1.30.3: Confused on HRE Emperor Gov’t Rank

[Gaijin de Moscu]

Hi all, I’m quite confused and would love your help, please. Searched here and on Reddit, very conflicting info.

Started the game as Aragon. Spearheaded the Protestant reformation, won the leagues war, became HRE Emperor. I was already Empire rank, so I kept it after joining the HRE. Had to join to both prevent the massive IA drain and to keep being re-elected.

A few years later, I formed the Two Sicilies. Checked my government rank — still an Empire. Not sure why. But great.

A few years later, after passing the Hereditary reform, I formed Italy. Suddenly, I’m a duchy...

I don’t see the logic. How can I form Italy and still keep my Empire rank as the hereditary HRE Emperor?

 

[Gaijin de Moscu]

Tested with console and found out that the first tag switch lets you keep your Empire rank. The second tag switch drops you to a Duchy.

I don’t see any logic, but there you go, if anyone is interested.

Wasted 50 in-game years to learn this.

 

[lambda x.x]

i recall there was some spaghetti in HRE emperor and empire rank when tag switching... Try moving your capital to anywhere; I vaguely recall someone mentioning that puts you back to empire rank.

 

[Gaijin de Moscu]

Thank you, but nope — still a Duchy. Tried moving the capital both after the tag switch and before, no luck.

 

[lambda x.x]

hmm, sorry, I'm just grasping at straws here, so just throwing out random ideas.

So you are nation X in the HRE (and current emperor). You tag switch to Y -> does forming Y move your capital? If so, is that new capital in the HRE already? I wonder if that matters.

 

[Gaijin de Moscu]

hmm, sorry, I'm just grasping at straws here, so just throwing out random ideas.

So you are nation X in the HRE (and current emperor). You tag switch to Y -> does forming Y move your capital? If so, is that new capital in the HRE already? I wonder if that matters.

Thanks for trying to help! Appreciated!

My intuitive assumption is also that the issue is linked to the capital move.

On forming Italy, the capital moves to Rome. In my case, it’s a fully cored state within HRE. My current capital is also in a fully cored state within HRE.

I tested moving the capital to Rome ahead of time, still the tag change drops me to Duchy.

Whenever I form Two Sicilies (no capital move required), my rank remains an Empire.

What’s super confusing is when I grabbed the provinces required to form Italy via console and changed the tag, I remained Empire-rank. But when I conquered those same provinces by war, the tag switch dropped me to Duchy.

This inconsistency is unhelpful...

 

[lambda x.x]

ok so I tried Austria -> Italy and was able to reproduce your issue iff Roma was in HRE. After being duchy, typical things like moving cap manually, triggering a re-election, etc. did not help. I suspect that decision capital move will still fix this (though the status of the capital being in/out of HRE might be relevant here). For example, certain nations have events/decisions to move cap (like Russia/Spain). But I couldn't find easy ways to recover from this as Italy. I assume you can revoke erbkaisertum -> lose emperorship -> get elected again, but that's very destructive and painful.

Here's what might be useful for you though: after I put Roma outside HRE, forming Italy kept me empire rank.

So, how do you move Roma out of HRE? You can either
1) spawn OPM Papal states in Roma -- assuming they haven't already gotten the event and HRE's official religion hasn't been established (catholic wins league war), they will get an event called Unholy Roman Empire or something that will make them leave the HRE. Then you can conquer again.

2) move your capital outside western europe subcontinent. Then use the trade node interface to add all of Genoa to TC. Here it is worth mentioning that provinces in states (whether full cored or not) will not become TC, so assuming you care about stating these provinces in the future (or it's already stated, which is OK), you only want to unstate the state Roma is in. Then remove everything in Genoa from TC (using same button). Now all the non-states in Genoa will leave HRE, so Roma in particular should leave if you unstate it. Form Italy (hopefully works).

 

[Gaijin de Moscu]

Man, you’re a hero. Thank you for all this research. Appreciate you taking your own time to test the hypothesis.

I went all the way back to when I haven’t added Rome to HRE after conquering it. Formed Italy.

And boom — I’m still an Empire.

THANK YOU!!!

Problem solved!

Edit: now I understand the difference between my console testing and the real-life run: the only difference was adding Rome to HRE...