Nobody joins the HRE anymore

[Jomini]

Polities joining the Empire should be rare. I know that in EUIV it's possible to make the HRE a much more centralised entity, but historically only East Frisia, Flanders and Artois joined the HRE after 1444. Hungary was never even incorporated.

Polities joining the HRE, or refusing to, should make sense to the player and ideally to the AI.

Remind me again how the game treats threats. After all, in a test run I punched Krakow out of Poland, got their relations to 200 ... and they refused to believe that Poland, with permacores and all was a bigger threat than Bohemia. Fine. I console integrated Bohemia. Now they think I, as Austria, am their biggest threat. How is that rational? Both Poland and I were truced with them, and I had just released them in war and improved relations. And lest we forget, Hungary had marked them as a strategic province. In all directions they faced states that could roll them in a single war, they had no sufficiently strong allies, and our relations were great.

Or take another test run. I play the Ottomans. I console borders to Croatia and mark their territory. I scornfully insult them. And the console says that they are threatened. All Austria (who has declared me a rival) has to do is improve their opinion of Croatia and they can deny me territory and strengthen the empire … and they do nothing for 10 years on speed 5.

The game has utterly absurd power dynamics for the Emperor who is utterly incapable of expanding the Empire even if they want to. Features should not be Human-Only whenever possible.

Ultimately, we don't get rare expansion. We get a paywalled CB that lets the emperor (and only the emperor) expand like mad for the cost of a single war, a hodgepodge of crapshoots for relations/most threatening enemy, and incidents. We either get virtually no expansion or we get scads. Further we get no mechanism for the AI to oppose expansion other than the tired formulations of AE/coalition. Nowhere do the Turks do anything to keep Bosnia out of the HRE. If they have a falling out with Ragusa they do nothing during the truce to prevent them from going into the HRE.

The HRE could do far better and could be far more strategic than it is now.

 

[LukasYork]

it's not about they liking Emperor enough, it's the other way around, so Croatia and Krakow would have to improve relations with Austria.

Actually I'm playing Hungary right now, I'm emperor and I punched a lot of countries out of France and many of them joined on their own:
Dauphine, Avignon, Picardy and Flanders all joined on their own. Same with Danzig which rebelled from Denmark.

Unfortunately I had to force Champagne in, and for whatever reason Berry and Nevers won't join even though they barely escaped being annexed again (I had to declare on Ferrara[french ally] to drag France into another war and release their provinces from occupation).

It's not super consistent but it's not broken, it really works.

 

[love sweden]

It doesn´t matter if it works or is historical (wich it is not) the real question is if it improves the gameplay and makes the game more fun while playing in the HRE, both as a member and as the Emperor and I can safely say not a single change outside of Rein in Italy was one that made the game more enjoyable for me.

 

[Jomini]

it's not about they liking Emperor enough, it's the other way around, so Croatia and Krakow would have to improve relations with Austria.

Actually I'm playing Hungary right now, I'm emperor and I punched a lot of countries out of France and many of them joined on their own:
Dauphine, Avignon, Picardy and Flanders all joined on their own. Same with Danzig which rebelled from Denmark.

Unfortunately I had to force Champagne in, and for whatever reason Berry and Nevers won't join even though they barely escaped being annexed again (I had to declare on Ferrara[french ally] to drag France into another war and release their provinces from occupation).

It's not super consistent but it's not broken, it really works.

Improve relations works bidirectionally and as I specifically noted the AI only had to improve their opinion of Croatia (e.g. improve relations, RM) and the AI took no steps to do so. This should be literally one of the easiest things in the game (AI sees a way to gain a tangible benefit merely from liking someone else more), yet the AI is incompetent at it. And even when I did get up to 200 the AI's process for picking its greatest threat is murky and prone to trouble (e.g. Krakow had +200/+200 relations, terrible relations with Poland, and still did not view Poland as its greatest threat).

And further I am astonished that you can both tell me that "for whatever reason" states failed to join but "it works". This is a strategy game, not craps. When you cannot tell the reason why something happened, it doesn't work. Sure somethings may be a straight RNG call, but I should know if something is random or not. I should know what, if anything, I can do to maximize the return. Yet the system is so poorly conceived that you cannot even tell me why one French minor will join and another will not.

Further, you post is exactly the sort of thing where this a human-emperor only thing. Does the AI release states? Does the AI do anything to accrue authority? AI Emperors should try to increase authority. Sometimes they should succeed. Sometimes they should fail. What we should never see is an AI emperor doing nothing to farm IA.

 

[Mike1984]

It doesn´t matter if it works or is historical (wich it is not) the real question is if it improves the gameplay and makes the game more fun while playing in the HRE, both as a member and as the Emperor and I can safely say not a single change outside of Rein in Italy was one that made the game more enjoyable for me.

No, that's not all that matters. It's also important that it doesn't make the game less fun for people playing outside the HRE. And every small nation in Europe joining the empire is utterly infuriating for people playing outside of it.