The HRE in SS 6.1, with 2tpy, guide
Written by Jman47- emperor of all he sees………
So you like to play with the HRE? Whether it’s the size, central location, expansion opportunities, webs of alliances and enemies, or your just German or German heritage like me, The HRE is one of the most fun and challenging factions IMHO. In vanilla it is particularly hard as diplomacy is broken, but very shallow with just attack, attack, and attack. SS 6.1 gives the HRE a chance to actually pick and choose sides, as well as war fronts, making the game much deeper but retaining the difficulty with better campaign and battle AI. You can even turtle -GASP! - If you really know how to work the diplomatic butter. This tutorial assumes you have SS 6.1+BYG III+ RR installed as well as Tsaries’ excellent 2TPY mod. I also have Total Combat with RAJ, Crimson Tide, and Zuma’s Stone Forts mini mods, but these aren’t as necessary for the strategy used in this guide. Also I play on VH/VH- yea I’m a masochist all right! Well anyway let’s get started!
Turn 1- spring 1080
You start out with 7 provinces, the best in the west. The advantages are you have lots of income and recruitment centers. The problems are after a few turns your faction zeal will plummet and right to knight will be restricted to your leader and heir. You also have lots of work to do building up all these provinces, and will need to take more immediately to take away expansion opportunities from those surrounding you. You’re also short on cities but flowing in castles, meaning some conversions will be necessary once you really start to expand. It also doesn’t help that the pope hates you, and the worst part is your emperor offends the nobles. Ouch. But there is hope, for the skilled emperor, to climb out of this and start out strong! First let’s deal with build orders- build roads in every province without them, except Staufen which should get a barracks first. In Frankfurt and Vienna go with Churches first, you will soon have very low faction zeal and need to start getting those regions up to 90% Catholic. Next is your armies- first move the emperor from Staufen towards Frankfurt, and move the general in Frankfurt vice versa. They won’t make it this turn, but its ok for now since you aren’t going to have enough generals for all your settlements anytime soon. Moves all of the army except 1 unit from Salzburg towards Staufen, and do the same for Innsbruck; they will meet up with your army in Staufen for an assault on Metz. Next move your troops in Frankfurt, Nuremburg, and Cologne, towards each other, leaving the generals behind in the lesser cities and 1 unit behind in the capitol. Make sure to move them north towards Hamburg, which is the next target. Try to favor near equal amounts of spearmen and archers in the armies, you’ll see why in a few turns. Next is recruitment- recruit a spear militia in Cologne, Nuremburg, Bologna, and Salzburg, then a priest and a diplomat in Frankfurt, a merchant and a priest in Vienna, a diplomat in Bologna, and a spear militia and mounted sergeants in Innsbruck and Staufen. The last thing to deal with is agent moves- move your spy west to France, your cardinal towards Stettin, and your princess towards Krakow. That is it for turn one, since that is a lot to do I suggest saving the game there as a start point, so you don’t have to do it every time you want a new HRE game. Go ahead and click that turn button now- you won’t regret it……
Turn 2- winter 1080
EGAD!!!! What’s with all those blue faces! Maybe you will regret turn 2! Chill dudes just joking, it’s that darned offends nobility trait acting up again. After the first turn your nobles should have now chosen their sides, you must act if you want to still control them all. Take all generals with the ‘Disobeys his liege’ trait and start moving them to meet up with each other. KEEP THEM OUT OF CITIES/CASTLES AT ALL COSTS or you will never get rid of them. Hopefully only 2 will have this, but sometimes it will be 3, or even 4! If you’re lucky it will only be 1, but don’t count on it. If you get a marriage request for your princess, deny it. You need her for now, more good suitors will come along, trust me. If you get an adoption request, go by his stats, but remember after the next turn he can become disobedient as well, so be careful. Continue to move your armies to their destinations, and send the new units in Innsbruck south towards Bologna, target #3 in the south will be Florence. If Venice blocks the pass, don’t worry they should move next turn. Move the Emperor to lead the northern army. Continue to send your spy towards France, your Princess towards Poland, and your Cardinal towards Stettin. Move your new diplomat in Frankfurt west towards France, and your new diplomat in Bologna south, where he should be able to reach a Venetian diplomat. Move your merchant in Vienna to the silver nearby. Also recruit a second Merchant in Frankfurt. Leave your new priests where they are. Finally build any new units you wish to have for garrisons, and that’s it for turn #2.
Turn 3- spring 1081
Your Road builds should be done by now- go with churches next, or that faction zeal will kill you later on. By now at least part of your northern army should be able to reach Hamburg, so siege it and build 1 ram and 5 ladders- DO NOT STRAY FROM THIS! It will help you when assaulting the castle- I’ll demonstrate why next turn, when the rest of the army should catch up and be ready, plus your emperor. If you get any diplomatic offers during the AI turns, get trade rights. Also get map info if you’re playing without toggle_fow, if you are give map info for some cash. Continue to send the disobedient generals to group up, and then send them to siege Magdeburg- when the turn ends the AI will sally and you can have them suicide charge- trust me it may seem like cheating but is the only sensible way to deal with them. You may have to do it next turn, which is ok just as long as it gets done. By now your spy should have some targets in France, send him to the easiest one to get some much needed experience, but if he dies its cool since he sucks anyway in all honesty. Your princess should almost be to Krakow by now, when she gets there get trade rights + map info. After this send her north to Denmark and Norway. Denmark will contact you before she gets there, but you can intercept the Norwegian diplomat, and then if you are lucky send your princess to marry the general on the island town in between Denmark and Scandinavia, who has massive chivalry and good command. Now is the time you should also start deciding your expansion fronts. I usually go with northern Italy and France, since the provinces are richer. Whatever war fronts you choose, be sure to ally with the nations where you intend to keep the peace, since they won’t backstab you like vanilla. One important note- ally with the Pope as soon as possible! You need him on your side in case things go sour. After that I usually ally myself with Denmark, Norway, England, Poland, Hungary, Castille, Aragon, Portugal, and sometimes Sicily and the Knights. I then go after Venice, Genoa, and France when I’m ready. This is a sound strategy IMO, but feel free to choose who you want to kill. This is all long term though, for now you still need to be focused on setting things up, but get alliances with factions you don’t want to kill as soon as possible. Your second merchant should be done in Frankfurt- there is a salt resource near Bruges that he can reach in a few turns- I’d go there. Keep your cardinal on course to Stettin, and keep moving your spear militia and mounted sergeants to Bologna, and finally build more garrisons you want, and your done with turn #3.
