Holy Roman Empire

[frogbeastegg]

The Holy Roman Empire is playable right from the start, without the need to unlock it or edit any files.

[Antagonist]

I'll take a crack at this one from observations in my campaign:

Overview
The Holy Roman Empire (often abbreviated HRE), corresponding approximately with modern-day Germany, is one of the most complicated and strangest entities in Europe, having being everything from a confederation of petty princelings to among the most powerful nations on Earth during the course of it's history. As far as M2TW is concerned in 1080 it's a quite large but somewhat fragmentary faction smack-dab in the middle of Europe, surrounded by both enemies and opportunities.

Unit Roster
Fairly conventional during the Early and High eras, with knights, sergeants and crossbowmen in castles and militias in cities. Look out for the Teutonic Knights guild. The HRE comes into it's own late in the game, with a number of powerful unique untis including Gothic Knights (heaviest of the heavy cavalry) Zweihanders and Forlorn Hope (heavy infantry with greatswords) Landsnechts (excellent mercenaries including pikes, musketeers and swords) and Reiters (one of the few gunpowder cavalry units in the game) Their choice of artilliery and naval units is similar to that of other Northern European factions.

Starting Position
The Empire's central position has a number of ramifications: the player can expect to be attacked by several factions (at least) early in the game, but also has numerous options as to where to expand. To the west you have France and England - they seem more likely to get bogged down with each other initially, but will likely become a threat later on. To the North is Denmark, which has little choice but to attack you and almost certainly will. To the East are a number of independent settlements, such as Magdeburg, Prague and Zagreb. Beyond them lie the kingdoms of Poland and Hungary. The game recommends that you capture at least some of these settlements, although this will certainly bring you into conflict with both of these factions. To the South are the Italian factions - Venice, Milan, Sicily and the Papacy. The southermost Imperial settlement, Bologna, is surrounded by these factions.

Diplomacy
My own experience is basically don't bother: Your central position and Papal unpopularity (see below) make it very difficult to be everyone's friend. The best I have been able to acheive is to placate the factions on one particular fronteir (I chose the France and England) but otherwise expect to make a lot of enemies very quickly, especially on Hard difficulty and higher.

The Pope
The Holy Roman Empire has a complex and unique relationship with the Papacy. Most of the time this relationship is characterized principally by mutual hatred. You start out in very poor standing with the Pope and it is difficult to improve this. In particular, the game objectives make it virtually certain that you will go to war with the Papacy sooner or later (you must capture Rome with default victory conditions) It is possible that with numerous priests hunting down Heretics and Witches, prompt responses to Crusade appeals and generally pious behavour you could rescue this relationship and wait try and wait for someone else to capture Rome but this would be very difficult to say the least. Note also that warring against the Papacy will not do any service to your standing with the other Catholic factions, especially if you find yourself attack Crusading armies.

The Campaign
Unlike factions such as Denmark or England which have limited initial opportunities and clearly defined enemies, the Empire's position means that while you will likely be fighting people in every direction at some point. The main focus of your efforts will shift as time goes on, but will likely be different for each player and in each game. I personally chose to focus on Italy, but have had numerous problems with Denmark, Poland and Hungary as well. If you're looking at Italy it's an important priority to capture the northern cities of Genoa, Florence, Genoa, Milan and Venice. The latter two are factions and are unlikely to appreciate Imperial militarism. One particularly important issue with the HRE is the choice between castles and cities. Italy and the area east of the HRE has very few castle settlements, and it would be a good idea to convert some cities to castles both to establish a more effective frontier and to provide better troops for your armies.

Hopefully more people will add their impressions (particularly late game, I'm still around 1250) as each HRE campaign is likely to very different depending on where the player chooses to focus their strategy.

Antagonist

[geala]

I will give some impressions of my play, although it is not a real guide. I'm also still in the early times for some reason, around 1240. Be graceful with my English.

I started a campaign on H/H and stopped soon because I didn't disabled the moves of the AI on the campaign map which is boring and stressing in the long term. Then I started a campaign on H/H again and soon a second parallel campaign on M/H to see the differences. In the M/H campaign I gave HRE a huge starting treasury of 30.000,- G and increased the kings money from 1500,- to 2500,- a turn.

Speed is your friend in the first turns. You get an army near Hamburg (rebels), hurry it to the castle immediatly, otherwise the Danes will siege it the second or third turn. After the fall of the castle you can build a harbour; as in MTW and RTW sea power seems to be the key for victory in the later game (just my experience). If you are a German or know something of the geography (or both) you can also get a little annoyed at the location of the harbour which is on the shore of the baltic sea instead the north sea. And why Hamburg is a castle and not a rich merchant city only CA can tell.

You could also try to get Antwerpen at an early stage which would offer you big money and a harbour at the north sea, but I would not recommend this. The rebels inside are fairly strong. But worse, it brought me in conflict with France in my first campaign, something I wished to avoid at all costs.

In the actual campaigns I ignored the flemish coast. I was never attacked by France with was a bit surprising considering the experience from MTW. But there are other attackers left.

Second aim should be Prag/Prague/Praha. You get order from the council to catch Magdeburg, but Magdeburg is a small castle and what do you want with another castle? Also Poland seems to be scripted to attack Magdeburg, which can cause conflict at an (too) early stage. If you want to take Magdeburg, hurry up because the Polish go straight to siege the castle.

After Hamburg and Prag I took Stettin on the baltic shore (annother castle unfortunately) and transfered it in a village. Fourth was Metz (a castle again) then I stopped to consolidate my robbed land. I transfered Staufen, Metz in towns at the first opportunity.

From the beginning HRE is the strongest power in the world. Haha. It's a power desperately in need of money and money is everything im TW games. I reduced troop production to Hamburg (castle), Frankfurt (city) and Innsbruck (castle). I really developed only Frankfurt and Hamburg for the military. Later buildings cost a huge amount of money, money you need for your troops instead.

You now have ten provinces but you need many troops so you never have enough money. So you need towns and farms and markets. Spend every money for economical growth. Selfexplanatory. And building streets is now essential. I'm a defensive player and I never managed it very well to have enough troops but not too much troops. You can come into depth rather easily if you produce too much because of the ever increasing danger beyond your borders. More later.

I don't like the pope and I never built up churches at a great level. That was not a very wise decision. Inquisitors began to wander through my countries. Oddly more in the M/H than in H/H where I rarely saw one of these frightening guys. In M/H till now they killed every male member of my family except for two. I like my generals and was not very pleased with this. So you should do everything to please the pope, building churches early on and obey every papal order.
I choose another way, now killing every inquisitor I see on the map. That is very difficult because of the low killing chances of assassins. You should do better and cringe before the pope.

