the election, the other one will win. Should the house of the current emperor die out, the strongest (not banned) HRE leader will become Emperor without an election taking place (this is necessary due to scripting reasons).

After the election of a new emperor, all oaths of allegience are renewed. In game terms that means that all HRE factions not subject to the Reichsacht / Imperial Ban will be allied again.

5) Imperial Ban / Reichsacht

Description: In theory, inner HRE wars and feudal feuds were forbidden by law. Many times, emperors or dukes would proclaim the 'Landfriede' (lat. constitutio pacis; I found no suitable english translation yet - something like 'peace for the country') anew to show that they would now enforce the law. Alas, this never really happened and this unpleasant state of affairs lasted even longer than the middle ages. One of the (vain) methods of countering the offenders was the 'Reichsacht' or Imperial Ban. It came in two forms: against persons or against political entities (like duchies). Subjects to a ban would loose all rights, quite equal to being sentenced to death. However, the mightiest offenders often cared little, because there was no one to bring them before the court.

Feature: The ban represented in the game is a mix of the geographic and personal one (that made it easier...): A ban affects the whole faction but ends upon the death of it's leader. The effects are: The faction leader may not vote and will never become a candidate in imperial elections; his faction no longer pays the imperial tax; other HRE factions may attack the faction without the threat of ban.
A faction leader will get banned when: He attacks or declares war on another not banned HRE member. The ban will only be lifted upon the death of the faction leader.

Note: Note that it is perfectly possible to be at war with another HRE faction while not being banned. This is no bug. You will be banned as soon as you attack an army or besiege a settlement, however.

6) Title 'King of Burgundy'

Description: In the early 11th century, the Kingdom of Burgundy became a personal domain of the Holy Roman Emperors by heritage. While the true power in Burgundy was not in their hands most of the time, the title was one of great renown.

Feature: The trait/ancillary combination of 'Crown of Burgundy' / 'King of Burgundy' is quite unlike most of the other titles in M2TW.
For none-HRE factions it is awarded as usual: Your faction leader will get the title as soon as he controls Marseille, Lyon and Geneva and if there is not already a 'King of Burgundy' in the world.
If a HRE faction controls all three settlements, THE CURRENT EMPEROR will get the title. If the player is emperor, he should take care to either aid Burgundy against its enemies to get the title, or conquer it for himself, as the title provides many bonuses.

7) HRE Diplomatic Overview Screen

Description: To keep the player up to date without the need of remebering or noting every vote and event, there is an overview feature included in dHHR. It tells you who is Emperor, who is Elector Count and who has been banned.

Feature: To bring up the Overview, click the question mark in the top right corner of the diplomatic overview screen. Repeated clicks on the question mark cycle through all HRR factions.

8) Civil War / Counter King feature

Description: Under Heinrich IV's reign a new 'tradition' started in the HRE: The appearence of 'Counter Kings' (Gegenkönig) if the powers were not content with the current emperor. The first Counter King, Rudolf von Rheinfelden, was defeated in 1080, right before the start of the game.

Feature: Each Emperor has a hidden 'score' that equals the 'quality' of his reign. The following actions have influence on this score:

- Actions that would otherwise lead to imperial ban -
- The Empire expands +
- The Empire shrinks -
- The Emperor has been excommunicated -
- The Emperor is crowned in Rome +
- High/Low Emperor's Authority +/-
- Emperor's heroic Victories/crushing defeats +/-
- Emperor builds high level buildings +

If the score reaches a certain level, the strongest lord of the HRE will become Counter King and the leader of the opposition. If players are in the position to become Counter King, they may chose to do it or not.

As soon as a Counter King has been appointed, a civil war starts. All imperial bans become void, and no one will be banned as long as the war lasts. The standings between Emperor & Counter King will decrease dramatically of course. As soon as one of the rivals dies, the civil war is over and the surviving rival becomes Emperor. At this point, all hostilities in the HRE will cease, and all alliances will be cancelled (unions of lords were considered a threat for the peace). All standings will be set to a 'normal' level between the HRE factions. There is also a very small chance of mulitple Counter Kings.

9) Passive Feature: 'Imperial Cohesion'

Description: While wars between the german petty realms were common until 1866, the often 'united' to fight common foes.

Feature: This is a passive feature that effects the AI for the most part: The HRE factions gang up against aggressors (at least the neighbouring ones).

10) The Awardable Titles and Offices

to award a title, a character holding no title can be placed in a city (which gives a title not yet awarded) for two turns to gain that title. only recruited generals can be awarded a bishop's title.

11) Title 'King of Italy'

Description: Another title of great renown, but little real meaning. Nevertheless the 'Iron Crown of Lombardy' was a sought after by most German Kings and even other rulers.

Feature: The trait/ancillary combination of 'Iron Crown of Lombardy' / 'King of Italy' is some sort of hybrid of the Imperial Crown and the Crown of Burgundy. A German King may get it in the Province of Milan if either Milan is held by Milan and the King is allied to Milan or if Milan is held by a HRE faction not subject to the Imperial Ban / Reichsacht.

