Holy Roman Empire

[Hochmeister]

I am wishing to establish a presence in northern "Germany" while crusading in the Holy Land... but Milan, Venice, and Sicily keep pestering me! Is there any way to avoid this? Or do you simply have to eradicate them one by one?

Thanks!

[nodey]

If germany is not too important try migrating.
I took my entire population to the iberian penninsula, took valencia and zaragosa then raised taxes on my previous provinces so they rebelled. The penninsula will be much easier to defend than "germany". I did this not to crusade but to get to the americas with my gothic knights and reiters. =)

Sorry by population i meant my armies.

[napoleonic]

I am wishing to establish a presence in northern "Germany" while crusading in the Holy Land... but Milan, Venice, and Sicily keep pestering me! Is there any way to avoid this? Or do you simply have to eradicate them one by one?

Thanks!

those Italian states are supposed to be in the south, how can they troubles your northern invasion? :hmmm:

[Hochmeister]

They are troublesome in that they distract my northern intentions. It's only a matter of time, regardless of diplomatic alliances, until either Milan, Venice, Sicily, or a combination of the three, betray and attack you. In which case you must focus most if not all of your forces to the south.

In my game I went to war right away with Venice and took all of their continental holdings, so now they are stuck on Crete and not a threat. Milan and Sicily, however, have decided to attack; so now I am at war with two wealthy foes. I may try to get France to attack Milan, but that's hard to accomplish.

Oh, and I got excommunicated lol

[Metellus]

I had your same problem, with the Venetians, Milanese and Sicilians, so I destroyed them one by one. Managed to avoid excommunication, too! Those cities up in the North of Italy are nice cash cows, I suggest you go for them. Only problem now is after taking out Denmark as well, everyone wants my blood... they declare war, drop trade agreements and drain the treasury. The Black Plague has swept through (and is slowly subsiding), and the Mongol is knocking on my east door (the city of Ragusa). I have my own Pope at last (I had to give lands to Portugal and money to Spain to back me in a vote), and I am waiting for the Pope to allow me to request another Mongol crusade, should turn the attentions of the othe Christians away from the Kaiser's lands!

[eventhorizen]

In my campaign i moved my capital to Nuremberg, took the north east rebel settlements and established a ring of castles including frankfurt and vienna around my territory, then went on the offence against vienna, then got attacked by milan. North of Italy is mine, Florence and Bologna are currently castles with Milan, Venice and that other settlement south of milan as cities.

I intend taking the entire Italian Peninsula and using it as the economic heart of my empire. After that it will depend entireally upon the state of the game as to where I head next.

My border castles have been repeatedly seiged by Milan and Denmark, but the minimal garrisons (1x light cav, 2x sargeant spearmen, 2x peasant archers) have held out and won every seige so far, while my armies pillage south. Im not rich, but Italy is open to me, and my borders are holding adequatly for now.

[Wittelsbach]

The game is very historical in that aspect, since the HR emperors in the Middle Ages had to constantly fight in northern Italy to keep in control of the land

In my HRE campaign, I managed to conquer first Milan and Venice (and capture Florence). The Milan faction was destroyed and Venice still has a foothold on the dalmatian coast, but is more an annoyance than a threat. Conquering northern Italy was my premier task before fighting Denmark / Poland.

[Cronis]

In my current game I went to war with Poland immediately and seized all their territories. Took Hamburg to box in Denmark. Hungary and Venice soon went to war with me (I was allied with France and England at the time). On the way to conquering Venice, I took Milan, Genoa, and Dijon from Milan (Their only city is in Jerusalem and I'm lazy). Destroyed Venice and Hungary while dealing with advances from Sicily and Russia. After that, I proceeded to wage war against France while evading excommunication. The Pope called a crusade on Edinburgh and I took that opportunity to get a strong foothold in Britain. Took Edinburgh and the city north of it. Took York. Decided to wrench Arhus from Denmark. Got attacked by Spain and Portugal and Toulose. Destroyed France (But not before being excommunicated by a French Pope). England took Frankfurt from me. Finished conquering Britain and then focused on the rest of England's holdings. Used my nice, new bombards on a few English armies and completely annihilated them.

And then the Mongols came.

[SPARTAN VI]

Seems like we're supposed to have disputes with Milan, Venice, and Sicily. They keep attacking the same settlement (the only one in Italy) and they keep taking turns. Venice first, then Sicily, then Milan, then Venice again. Sicily's armies, by far, are the most dangerous everytime they siege me. Followed by Milan's crossbows, which are certain to take 1/5 of my men right off the top.

I've had my crosshairs on Venice a long time ago as they sieged me when my fully stacked army was coming back from their crusade. That really ticked me off... since then, my aim has shifted to the substantially weaker Milan. Denmark attacked me, and quickly regretted it (they asked for a ceasefire immediately afterward, which I turned into trade rights and then an alliance). So I'll take out Milan first, then Venice, Sicily will fall without its allies constantly pestering me.

[Hochmeister]

With Venice pushed off the continent, I was able to concentrate on Milan, who immediately started to pester Bologne and Venice. I managed to beat them finally, so their faction is now eliminated. Now Sicily is the only one left, but I'm not sure what to do. My navy is weak against them (though at the moment I do have the numbers), and I'm not sure I'd like to surround the Papacy just yet, and tick them off even more. For now I'm going to build up my cities and advance my castles as much as possible, in hopes of a crusade.

[SIlver General65]

Man im glad like to play as the germans they got some nice history usally in games ppl make them weak and they werent weak I think the crusades would have changed if Frederick Barbaossa dident die but its my idea but im part german and a alot of people are

[Hochmeister]

Yea, it'd be very interesting to see how the Third Crusade would've been different, had Barbarossa led the German troops to the Holy Land and cooperate with Richard.