Feeling "Dirty" after saving then reloading...restarting campaign as HRE any advice on the faction?

[Conan's Might]

Hi guys,

Yep.. I know...did a reload after siege didn't go my way... it got laggy and as a result went messy and not my way. Was loving my byzantine campaign n'all! Well its time to move on so I'm going to give HRE a go!

Using Savage AI, M/H difficulty though thinking of going M/VH.....Also thinking of reducing my rate of expansion so conquering more slowly... Is this generally a good idea with HRE?

Any general tips with HRE that peeps can share with me? Or fun ways to play the faction?

Thanks in advice

[HolyDevil]

slow expansion as hre is suicide.... bologna will, very soon, be disputed, and the pope will hate you (oh yea, he will), and if u allow norway,denmark, poland, france, even scotland, get a steady foothold, then ur doomed, they will ALL want a piece of the mid-europe cake, thats why, in most campaing, where HRE is AI controlled, they get eliminated, i'd say get at leas,t norway and denmark out of the picture, so you have a good economy when poland and france, eventually backstab you, keep bribing the pope, i would also say, either sell bologna, or get a good foothold by conquering ancona castle, and simply wait for them to attack you, then, if the pope is in a good mood, they will hate the attacker and allow u to conquer at least venice (since they are the ones who want bologna most of the time)


in the end, slow expansion for HRE, doesn't work, unless you want unrealistic stacks and stacks from up to 4-5 enemies, EACH turn after turn 50 or so

[Massive_attack]

The holy roman empire demands you to lose your humanity in hopes of saving yourself. Total war. The utter and complete annihilation of all threats foreign and domestic and the complete dedication of ones entire economy strictly to conquest and military endeavors. All taxes set at least to high if not very high depending on the feelings in the settlement, all troops mobilized and either at borders or on the march, no exceptions, and immediate military maneuvres, plus tactical and strategic savvy, are all required.

Punch north first, and gain a foothold over the danish by siezing the island settlement they have as well as there capital, then keep a stack or so of decent troops under a sturdy general and dig in, keeping those lands will save you. Just be sure to move like lightning to avoid getting excomm'd. Avoid excommunication for as long as possible.

Attempt to ally france through marriage. Eventually the "alliance" is bound to fall apart but for the momment it might dissuade them. Ally the pope and give him some money. make this a priority. About 2000 should be enough to cheer him up. Any "very generous" offer really should help your relationship.

After thats all done, consolidate your defenses. Get free upkeep troops in all towns (that is to say, train more men, dont break up armies you have now) The HRE can support about 3 mobile stacks at a time, maybe four if its mostly militia.

Beyond that, Expect trouble from the italians (especially genoa), hungary (later though), france.

Ally England, they are good allies that cant and wont backstab.
Once europe starts sort of liking you begin to slowly improve yourself economically. slow and steady though ! always be prepared to conscript large ammounts of the populace in case of war. Because there will be war. Oh yes, there will.

PS: are you early era ? If so, MOVE LIKE LIGHTNING AND GOBBLE UP REBEL REGIONS. Even if your attacking a city with like, two units of militia and a general, it doesnt matter, you need those settlements. Usually all it takes is 2 peasant archers 3 spear infantries and a general to take a settlement, so divide your men into companies like that and divide & conquer.

[Amaranth]

@Conan's Might
I reload a lot. I mean A LOT. Never felt guilty for that.

About your question though I generally agree with Massive_attack:

The holy roman empire demands you to lose your humanity in hopes of saving yourself. Total war. The utter and complete annihilation of all threats foreign and domestic and the complete dedication of ones entire economy strictly to conquest and military endeavors. All taxes set at least to high if not very high depending on the feelings in the settlement, all troops mobilized and either at borders or on the march, no exceptions, and immediate military maneuvres, plus tactical and strategic savvy, are all required.

HRE starts in a really bad position, in order to survive you must act quick and gain power before eventually falling into a total war. I think France is one of the first to put a knife at your throat. Than Genoa and Venice and eventually Danmark. Since they're almost usually allied with Pope, I think an excommunication is inevitable. Avoiding that should be up in your priority list. Also I know that due to their northern shores HRE is also (at some point) come in contact with England. Making them your ally should be an advantage since they're almost always in war with France.

[Maltacus]

Hmm, I played a rather different HRE campaign in 6.2, the late campaign. Starting with an excommunication, I decided to make peace with the papacy. I gifted the pope all the castles on the western border in exchange for reconcilation, ceasefire and alliance. The pope would then guard my border, allowing me to focus on other fronts Then I allied with some other neighbours and crusaded against Tunis. From there I launched a full scale invasion of Roman Greece, conquering my way to Constantinople. After that the campaign became economical rather than military as I bought most of Hungary and Poland from the respective owners. Somewhere around that point I decided that the campaign was more or less won and continued on another.

