"Imperial Expansion" Cassus Belli for HRE Emperor

[EvilKnievel82]

My suggestion is to add a special cassus belli "Imperial expansion" that is only available to the Emperor under certain conditions. The wargoal then is to force a nonmember to become a member state and add all provinces to the HRE. The Target would however not loose it's provinces similar to a forced conversion in a peace deal.

Of course there should be a cap on how large the country can be that can be forced to join based on total development for example.

Furthermore the cassus belli should only be available under certain conditions for example one of these:
- Target borders the HRE
- Target owns a province of the HRE
- Target owns a core of a member state
- A Member state or the Emperor has a claim on at least one of the targets provinces

This way there will be an additional mechanic to increase the size and number of member states of the HRE that is also available to the AI. The current mechanics are not used by the AI as far as I have seen so the HRE never grows no matter how powerful the Emperor is. Also it seems pretty cheesy that you have to annex a country completely, add it to the HRE and then release it again just to make it join the HRE.

 

[EvilKnievel82]

The cassus belli could for example only become available once a number of HRE reforms have been passed so you cannot rush expand with this strategy too early. One could also add a reform giving this cassus belli.

Additionallly or alternatively declaring war with this cassus belli could give you a rather large ticking loss of imperial authority until the target has joined (for example -0.1 per month). This way long wars with this cassus belli would not be worth it for gaining imperial authority short term but it would take many years to regain the authority afterwards.