None-HRE faction leaders may aquire the Crown if they capture Milan.

12) Title 'Duke of Lower Lorraine'

Description: Heinrich IV's son Konrad was nominally Duke of Lower Lorraine, while the real power of the duchy was held by the house of Namur.

Feature: I turned this historical fact in some sort of 'Prince of Wales' title for the Empire: The trait/ancillary combination of 'Duke of Lower Lorraine' is always given to the current heir of the Emperor, as long as a HRE faction holds both Antwerpen and Köln.

None-HRE faction leaders may aquire the Crown if they capture both Antwerpen and Köln.

13) The 'Romzug' feature

Description: It was common for German Kings to aquire the Imperial Crown in Rome or at least in Italy. They usually combined this with getting the Crown of Italy & the re-enforcment of imperial law in Italy. This was one of the rare occassions when the Emperor would collect a general tax in the HRE as well.

Feature: An elected German King that has not yet got the Imperial Crown may start a Romzug at any time. An advisor pop-up will remind the player of that possibility.

If he decides to do it, the Emperor will get a Movement Point Boost of +25% while the 'Zug' lasts and an extra Imperial Tax. He has 7 turns to get the Imperial Crown in Italy or the Romzug will fail. In that case, the MP Bonus ends and the King will suffer a large reputation hit, increasing the danger that a counter-king might arise. The same happens if the Emperor leaves Imperial Territory* while on the 'Zug'.

*Note: 'Imperial territory' is all the provinces that you can see when you start a game as one of the HRE factions (Roughly the whole HRE plus the 'Low Lands' and Northern Italy). These never change over the course of a campaign.

14) Principles of the ZOC system

Description: Many different nations have many different types of administration, and it's always easier to take over lands that are gouverned in a similar way as one's own. Also, proper administration has to be up and functional to recruit any units or start building projects in a province.

Feature: There are 8 basic types of administration in HRR: western catholic feudal, western catholic republic, venetian, tribal, muslim, byzantine pronoai, nomad, orthodox feudal.

Each of these basic ZOC buildings (as I call them) allow a three-level chain of ZOC buildings to be built. These control the availablity of most units / recruition buldings for each faction. Feudal systems require farming for their ZOC-chain, while Trade-Based systems often need Markets and Townhalls to be built.

If you conquer a province with a different ZOC system, all existing ZOC buildings in that province are destroyed. Without ZOC, you are not able to recruit any units or construct any buildings in the province, so you will have to build your ZOC buildings first. This makes it harder to make use of newly-conquered provinces. At first, these are more of a burden than a profit.

NOTE: Factions that use the western catholic feudal system do NOT destroy Republican ZOCs they conquer. They may use and even upgrade them, but not with the full benefits and increased unrest. That shall represent the often republic-like semi-independant status of bigger cities that are part of nominally feudal nations.

15) A note on the recruitment pools & upkeep:

In order to have armies with at least a semblance of history into the mod, I have done several things that might even seem quite strange at first:

-The replenish rates are quite low comparted to vanilla and older versions of HRR. A knight unit in a standard fiefdom takes 8 turns to replenish for example. That ensures that the battles are much more decissive, as you won't face one full stack after the other every turn.
-Upkeep: Feudal units pay almost no upkeep but are quite expensive to hire, while Militia units have the 'free upkeep' ability but pay very high upkeep otherwise. At the first glance this may seem totally weird. But it ensures that the AI & the player will favour Feudal Units for their field armies, while the militias stay at home. Quite 'realistc' army compositions are the consequence.

16) The Knight Realism Project:

That's the 'child' of our (I guess) proud dads Hannibal & Diskuswerfer: Knights now are the tanks on the battlefield that they should have always been. The fate of your army's knights will decide the fate of the battle in most cases.

Personally, I like the new morale aspects of the knights very much: Sometimes enemy troops turn & run as soon as the knights approach them (peasants, archers, ...).

17) Rebel specials

There are three types of Rebel provinces on the map:

Normal
Everything like in vanilla

With garrison script
some provinces that resisted possible invaders and/or were known as quite rebellious have garrison scripts. For those unfamilliar with that term: That means that the settlement in question will spawn an average sized army inside it's walls as soon it is besieged. This shall simulate that all local levies and outspread lords gather to defend the province's capital.
Can be found in the Levante, Southern France and other spots.

Both garrison script and scripted uprisings.
As above. In addition, these provinces will spawn large and usuall well equiped armies that attack the provinces capital in an attempt to regain freedom if they are administered poorly.
Some of the factors that are important here: Tax rate, Garrison Size, Garrison to Population Ratio, Excommunication, special events...
These regions include: Ireland, Wales, Prussia, the Balkans, Northern Italy, the 'Low Lands' from Calais to Utrecht.

Will be continued!