Patch 1.4. Please Nerf the HRE (Austria)

[zodium]

Is there anywhere in game that shows the dates that the HRE reforms were passed?

Province history shows when the HRE gained their core on the province.

 

[RMcD94]

Province history shows when the HRE gained their core on the province.

I know that works for the last reform but I was wondering about the earlier ones for having some nice data. If for example having the earlier reforms passed quickly makes it more likely that the later reforms will be passed later or whatever.

In my observe game it's 1620 and Austria is at 18% IA with 4 reforms. There are only 24 princes though.

France is under a PU with Commonwealth and England is under a PU with Portugal. I'm just waiting for Austria and Spain to PU together...

But yeah I'm not seeing Austria having a good way to get more IA. Just denmark left I think. http://i.imgur.com/iIWHvU1.png

 

[frolix42]

I have never seen the AI form the HRE in 300 hours of game all Ironman mode, and usually Austria ends up losing its Emperor title. You know when the Emperor enacts its reforms, and as a rule of thumb if you see a country becoming too strong, then its your job to tone it down.

If you don't, its your own fault.

Austria is fine as it is and so far the only little chance for those that want to try WC. For others, its fun to crush Hasburped!

What about those who start on the non-European nations, playing minor nations and aren't playing with Lucky Nations off? Like I said I was playing Crimea in this Ironman game. Stopping Muscovy was hard enough.

That being said, it would be different if the HRE formed in the late game, this beast formed in 1670. In all of my Ironman games the HRE forms mid-game and is the strongest power in the game.
For no other reason than variety, Nerf the HRE.

 

[Ridgy]

Playing first MP game with chum (played eu3 for ages). We're not great players, obviously.
We were severly limited in expansion by Austria (especially my mate as Venice, he couldn't touch anything HRE ofc).
At what I considered a turning point in out favour (Having been set back somewhat considerably by the Burgundy inheritance firing), I secured an alliance with France ... Untill they got PUed, soon to be followed by Portugal and Urbino and Naples. The German states are bending over incredibly easily to all reforms, only one left until vassalisation of all states.

And then this happened :


Every time we stepped up to the plate and were just about powerful enough to face them, boom inheritance!
And not a single soul to dislike them or join our coalition, all voting for them blind to what is so blatantly going on!

Any advice? Cheers!

 

[TheBloke]

Every time we stepped up to the plate and were just about powerful enough to face them, boom inheritance!
And not a single soul to dislike them or join our coalition, all voting for them blind to what is so blatantly going on!

Any advice? Cheers!

Hahaha. And they've not even formed the HRE yet.

Advice? Hmm. Move to the New World? To China?

I dunno, if you guys aren't strong you're pretty screwed. I suppose I would put all efforts into building up a big enough combined force to DOW Austria, beat them with 100% WS, and force them to Release France. Of course getting 100% WS is not going to be fun. You might well need to fight multiple wars, chipping away at them, knocking down their manpower and killing their troops - maybe several wars in which you release smaller bits of them, each time weakening them a little, and reducing the amount of work you have to do in the war where you aim for 100% WS to release France.

Another big advantage of fighting those wars is that you'll be tanking their Prestige. That will make it much harder for them to keep passing reforms, and thus keep them away from forming the HRE.

You could try and become HRE Emperor - I assume that you're a Monarchy still? How many Reforms has Austria passed? You can't seize the Emperorship once they've passed Erbkaisertum.

You could vassalise some Electors, ideally three, and then DOW Austria and at that point you should get enough votes for you such that when the Austrian monarch dies, you get the Emperor.

Given there's two of you, that might be easier.

See this thread for lots of good tips on how to become HRE Emperor via vassalising electors: HRE: Vassalised Electors - they don't automatically vote for you?

It could be that one of you goes after the elector vassals, while the other strategises to get in a position to beat Austria in several wars. Though as that latter task probably needs both of your combined powers, it's quite likely that that needs to be your sole focus and you don't have a chance of going for Emperor yourselves yet. Though if you can take Austria down a few notches, it's likely that they won't pass any reforms in the meantime, so it's possible you could still go for Emperor after you've got them to Release France.

Or, finally, there's the idae of Dismantling the HRE. To do that you need to get alliances with all the Electors (I think), then DOW Austria and occupy their capital. And you need to be an HRE member. So Venice might be able to join, if it's not already too big. I don't know much about that strategy, never done it, so I'll just throw that out as an idea. Personally I'd go for becoming HRE Emperor not destroying it, but if Austria have already passed, or are close to passing Erbkaisertum, it might be your only shot.

