Bohemia, the HRE and the reformation

[Shushen]

So i started a game as Bohemia.

Things are going along well. Eating my way east though the Teutons and the Poland/Lithuania omnishambles. I am now the emperor, which is nice. IA ticking along nicely. Its 1495 and eventually the reformation will happen. Now Bohemia has a few events tied to the reformation, although the return of the hussites never triggered.

But turning protestant will seriously mess up my emperorship wont it? Can I even turn protestant while the emperor? Or should I just stay catholic and enforce it to fasttrack the reforms.

The objective of the game is the bohemians achievment. So the general plan was to first grow from Teuton/polish/lithuanian land then go thorugh scandinavia before landing on the english.

 

[netherlink]

Not being catholic automatically eliminates your emperorship, as long as there is no peace of westphalia or protestant Reich.
You might want to stay Emperor a little longer after reformation starts, so you can help it spread and maybe conquer a centre of faith to ensure its safety.

After the league war, which you'll probably lead, you are likely to become emperor again

So you are up to "he bohemians", but which other achievement do you mean? I can't think of any other Bohemia specific one.

 

[Shushen]

Just that one achievment.

Wont it be next to impossible to get any IA after the league war if half the princes are of differing faiths?

 

[Dominion]

If your goal is the Bohemians and you're thinking about Protestantism then your goal isn't the Bohemians.

All you need is access to the sea through Teutonic order and a quick nocb on an Irish minor. Can be done in no time.

 

[Shushen]

Yeah but i prefer a more "organic" way of doing my achievments. Kinda sorta behaving as growing nation.

Besides the english ate all the Irish minor as early as 1460.

 

[Dominion]

Yea, but then I run into the problem of "what am I supposed to recommend?".

You can turn protestant, you will lose emperorship and whether you want to do it or not is up to you. It's not like the rest of your game is a straight line to the achievement.
You're playing a game, having fun and picking up an achievement on the side. So the question "should I go protestant or not" can only be answered by you.

Do you want to? Will it be more fun for you?

I can't recommend an optimal way for you to have the most fun in a game.

And if England takes it and your goal is only the achievement then you wait for a chance to jump Scotland and wage war against England after you've built a bridge. Thankfully it's only a single province you need.

 

[Shushen]

Well the question is really more about how much harder is it to enact all reforms as protestant versus catholic. Playing the HRE isnt the main object of this game, but now that I am the emperor i can fairly easily lockdown the privelegia as catholic. And i can do that without much sidetracking as i conquer my way through Denmark-Norway-scotland-etc.

But if doing it the protestant way is significantly longer/ a hassle i might just do it the easy way or just go straight for the achievment.

Main plan was to own all of scandinavia+ the british isles and probably stop there. Maybe unify the HRE and take some more of Europe but not more than that.

 

[netherlink]

So your question is rather complex, with the achievement just a side node.

I think you can play a "standard protestant bohemia" game, where you beat the sh*t out of Kalmar, PLC, Ungary and maybe russia/ottomans to gain IA.

How hard it will be to actually enact *all* reforms depends on your diplo skills, ideas and how good the reformation goes.

So helping to convert the HRE and as much else as possible is still a good idea, if you want to play the game of HRE.
But to achieve your goals, which don't seem to involve anything like crazy blobbing etc., it is absolutely not necessary.

 

[Shushen]

So the difference is really; in a catholic HRE game you can rely quite a lot on monthly IA, as long as you make sure there are enough princes and that they follow the right faith. Nobbling centers of reformation etc.

In a protestant game you have to replace the monthly IA with conquests that you add into the empire.

 

[Dominion]

Not necessarily. You can get passive IA as well by tentacling through the HRE, force converting nations and releasing old princes.
Sometimes the reformation hits hard enough so a Protestant Emperor actually gets more passively than a catholic one right after the switch.

It's 100% situational and blobbing+adding is always better, doesn't matter if you're protestant or catholic.