The big problem of HRE: first everybody likes you (except the pope) which changed later on. In the H/H every neighbour came and signed treaties with me. I get Poland, Venice, Hungary, Milan and Denmark, Sicily as allies (and also other nations far more away), only France refused it. But that means nothing. Later all of the lovely neighbours attacked me except France and Hungary. Strangely in the M/H it was much more difficult to get allies. An explanation could be the fast building session I could start because of the large funds of money which makes me very strong very early. Something the AI nations do not seem to like.

Problems started for me from the 25th turn on. Suddenly I was attacked by Venice, Denmark and Poland at the same time. I survived only because of the sometimes very dumb AI. Interestingly it was not a great difference in the H/H and the M/H campaign.

In my experience you can do nothing to live in peace with the surrounding nations. I tried it and got my ass kicked. Therefore early offensive play is recommended I fear, something I don't like. First you should get rid of the Danes who have only one province. In the early game you can afford excommunication (only effect is +20% unrest in the settlements but that is nothing). Don't fear inquisitors, they came independent of being excommunicated or not. But in the M/H they left my country after I got excommunicated (strange cowards). After Denmark secure the rich and safe lands of Sweden, Norway and Finland. Next candidate is Venice, giving rich money, best defensive position and a bridge to your italian settlement at Bologna. The AI is not very clever so don't fear the battle at the bridge to Venice. Then beat Poland. After that you have to face France or Milan. In my M/H Milan is the superpower. I became their vassal many times with brought me some needed money and made me survive the struggle till now. You should attack Milan and later on Sicily wether you got excommunicated or not. I'm now at this stage, on turn 80 or so, you should do it as early as possible.

In the summary I don't see a big difference between H/H and M/H. The other nations are generally less aggressive in M/H, some rarely ever fighting others but the most aggressive are unfortunately the neighbours of HRE. M/H oddly was indeed harsher than H/H: without the cheated starting money I would not have survived some attacks. One interesting thing I found was that in the cheated M/H campaign the rebels had very good troops early on, much better than mine; maybe the AI choose troops by the level of the player buildings?

Perhaps I will write more when in the later HRE campaign which I deserved very much but meanwhile I started a Spanish campaign and that is far more fun than playing HRE in the early times and less danger to get additional grey hairs. And I think the later game will be very similar for every catholic nation.

[chapparal]

Carpe Jugulum :P

I started an HRE campaign based on how difficult I percieved it in MTW (Never played them then) and how people percieve the HRE now.

My impressions

HRE starts off in a rough spot (duh) so if you'd like to play a peacenik game, and somehow succeed as HRE, My hat is off to you. HRE is all about warfare, so lets make like a good german and get to it!

This is my experience Based a VH/VH campaign about 25 turns in. My empire and road to victory are already established pretty much. Milan has decided to attack venice with a 1/3rd stack and i really just don't feel like fighting them right now. I'm fairly confident I can wipe the milanese out in 7 turns, if it weren't for that accursed pope.

You know where you stand in terms of geography, so i'm not going to repeat the 'France to the west, danes to the north, oh noes' thing again. Instead, i'll focus on the positives. Such as winning.




Opening Moves
*ahem*
Well, you have the french to the west, the danes to the north, some scattered rebel territories to the west, and the italians to the south.

The first 3 moves will most likely determine how easy this game goes for you. You will definately want to make sure you can accomplish them, and they should be doable for anyone on VH/VH.

First Off: See those delicious rebel territories? Beautiful Prague, succulent Florence? Ignore them. Now. The best move is to go in hard and fast, and *liberate* the HRE.

To this end, this means destroying the Danes, and beheading the italians. (namely Venice.)

Destroying the Danes:

The Danish (mmmmm....) army to the north will take the fortress immedietly south of Denmark. You have 2 methods here, and 1 is risky, and the other is risky as well.

1) Bring your commander from the Northeasternmost territory, buy some mercs, reinforce the northernmost army and take the dutch capital.
2) Use the northernmost army, move into the woods as north as possible, siege Denmark's capital turn 2, conquer through either assault or combined Sally/reinforcement defense on turn 3.

Option 2 is hard, but i believe it is possible. The primary dutch armies will be messing with sweeden and laying siege to the northernmost mainland rebel province. You should be able to get in and do it.

If you take Option 1, the pope will be very angry with you, threaten excom (to both you and the danes!) and the danes will probably have enough time to take the Northernmost rebel province (which is a castle) which means you'll have to take them out. Slowing you down in the early stages, as well as making it longer to defeat those axe wielding vikings.


Venice.
You cannot destroy the venetians in a timely manner due to their far off island nation. Instead, cut the snakes head off, and the body. Save the tail for another day (or, try to get it in a ceasfire, then kill the body, don't get your hopes up though)

You have 2 options here:
Your first move in both of them is to move your garrison (Everyone) from the southwesternmost province and march to attack the italian province south of them. It will take them a while to get there, so alternatively, you can sieze venice, build a boat, and sail there as well. I'd recommend both actually. But how to sieze Venice?

In addition to this, move your garrison from your southernmost castle (its directly NW of venice, sorta) and move them torwards venice.

Enter option time:
1) Siege on the first turn, contain the threat, assault the second
2) Siege on the second turn, Venice will actually leave Venice mostly undefended. Siege on the bridge, fight the combined sally/reinforce, and take venice super easy.


Again, 2 options here, both are possible. 1) is fastest, and difficult, but may mean you'll have a harder time on the body (middle venetian castle West of Venice) It also means you may make it to the body faster.
2) is easy, but it feels like cheating, is terribly predictable, and venice will most likely get sieged in a few turns from a maurading venitian general if you don't leave a few units on the bridge following the assault.

How to take venice?

Move your italian province garrison (Except for the peasants) and attack Venice, picking up a few Mercs if you need them. Make sure to build some militia and lower tax rates to keep the province green. Move this stack and siege venice.

