Advice on Spain - HRE game. Is it difficult to unite HRE with an outside emperor

[tokerin]

It's 1594 now and I'm trying for the achievement to unite HRE with specifically Spain (should have done that earlier). Anyway Austria in my game is my sole ally and just lost its title in HRE to Brandenburg (but they will get its back in no time, Brandenburg's king is 64). I now intend to vassalize 4 electors including Brandenburg before Austria take back the emperorship. The problem is that no reform has been passed and the fact that you lose IA for each subject elector means both me and Austria will have a very hard time gaining IA. The only way I see in this situation is: add provinces, lose emperorship, take out provinces, get emperorship back and add provinces again. Should I then attack HRE or should I wait till HRE pass some reforms? I think the latter is more reliable if I want to achievement but electors can grow too big in the mean time. And if I want to focus on Europe now I will have to move my army back form America where westernization is spreading like disease.

 

[Gaamel]

You can get massive IA by giving imperial provinces to HRE allies (using the function to give the occupied province to an ally in war) and then by demanding unlawful territory. This works if the ally cannot core the province and has a good opinion/reputation of you.

I wouldn't recommend the HRE game with a foreign country though, especially Spain which is a total cultural outsider (it's important to pass the reforms). And I hope you have invested points into diplo/influence, otherwise you'll have a difficult time getting to the last reforms.

 

[Purple Hazed]

I don't know how much you blobbed, but since its basically 1600 you hopefully have eaten France and taken control on continental land east of HRE. Once you vassalize the 4 Electors you'll want to add just enough provinces to get your capital into the HRE to remove the Outside Emperor malus but save the rest of your land for later; passing reforms gets harder and all that land is a ton of free IA. I did my Spain is Emperor in 1.7 but i'm pretty sure its much easier to stack IA now in 1.8 with the ability to force other HRE members to eat land and after war force them to release it. But by vassalizing all those electors it will be real hard to get allies inside to force feed so you should probably try to grab a few small allies before the elector grab. Also if the 30 years war has already happened and there is a definite religion of the empire, forcing religion is also an option.

 

[tokerin]

What you mention seems like Art of War features. I don't have it yet. If I buy it now will the League War happen? If I don't, then basically I just wait right? I can declare war and lose so that Austria will have enough IA to pass reforms. And if I add my capital to HRE, I will not be able to declare war on HRE princes to break them small (Munster and Saxony are already great powers).

 

[Purple Hazed]

I did it in 1.7 so some of it might be outdated but once you become emperor you want to add a bridge of provinces from HRE near Savoy to your capital because voting on things like being emperor and passing reforms get a malus or negative modifier for your country not being part of the HRE. Once your capital is part of HRE then Spain is considered part of HRE and the malus will go away. You will still have Emperor is not Germanic malus but you want to remove as many negatives as possible to pass reforms and becoming part of HRE is easy one. That's why i mentioned taking out France because you want your border touching the HRE. I say only make a bridge because adding provinces is easy IA and you want to save as many provinces as possible for later when you revoke. I'm pretty sure i saved my land for *Revoke the Privilegia because anyone who votes against it will be dropped from HRE rather then become your vassal so you will want to get your IA as high as need for that one rather then just the 50ish you can pass the other reforms with.

Getting a country to release nations earns you a ton of IA so with the ability to assign sieges. Nn AoW the new tactic is to force a bunch of land onto unsuspecting allies in a war right before you peace out and then after the deal goes through you immediately demand the land back and get buckets of IA. Without Art of War you will have to do it the old fashioned way of force releasing anything that has been captured up to this point. Guaranteed Austria ate a ton of stuff because the AI plays Austria greedy so you can get a bunch on new princes from them. Netherlands usually is made up of a bunch of small princes as well so they are a good pinata for IA. Any outside threat declaring on you is amazing as 'Defended the Empire' is like a free reform. Also forcing countries to convert to your religion pays off in the long run as the countries who won't vote for your reforms are almost always the opposite religion.

If your goal is to get the sitting emperor to pass a bunch of reforms before you take over then attacking them so they can defend is a viable strategy i guess. The 'Defended the Empire' is amazing for that. I wouldn't go too far though as soon as he passes 'Proclaim Erbkaisertum' you are locked out forever. As far as joining the HRE vs not i can't answer. I did it from inside but you can definitely try from outside. You will still be able to declare wars but you will probably need more IA to over come outside emperor. Maybe hang onto adding capital until you are ready to revoke.

Post how it goes cause i'm curious now. I might have made it way harder on myself. =D

 

[tokerin]

I did it in 1.7 so some of it might be outdated but once you become emperor you want to add a bridge of provinces from HRE near Savoy to your capital because voting on things like being emperor and passing reforms get a malus or negative modifier for your country not being part of the HRE. Once your capital is part of HRE then Spain is considered part of HRE and the malus will go away. You will still have Emperor is not Germanic malus but you want to remove as many negatives as possible to pass reforms and becoming part of HRE is easy one. That's why i mentioned taking out France because you want your border touching the HRE. I say only make a bridge because adding provinces is easy IA and you want to save as many provinces as possible for later when you revoke. I'm pretty sure i saved my land for *Revoke the Privilegia because anyone who votes against it will be dropped from HRE rather then become your vassal so you will want to get your IA as high as need for that one rather then just the 50ish you can pass the other reforms with.

Getting a country to release nations earns you a ton of IA so with the ability to assign sieges. Nn AoW the new tactic is to force a bunch of land onto unsuspecting allies in a war right before you peace out and then after the deal goes through you immediately demand the land back and get buckets of IA. Without Art of War you will have to do it the old fashioned way of force releasing anything that has been captured up to this point. Guaranteed Austria ate a ton of stuff because the AI plays Austria greedy so you can get a bunch on new princes from them. Netherlands usually is made up of a bunch of small princes as well so they are a good pinata for IA. Any outside threat declaring on you is amazing as 'Defended the Empire' is like a free reform. Also forcing countries to convert to your religion pays off in the long run as the countries who won't vote for your reforms are almost always the opposite religion.

If your goal is to get the sitting emperor to pass a bunch of reforms before you take over then attacking them so they can defend is a viable strategy i guess. The 'Defended the Empire' is amazing for that. I wouldn't go too far though as soon as he passes 'Proclaim Erbkaisertum' you are locked out forever. As far as joining the HRE vs not i can't answer. I did it from inside but you can definitely try from outside. You will still be able to declare wars but you will probably need more IA to over come outside emperor. Maybe hang onto adding capital until you are ready to revoke.

Post how it goes cause i'm curious now. I might have made it way harder on myself. =D

Thank for your advice. I still not know which way to go though. I like to sit back and drink tea while playing, so the progress will be slow. That's aside, I did try Spain in 1.7 (non ironman, just to learn), got extremely lucky when the 20-year-old king of Austria decided to kick the bucket so young (I was at war with him since he was born, and was eating huge WE). The whole world did not like me after that, so I couldn't break Austria apart and they left the empire 'sigh'. Should be careful with this game I guess