Edit: Sorry I just re-read and saw they already passed Erbkaisertum? You said one away from vassalising the states, does that mean vassalising is the next reform, or they have one more to go before vassalising, in which case Erbkaisertum is next?

If they have not passed Erbkaisertum then the emperorship is not yet hereditary and what I said above about a chance of becoming Emperor yourselves still applies. Though you need to tank their Prestige and their IA quick. Well that applies in all scenarios, you need to make sure they don't pass more reforms, especially if the next one is the mass vassals.

You could also consider going for 100% WS not to release France, but instead to force them to Revoke a Reform. But I think I'd prioritise getting France out, as that will dramatically weaken them - or rather, undo the dramatic strengthening they just got!

 

[Hootieleece]

This is the HRE of my Polish Tragedy:


Uploaded with ImageShack.us

 

[Ridgy]

...

The next reform is the Erbkaisertum. I guess it all hinges on how quickly I can get some electors into my web, I already have the Palatinate, Mainz is just around the corner, and Saxony wouldn't be pushing it too far, I don't think. Definitely makes a challenge!
We just might be able to face them if we went 2x over our force limits ! We're both quite rich (+16 for me and +21 for Venice) So I suppose we could work something out. I guess we could wait on Venice for the emperor to drown his knights before us Austria has 136 force limit and around 145k atm.

Thanks for the quick reply, I'll probably be sticking around

 

[mcmanusaur]

Haha, you want Austria to be nerfed by making it more difficult for it to achieve something that ultimately weakens it?

 

[Hootieleece]

Haha, you want Austria to be nerfed by making it more difficult for it to achieve something that ultimately weakens it?

Weakens it! The HRE in my Polish game was a monster.....Forcelimits near 400 and making 35/month with full maitenance. and was Allied with Muscovy......being outnumbered 6-7 to 1 is not fun. At Least my Hussars fought men not tanks.

 

[TheBloke]

The next reform is the Erbkaisertum.

Cool, so you have a shot. Do whatever you can to lower their Prestige so they can't pass that reform. I'm not sure how much you can do to actually reduce their Imperial Authority (IA), but you can certainly do stuff to make sure they don't increase it further. They have 25 at the moment, so they need at least another 25 to have a shot at passing Erbkaisertum. However that can be got quite quickly if you're not careful.

Best thing is simply to get them to war as quickly as possible; if they're fighting (and losing) against you, they can't be interceding in other wars to boost their IA. They can get 20 IA from a single Enforce Peace leading to a won war, so they could get that 25 pretty fast.

There's only two of you in the game, right? So you can take a breather, examine the save file offline, and plan carefully what you're going to do. I'd play at no more than Speed 2 to ensure you're not taken by surprise too much.

Thanks for the quick reply, I'll probably be sticking around

Glad to help - welcome to the forum

 

[mcmanusaur]

Weakens it! The HRE in my Polish game was a monster.....Forcelimits near 400 and making 35/month with full maitenance. and was Allied with Muscovy......being outnumbered 6-7 to 1 is not fun. At Least my Hussars fought men not tanks.

35 ducats a month? That's not even that impressive. You can make most of that simply by inheriting Burgundy as Austria or integrating/diplo-annexing as Denmark even before there's any transcontinental trade.

But sure, HRE is pretty strong... it's just that HRE before the last reform is stronger.

 

[asamy]

My only issue is that the AI just can't properly kill Austria. They may have lost 70% of their wars, half of its provinces but they always come back, always.

 

[Magean]

I second the OP.

Things that could be done IMO, most of them having already been suggested :

-buff the spread of Protestantism and Reformation in the HRE. They should really cripple the Empire and hinder the efforts of Austria to turn it into a centralized monarchy (as things went historically).

-lower the WS requirement to revoke a reform. 100% is way too much, especially when Austria simply enacts the reform again a few years later. With 50% or 60%, one could still force the revocation of a reform while weakening the Emperor (forcing vassal release...).

-make neighbour countries (especially France) much more prone to try and contain the Imperial unification process.

-change the event chain of the "Revoke the Privilegia" decision. The Imperial nations who refused vassalization should unite and fight a single war, not separate wars. This war should be an (almost) total and long war, in the way the 30 Years War has been. The Emperor has a specific wargoal that allows him to vassalize and add to the HRE everybody at a time should he reach 100% warscore. Bur resistance should be firm.

 

[tyler717]

i have played around 7 games from 1444-1700ish in 2 of them i played a japan and oman both those games the HRE formed , my other games, the rest in europe the HRE formed in 2/5 (Byzantium game + Portugal) it seems that if
if i dont intervene in some way i.e - takes austria down or play a nation which borders the hre than the HRE will most likely form , in my Recent Brandenburg > Germany game i was elected emperor just before the Internal hre wars reform, i passed that plus the hereditory reform after austria did all the work for the first 5 , i think a reform should be rolled back 1 when a country takes over as emperor so the reforms will pass but slower

 

[Ridgy]

I'm mostly iffed by the fact that France just rolled over and let the inheritance happen, a massively powerful sovereign nation would fight it to the utmost.