Now that we've dealt with the dutch and have really screwed over the italians, no doubt the pope hates you. Stuff it pope. Its easy for the pope to threaten to excom both sides, and both the Dutch and the italians attacked me, getting their stupid butts excommed, making for fast assualts. Still, in the end the pope hate my guts. Oh well, my people were happy.

don't put pressure on the poles, let them expand to their northwest, (just make sure to capture that northernmost fortress directly south of Denmark though, it'll be handy to ensure security)

Take the eastern rebel provinces all the way to the meditterranian. In addition, you might want to take antwerp. Shuffle troops around to maintain strong borders, and fight off rebels that will cut into your trade.
We don't want to expand into Mentz or other places to the west because not only will the french be slightly peeved, your putting yourself on the wrong side of the Rhine, which is/will be very useful should the french ever wish to pull a milanese and attack you.

Take Scandinavia (watchout for pirate fleets!) and florence(florence 1-2 turns after you take venice), sardinia and corsica. Build them a little ways, and turn them all into economic powerhouses. Cut trade deals with practically everyone.

Wipe hands on pants.



You'll be in an incredibly strong economic and military situation awfully quickly. One caveat though, is I didn't feel that the *core* territories of the HRE were very economically viable, so don't spend too much in them too fast.

[Oshidashi]

1) Bring your commander from the Northeasternmost territory, buy some mercs, reinforce the northernmost army and take the dutch capital.

You confuse the Danes with Dutch. Danes are from Denmark, Dutch are from The Netherlands. The Dutch aren't even in the game. Not very strange when you realise we "Dutchies" only became a political entity in the 17th century after fighting the Spanish for 80 years.

[PseRamesses]

I love playing the HRE mainly because of location. In my experience an early blitz is the best strategy.

Army 1, Heinrich the Champion takes Florence, ask for a crusade on Tunis. On the way there I take Ajaccio and Cagliari. When Tunis is secured I give it to either the pope or the Sicilians. Now, Heinrich´s stats are almost maxed out wich will help you in all future negotiations.
Army 2, from Vienna and Huremburg takes Prague, Breslau and Stettin.
Army 3, from Frankfurt takes Hamburg and Magdeburg.
Army 4, from Staufen and Innsbruck and Metz.
All finished by turn 5. Army 2&3 merge and march on Antwerp and Bruges which should be yours around 8 or 9.

I only keep castles in Innsbruck and Magdeburg. I ally with all my neighbours except Milan (and Venice sometimes). My alliances always contains a clause that they pay me 100f/ turn for 20-50 turns. This will keep the peace in most of my game for a long time. My main focus are Italy and the rich cities of Genoa, Milan and Venice. Usually Milan goes for Venice and eventually gets x:ed. This is what I´ve waited for.
I always calls the crusades and sends my faction leader, heir and sometimes others to keep their stats maxed and my rep as high as possible. This soon gets my rep up to very trusworthy and hardly none touches me from that point.

[Calavera]

You confuse the Danes with Dutch. Danes are from Denmark, Dutch are from The Netherlands. The Dutch aren't even in the game. Not very strange when you realise we "Dutchies" only became a political entity in the 17th century after fighting the Spanish for 80 years.

Ironically though, I often find the Dane in the Netherlands in most of my games. They tend to make for Antwerp pretty early on.

[chapparal]

The Campaign
Unlike factions such as Denmark or England which have limited initial opportunities and clearly defined enemies, the Empire's position means that while you will likely be fighting people in every direction at some point. The main focus of your efforts will shift as time goes on, but will likely be different for each player and in each game.

Antagonist

Quoted for truth, and i though i'd elaborate as to why wiping out the danes and venetians gives you a superb launching platform.

Simply put, it's economics. You now have large trading infrastructures in the Baltic AND in the mediterranian. For what its worth, I think the portuguese/spanish/moors are the only ones to really reap the benefits of this, of which there are plenty. All of them involve money.

With the Danes' quick demise, you don't have to worry about the dutch powerhouse they always seem to become later on. With Venice taken, you can now become the Trading powerhouse in the south that they were supposed to be.

One Mistake i made though: Kinda important Typo.
"
Venice.
You cannot destroy the venetians in a timely manner due to their far off island nation. Instead, cut the snakes head off, and the body. Save the tail for another day (or, try to get it in a ceasfire, then kill the body, don't get your hopes up though)

You have 2 options here:
Your first move in both of them is to move your garrison (Everyone) from the southEASTERNmost province and march to attack the italian province south of them. It will take them a while to get there, so alternatively, you can sieze venice, build a boat, and sail there as well. I'd recommend both actually. But how to sieze Venice?"


That definately required a fix.



Addendum: In terms of endgame, it might be a good idea to mount an invasion of england, and then follow it all the way down till france, then invade france on all fronts. Eastern expansion is totally possible as well, but I'd bet they will end up fighting amongst themselves, which means encroaching on them may blow up in your face. They'll have to deal with those mongols eventually anyway. Better them than you.

Vis-a-Vis the Pope:
IF you are excommunicated, there is only 2 ways back into the fold (that i know of)
1) You lose enough territories (At least in the AI's case)
2) Your faction leader kicks the bucket

Obviously, you don't want 1 to occur. So it may be a good idea to go all out at the end of your faction leader's life, and not care about excommunication. Likewise, you can lose your Faction leader in battle, but thats not recommended, and may not come when you want it to. Best to eliminate a faction, and then be back into the church, than threatened into stopping half way.

[PaulTa]

I also believe that the starting moves will either make or break you, so here's my take.

wait for venice to contact you (which is actually pretty early on, first or second turn kinda early) and sell all your goodies (trade rights, map info, etc) but NOT an alliance. You want to remain reliable. Rinse and repeat with Milan, only use your own diplomat to contact them.

Wait for the papal diplomat to ask for trade rights, and then spring the big question (will you ally with me?). Gift them military access, map info, and enough florins to take you to the top of the papal list. If you attack any catholic faction before allying with the papal states, it's near impossible to do.

Once you have the pope in your pocket and a diplomat camped outside of rome for the occasional florin gift, use all that cash you've accumulated from selling trade rights and maps to buy some mercs with your faction leader, and then siege Venice. They're going to attack you anyways, so don't feel bad about it.

After you whipe out venice and any relieving forces in a bridge battle, set your sights on Milan and Genoa. Milan will attack you anyways as well, and you want to disable these italian superpowers before they can turn their piles of florins into piles of crossbowmen and militia spearmen.

Once you've secured Venice and Milan is out of the game, set your sights on Sicily. Here's another power that is hell bent on attacking you, and their fortress in Palermo hits citadel around 1115. You wouldn't want a citadel being wasted on norman knights when it COULD be making Zweihanders, would you?

Once Sicily is removed, probably with the help of mercs, you have a central med. base that produces some of your best infantry. You're in a prime position to follow any crusades that are called, and you can have at the southern bit of france in a few turns of sailing.

