Forming Holy Roman Empire way overpowered: zero autonomy and inherited coalitions

[Krajzen]

Posted in the Bug Reports sub forum:

So, I am playing Ottoman Empire. 1749. For last 30 - 40 years I literally wasn't observing anything happening in the world as I was busy fighting super epic alliance wars with: Russia, Mughals, Scandinavia, Great Britain, Spain, Portugal -> literally half of the world. I won all these wars with lesser or bigger gain. Suddenly I get an info about Austria making renovatio imperii and my jaw drops.

Fun fact: for the entire game Austria was complete failure and in the beginning of 18th century they barely had any allies + there were 4/8 reforms passed (all by Saxony) so I was sure they pose no threat.

- Literally like 2 weeks after formation HRE emperor dies leaving a regent, thus I calm down, I have time to prepare. This is OK.

- ...Wait for it. There was a super weak coalition leftover from 30 - 40 years ago, which consisted of Naples, Tuscany, few countries like Wurzburg and weak Austria. WHEN AUSTRIA FORMED HRE IT 'INHERITED' COALITION. NOW GUESS WHAT HAPPENED. ONE MONTH AFTER HRE APPEARING 5 - PROVINCE NAPLES DECLARE WAR ON ME AND OF COURSE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE JOINS IT.

Holy Roman Empire which appeared four weeks ago joins it with 0 autonomy, 0 unrest, sudden second biggest income in the world and 200 - 300 000 army.

By the way, if anyone is wondering, yes I have won this war with a warscore of 40% but only because I am freakin huge Ottoman Empire allied with France and Commonwealth (and it was still difficult war, despite HRE being almost alone!) - if I was another country or have a bit worse luck (no alliances for me or if Austria was allied with Spain, whatever) then my Ironman game would be destroyed without any way to do something about that.



I think it is ridiculous when a small emperor country in HRE can instantly annex 40 nations without suffering any diplomatic, administrative or military penalties AND have zero autonomy in all of them AND be instantly ready to join coalition/alliance war. It is stupid and unbalanced. What do you think about that?



Also: yes I know we can force emperor to revoke imperial reform but to do that you need to achieve 100% warscore and you still remove just the last one reform... Of 7 possible pre - unification. Doing that is ridiculously difficult due to emperor usually having lot of allied minors and allied major powers everywhere in the world, often with overhelming numbers, and it still just slows down HRE unification.

Not to mention the fact that such insta - superpower is still ridiculously over the top

 

[jakt]

all those nations voted to join up, getting rid of their autonomy. why would there be unrest or autonomy? And if austria was in the coalition before, and austria created the HRE, why wouldn't the HRE still be in the coalition? do you think whenever a tag switch happens you should lose alliances and whatnot? no, i doubt you think that. so why wouldn't they be in the coalition?

 

[Ranjid]

That's actually a good point. The 75% (maybe reduced to 50% because they voted to join) autonomy from annexing vassals should be applied to the HRE formation event as well. It's unrealistic for them to have a proper grip on those provinces within a day or even decade.

 

[Krajzen]

all those nations voted to join up, getting rid of their autonomy. why would there be unrest or autonomy?

Because those were freakin 37 independent political entities, that's why. According to your logic diploannexing a vassal also shouldn't have any autonomy because it peacefully agreed on that. Yet after I annex Crimea I have initial 75% autonomy in its 6 provinces but when emperor 'diploannexes' 200 provinces it has 0 autonomy?

And if austria was in the coalition before, and austria created the HRE, why wouldn't the HRE still be in the coalition? do you think whenever a tag switch happens you should lose alliances and whatnot? no, i doubt you think that. so why wouldn't they be in the coalition?

Because Austria was just a small part of an entire empire, of which I was in good contants with many of these countries. Austria consisted of less than 1/5 of all imperial area/population/power and it is kinda strange it instantly dominates the entire Holy Roman Empire to the point of 'yes we Saxonians, Dutch, Italians, Czechs, Hannoverians and Prussians totally agree on a coalition war against this giant empire we previously were befriended with, let's send our every man to Balkans and France!'


Also: I think forming HRE should have some negative diplomatic impact, IRL when Prussia or Austria was trying top dominate HRE it was causing GIANT outrage in Europe, and here everyone is OK with sudden superpower arrival.


Also: yes, I totally think forming HRE should break coalitions/such potentially unbalanced mechanics for a while to disable such ridiculously broken situations.

