I was thinking, youknow. In history Holy Roman Empire territories didn't do 'much' colonization. But if they did and it was sufficiently centralized, would colonies of the HRE not also be considered HRE land?
It just makes sense to me so I gotta know.
If you're in the HRE, as in your capital. If you create a colony does that become HRE?
No, your colony is outside the HRE - which makes sense, considering the HRE in this period didn't expand at all. Even if you have expanded as a member, your new gains wouldn't have become parts of the
HRE - take the Habsburg hereditary lands for example: Austria and Bohemia were part of the HRE while Hungary/Croatia were not under the HRE's jurisdiction while still being subject to the emperor by virtue of being ruled by him. Same applies to Habsburg Spain. There was a period of time where "Spain is the emperor" was actually true, but Spain was never part of the HRE - it was just coincidentally ruled by the same guy who was emperor. That's how the whole dynastic thing worked. The Habsburg Monarchy wasn't really united by anything other than being ruled by the same guy - the Habsburgs later centralised the whole thing and changed the succession laws to hold the whole thing together, creating what became known later as the Austrian Empire.
Another prominent example would be Brandenburg-Prussia. Prussia wasn't a part of the HRE which allowed the margrave of Brandenburg to circumvent the empire's limitation of member kings - the only king at this point was the king of Bohemia and the emperor wanted to keep it this way - so the margrave of Brandenburg became "King in Prussia". He was still just a margrave, as far as the HRE was concerned - but at the same time ruling a kingdom outside the HRE.
That's why the current HRE system is somewhat flawed - the emperor intervening if the HRE's integrity is at risk, i.e. some neighbour eyeing imperial lands - but why would he care, if someone attacks, for example, Hessian colonies in South America? These lands are not part of the HRE and the emperor's better things to do - defending the western border against France, for example.
But at the moment, everything you rule is save due to you being part of the HRE. Colonial nations are vassals, so if anyone attacks them, you as their overlord become warleader, causing the war to be against a HRE member, which prompts the emperor to come to your defense. I made good use of that in my Livonia -> Kurland game. Join the empire early on, colonize the Americas, conquer Poland and Lithuania. The emperor hated me later on, so only my heartlands in Latvia/Estonia were HRE territories, along with Gotland, but the emperor would have come to my defense if anyone had tried to invade Couronian Ruthenia.