Generally, HRE needs some stability. Either a reliable ally in some direction, or a natural barrier making some border easy to defend or something else. You can ahieve this by both rapid and slow expansion. HRE benefit more than most factions from trading a conquered settlement or two for other advantages, like diplomatic ones or a welcome financial boost.

[Olaf The Great]

Well it really depends on which AI you're using, I use Savage and peace is not -too- hard to balance with your interests
As the HRE what I usually do is gift Bologna to the pope to get my pope-o-meter and then give him a 500 a turn tribute for 9999 turns.
Then I expand into all directions and participate in Crusades, on VH/M difficultly it's not too hard to prevent massive invasions.

[napoleonic]

I disagree with those who said slow expansion with HRE is suicide, I feel it's actually the contrary... turtling is a far more secure path for HRE player... however I agree that blitzing rebels early on is a must have.

as for diplomacy, I think genoa and byzantine can be your best friends, your other friends can be poland/hungary, sicily, denmark/norway, england, however do not maintain them for long time as eventually you are bound to war with them.

but be nice with genoese and roman, why?

1. genoa can be very helpful for wreaking havok on the western europe, together, you can be more secure from france, england, aragon, leon and even scotland, portugal or the moors, see?

2. byz are superpower on early era and will be too big for any of your eastern rivals to handle, even more so if you double team them with the byz, another great help for your factions

maintain red alert on your empire all the time, garrisons your settlements heavily, especially borders, prepare to defend all sides all the time, build A LOT watchtowers!

settlemrnt targets :

1. ancona and venice on italy (I consider venice as a top priority for all central european factions, the city income is unrivalled on western, central europe)
2. bern, metz on france and alpen; castles to defend the west
3. bruges and antwerp on northwestern europe continental; antwerp is very strategic IMO, mainly to deal with france, and britain, you can also use it to assault scandinavia! bruges surprised me, it is my 2nd richest city after venice on my HRE campaign!
4. wienna and the city above; wienna is a double edged sword IMO, it's quite rich but you'll have to defend it a lot.

overall your eastern borders are troublesome since that area lacks castles, that's more reason to be nice with byz since byz usually wage wars with them too. beware of the italian too, in fact conquering italy is worth it, let genoese alone though especially if you can maintain your alliance with them.

[Spartan90]

Do a search in the SS forums for HRE to get some great stuff. I also disagree with rushing at the start of the game. Turtling allows you to consolidate your empire, and be less of a threat to everyone. If you jump out and grab every Rebel settlement near you, your neighbours consider this as a threat. Grab some if you need to, not if you want to.

Getting smart alliances will help you with the HRE. Clever diplomacy matters most to this faction than any other. I find France to be rather timid, and they always have their hands full with England, Aragon / Spain and Genoa anyway. I also find the Eastern Bloc tends to leave you alone, unless you've expanded too far east into lands that Poland would prefer. Your biggest targets are factions always going for Vienna and your port cities bordering the North Sea.

Make allies with factions that will never go to war with each other, eg. Sicily and Denmark (secures your northern and southern fronts) or France and Poland (east and west fronts protected). Surprisingly, the factions that are more likely to go to war with you are Scotland and Norway (landing at Groningen constantly). The Northern Italian factions will eventually declare war, but they're pretty easy. I advise to give up Bologna at the start of the game, perhaps to France. That way it will give the French another two potential enemies in Venice and Sicily, and therefore give them one more reason not to attack you.

Survive the first 50 turns, secure your borders and economy, and go from there. It's very easy to play the whole game as HRE without getting excomm'd, just buy out the Pope in the early game, and then control the College of Cardinals in the later game.

[Ichon]

HRE changes alot depending on campaign era. Early is relatively easy with several rebels around first and ability to choose enemies somewhat. Late era is much more difficult. Start with potential enemies all around and HRE best troops still some time away.

Easiest path is always north to secure one flank completely and be able to defend cheaply with a few fleets.

Going south is also possible but more likely to bring into conflict with the Pope which for HRE is not recommended.

The most difficult area of Europe to defend is from Vienna north to the Baltic so Poland, Hungary, Venice, and sometimes Kievan Rus or Lithuania can turn into real annoying factions. France is eventually bad as well if it survives vs England, Genoa, Scotland, and Aragon but usually it will be fighting those a long time unless HRE gets excommunicated. Still the rivers and mountains to the west and south make those HRE borders easier to defend.

I agree with making Genoa an ally- Venice will almost always betray quite early but Genoa can sometimes remain loyal for surprising amount of time if treated correctly and does cause your other enemies problems. England is also useful or can try France if the Pope is kept friendly.

Scandinavians will not be reliable ever as HRE is their easiest expansion path so usually even if you don't want to go north you are forced to so might as well plan on doing that early.

HRE has too many castles in my opinion and I usually switch some central ones as quickly as possible. Hamburg, Bern, a couple others all you really need to keep as castles.