I prefer to keep some powers in the game that blossom, so that I have a bit of competition when I get my good units (because that's when the fun really starts anyways), so I don't bottleneck Denmark by taking hamburg (I bring the troops down to help with Milan, actually), and I leave all the rebel provinces becides Prague to the poles (who need it anyways). In my opinion, it's better to set up camp in italy and a bit of southern germany than to freeze one's arse off in the cold and poor northern germany.


Now remember, your starting units suck compared to merc spearmen and merc crossbows. Try to snatch these up whenever possible, and don't be afraid to make mailed knights up the wazoo for flanking those Italian spear militias.

[econ21]

This post is largely a placeholder for any lessons from a HRE PBM we are launching, but for now here are some unit stats (prerequisites incomplete):

Unit Stats


F= free militia unit
AP = armour piercing
2 HP = two hit points
PC = powerful charge (not sure if that just refers to the 8 charge stat)
Prequisites: C1 = level 1 castle; T5 = level 5 town etc.

[geala]

It is now 1506 in my HRE campaign. My conclusions so far are: playing HRE is rather similar to MTW. There is a peak of trouble you have to survive when most of your neighbours come after you. That peak for me was around 1250 when I had war with Denmark, Poland, Venice and Sicily and Milan join enemyship. If you manage to get through it nobody really can endanger you.

Spain, England and Hungary attacked later but that was only annoying, not dangerous. Nevertheless I have to keep at least 8 field armies at the borders because there are no natural barriers except against England.

Units
German units are of mixed quality. There is no really extraordinary performer. In the early and middle game you have Spear Militia and Armored Sergeants and the normal knights, nothing special.

Of course you need Pavise Crossbowmen (castle) and Halberd Militia (city) in the middle game. After I got the halberds I used Armored Sergeants only in second class armies.

Zweihänder are a bit better than foot knights but not that good as I thought in the beginning.

If cavalry would be easy to use and without bugs HRE would be much stronger. Gothic Knights (MTWs darling) are great shock cavalry (in theory) and Mounted Crossbowmen and Reiter are fast and deadly from the distance. But more often than not they failed to charge correctly so playing hammer and anvil is not always possible. If caught in melee Gothic Knights are as useless as every other cavalry unit I know so far.

There are a lot of canons available. With it, crossbowmen and arquebusiers horse archer/missile armies were no real match which was a bit surprising to me. You have substantial losses but invariably win the match. More dangerous (to my taste) are foes with strong infantry like the Aztecs for example. It's a pity that Landsknecht pikemen are only available as mercenaries for they would be a good core of the armies.

Cities/castles
Also in the late game there is only one thing you need: money. Therefore I transferred most of the castles I conquered to cities. My "military triangle" was Hamburg (castle), Magdeburg (castle) and Frankfurt (city). All were build up as fast as possible. Hamburg is for Zweihänder, Pavise Crossbowmen and Mounted Crossbowmen (which are not build in stables but in the archers lab), Madgeburg for Gothic Knights and Reiter, Frankfurt for Arquebusiers, Halberd and Pike Militia. You can form armies easily in the middle of the three. Cannons are build in Aarhus (you need a city with a harbour for building carracks to reach the new world, and the last building for cannons improves also your ships, so it's a good combination to build canons in a harbour town). Beneath the named strongholds I did not develop military structures. I only use what I find when I conquer foreign land. Let your enemy spend the money, you need it for the many troops you have to field.

[Snite]

Just one thing I'd like to add as I found it to be very helpful: Because of Bologna's large population and it's central location to Milan, Venice, and Sicily, I converted it into a castle and was able to upgrade to Fortress right away. Of course this brought down my income slightly, but Fuedal Knights make excellent counters to the Italian spear units that outshine your own. It's been an excellent boon to my war effort against these factions.

Snite

[sapi]

A quick summary of what i've gathered from my hre campaign:

- strike hard, strike fast - you need to clean up the rebel territories around you asap and break the back of at least one of your neighbours.

- damn the pope - he can't do much to hurt you

- spam cavalry - it works very well against the infantry heavy armies of most of your enemies (barring the polish)

- Convert some of your castles to cities - you need the income

[Iavorios]

I don’t know about you, but I find it pointless to build anything else except feudal knits, dismounted feudal knits, armored sergeants and x- bows. O and gunpowder units. All the others are just not worth the money and the waiting. Imperial knits are weaker than feudal ones (I have tested it personally) and this must be some kind of bug. Any way I can handle the game with fortress troops only, just until the gunpowder comes.

[katank]

Mounted sarges are cheaper and can still do a number on infantry with repeated charging.

Imperial knights don't look that great statwise but they have armour piercing maces which make them better against armoured targets than feudal knights.

Strategically, I find that securing Northen Italy and Denmark early on to be very useful. It wipes out some of your smaller neighbors and enables you to focus on other fronts. This avoids the 6 or 7 way crunch that often happens to the HRE come midgame.

[Skott]

I just finished a HRE short campaign. M/M settings. After reading this thread I decided on a rapid expansion as my early strategy. In the north I took Hamburg and Magdeburg first. In the south I took Florence. These were my opening moves. I left Hamburg and Magdeburg as castles. Florence remained a city.

I knew the Danes and Milan had to be eliminated as quickly as possible but I also knew I couldnt fight both at the same time. I sent diplomats out and made trade and alliance agreements with all factions except the Danes. They would be my first target. Milan I hoped would be peaceful for a while since fighting on two fronts is not something I wanted.

I struck Arhus first, the Danish capital. Although I captured it the Danes captured Antwerp first. I dealt a serious blow to the Danes but didnt take them out of the game. The Pope intervened so I was forced to wait seven turns before renewing the war. They offered peace and I accpeted and that helped keep them peaceful while I found other targets. And find them I did.

I took Stettin before Poland could get to it. Then I managed to get to Metz before the French and Milanese forces could. There I stopped my expansion of rebels cities because I didnt want to encroach on other factions and force wars. I spent time building and teching up but it didnt take long for Milan to realize they were now bottled up and wanted what I had in Italy. I played a defensive war against the Milanese troops in Italy. I wanted them to be excommunicated because once I started my drive I didnt want the Pope interfering. Venice stayed true to their alliance so I got lucky they didnt jump me from behind. Same goes for Polansd and Hungary. France kept their alliance for a while then they started blockading my ports. Once milan was excommunicated though France requested a ceasefire which I happily agreed to.

