Unifying Germany Quickly

[unmerged(179469)]

I found Hansa to be the easiest nation to form Germany as. You've got the money so just vassalise all you can and conquer/force annex the provinces you need.

Just take half of the provinces you need, hunker down and take the infamy on the chin (you can do this without going over the limit) then take the other half and enjoy those cores.

The problem with that is that you have to wait 50 years for all the cores. The reason so many are saying Bohemia is because with forced PUs, you can very realistically expect to inherit within less than 50 years, making it faster than even the speediest of conquests.

 

[SacredDatura]

Another approach is to use a 1399 slider move towards centralization and it might spawn a pretender rebel. At that point, disband your army or set its upkeep to zero and move it away from the capital. You will be free in no time, with the pretender rebel as your new king. IRRC, there is a 1/3rd chance of this happening, spawning peasant rebels or a stability decrease. Restart if it doesn't work. You lose only a single day. Waiting for the Luxy king to die can take a month or 30 years.

Yeah, I tried this starting as Brandenburg yesterday. The pretender rebels occupied my capital and the one next to it (Potsdam?) but after a while they disappeared and I was still under the PU.

 

[Lt_Lindy]

The earliest I've had the Germany decision available was 1503 as TO and I later regretted waiting for Prussian military reforms. When your in that much of a dominate position it the reforms don't really matter better off getting the bonuses of Germany for 150 years.

Its my first EU game and I took TO out of personal taste. I am enjoying the challenge but I already have to agree, I am not having any problems dealing with battles. I was wondering if I even needed these reforms. Thanks for the insight.

 

[Moltke]

I tried the Bohemia route, but missed Luneburg, Thuringia, and Magdeburg early on. So even though I inherited Brandenburg, Mecklenburg, Brunswick (and some other non-crucial Germans) before 1500, I still had to conquer the rest which meant no Germany before 1550 or so. And that's 50 years of high infamy, no emperorship (even though I vassalized half the electors) and negative prestige as a result. I just had bad luck maybe, but even the Bohemia route is challenging if you're in a rush.

Aside from that, a super-powerful Bohemia erupted that was Germany in everything but name.

Another note is that two provinces converted to Czech while I was waiting to inherit, meaning I had 6 czech and 6 Saxon provinces after inheritance. I had to conquer Meissen, culture shift, then release them as a vassal in order to get around the dominant culture hurdle.

I think I'm gonna try again.

 

[RobRoy3]

Well, if people don't want to wait, and go the Prussian route, and if (the easier) Bohemia route offends people's sensibilities, Thuringia is another fun choice. It can be quick, but depends a bit more on missions and luck. You start with two cores, will probably get vassalize missions on two more, have a reasonable shot at missions and/or P.U.s for four-five more. By then, even the Brandenburg core might be P.U.able, too; actually, when I did it, Franken was a bigger problem than Brandenburg. A lucky "claim on our rivals" event can shorten time rather dramatically.