 

[Hootieleece]

Most of my games since the 1.3 patch 4/5 of the games Austria forms the HRE by 1700 usually between 1640-1670.

 

[BigHamster]

I see HRE formed often, AI is succesfull with forming it. Largely because it is very very hard for AI to lose crown of the emperor. And most of points AI gets from inheritance Since it uses ruller as generals, they die like a flies. Main problem to my mind is electorship system. Whenever a HRE country becomes big enough it votes only for itself. And even if Austria get some AE it is negligated with the fact the electors spread their votes and usually 2 electors of 7 is enough to pass the crown.

 

[Stategem161803]

I 'be played many games since EU4 came out. I've played everywhere from Western Europe to Asia to the new world.

I have seen the HRE formed by the ai exactly once.

Every time I play near Western Europe, I either am the HRE or I disband the HRE. Outside of Western Europe I don't really care if the HRE forms. Still , I have only seen it form once .

 

[unmerged(804580)]

To OP: That HRE does look really fearsome. But personally, I think you just had a bad luck. I've had a few campaigns where I didn't (couldn't) interfere with anything in Europe, and although it's just my gut feeling, about 2/3 of the time the HRE forms (always by Austria) and the other times never. I've seen emperors like Brandenburg, Palatinate, Bohemia and Savoy, who aren't able to pass any reforms.

I think the cutline is about 1550-1600. If Austria is stable in its grip on the Kaiserthrone, it'd be halfway through the reforms by then. And Austria is stable unless they do something stupid - like becoming a target of coalition against it. Perhaps making Austria a little bit more aggressive (as crazy as it might sound) could reduce the chance of the HRE?

Whatever else happens to the HRE (and personally I think it's fine as it is - with the exception of the OPM-elector issue that needs some attention), for the love of God please fix that ridiculously bad colour.

Forming the HRE is the single most decisive, powerful event in the game. The resulting nation is a behemoth, veritably dripping with power and prestige. And what does it get? Some barely visible, washed-out grey. Like a wet Tuesday in February. Utterly forgettable.

It should be a vibrant Imperial Purple, the desired colour of empires the world over. Or a fearsome blood red, chilling the souls of its enemies. Or even a blue, highlighting its powerful hereditary monarch. Anything, anything, except that faded, inconsequential, pathetic non-colour.

+1. Completely agree. I hate gray.

Even though I am expanding in the middle of the HRE, they still managed to get the reform out

I wonder why you haven't bothered dismantling it... that's what I did as Ulm and Tuscany. Though it looks really fun with the HRE surrounding your mighty Ansbach.

I second the OP.

Things that could be done IMO, most of them having already been suggested :

-buff the spread of Protestantism and Reformation in the HRE. They should really cripple the Empire and hinder the efforts of Austria to turn it into a centralized monarchy (as things went historically).

-lower the WS requirement to revoke a reform. 100% is way too much, especially when Austria simply enacts the reform again a few years later. With 50% or 60%, one could still force the revocation of a reform while weakening the Emperor (forcing vassal release...).

-make neighbour countries (especially France) much more prone to try and contain the Imperial unification process.

-change the event chain of the "Revoke the Privilegia" decision. The Imperial nations who refused vassalization should unite and fight a single war, not separate wars. This war should be an (almost) total and long war, in the way the 30 Years War has been. The Emperor has a specific wargoal that allows him to vassalize and add to the HRE everybody at a time should he reach 100% warscore. Bur resistance should be firm.

I agree with all of the points. Perhaps the revoking the reform could be done around 84%, the same as claiming the throne?

And I really like the idea of the joint war breaking out after revoking the Privilegia. The strongest naysayer takes the leadership, and the war goal for the princes should be to cancel the reform (annulling all privileged vassals at the same time), but the Emperor should also be able to force the reform. Same 84%, Bohemia would accept the reform and become privileged vassal, for example.

 

[jakt]

In many hundreds of hours of gameplay I have never seen a HRE that I didn't form myself.

same, i'd be impressed if i saw the ai do it. like in this screenshot above, im impressed

frankly ive had games where i wanted to form the hre quickly and before i know it it's the reformation and i'm on the second habsburg ruler if that and nobody from outside is attacking the hre. meaning, i have no imperial authority and by 1600 i have one or two reforms passed. really, it's luck how often the emperor dies and if denmark attacks