The Milan fight was tough. Their basic plan was a constant wave of troops aimed at Bologna and Florence. At first they started with about three units and kept increasing the number of units. At one point Florence almost fell but I rushed in troops during a siege and fought the Milanese to a standstill in the streets.

First let me make a few comments about street fighting. Street fighting is worse than in RTW because the AI pathing is much worse and the streets much more narrower for setting up in. In RTW you could tell the unit how to form up but in M2TW you cant get the cursor to work as well. Consequntly you have to get the formations set before sending them into the narrow parts of the streets but units in M2TW wont stay in formations and their pathing ability basically sucks. You cant get them all go the same way. The trick is to send a command to each individual unit. It works but its a slower process.

The one nice thing about M2TW street fighting is that you can choke a street with troops if you have enough and they got decent defense. Its not other infantry units that are a problem but calvarly IMO. Mounted knight units just bulldoze through their way through like a big lumbering tank and can take the hits while doing it. If you have a thick depth of units they wont break through. Too few troops or not thick enough and they will break through and once they get behind your men they do serious damage. Mounted knights are powerful in cities as well in open areas.

Anyway I managed to hold the Milanese in the Florence streets. They were cavalry heavy whereas I was spear militia heavy but their knights only used one street so I was able to mass my men thick enough so they couldnt break through. If the AI had used more than one street Florence would have fell.

It was at this point the Pope finally decided to excommunicate Milan. I went on the offensive now. Also I was now able to attack the Danes again. I moved my northern army to the Arhus port and sailed them to Antwerp. I wanted a quick victory against the Danes to put them out of the war before The Pope could intervene again. Antwerp fell in one turn to my overwhelming Northern army. The Danes ceased to exist except for some rebel mercenaries to the eastern region.

The fighting in and around Genoa and Milan went back and forth. I couldnt get into a siege fight wth them and they couldnt siege me either. It was alot of field fighting in the open and woody areas of that region. Finally through attrition I wore the Milanese down to where i could get my armies to siege Milan and Genoa. Genoa fell first. It had a exhausted small garrison by this time so they went down easily enough. Milan however was a tougher nut to crack. I laid siege and attacked twice before finally succeeding in taking it. Now I could focus on Bern and Dijon but before I could Pope Gregory died and although my guy was elected to the Papacy, Milan was reconciled. I even made a ceasefire and a trade agreement with Milan.

I used this time to rebuild my military and economy. First thing I did was disband all mercenary troops form all my armies. This kicked the profits way up so now I had money to build. I worked on getting my merchants trading. this helped the treasury greatly. The fishing and amber markets north of Arhus, the silver mine south of Hamburg, the silver mines and dyes southwest of Vienna were all putting alot of money into my treasury. The Pope also called a crusade to retake Antioch. I decided not to partake in it however. I kept the Pope happy with gifts of money so I didnt worry about his wrath.

During this lull in action I noticed Prague hadnt yet been taken. I thought for sure the Poles would have taken it but apparently they couldnt or hadnt tried. Wasnt sure which. Anyway I got a army over to lay siege to it. After a brief struggle prague was now part of my Holy Roman Empire.

After a few years I renewed my war with milan. I wasnt sure how the Pope was going to react though. Bern was now their capital. I sent three armies in to take Bern and Dijon. One army I sent to take Dijon which fell easily after a siege. Bern put up a stiffer fight but I had them outnumbered two to one and basically overwhelmed them at the walls and in the streets. The Kingdom of Milan no longer existed.

Having 18 territories and removing the danes and Milan only left me two territories left to complete the victory requirements. The crusade was still ongoing but only poland joined in. I thought this amusing. Usually several factions join in on the first crusade of the game but only Poland had joined and they didnt seem to be in a big hurry. In fact poland attacked me. They blockaded my Baltic ports of Stettin and Hamburg.

I was faced with a choice. Attack Poland and get my two territory victory condition or take Oslo and Stockholm and get it that way. I really wanted Stockholm and Oslo and I wanted the Poles to be my buffer between Russia, who I was allied with, but more importantly the Mongols if they showed up later on. The poles didnt seem interested in a land war so I let their ships do as they pleased. I built six cogs and a army of sergeant spearmen with some peasant crossbowmen and some ballista and sailed for Stockholm. Took it easily enough and then sailed for Oslo. When I took Stockholm the Poles asked for a ceasefire but wouldnt re-ally with me. I took Oslo and that ended the short game with all victory conditions met.

In my HRE game I found out that the HRE troops are strong in the beginning and get stronger as you tech up. The infantry performed well and I was impressed with my German knights. The Danes werent a match (I know from past Danish campaigns the Danes can do quite well) if went after them right away and as long as everyone stayed friendly it wasnt a hard campaign to play. In my campaign only Milan was a real problem. I got lucky that Venice, Sicily, and Hungary stayed true to the alliance. If they had entered the war on the opposite side my empire would have collapsed quickly. France did attack but as a naval threat only. They never came after me on land. They were locked in a war with Spain and Portugal so I guess they got a mission to blockade me and thats what prompted them to attack. They could have made my campaign harder as well.

My Holy Roman Empire stretches from Scandanavia in the north to Florence in the south. From Prague and Stettin in the east to Metz, Dijon, and Antwerp in the west. I ended the campaign at war with no one and allied to most factions. Thats kind of unusual in M2TW short campaigns. My man sits on the papal throne in Rome as well. Its a very solid empire. I intend to continue playing this campaign with the intent to take over all of Italy and Europe. I want to see how the HRE plays out in the late game. I expect great things from my German troops

So far I really enjoyed the HRE faction. I didnt think I would like it much at first because it looked like it would be a gankfest by the other factions but in my campaign the diplomacy worked well for me and I was able to more or less take on my enemies one at a time. Which is the way I prefer my battles in M2TW.

[pat the magnificent]

my tips as i approach 1300 on VH/VH

concerning the pope-
be super nice to the pope early on at the very beginning. always do what he says, no matter the cost. start no wars and only defend. BUT, as soon as you can field at least 6 priests and send them to russia. stick them in areas with 0-30% catholics until they all become cardinals (with at least one prefari). AT THE SAME TIME, make an assassin and start murdering captains, witchs, and pretty much any and everyone you can. always save before attempting to kill somebody (if you die or fail load it and don't bother trying again until next turn). As soon as your assassin gets about 8 subterfuge, send him to rome and kill the pope. (remember to save) next turn elect your dude pope. That more less takes care of the pope problem.

