Be or not to be HRE Emperor?

[zePa]

I'd like to try an Austria run but I don't want to form the HRE and deal with all the HRE mechanics (demand unlawful territories, internal wars, defend the HRE states and so on), I'd try to expand only south and east instead. (But I could eventually expand a bit in the south Germany area too, like Bohemia, Salzburg, Bavaria etc..).

So my question is, what's the best thing to do? Ignore the emperor status and the HRE (and maybe manage to dismantle it) or is being emperor always the best strategy?

 

[Rikissa]

I would stay Emperor and at least pass reforms until you get the -10% Coring Cost. But nothing really stops you from playing Austria differently. You won't be using the country to its full potential but the only thing which matters is that you have fun.

 

[Nwaij]

• Be Emperor.
• Get your PUs over Bohemia and Hungary.
• Ignore HRE if you like, though I DO recommend to squash the reformation ASAP - getting league war decleared on you in the middle of another war isn't something you want to have.
• Add your newly acquired territory to the HRE whenever it will allow you to pass a reform - these reforms are nice, even if you don't care too much for HRE.

(As a side note, do I have to understand why you want to play Austria if you don't want to deal with HRE mechanics? Because I absolutely don't...)

 

[uberjedi]

Abuse your Emperor status as much as possible for as long as possible.
When the HRE members wakes up and finally elects an Emperor that actually cares for the Empire, you will have gained provinces and wrecked your neighbours. The Imperial Authority will be low and HRE will never recover.

 

[zePa]

You suggest to take advantage of the bonuses you get for being emperor and try to pass the reforms even if I don't care for the empire. So how should I manage internal conflicts if I don't care? Should I always declare war on who didn't give back unlawful territorries or can I ignore and focus on my goals (and get IA in other ways)?
I also assume that being emperor is the best thing to expand a little bit into the HRE, isn't it?

Thanks for your advices!

(As a side note, do I have to understand why you want to play Austria if you don't want to deal with HRE mechanics? Because I absolutely don't...)

I know it sounds weird, but I've always looked at the Emperor as a painful role since you've always to resolve problems inside the HRE and defend all its countries (even when you're not ready for that) if you want to accumulate IA, so I was just thinking to try something different with Austria without involving this mechanic.

 

[Bibor]

I'm kind of a land min-maxer. Nothing more hateful than stating a region that has like 20 development total. The thing is, at the start, most of Germany is rather undeveloped, so going rapid expansion (even if excluding the humongous AE) is really not worth it. By the mid-game this changes, since there are so many (still very small) nations, development levels get up to 20-30 in most of Germany.
Is forming the HRE valuable? Sure. but it also eats 50-80% of the timeframe to do it without cheesy exploits. A nation like Austria can probably do the same by simply conquering Hungary/Ottoman/Mamluk lands and have a way more powerful empire. Also, disbanding the HRE at around nationalism would basically give you the means to conquer all of HRE with the superb Nationalism CB.

 

[Nwaij]

You suggest to take advantage of the bonuses you get for being emperor and try to pass the reforms even if I don't care for the empire. So how should I manage internal conflicts if I don't care? Should I always declare war on who didn't give back unlawful territorries or can I ignore and focus on my goals (and get IA in other ways)?
I also assume that being emperor is the best thing to expand a little bit into the HRE, isn't it?

Thanks for your advices!

You don't manage internal conflicts if you decide to not care for the HRE, you just ignore them and reap whatever benefits you still can reap form conquering/adding provinces. You are guaranteed to get way less benefits then you would get if you actually played the HRE game, but hey, if you happen to be able to get those boni, no reason not to! (Think of it as minimal effort HREing - only do what kinda aligns with your plans anyways. Like, don't go out of your way to liberate princes, but if you so happen to have some HRE states on the opposite side of your war, you might as well demand that they release some states they annexed.)

I know it sounds weird, but I've always looked at the Emperor as a painful role since you've always to resolve problems inside the HRE and defend all its countries (even when you're not ready for that) if you want to accumulate IA, so I was just thinking to try something different with Austria without involving this mechanic.

Here is the trick about defending princes: If you manage to get the aforementioned PUs over Hungary and Bohemia (wich you really should try for no matter what else you may have planned) and ideally the burgundian inheritance as well, you will only need like one big ally (Poland with PU over Lithuania or Castille with its PUs) to deterre about everyone from declearing war on HRE minors, so the necessity to defend princes is essentially a non-factor. Unless of course you do things like burning your manpower in pointless wars over and over again, or entering a debt spiral. But that's a different set of problems you signed up for then...

 

[holyvigil]

And you don't really have to fight the league war. When it comes around you should be able to concede defeat then give away Allies provinces. At that stage of the game the emperor position should be weakened enough you dont need it.

 

[zePa]

Is forming the HRE valuable? Sure. but it also eats 50-80% of the timeframe to do it without cheesy exploits. A nation like Austria can probably do the same by simply conquering Hungary/Ottoman/Mamluk lands and have a way more powerful empire. Also, disbanding the HRE at around nationalism would basically give you the means to conquer all of HRE with the superb Nationalism CB.

I totally agree here. This could be a different way to play an HRE-oriented nation like Austria.

You don't manage internal conflicts if you decide to not care for the HRE, you just ignore them and reap whatever benefits you still can reap form conquering/adding provinces. You are guaranteed to get way less benefits then you would get if you actually played the HRE game, but hey, if you happen to be able to get those boni, no reason not to! (Think of it as minimal effort HREing - only do what kinda aligns with your plans anyways. Like, don't go out of your way to liberate princes, but if you so happen to have some HRE states on the opposite side of your war, you might as well demand that they release some states they annexed.)

I got it! Being emperor and a minimal effort in HREing is always ok if I'm able to get it.. even if I don't want to focus on it. Eventually, I presume that the only thing I should really care for (besides my plans) are electors.. good relations with a couple of them and I will be an emperor that doesn't care for the Empire. Am I right?

Thank you all for the tips!

 

[qwertzuiop]

I got it! Being emperor and a minimal effort in HREing is always ok if I'm able to get it.. even if I don't want to focus on it. Eventually, I presume that the only thing I should really care for (besides my plans) are electors.. good relations with a couple of them and I will be an emperor that doesn't care for the Empire. Am I right?

Yes, you could even vassalize a few of the electors which will guarantee your re-election as long as you have a valid heir and you are of the correct religion. The downside to that approach is that you need to do it carefully (every elector that is a subject of you means that independent electors get a -50 reasons to vote for you, so you need 4 electors as subjects which will of course eat up a lot of your diplomatic relations. Though as Austria you can get Bohemia in a PU anyway, so that would be the first elector secured already).

This approach also means that imperial authority will constantly drop down to 0 though you could still pass reforms by adding a lot of conquered territory to the HRE. Also, if you manage to annex all the electors while remaining emperor all the time, you can do whatever you want - you could even convert to Reformed or Sunni and you would stay the Emperor as long as there are zero electors.

Now if you just don't want to deal with all the complicated aspects of the HRE then my strategy is not so great (because you'd have to deal with a lot of complicated things in order to achieve it). But if you simply want to mess up the HRE, then yeah, that's the way to go.

 

[bbqftw]

The secret way of becoming emperor for life is killing all the electors. This triggers hereditary rule as if you had passed erbkaisertum.

Of course there is a little trouble passing reforms but you get to soak the emperor bonuses forever.