Dismantling the HRE

[unmerged(60439)]

So I've been playing a game recently as France, I conquered England and most of Scotland. I've also picked up two fairly good friends in Poland and the Netherlands who I can usually count on to save me when I've gotten in over my head in a war.

The problem is of course that the Holy Roman Empire electors are all incredibly rude and refuse to let me into their Holy Roman Clubhouse. No Frances allowed?!? The King can go wherever he wants!

Now, I want to try and destroy the Holy Roman Empire. My question is, how ? This little button at the bottom of the screen is so tempting.

 

[Xinkc]

So, to dismantle the HRE you need all the electors and the Emperor under your command. What this means is that you have to be in a war with all the electors and the Emperor and occupy the capital province of the Emperor and the electors against you. Elector's on your side of the war obviously wouldn't need to have an occupied capital. Once this happens, you should be able to press the button.

Anyways, this can be difficult to manage but could work if you properly declare co-belligerents. I've just managed to get circumstances near perfect myself and am just waiting for Bohemia to end a war with Alsace so I can bring them in against Austria, Holland, Hainut, Lorraine, Bar, Alsace (hence the problem), and Liege... plus Austria's allies and whatever extra allies co-belligerents call in. Thankfully I think I can bring Russia in to deal with the Commonwealth.

So, good luck.

 

[Zqrfmb]

ah, the ol' "If I can't be emperor, nobody can!" approach. Good luck getting the required allies or foes in war and actually sieging everyone's capital.

 

[Autoclave]

I wish i could dismantle HRE if I was the emperor.

 

[clockworkBabbag]

Try and get alliances with as many electors as possible. You'll probably be running over your diplomatic relations for awhile, but that's fine.

Then declare war - don't call your HRE allies in if you don't think you need them to win, so you don't have to worry about them getting seiged. As long as they're your ally, they count as being under your control. If you did it right, you should be allied with some electors and at war with all the rest. Occupy the capitals of all the hostile electors and you've done it.

Just make sure you have enough warscore to get a peace deal you want from the war, because once you dismantle the HRE you can't walk through the former HRE member's lands without military access.

 

[Xinkc]

Then declare war - don't call your HRE allies in if you don't think you need them to win, so you don't have to worry about them getting seiged. As long as they're your ally, they count as being under your control. If you did it right, you should be allied with some electors and at war with all the rest. Occupy the capitals of all the hostile electors and you've done it.

I forgot all about this. Makes things a bit easier for my dismantling. Just need to make sure Alsace gets called in then since they're the only one I can't ally at war.

 

[Prom_STar]

With 1.8 there's another way to dismantle the HRE now. If there's no viable emperor, the empire automatically dissolves. I did this in an Italy game just to see if it was possible. Catholic was the dominant faith in the empire (protestant league failed to declare war). I was Reformed. I gradually ate most of the HRE and converted its member states to Reformed. When no viable electors remained, interestingly the HRE became a hereditary title to be held by Austria. This actually disables the "Dismantle HRE" button. Of course Austria is still emperor and the emperor cannot be full annexed. I tried converting Austria to reformed in a war. They retained emperorship even though "only Catholics can be emperor." So what I finally had to do was vassalize them. A subject nation cannot be emperor and there were no catholic princes left, so with that the HRE was dissolved. No +100 prestige boost or underwhelming popup, but it gave me the achievement all the same.