(its a good idea to keep sending priests to russia just in case you need to kill the pope again.)

-who to kill first

Venice, no question. you'll need armies with lots of knights to take care of their annoying pavise xbow militia units, and lots of heavy infantry to take care of their infantry militias.

what to do while you're killing venice-

firstly, make sure you only have 2 or 3 castles. with each castle set up to make a particular type of unit. I like to keep a city capable of making seige engines near each frontier, they just move too slowly to make them from only a single city. keep your frontier cities (and they SHOULD be cities, not castles) well garrisoned with militia crossbowmen and spearmen and at least a few peasant archer units to help take out siege engines. in your other settlements only keep enough units garrisoned to maintain order.

REMEMBER, EVERYONE IS GOING TO TRY TO KILL YOU-

Defence is key. only focus on one nation at a time. and always adjust your units to the roster of your enemy. merchants are definately worth your time. don't militia buildings in all but a few cities, focus on farming, roads, churches, and anything to increase trade profits. establish trade rights with any nation that hasn't yet attacked you. and for god's sake, keep your damned general and family members out of your cities (unless you have one of those exceedingly rare compenent ones, but even still they're better served as military commanders)

KILL THE DANES SECOND-

cause hey, why not.

FOR FIGHTING...

the poles- pavise crossbowmen and lots of them, always try to make him attack you, defending against those polish nobles if far easier than attacking them.

the hungarians- same as poles, plus bring along some teutonic or imperial knights to deal with their heavy infantry. i found them easier than the poles.

the byzantines- once again you'll need lots of pavise crossbowmen, balistae and cavalry are nice to take care of thier nasty heavy foot archers. its also much preferable to fight defensive battles against these shmucks.

Any of the italians- Heavy Cav and Heavy Infantry, you'll want units with maces and morningstars to dispatch the sicilians and the papacy due to their large numbers of heavy infantry (IE Imperial knights (mounted and non-mounted ) and Teutonic/Gothic Knights)

the frenchies- you want a well balanced force for them. halberd / pike militia units included, being that they have alot of cavalry. hopefully you'll have some zweihanders to chew through cavalry and infantry (use the pikes or halberd to receive the cavalry's charge then send the 2handers to dispatch them) I like to use Mounted Crossbows to kill their archer units.

the british-

basically the same as the french, except you can leave the pikemen home. strangely, the computer does seem to be using too many longbowmen in my campaign, needless to say this had made killing the english very easy.

Those are basically the only faction i've killed thus far, but its pretty easy to figure out what units to use.

[Blacknek]

Hi,

Haven’t posted here for some time. But MTW 2 hooked me back in to computer games (having almost zero time for it---work sucks ;-)

Since I played my favoured faction once again, I wanted to contribute some short facts I experienced this far playing the HRE.

First of all, the tips described above are all excellent reading, so I’ll try not to be too repetitive.

Opening moves:
Being a defensive player by nature myself, I tried that way the first time I played (worked out for me in the first MTW with the HRE several times- I just conquered the rebel outpost to the east and then build up until France inevitably attacked). No good idea, you got surrounded later on without having sufficient funds to pay your wars. The German default homelands just aren’t productive enough and the enemies are too great in numbers.
It is still possible to do it this way I guess (with lots of micromanagement and some luck I guess), but the best way is definitely a quick demise of the Danes and the Milanese. I left Venice (the faction) untouched in the beginning except for Venice (the city). This way you get tons of florins through sea-trades and you can conquer the Scandinavian rebels getting even more sea-trade.

The pope:
Definitely a pane in the a*# playing as the HRE. Your standing drops constantly without doing anything special (for example, as I played the Spain, the standing raised all the time without doing anything special…).
As for excommunication: This happened to me on the very beginning through killing the Danes and Milan. This doesn’t have real consequences in the beginning of a game I think. The pope didn’t call for crusades and the other countries were too busy with themselves to use the opportunity to attack me without retaliation from the church.
As soon as I got a solid situation I discontinued all wars. By this time the pope was old, and after he died and my excomm got cancelled through the election of a new pope I gifted him lots of money and an area to the west.
Giving the pope some hundreds florins every second turn or so I’m the holy fathers best friend since than :-).
Plus having a Papal state outpost between you and France as a buffer turned out to be great. This way they got excommed on their expansions to the west, giving them a lot of trouble.

So all together you have to acquire a solid financial situation in the beginning. For that you have to perform at least two blitz-attacks. After that your position is strong enough to survive the situation, when everybody wants to beat you up (or get powerful enough so they wouldn’t even dare).

Enjoy the game and sorry for tipos,
Blacknek

[Ramtha]

That is a very good guide antagonist!

[Wodeson]

My experience as the HRE (Hard/VHard) is somewhat different to those above.

My most importance initial move was a complete blunder: I entirely missed the fact that I had a small initial field army in the region of Hamburg. This lend to the Danes taking Hamburg and expanding along the northern coast of Europe and attacking the Poles and English rather than me.

My first dilpomatic moves were to ally with everyone including the ever corrupt Pope. 250 tribute per turn bought off the Papal States and raised my standing to 'perfect'.

Deciding that Bologna was undefendable, I gave it to Venice in return for what I hoped would be a strong alliance. Inevitiably, the very next turn they attacked me, and were closedly followed a turn later by Milan.

However such aggressive moves of their parts led quickly to their excommunication, and allowed me to direct Crusades against their cities, since I was such a good friend of the Pope.

However all my other alliances held strong. The Danes and Poles seemed more than content to fight each other and ignore me. The English and French kept to similar arrangement, and Hungary joined me in attacking Venice.

With no sea ports my income was very tight, however the use of Crusades coupled with the AI's habit of leaving it's cities under garrisoned allowed me to annex Northern Italy, which solved my money problems.

100 turns later and my position in central Europe is secure, leaving me the choice of expanding in whichever direction I wish.

[Gingivitis]

As a few others have posted, I took everybody and left Germany at the start, and Germany is absolutely perfect for this. It will take you a few turns to get everybody to Bologna to the port, but you need a few turns to make sure you have a big enough fleet to get to the Holy Lands safely and get enough rep with the pope to call a crusade. When you do get everyone there, think it was turn 8ish, have 2 stacks of boats and put 3 generals and an army big enough to crusade both of them and set off for Antioch. I didn't get enough rep to call the crusade until I was at Rhodes but I was able to step off and join at that moment. Next I ended my turn with my 2 fleets south of Nicosia.