 

[shvR]

I think that firstly 75% on diplo vassal is too much, that's why I just spent hundreds of dip points and several decades (latest patch) to make that transition of administration.... (maybe a flat +25% on top of existing autonomy if there must be a tedious hurdle between the player and having fun)

Secondly, the same rule should apply to HRE formation, it doesn't really matter that much though as the last reform is weaker than vassal horde anyway, it's quite an easy oversight to make in fairness.

Thirdly, can't see an issue with the coalition side, Austria was in the coalition and then formed the HRE? Fair enough, nothing wrong there. They should have just declared war after revoke though, would have been a player move!

 

[jakt]

no, the vassal didn't agree to that. in the case of the HRE they must vote to support it. in the case of diploannex, you send your diplomat to work out the details of how this is going to happen but you are forcing it on them. had the smaller nation sent you a diplomat asking to join glorious nation i'd agree that they shouldn't have autonomy: they wanted to be a part of you, like how the HRE nations wanted to be one nation under one glorious HRE, under the emperor.

it is not a "sudden" change in the game when the HRE forms. it takes a dozen steps to get to that point and it's slow and tedious to work up the imperial authority needed to pass reforms.

As for tag-switching causing diplomatic relations to end (coalations, alliances, etc), i think that's a bad idea. imagine forming germany and all the sudden you are rivals with your greatest ally simply because you tag switched. it would be dangerous to ever do that. a day previous to the tag switch austria had all of the countries as vassals. they already commanded that many nations. in fact, I think this just shows a flaw of the should i declare a coalition war logic of the AI. Naples should have declared on you before Austria formed the HRE. why? because naples should have realized that the emperor's army includes all those vassal armies.

 

[redomer]

Remeber that the HRE theoreticly is ONE nation with very high autonomy and passing the reforms IS getting rid of that autonomy. I haven't refomed the HRE in 1.8 but they should only inherit the autonomy that was already there if thats not the case right now.

 

[A Swell Guy]

I'd think that Austria with all its HRE vassals would have more armies and manpower than a unified HRE.

 

[Red John]

Remeber that the HRE theoreticly is ONE nation with very high autonomy and passing the reforms IS getting rid of that autonomy. I haven't refomed the HRE in 1.8 but they should only inherit the autonomy that was already there.

Effectively, this.

The reforms are akin to the crown authority mechanic in CK2. You're slowly centralizing the state.

 

[Ranjid]

Remeber that the HRE theoreticly is ONE nation with very high autonomy and passing the reforms IS getting rid of that autonomy. I haven't refomed the HRE in 1.8 but they should only inherit the autonomy that was already there.

Yeah, but going from 100% Autonomy to 0% in a single day is a bit of a stretch, don't you think? Centralizing the Empire should take decades after making that decision.

 

[TheBoozehammer]

Forming the HRE should have the same autonomy penalty as annexing vassals, although it is possible that should change too.

 

[blackchoas]

Is the argument that forming the HRE one of the most over powerful things that a nation can do and makes whoever forms it into an unstoppable monster?

Because that is what it is suppose to do, there maybe should be an autonomy penalty but idk about that, I mean the HRE is suppose to be unstoppable, its kinda like that, complaining that you can't beat France as Provence, especially when it is something you can actively stop

Also personally speaking I have never seen the AI manage to form the HRE

 

[Squirrelloid]

Because those were freakin 37 independent political entities, that's why. According to your logic diploannexing a vassal also shouldn't have any autonomy because it peacefully agreed on that. Yet after I annex Crimea I have initial 75% autonomy in its 6 provinces but when emperor 'diploannexes' 200 provinces it has 0 autonomy?

Diploannexing shouldn't either. It also shouldn't pay 'hostile core creation' penalties. The current logic of diploannexation is mindboggling.

 

[FrosT37]

Posted in the Bug Reports sub forum:




By the way, if anyone is wondering, yes I have won this war with a warscore of 40% but only because I am freakin huge Ottoman Empire allied with France and Commonwealth (and it was still difficult war, despite HRE being almost alone!) - if I was another country or have a bit worse luck (no alliances for me or if Austria was allied with Spain, whatever) then my Ironman game would be destroyed without any way to do something about that.



I think it is ridiculous when a small emperor country in HRE can instantly annex 40 nations without suffering any diplomatic, administrative or military penalties AND have zero autonomy in all of them AND be instantly ready to join coalition/alliance war. It is stupid and unbalanced. What do you think about that?



