HRE help

[gambit]

I have tried vh/vh campaigns and gotten used to the flow of difficulty. I decided to try out the Holy Roman Empire and am in a hole. I spent the first turns securing alliances all around, figuring a few would be broken and it'd give me time to fluctuate my empire. I've gotten backstabbed by France, Milan, Siciliy, Venice and I fear Poland may come in to the mess too. I have all my original settlements and I've taken Florence, Bern and Dijon as well. I just lost Ajaccio to the Sicilians. Any ideas on who I should focus on? I was thinking milan and just getting their massive income but Sicily or Venice would be massively useful for consolidating my empire. Anyone got some ideas?

[SGD2C]

I have tried vh/vh campaigns and gotten used to the flow of difficulty. I decided to try out the Holy Roman Empire and am in a hole. I spent the first turns securing alliances all around, figuring a few would be broken and it'd give me time to fluctuate my empire. I've gotten backstabbed by France, Milan, Siciliy, Venice and I fear Poland may come in to the mess too. I have all my original settlements and I've taken Florence, Bern and Dijon as well. I just lost Ajaccio to the Sicilians. Any ideas on who I should focus on? I was thinking milan and just getting their massive income but Sicily or Venice would be massively useful for consolidating my empire. Anyone got some ideas?

i wouldnt worry about france, take out the small nations like milan and demark. especially milan. they will spam units and their cities will help ur economy take out the city of venice. also convert some of ur castles to cities to get a better economy to fight every1.

[gambit]

Tryin, I have been demolishing Milan militarily but for their cities can already make whole armies (mercenaries and militia) in a turn, I've only lost one battle to them and all the others were clear and heroic victories on my part, yet they still keep sendin out the armies, the pope finally excommunicated em so I'm pullin out the good ol german blitzkrieg and I'm gonna freakin obliterate them. I was thinking of letting one settlement survive so they could rebuild and I could crush them yet again! FWHAHAHA! JUST WAIT UNTIL I GET GOTHIC KNIGHTS!

[ByzantineSerb]

Which level? Very hard! Go to the west! Others levels? On the west is front, no move. Spread on east & (must) destroy Sicily. Make frontier Stettin, Thorn.

[Joel92]

convert all of your settlements, except bern and hamburg to cities. just create economic structures to feed your war machine. then, send some troops to venice and milan, and take italy. then focus on france and poland. keep converting your castles to cities, so you can create more and more and more money

[Radmun]

Just follow your nose and have cheats.

[Flipcharmer]

I haven't tried playing as HRE since they are literally in a very vulnerable position.

Military and Diplomacy -
I find it best not to ally with everyone in one big swoop since it will affect your relations with other factions later on. Looking at HRE's position, it would be best to secure your surrounding lands up north blocking the Danes for expanding down your territory. Try to secure France's allegiance using royal marriage since you will later share a big boundary with them and you don't have to necessarily destroy their faction to win the game. Try to secure another royal marriage with another faction or you could strengthen your alliance with France with two royal marriages. I usually don't ally with any faction that I need to destroy later since I like playing the "good and honourable king" and I don't like to have any negative reputation since it has certain effects on your diplomacy. I'd probably try to expand to the east side (Poland, Russia) and down to the Italian peninsula as the game progresses.

Financial-
I usually set the taxes on high or very high on the towns that I originally own early in the game. Make use of your Generals/Governor with "money up" traits. I convert castles to towns and try to keep a ratio of 4-5 towns per 1 castle. Send your merchants to far flung places where they could make more money for you. The farther away from your capital the better.

This is how I'd start my HRE game at least.

[King Yngvar]

Kick those annoying little pesky Italians out of their petty existance and you should be fine

[Radmun]

First control italy and you will have no problem, dont worry about denmark they will not attack you, worry about the french and italians.

[Cutlass81]

I've been playing as HRE on medium for a while now and so far I haven't converted any castles to towns or any towns to castles and i've been doing fairly well. I immediately secured alliances with denmark, hungary, poland, sicily, england and even the papal states. I also secured trade rights with everybody I met. This allowed me room to move south and east and allow me to focus my armies against the surrounding rebels as I started moving the majority of my units against the more hostile borders. The Venetians and Milan launched attacks on me early on, but both have a tendency to get excommunicated fairly quickly from what i've noticed. If you can get the papal states to love you with that alliance and trade rights, calling a crusade on one of these 2 states comes pretty quickly and you should use the crusade to bolster and prepare armies on all fronts. I used the crusade armies to ultimately crush Milan and the crusade I used on the French helped prepare invading armies on the Venetians where i'm currently sitting. The French shouldn't be much of a problem if you let denmark freely travel through and conquer some cities on the French border. Also the alliance with England helps play a role here. I guess thats a somewhat guide for the early game. Also sacking cities seems to do the trick. It may cause the income to be lower in the conquered cities, but it allows you to upgrade stuff in your inner cities such as churches and mining networks quicker which will pay off in the long run as it keeps the pope happy and replaces some of that lost income. I've also used it to prepare for the mongol invasion which will hopefully never show up on my doorstep by finally building the barracks in my eastern cities.

[xxxMoRaVexxx]

Early in the game secure alliances with all surrounding factions because you won't want to end up being pounded on your every border and also get a negotiation with the pope coz its a curse to have the pope as ur enemy. If the pope is happy with you your protected from against other factions except for the 2 italian factions in the south(i think they don't really care about the pope). After securing alliances capture rebel settlements: Hamburg(i think i forgot the name) in the north to hold your northern border against the Danes, Magdeburg to hold your east against poland, florence and bern. Produce lots of cavalry against the 2 italian factions(milan, venice)and take the fight to their lands(perfect for cavalry) and you'll end up defeating their field armies(maybe just milan coz they don't have castles yet).

[Viking Prince]

I have just started a vh/vh with France. You did not mention what turn you're working on. I will suppose past turn 40 if you are building a navy and taking on the islands. If earlier than this, perhaps you have spent too much on naval builds and maintenance that could have been spent on keeping allies happy.

How to keep allies happy? First fewer is better. Otherwise you get all of them ganging up on you when one is offended. The factions have other alliances in addition to their alliance with you. The vh/vh setting has a very aggressive AI.

Also, do not take all of the rebel provinces. The AI factions that are allies would like a piece of the action. Gifts of florins, marriages, and even an occasional region are useful. Please note that taking a region that an ally had wanted (the last rebel province between the two of you, for instance) and then gifting the region is not considered a gift by AI. Actually it is, but the taking is a much bigger bad than gifting is a good.

[Sodbuster]

I just started a VH/VH as Milan and holy crap is it tough. I've been attacked by Venice, Sicily, France, Spain, and the Moors. I've managed to crusade and take Jerusalem, and that's probably what's kept me alive so far. I made a ton of money sacking that town. France is excommunicated, so I'm going to try to crusade against them if the pope will let me. France is my biggest threat right now. I'm their only enemy, and they have three stacks on my land, one full of crusader mercenaries. I've nearly finished Venice, and Sicily can't seem to send a big enough stack against me to do any damage. All in all though, this is the toughest campaign I've tried, and I've done Spain and Russia on VH so far. Milan gets a lot of money, but I'm dumping it all on defense. I think I should attack France now, before they get much bigger. The HRE hasn't even touched me yet. I think if I were to play them I'd probably expand South first into Italy for the extra money, and then North to get the Danes out of the way. From there you could go both east and west, you'll have enough cash and experienced troops.