I then sent one boat to land at Adana and one to land by Alexandria. At this point I split the armies by adding as many merc/crusade units as I could and had about 5 stack 1/2 to 3/4 filled. Egypt held Jerusalem, Gaza, Cairo, Alexandria, and Adana. At Adana I sent one stack to Antioch, one to Adana and one to Jerusalem. The other fleet had one general go to Gaza and one towards Alexandria as there weren't enough mercs/crusaders left to get a 3rd stack going. The net result was Egypt was eliminated at turn 18. I took the leftover crusading units and used them as fodder for taking Edessa, Damascus, and Aleppo. I moved my Capitol to Antioch, flooded the area with priests and now was safely in control of the holy lands.

As for my old lands, Venice attacked and took Bologna as I was en route to Antioch, and the other cities rebelled. The 2 castles remained mine until turn 35ish when eventually a full stack of Danish troops walked into my empty undeveloped Innsbrook and Venice for some reason couldn't be bothered to send 1 stack of peasants to take the undefended castle of someone they were already at war with and bribed the other place away. Was kinda amused though that I'd never seen a province successfully bribed away before.

[TeutonicKnight]

Can the HRE win in a defensive mode? Playing the honorable, high-rep method, and simply teching up? Or do you absolutely have to go apeshit on your neighbors to stay afloat?

[PseRamesses]

Can the HRE win in a defensive mode? Playing the honorable, high-rep method, and simply teching up? Or do you absolutely have to go apeshit on your neighbors to stay afloat?

Yup, they shure can. I remember one game where I initially I blitzed all rebel settlements accessable from my provinces. Also took Corsica, Sardinia and Malta (BigMap-mod) through a crusade. Next Rhodes and a new crusade secured Jerusalem, Acre, Antioch, Aleppo and Damascus. All of this before my first king, Heinrich, was dead. Need I say his traits was maxed out?!
From here I just teched up and defended. At one point 6 cath-factions was x-ed for messing with me. I own the CoC and had a HRE pope since Gregory died (the first one). Eventually I winded up with the Danes, Sicily, Poland and Hungary as my vassals. Unfortunately I had to take out Milan and Venice but gifted their holdings to Sicily.
Later I fought off both the Mongols and the Timurids. When the game ended all of America and the New World was well educated in the german language.

[Crazy Larry]

Can the HRE win in a defensive mode? Playing the honorable, high-rep method, and simply teching up? Or do you absolutely have to go apeshit on your neighbors to stay afloat?

I tried this recently on H/H, and had some success. The thing is, even though you're surrounded by 8 countries who will have borders with you sooner or later, quickly grabbing all of the rebel settlements within your reach will force Venice, Poland, and Hungary to expand eastward, cripple the Danes' and Milan's expansion capabilities, leaving you with only France as a real threat (the Papal States and Sicily never really seem to bother me until I take the fight to them.)

The key is to start fast, emptying your settlements so you can take rebel settlements. I haven't tried HRE on VH/VH yet, but I've found that I can beat all of the other countries to the punch to get 13 settlements within the first 10 turns without going to war with anyone (Hamburg, Stettin, Prague, Breslau, Magdeburg, Bologna, and Metz being the rebel settlements I take.) I could probably get 14 settlements if I pushed a bit harder (by beating Milan to Bern), and maybe even 15 if I fielded a navy fast enough to take Ajaccio. After that it's just a case of buying the Pope's alliegance and careful economic planning (turn Hamburg into a city, and at least one of Metz/Staffuen/Bern). At this point you'll quickly start raking in cash, enabling you to field a army big enough to take on all comers. Indeed, my biggest problem was the fact that, between my overwhelming military might and my alliance with the pope, no one seemed to want to take me on. I was still at peace with everyone after 30 turns, at which point I decided to turn agressive and started conquering Venice and Milan.

[Cheetah]

Can the HRE win in a defensive mode? Playing the honorable, high-rep method, and simply teching up? Or do you absolutely have to go apeshit on your neighbors to stay afloat?

It is possible but one have to realise that the only way to keep away your neighbours is to convince them that you have a larger force. Which is ofc not very feasible if you are scattered all over Europe.

So, here is what I did on second try H/H, autoresolving all battles (on the first try I was creamed, almost, I had to fight out sieges on the battlemap to survive ).

Since I wanted to play a high-rep game taking out the Danes and Venice, as suggested by many, was out of question. Also, holding Bologna is not really feasible as there is no way you can convince the Venetians that you have a larger army. So:
1, sell Bologna to the Venetians and move your King to north with the garrison.
2, Besige Hamburg with the forces you have nearby.
3, Besige Magdeburg with the forces nearby.
4, Send your troops from Nurenburg to capture Prague, send a few units from Vienna to help the siege.
5, Move troops from Insbruck to besiege Metz, send help from Stauffen.
6, get an alliance with the Hungarians (hungarian princess will visit)
7, get a marriage alliance with Poland

You really do not have to hurry with the siege of Hamburg and Magdeburg, feel free to sit out the siege. Besieging both castles has the benefitial effect that it will throw both the Danish and the Polish plans out of the window. They wont attack at this early stage, the Danish army started wandering aimlessly around.
Capturing Prague is more important as it has a greater economic potential. The army capturing Prague moved on to capture Breslau.
Once I captured Magdeburg (it is the smaller castle) I moved the troops to help the siege of Hamburg. After I captured Hamburg moved on to capture Settin.
In the meantime the army capturing Metz moves on the capture Dijon. I left Bern alone as I knew that the Milanese will sooner or later attack and I wanted no contack with them.
Also beefed up the garrison of Vienna with militias (half stack), and Insbruck with peasants and peasant archers (another half stack) to scare away the venetians.
England and Spain offered alliance which I accepted.

As reward you will get 4 FK, with some of the troops from Metz/Dijon I moved them to capture Bruege. Bruege has a good garrison it will resist weaker AI attacks for long, so it was still rebel. France attacked Antwert but was defeated so I took Antwerp too.

The army capturing Settin is patroling on the Danish border and shadowing any Danish and English (yes they have an army marching accross north europe) movement.

So all in all I managed to capture: Prague, Breslau, Settin, Magdeburg, Hamburg, Bruege, Antwerp, Metz, Dijon. I have an income (around 6-8k per turn) that I can keep all building queques busy.
It is around turn 40 and the Polish and the Hungarians are solid allies (never had any problems with the hungarians and expect to Polish to hold out till the marriage alliance holds), the Danes are still sitting in Arhuus, Bern is still rebel but I do not mind it, the French have armies marching up and down near Dijon but I built up a half-stack of militia garrison to scare them away (so far it works), the Venitians attacked me after all (with 1 unit xbow besieging Insbruck!) but never made any serious moves, their armies are marching up and down near Venice.