Also: yes I know we can force emperor to revoke imperial reform but to do that you need to achieve 100% warscore and you still remove just the last one reform... Of 7 possible pre - unification. Doing that is ridiculously difficult due to emperor usually having lot of allied minors and allied major powers everywhere in the world, often with overhelming numbers, and it still just slows down HRE unification.

Not to mention the fact that such insta - superpower is still ridiculously over the top

I don't understand.

Why wasn't the HRE dismantled yet. It makes no sense to me.

 

[Red John]

Diploannexing shouldn't either. It also shouldn't pay 'hostile core creation' penalties. The current logic of diploannexation is mindboggling.

B-but muh cultural independence!

 

[redomer]

Yeah, but going from 100% Autonomy to 0% in a single day is a bit of a stretch, don't you think? Centralizing the Empire should take decades after making that decision.

It didn't happen in one day. It happend over several years and the vassal swarm is way scarier. Everyone hat agreed to become part of one nation. The power of the princes over their provinces is now the emporers. You should have been alerted by the second last reform.

Look at this way: The Emporer takes almost direct of the provinces by making all the HRE members vassals (by that point all opposition is elimenated from the empire) and with the last reform the emporer takes direct control of the provinces (we can assume he now has his people in all important government positions) thus he gets the same control as the governements before him.

Normal diploannexing with 75% autonomy simulates step by step integration. The HRE has imho a better system.

 

[Squirrelloid]

B-but muh cultural independence!

Diploannexation is a peaceful process where it takes a lot of time to successfully integrate the vassal - they shouldn't then contribute less than they did as a vassal, since their autonomy has definitely decreased. Vassals are somewhere in the ballpark of 60-80% autonomy, and the integrate diplomatic action should represent time spent better integrating the vassal into the liege's territory. (100% autonomy is 'independent state')

It also doesn't make sense that hostile conquest creates less autonomy. Especially since the game model clearly has you just coopting existing government and incorporating it into your domain - otherwise it would make no sense that a claim reduces starting autonomy by 10%. (The only model that makes sense here is a 'legitimate claim' makes the local governments more willing to cooperate and less hostile to you).

Worst case, diploannexation should be 25% starting autonomy or less, to represent the remaining privileges and holdover divergences, but for gameplay reasons, you already had to wait 10 years plus however long integration took plus suffer a reputation penalty (that affects all diplomacy) - that's more than sufficient cost imposed.

The hostile core creation penalty being applied is just nonsense. Diploannexation is *not hostile*, hence why it requires vassalage and 190 positive relations.

 

[Ranjid]

It didn't happen in one day. It happend over several years and the vassal swarm is way scarier. Everyone hat agreed to become part of one nation. The power of the princes over their provinces is now the emporers. You should have been alerted by the second last reform.

Look at this way: The Emporer takes almost direct of the provinces by making all the HRE members vassals (by that point all opposition is elimenated from the empire) and with the last reform the emporer takes direct control of the provinces (we can assume he now has his people in all important government positions) thus he gets the same control as the governements before him.

Normal diploannexing with 75% autonomy simulates step by step integration. The HRE has imho a better system.

It doesn't matter what way I look at it. Instant 0% autonomy just isn't right. There are hundreds of Counts, Barons, Dukes and Bishops in the HRE. Everyone has his own views about the Empire and many of those certainly didn't want to join but had to because the Emperor would simply waltz over them if they had opposed him. You assume they would voluntarily give up all their privilegues so the Emperor could become stronger? No way in hell.

The reason the HRE was such a weak construct was exactly because of this problem. Enacting a reform that FORCES all of them under your boot should have some consequences.

 

[Red John]

It doesn't matter what way I look at it. Instant 0% autonomy just isn't right. There are hundreds of Counts, Barons, Dukes and Bishops in the HRE. Everyone has his own views about the Empire and many of those certainly didn't want to join but had to because the Emperor would simply waltz over them if they had opposed him. You assume they would voluntarily give up all their privilegues so the Emperor could become stronger? No way in hell.

In 1444? You're damn right they wouldn't.

But after the many reforms passed? Not like they could've refused.

 

[Ranjid]

In 1444? You're damn right they wouldn't.

But after the many reforms passed? Not like they could've refused.

We don't know what they would've done, because those reforms were never even on the table. So how can you assume they'd just go along with it? I certainly wouldn't.