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glen55

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My basic question is: Why do I have "unlawful territory," and is there anything I can do about it?

I don't understand the HRE, and I don't understand "unlawful territory" and I don't know what "holding non-core imperial territory" means. And I think my lack of knowledge has killed my best game yet.

I've played through 3 times as England, and this time I took France--I considered Austria, but realized very quickly that the HRE stuff in the manual and the wiki didn't make sense to me, and I didn't want to make the massive time investment for a huge game, and then get screwed because I didn't understand what was going on.

Well, it happened anyway. I was going great guns as France--had assimilated Burgundy, Britain was under my boot, Castille and Portugal carved up, Austria was too scared to join wars against me, I had unified the entire boot except for Roma, which I couldn't take because you can't keep your relationship over 150 with the papal states when there is no papal states to relate to so you'll get excommunicated if you take Roma (in my experience), and basically my expansion was limited only by infamy. My best game yet.

In 1663, to my great surprise, the HRE electors decided to make me Emperor, apparently because I had vassalized 3 electors. I saw this as a learning opportunity re the HRE, and began to figure out how to tweak electors and create imperial reforms. I had plenty of imperial provinces to return to the empire, so was able to enact the first reichreform. I saw that one big elector factor was that I was a non-HRE member, so I added provinces in a line toward Paris and then added Paris to become a member. Looked like I was going to get to stay Emperor indefinitely, with the sweet extra diplomats and magistrates.

Then I glanced at my infamy, and it seemed to be going up. I thought I had just mis-remembered, or there had been an event that didn't stick in my mind, or something. So I didn't think much about it and kept playing a year or two, and looked again and it was definitely up. I mouse-hovered infamy and I am getting -4.0/year for "unlawful territory!" WTF!!!!!! I'm the Emperor! So even with a 6-star dip, an embassy, and Cabinet, I'm adding 1.6 a year, which is obviously not tenable.

I looked at my province decisions page, and none of my provinces have the "return unlawful territory" tag.

By the way: I know what a core is, I'm very familiar with the "formal demand" event, and I've basically put hundreds of hours into this game, but despite all that I do not have a clue why this game seems to have been ruined. I'm not sure I have a backup old enough to repair this.

Can anybody tell me what happened to me? Even better, is there anything I can do?

TIA.

(And by the way, this formal request event sucks anyway. When I have already basically crushed the main part of the HRE, why on earth should my pop back in London destabilize because of something some powerless schmuck in Eastern Europe says? It's totally gamey, and beyond silly to boot.)
 
Unlawful territory is any province that belongs to the empire owned by someone without a core on that province. If you are a member of the HRE the penalties (+.25 inf, -1% prestige) are immediately triggered for each unlawful province although you don't get any stability hit until you get the formal request event. If you are not a member the penalties don't kick in until the formal request event gives you the opportunity to return the province. If you are the emperor and not a member the event can't fire so you will never get the penalties.

Your mistake was in joining the empire while in possesion of unlawful provinces. Once you did so all the penalties were immediately activated. As the emperor you cannot remove provinces from the empire (you also can't do so if you are at war with a non-horde or have positive relations with the current emperor).

If you have a save from before you added Paris to the empire you can go back to it and you'll be fine, just don't join the empire until you decrease the amount of unlawful territory you have either through dumping the provinces or gaining cores.
 
Thanks, that seems to be what is happening. Fortunately, I do keep old saves up to about 20 years, so if I go back 12 years Paris is not in the empire yet. (Of course it took me several hours to play that twelve active war-and-diplomacy-filled years in the late 17th century, which was completely wasted, and I'm not sure I'm motivated to go back and play that 12 years again. As much as I love this game, I hate how mysterious some of the mechanics are. I'm not sure how I could have known this, and I hate wasting all day to get a hard lesson.)

But how can I tell what the "unlawful territory" is?

At least as I understand it, which isn't very well, I can never join the empire now, or at least not unless I don't take any new provinces at all--at least in the HRE region, which is where all my expansion has been once I took England out--while I wait out 50 years for all my current provinces to become cores. Am I missing something?

Is there a good, comprehensible explanation of how this works somewhere? As I mentioned, the wiki and manual don't do it for me, and I'm just not man enough to plow through the 400+ pages of the Quick questions/Quick answers thread.
 
Use the Imperial map mode to see which provinces are in the Empire. Use the Diplomacy map model to see your cores (Hashed in your country is non-core, hashed outside your country is core you don't own). Do not take provinces in the Empire that are not your cores.
 
