My first HRE run.
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Scotland, Bulgaria, Gaeldom, Kiev and Jolof, Antemoro down in Africa are vassals. France and Poland are PUs. Lithuania and Portugal are allies. Spain is RM but they don't trust me enough to ally me (but they have Habsburgs on the throne, so I was hoping for a free pu lol).
I started as Austria. I actually revoked the privilegia by 1560, but I wanted to get the AEIOU achievement, and unfortunately that implies waiting for the Age of Revolutions to proclaim the Renovatio Imperii.
In general, I did everything well. I got the BI, I pu'd bohemia and hungary through the mission tree, I reined in Italy. After that, the pope voluntarily joined in the empire, so I could use expand empire cb on a diminished Naples.
The first center of reformation appeared in Lorraine, so after they had converted to protestantism, i used my border and holy war cb to force convert them and remove a potential peril. Unfortunately, the two other protestant centers appeared in Denmark and Sweden. I could not do a lot about that as my navy was almost non-existent. A reformed center appeared in Switzerland: In my first war I took that center for me and converted it back to catholicism, but I had to fight them three times to force religion on them. They kept converting back.
As 1550 loomed, I rushed the reform that made the empire hereditary. Brandenburg was my main elector-ally and they were protestant. I feared that if the leagues triggered, things would get ugly. France hated me, Ottos hated me. Spain and Lithuania were my allies, so I was confident of winning, but if I could avoid the religious wars, all the better.
However, making the empire hereditary also made the empire sign a religious peace. This made the pope to get out of it, but at least, the drain of IA from heretic princes was halved. Also, by this time I inherited Bohemia, with its absolutely marvelous monument. Before this, I got down to 0.12 IA increase. After inheriting Bohemia and signing religious peace, I never went down from 0.25 IA increase.
After this, I managed to approve the revocation of privilegia with every prince voting in favor, so everybody became my vassal, and after that, everything became a tedious grind to the age of revolutions.
Shortly after revoking the privilegia, France asked to RM me (They were threatened by me. But no alliance, because historical rivals). Just a few years after that, I got them in free PU. Amazing. The next 180 years were used to complete the mission tree. The colonization missions were kind of hard. Especially because Vijayanagar had grown and conquered almost all of India. I got some of my stacks wiped. But as soon as the vassal swarm got military access all the way through India, the war was over. Spain and Portugal were using me a lot for their wars in the East Indies, so when it was time to complete the mission A Roman Empire, I did it by declaring Expand Empire on the pope, who was allied to Spain, Portugal and Lithuania. Of course I curbstomped them all and I took the provinces that I had claims on (from Spain and Portugal) and the pope I simply forced them to join the empire. After this, my trust with Portugal and Spain was abysmal. Portugal eventually accepted my alliance back, but my trust with Spain was still in 11 when I took this screenshot.
The age of revolutions in this game offers you a totally new, completely fun (not at all fun) mini-game to play with: Whack-a-mole. As France was a subject, the UK had been curbstomped by me and Spain, and the Ottos had been expelled from the Balkans, naturally the center of revolution appeared in Wien. And then it spread the revolution to all my provinces. Every single one of them. It even prioritized my provinces in China than Spanish or Ottoman provinces. So for the next 30-40 years, my whole game consisted in crushing all the rebels that appeared, all around the world. Not fun at all. But after that, the center of revolutions disappeared, I could complete the corresponding mission, I fought to useless wars against Russia and Ottos to fulfill the conditions for the Glory to the Habsburgs mission, and after that, I united the empire.
Achievements unlocked: The pen is mightier than the sword, Electable!, AEIOU, A Kaiser not just in name, The Ostenders.