Turn 4- winter 1081
First deal with any new diplomatic offers mid turn and adoption requests, still turn down suitors unless you don’t want the Danish general and are willing to wait for Norway to come to you. Your diplomat in Italy should be able to reach Rome by now, if you already have allied to the Pope then go to Sicily or the Knights, who should have a diplomat in Italy. Genoa and Venice both should have come to you or will shortly by now. Your army led by the Emperor should be ready to assault Hamburg, so let’s do that. The best way to take the castle is have archers use your 5 ladders and set them up by the side of the castle before the battle, so that the rebel troops will put almost all their troops on the ramparts away from the main gate. Then batter down the gate and send your infantry through, they will kill any defenders by the gate easily and the enemy knights may suicide themselves against the spears as well. As your infantry move towards the castle square, the units on the side ramparts will come down, this is when you tell your archers to scale the walls- have them run. When they all finally get on the walls the enemy troops will be tangled up with your infantry in the square and you can pick them off easily, the battle will be over in about a minute after this if you do it right. Now that Hamburg is yours change it into a city as soon as possible, and then go with religious buildings, then economy, then military last. Your churches should be done in Frankfurt and Vienna, so go with economy, then military. Your Barracks should be done in Staufen, so then go with any more military, then economy.
Turns 5-20- more set up.
Metz and Florence should be your next targets, followed by Stettin and Magdeburg in the north, Groningen in the west, Bern in the south, and Prague and Wroclaw in the east. Convert Metz, Bern, and Stettin into cities, and from their follow this rule- religion, then economy, then military (REM) in cities, and religion, then military, then economy (RME) in castles. Once you take all these settlements you will be easily rolling in cash, and when the unneeded castles are converted you will make even more. I find that even on low tax rate you can make huge amounts of money very easily. Build as many priests as you can, try to keep one in each province you own once you have churches in all of your provinces. Keep heretics and witches suppressed, they are a pain in the ass, especially skilled ones. Kill all rebel stacks, and try to set up a sound economic and diplomatic picture. Remember to find a way to kill all disobedient generals, and never let them stay in a settlement. As for first targets after taking the rebel settlements- I would go with Milan since Genoa will declare war early more likely than not. Venice is good as well. If you can take all of northern Italy you will be in a great economic position and poised to go wherever your heart desires. France is always a good option next since they will be preoccupied with England. As for crusades participate in all of them, and if you can capture the target city sack it, destroy all the buildings, and sell it to a rich faction for major profit. Trust me you won’t need a city that far away with the wrong religion anytime soon. I also suggest going by ship since that will get you there much faster. Everything after the essential starting turns is a matter of choice and depends on what the AI does, so all I can do is give you the best targets and let you figure it out.
Turns 21-60- your place in the world.
Now that you’re set up, you need to begin worrying about neighbors. By now you should have picked your targets and should be almost ready if not ready to do a little ass kicking. That part is easy though, the topic I’m about to mention is a bit more subtle- that of maintaining a status quo. While you want to be getting stronger, you need to make sure that all other nations remain about the same, since if nobody gets too powerful, nobody can rightly challenge you! Let me give a basic example- you notice that on the British Isles Scotland is kicking England thoroughly. In the ideal status quo, England and Scotland should be deadlocked with no real advantage, but instead Scotland is dominating. Enter your diplomats- send some to the Isles and bribe a few large Scottish armies, particularly generals if so possible. You really should have the money to do this if you’re skilled, so just make sure to skill up those diplomats. If you’re really flowing in cash try to bribe a settlement, and then give it back to England- for a price. A few turns of this and Scotland will be halted, and maybe put on the defensive as well. Do what you want with bribed Scottish units; I usually disband them in favor of my own troops though. Things really heat up once you get a few assassins, skill them up on softer targets then have them kill a couple family members- that will really cripple a nation. Other examples are if one of the Italian states is dominating, or if Byzantium owns its neighbors or the other way around, or if the Moors or the Spaniards are getting a little too strong for comfort. Anywhere relatively close to you that are developing a major power besides yourself need to be curbed- to ensure your dominance.
Turns 61 and onwards- conclusions
By now you should have been maintaining a status quo while gobbling up bits of your neighbors to where you now are truly the best in the west. At this point you should have enough income and settlements to do what you wish, and since you still have plenty of time to do it. You can either turtle or just blitz out the rest of the world to your heart’s desire. Alternatively you may choose to keep your immediate neighbors around to provide challenge later on- for some epic European late era unit brawls. This is the path I usually take, turtling and keeping a status quo until reforms start hitting and I get something better that spearmen and such. I personally never found the blitzing the world game to be much fun- if I did I would still play vanilla! I hope you have enjoyed my guide and found it helpful, if you have any questions feel free to ask. I may also post some pics based on this guide at some point, but am having too much fun in my current HRE campaign to do so currently. Later on I may make other guides for other factions as well but this was my priority as the HRE is my favorite faction.
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Originally Posted by Admiral Van Tromp
im glad you all like it inspires me to make more!
