Ok, here is a petition and a reasoned set of suggestions to improve on what I find problematic in the current de jure kingdoms setup. At the moment, although I agree about keeping Italy out of de jure HRE, I see two problems.
1) First of all, it is UGLY. By ugly I mean that borders are both aesthetically unpleasant and ahistorical (the two things are well interconnected). In particular, the kingdom of Germany corresponds more or less to historical West Germany but southern today Bavaria. This is a ugly snake in the map. Sticking to sources like this, the "Regnum Teutonicorum" should instead include the whole of Lotharingia, Frisia (excluding the Flanders), and Bavaria, with the exception of the eastern marches like Oesterreich and Carinthia.
2) Second, there are too many kingdoms floating around during the game within the HRE. For an AI duke to create Lotharingia, Frisia or Bavaria it is way too easy. I understand they were created for balance reasons. This is quite ahistorical and sometimes gamebreaking, for when they declare independence and win they show up as ugly non-sensical snakes on the map (giving a sneaky shape to the de jure kingdoms map as well). In addition, nobody ever creates the Kingdom of Germany, which arguably was the only one among them which existed during the timeframe. The expansion of the de jure German borders is hard to replicate in game even for players (as it's difficult to be German kings but not HRE emperors) to the point that the only time when vanilla uses the de_jure_liege line in the history files is to give Pomeranian duchies to the Kingdom of Germany in later starts dates.
What are my suggestions? Basically the solutions to this I see are the following:
a) Rather than restoring the Big Germany, to further break this up into a southern kingdom of Alamannia and a northern kingdom of Saxony. A popular solution in modding is to have stem duchies as kingdoms within the HRE, but this does not fit well the feudal elective mechanics. This solution is the best compromise: it gives a proper representation of the three constituent historical kingdoms of East Francia (at present in Vanilla we only have Bavaria of those) or "older stem duchies"; the "younger" stem duchies are on the direct vassals' map at start but they are destined to break up as they did historically because of how the duchies de jure map is made (quite nicely I'd say, although I would make some further edit)*. In a post below I am making a more detailed historical justification for this. Here is an example from my own mod.
b) Please, give proper colors to kingdoms and to their associated duchies. In my mod I made a continuum of colors for duchies and I also changed the provinces duchies. I finally do not need to become color blind to distinguish the various shades of grey within the HRE, at present it's quite hard! Here is how one may do it. Notice that although it does not show up here, I worked out colors for single counties too, to better distinguish them.
As for flags, for Alamannia would be fine the current flag of the kingdom of Germany, which is nothing else but the Hohenstaufen eagle that also shows up for the Kingdom of Sicily but with a proper Swabian yellow background. The proper choice for Saxony would be some variation of Widukind's horse, as we find in some mods. Example follows (the flag is taken from the "More Kingdoms and Empires" mod).
c) It might be a difficult choice gameplay-wise, and it is subordinate to the changes above, but for the constituent kingdoms of the HRE I would make the condition that duchies must be INDEPENDENT to create them. So basically unless they are independent only a (typically player) emperor can create and hand out such titles. This would allow for a more historical HRE and a bigger challenge for those who play within the HRE. The exceptions would be Pomerania, Bohemia and Frisia where I'd say that you must be independent OR of a specific culture (pommeranian, bohemian, dutch) to create them. Possibly frankish with Lotharingia?
d) Maybe in a future patch-DLC one can have a decision to unite Alamannia, Bavaria, Saxony (and Lotharingia?) into a unique Kingdom of Germany, or have an Empire of Germania if the much wished Translatio Imperii mechanics were introduced, to make the HRE a "mantle" that the strongest Catholic Empire can wear. The thing is, as I argue in the post below, the "Regnum Teutonicorum" of the initially linked picture never existed not even as a legal fiction (like Italy); it is a modern historical interpretation of the facts.
* The only bad thing about the duchies de jure setup is that Saxony transforms almost immediately into a big Brunswick, but I have not yet figured out any immediate solution for this. Also I'd move some provinces from Tyrol to Swabia, Salzburg to Tyrol, Wurttemberg to Franconia and Steiermark to Carinthia maybe.
