In many games it is easier to dismantle the HRE. This fulfills the british HRE missions and if there is no emperor, the north german countries have less protection. Dismantling can be relatively easy if you manage to ally all electors which are not allied to the emperor.
Hey - thanks for the above - follow up question to you / anyone expert in messing with the HRE -
I'm in the middle of my dismantle war
I started the war allied to Bohemia (elector)
I've fully occupied all of the other electors
I've fully occupied Austria and turned their armies into cat food
THEN
Bohemia broke their alliance with me - I think the Turks forced them to break treaties in another war they were in
THEREFORE
I can't declare war on them, as they're already in one of my occupy-the-electors wars
I can't declare war on any of their allies to get them, as they're in a war with me, so they won't join with their ally
Meaning I'm stuck again with this boring HRE slog of a war
Is there any way I can get at Bohemia OR get their alliance back ? (I can't ally them as I'm at war - they're at peace, so hoping I can nudge them to ally me via some means ?)
It seems silly that I lose an alliance and then that nation stays in my war too, I'll raise that as a suggestion in the appropriate forum !
Hoping there's a way I can salvage this, otherwise I'm doing with my GB playthrough - this HRE business is so damn tedious. No idea why the devs put contorl-the-HRE missions in the British tree, there's no historical basis for it whatsoever.