[Conan's Might]

Wow thanks for the indepth advice guys really enjoyed reading whats been posted so far and really got me in the mood for nailing a HRE campagin!

A lot of peeps mentioned giving money to the pope to keep him happy is this simply via a diplomat giving tribute?

Sounds silly but it actually never occured to me that giving money to other faction would improve your relationship with them! I've made alliances with almost everyone bordering me at the mo! Only Poland aint joined my ranks of allies seems that well all stop being so friendly soon though!

I'm playing early period.

[Spartan90]

Yeah, gifting them money is a full-proof method to getting great relations. Gift a faction a few thousand florins for an immediate relations hit, then proceed with a 200-300 florins gift per turn for 100 years to keep the relations near perfect. In essence, it's a bribe Can't get very far as a Catholic faction without paying off the Pope!

[Lil Jazzer]

Now that finally I've managed to get this mod working I have started a campaign, savage/H as the Holy Romans . Im only at around 20 turns and northern italy is starting to get unfriendly with me (occupation of Bolgnia) with poor relations all round. France is getting restless too, but luckly I've married into the danish royalty so I wont have much trouble there (yet). I was initially planning to invade greece and capture the Byzantine provinces there and/or gather provinces from the Hungarians and Poles, but with my current situation with poor relations in Italy and Western Europe I'm not sure how to proceed, do I garrison Bolognia to the peak, (knowing SS AI, they will take that as a threat) and risk total war, or do I proceed to wage war on France while their military is not too strong (spy info )? Its a question of left or right and I hope people who have either played this campaign before, or who have better knowledge of the SS psychology can help me out (I do really want to suceed and make the Holy Roman Empire truly HOLY and an EMPIRE!!!). Thanks alot with future feedback, cheers! For the while I'll just sit back and twiddle my thumbs (and whistle).

[Navajo Joe]

Lil Jazzer,
I found this thread four posts down from yours!!!!!

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=393114

[Spartan90]

Lil Jazzer, try not to overstretch your empire now while you're still reasonably fragile. Secure the lands around you before venturing into Greece. Get rid of your more threatening enemies first - specifically France. Even though Genoa and Venice are generally more pesky, they are easier to defend against as they have to cross the Alps and attack your Swiss castles before entering your heartlands. France is a little more tricky to defend against.

I suggest using diplomacy to get Aragon and England (and possibly Genoa) to attack France while you take the brunt of their empire from your western front. The difficult situation is trying to get rid of their bigger troop production centres in Toulouse and Bordeaux as they are on the western side of France outside your reach. But with a combined effort between you and the other factions mentioned, France will be getting attacked from all sides and won't hold out very long.

After this, secure Northern Italy to severely cripple Venice and Genoa. Keep Sicily in your good books so they won't even dare entering your trade-heavy and fertile Italian lands. Keep bribing the Pope, and make sure your relations with The Iberian factions and the British Isles are reasonably decent before venturing into Greece.

[ncarrier]

Agree that turtling is the winner for HRE. I've found the settlements to be underdeveloped and way too many castles, you need infrastructure badly. Grab every reb settlement in reach and then hunker down and build. Bribe the pope constantly and hope the first faction to betray you is Denmark, since Scandinavia has a finite end to the expansion process, and you can stop for a breather once it's done. And keep Bologne if you can, access to the Med means ships and merchants and that means money. The money you can make from shipping merchants out of Bologne will cover the cost of bribes to keep the Italians happy and then some. It can be tempting to grab Venice early on but I've actually rolled back 10+ turns in my HRE campaign because of how badly the Venetians started to hit me. If you wait long enough the Byzantines will often go after them, and then it's easy pickings.

[Lil Jazzer]

Lil Jazzer, try not to overstretch your empire now while you're still reasonably fragile. Secure the lands around you before venturing into Greece. Get rid of your more threatening enemies first - specifically France. Even though Genoa and Venice are generally more pesky, they are easier to defend against as they have to cross the Alps and attack your Swiss castles before entering your heartlands. France is a little more tricky to defend against.

I suggest using diplomacy to get Aragon and England (and possibly Genoa) to attack France while you take the brunt of their empire from your western front. The difficult situation is trying to get rid of their bigger troop production centres in Toulouse and Bordeaux as they are on the western side of France outside your reach. But with a combined effort between you and the other factions mentioned, France will be getting attacked from all sides and won't hold out very long.

After this, secure Northern Italy to severely cripple Venice and Genoa. Keep Sicily in your good books so they won't even dare entering your trade-heavy and fertile Italian lands. Keep bribing the Pope, and make sure your relations with The Iberian factions and the British Isles are reasonably decent before venturing into Greece.

Thanks alot Spartan for the advise, i will definately use it, and bring the Holy Roman Empire to Victory. Cheers once again!

[Spartan90]

No worries mate, if you have any other questions, let me know. I'm in a pretty rad, but extremely peaceful HRE campaign as we speak, so if you have any direct questions, don't hesitate to ask them