Thanks, that seems to be what is happening. Fortunately, I do keep old saves up to about 20 years, so if I go back 12 years Paris is not in the empire yet. (Of course it took me several hours to play that twelve active war-and-diplomacy-filled years in the late 17th century, which was completely wasted, and I'm not sure I'm motivated to go back and play that 12 years again. As much as I love this game, I hate how mysterious some of the mechanics are. I'm not sure how I could have known this, and I hate wasting all day to get a hard lesson.)

But how can I tell what the "unlawful territory" is?

At least as I understand it, which isn't very well, I can never join the empire now, or at least not unless I don't take any new provinces at all--at least in the HRE region, which is where all my expansion has been once I took England out--while I wait out 50 years for all my current provinces to become cores. Am I missing something?

Is there a good, comprehensible explanation of how this works somewhere? As I mentioned, the wiki and manual don't do it for me, and I'm just not man enough to plow through the 400+ pages of the Quick questions/Quick answers thread.

Look at "Imperial" mapmode (I think it's the third or fourth map button, I'm not sure). It will show you all provinces within the empire. Dump the territory that's considered "unlawful" for you, or do what I did: every December, I went into the console and typed infamy -4 to get rid of the unlawful territory BB addition. But you are correct, you shouldn't join the empire unless you wait for cores or dump the unlawful territory (to a vassal possibly, so you still get 50% of its tax).

-4 * 12 = -48. So, just resume from where you are now and type into the console infamy -48 to compensate if you don't mind going the shady route. I hate the unlawful territory thing because I think it's stupid and detracts from the game
 
I haven't used the console before, but I think a little cheating is in order here, so thanks for telling me how to do so. As I slowly gain comprehension of this, I'll just try not to create this problem again.

And thanks to Dauth for explaining those map modes. I only used diplomatic to see who is at war with me, and the empire map mode I haven't found very enlightening. :blink:
 
I haven't used the console before, but I think a little cheating is in order here, so thanks for telling me how to do so. As I slowly gain comprehension of this, I'll just try not to create this problem again.

And thanks to Dauth for explaining those map modes. I only used diplomatic to see who is at war with me, and the empire map mode I haven't found very enlightening. :blink:

The empire map mode can be useful to look at before making peace deals in the area. Mouse over any province you might want to take, if it says "this province is part of the empire" (or something like that) then it will be unlawful territory for you if you don't have a core. If it is one of the green shades but doesn't indicate on mouseover that it is an imperial province then it is owned by a member or the emperor but is not officially part of the empire so is not subject to being unlawful territory.
 
I guess I'm getting the picture. As an HRE member, I just can't take any empire provinces I don't already have a core on. And mouse-hover in imperial map mode to know whether they're empire or not. This is very useful info. Thanks to all who have helped.
 
Also perhaps this is obvious, but if you are the emperor and need to get rid of some unlawful territories there are a couple ways to do that. Most simple is "Create Vassals" and you reform some HRE nations as your vassal, which are you ally them has it's benefits, plus you usually get a infamy reduction for it, and as HRE emperor you get the "Xyz rises from the ashes" pop up event that gives you +10 (I'm pretty sure, it could be +5) imperial power. Which is great. Have five imperial territories as emperor? HRE are usually one province nations so release them, and bam, it's infamy reduction one time bonus, it doesn't keep going up, and +50 imperial power, meaning enough for a whole free reform. Plus, you just added 5 vassals almost sure to vote with you each time. It's good stuff.

The other (somewhat game-y) option to sell the provinces to same culture county you are in a PU with. Then when you inherit that country you get cores on all their provinces, and with cores you get no penalty. Bam, lots of (really powerful) HRE territory with no downside.
 
Dareoth, when you say same culture country, do you mean the country I am PU with is the same culture as the province I am selling, or that I have to be the same culture as the PU country?

If you are not both a member of the HRE you have to be in the same culture group as the nation you have a PU with to get cores on provinces you inherit. If both nations are HRE members than you will get a core on any HRE province you inherit.

Note that the ai will never accept an HRE province gift if it doesn't have a core on the province though so that option is fairly limiited.
 
Thanks, that seems to be what is happening. Fortunately, I do keep old saves up to about 20 years, so if I go back 12 years Paris is not in the empire yet. (Of course it took me several hours to play that twelve active war-and-diplomacy-filled years in the late 17th century, which was completely wasted, and I'm not sure I'm motivated to go back and play that 12 years again. As much as I love this game, I hate how mysterious some of the mechanics are. I'm not sure how I could have known this, and I hate wasting all day to get a hard lesson.)

To many that is one of the great things about a game, when you first run into something you didnt know could happen. It is almost "real" since most of the complications in history came from these complex territory disputes.

If you already know every decision and game mechanic that will happen in the 400 years of play you have ahead the fun is somewhat reduced and you are just metagaming imo.

Enjoy the twists and turns in the game and take them as challenges in the long run you will feel you had more fun, or not...