1) First of all, it is UGLY. By ugly I mean that borders are both aesthetically unpleasant and ahistorical (the two things are well interconnected). In particular, the kingdom of Germany corresponds more or less to historical West Germany but southern today Bavaria. This is a ugly snake in the map. Sticking to sources like this, the "Regnum Teutonicorum" should instead include the whole of Lotharingia, Frisia (excluding the Flanders), and Bavaria, with the exception of the eastern marches like Oesterreich and Carinthia.
2) Second, there are too many kingdoms floating around during the game within the HRE. For an AI duke to create Lotharingia, Frisia or Bavaria it is way too easy. I understand they were created for balance reasons. This is quite ahistorical and sometimes gamebreaking, for when they declare independence and win they show up as ugly non-sensical snakes on the map (giving a sneaky shape to the de jure kingdoms map as well). In addition, nobody ever creates the Kingdom of Germany, which arguably was the only one among them which existed during the timeframe. The expansion of the de jure German borders is hard to replicate in game even for players (as it's difficult to be German kings but not HRE emperors) to the point that the only time when vanilla uses the de_jure_liege line in the history files is to give Pomeranian duchies to the Kingdom of Germany in later starts dates.
What are my suggestions? Basically the solutions to this I see are the following:
a) Rather than restoring the Big Germany, to further break this up into a southern kingdom of Alamannia and a northern kingdom of Saxony. A popular solution in modding is to have stem duchies as kingdoms within the HRE, but this does not fit well the feudal elective mechanics. This solution is the best compromise: it gives a proper representation of the three constituent historical kingdoms of East Francia (at present in Vanilla we only have Bavaria of those) or "older stem duchies"; the "younger" stem duchies are on the direct vassals' map at start but they are destined to break up as they did historically because of how the duchies de jure map is made (quite nicely I'd say, although I would make some further edit)*. In a post below I am making a more detailed historical justification for this. Here is an example from my own mod.
b) Please, give proper colors to kingdoms and to their associated duchies. In my mod I made a continuum of colors for duchies and I also changed the provinces duchies. I finally do not need to become color blind to distinguish the various shades of grey within the HRE, at present it's quite hard! Here is how one may do it. Notice that although it does not show up here, I worked out colors for single counties too, to better distinguish them.
As for flags, for Alamannia would be fine the current flag of the kingdom of Germany, which is nothing else but the Hohenstaufen eagle that also shows up for the Kingdom of Sicily but with a proper Swabian yellow background. The proper choice for Saxony would be some variation of Widukind's horse, as we find in some mods. Example follows (the flag is taken from the "More Kingdoms and Empires" mod).
c) It might be a difficult choice gameplay-wise, and it is subordinate to the changes above, but for the constituent kingdoms of the HRE I would make the condition that duchies must be INDEPENDENT to create them. So basically unless they are independent only a (typically player) emperor can create and hand out such titles. This would allow for a more historical HRE and a bigger challenge for those who play within the HRE. The exceptions would be Pomerania, Bohemia and Frisia where I'd say that you must be independent OR of a specific culture (pommeranian, bohemian, dutch) to create them. Possibly frankish with Lotharingia?
d) Maybe in a future patch-DLC one can have a decision to unite Alamannia, Bavaria, Saxony (and Lotharingia?) into a unique Kingdom of Germany, or have an Empire of Germania if the much wished Translatio Imperii mechanics were introduced, to make the HRE a "mantle" that the strongest Catholic Empire can wear. The thing is, as I argue in the post below, the "Regnum Teutonicorum" of the initially linked picture never existed not even as a legal fiction (like Italy); it is a modern historical interpretation of the facts.
* The only bad thing about the duchies de jure setup is that Saxony transforms almost immediately into a big Brunswick, but I have not yet figured out any immediate solution for this. Also I'd move some provinces from Tyrol to Swabia, Salzburg to Tyrol, Wurttemberg to Franconia and Steiermark to Carinthia maybe.
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