So atm it seems I have several options: (i) turtle and tech up to get DFK (spears are not very good on autoresolve vs italian militias) then move down and visit Venice; (ii) lure the Venitians, by weakening the Insbruck garrison, to attack Insbruck to get them excommed; do the same with France by weakening the Dijon garrison.

[PuppetMaster]

Okay what's up everyone, I'm an American so bare with my overly militaristic attack strategem haha.

I just beat a long HRE campaign on H/H, so I'm going to offer some of my insight as to how I obtained this victory.

1. Crush Denmark. By crush, I don't mean go in all happy go lucky and engage the field army they send to Antwerp, I mean break their siege of Hamburg (which they will most likely attempt) with your family member from Frankfurt and the army hidden to the north, and then head to Arhus with mercenaries recruited along the way. 1 turn siege, then BAM assault the city and take it 1, 2, 3. Guess what! Denmark is no more. Scratch one annoying neighbor to the north, and add some sweet Baltic/North Sea territories to your bank.

2. Take either Stettin or Antwerp. I prefer Stettin as to avoid conflicts with England, France, and Scotland too early in the game. The fall of the western countries is inevitable, but not yet, a conqueror must show patience. Plus, Stettin is in the Baltic which turns into a wealthy little trade pond if you ask me, so go figure. Let the Poles take Magdeberg, if they're passive on the eastern front of your empire, then don't sweat it until you decide to move east into the slavic lands.

*As you do all of this, make sure to take Prague, believe me, it WILL pay off. Make multiple trade agreements/allianaces, especially with the Italians, the Pope, and Hungary. Also, make Vienna your capitol. Trust me, when you are raking in 7000 gold by the time the Timurids arrive, then you'll know why haha. Make Frankfurt a castle, that way you can have Frankfurt, Hamburg, and possibly Magdeberg all producing tough level troops in the later game. Plus, Frankfurt has a higher population so it'll level up faster.

*Dealing with the Italians*
Kill/conquer/squash/batter/defeat/stomp/torch/raze/abolish Milan. A treacherous people so it seems, this faction is THE most bothersome, bar none. Argue it with me all you want, the Milanese are THE most annoying in the game due to their suprisingly large field armies that seem to pop up out of no where, not to mention the competence of their 'militia'. With Milan, I just went head to head with them and had to simply out-wit a computer. Grant it there was some luck, but Milan is the faction that NEEDS to get eliminated by the Germans in the early game, or else you just won't do well. Take Milan, take Genoa, and hunt them down until they are no more. The same kind of goes for Venice, but Iraklion is a pain, so whatever I own all of Europe in my game and Venice is just chilling in Rhodes, so I don't really care, its not like they can do anything to me haha. Sicily, depending on their stance in Africa and with the Moors could possibly attempt an attack on Florence or Bologna. If so, just send an army down and squash both their territories like with the others. If they have Norman Knights, just be wary and look for subtle map advantages that will tilt in your favor, assuming you have weaker units. Make Palermo a city (it was generating 3500 last time I checked, which is pretty good) and you're set there.

Okay I don't feel like typing much more b/c I gotta run to work, I justed wanted to say how random my last campaign was haha. The superpowers before I absolutely swept the map were me (HRE), Portugal, Hungary, Russia, Byzantines, and the Turks (Mongols too of coursE). Idk, I thought Portugal and Russia being big was kind of interesting, but whatever.

By the way, I am trouncing the Mongols right now. Apparently their power lies in their 10 star maxed-out-dread generals, so your best bet with a military confrontation with them on an open field is:
A)Not facing them at all haha
B) Attempting to assasinate their generals
C)Waiting until they die of old age or combat, then going in for the kill on their armies


I did C (unintentionally), and its working. I have gothic knights, forlorn hope, zwei handers, basically all good german troops, and i am taking mongol armies to town one full stack at a time. O well, thats all I gotta say really, IM me if you want to hear more: DrFeelgood787 is my screen name.

PEACE

[floydsvoid123]

Playing M/M 1.0 vanilla M2TW

The HRE is a truly satisfying game and will require you to muster every bit of your financial, diplomatic, and tactical skill to succeed. Your position in the beginning is indeed complicated. Not every faction will go to war with you at once, but be assured that they will at some point or another, and far before you can recruit your best troops. Your settlements are fairly productive, though they are no Genoa, Venice, or Milan; you will need them to boost your production, and it will be a long battle. Your northern frontier is quite secure, especially if you go for Hamburg and the Danes. Your south is divided and you produce inferior troops compared to the Italian militia units. Quite a few of the settlements you'll encounter will be castles, and many will require an investment to convert to cities for the production. Your initial treasury is relatively low, as well as your subsequent income, so an aggressive start is crucial.

I ended my game with Northern Italy minus Milan and Venice, and owning Prague, Metz, Bern, Hamburg, Stettin, and Arhus beside my original cities. While I was being besieged every other turn or so, without it I easily had an income of 8000-1000 florins. I had a Teutonic Knight's guild in Hamburg, and 2 to 3 full stacks of sergeant and mailed knight armies plus one of Teutonic , sergeant, and dismounted Feudal Knights. I gave up on the campaign because it was evident I'd mismanaged it, leading to the capture of Vienna and Venice by the Venetians and a Pope that loved me but refused to excommunicate Milan for attacking me, plus I could see a full stack of Sicilians coming up to take lightly defended Bologna. But I think I know how I should have played this campaign, and this is it.

From the beginning it is apparent that the Pope hates you with a passion. Even in M/M, he refuses at all cost to ally with you, something he grants to most Catholic and many of the non-Catholic factions in the game. It is absolutely imperative to avoid excommunication, or to reconcile if it has already happened, but to do that you need something to win back his favor - gold.

My first moves were to go north and destroy the Danes and take Venice. If the Danes take Hamburg they have the potential to become a massive power - quite often in grand campaign games, if it isn't Milan or France that capture Antwerp and Bruges, it is Denmark, and with the addition of Stettin, Scandinavia, and Hamburg as a fortress, they will become near unstoppable. So never, at all cost, let them have Hamburg! Once you've taken Hamburg, go for Arhus. There's a chance that they will be sieging Hamburg by the time you arrive to attack - worry not and attack their army and drive them off before taking Hamburg for yourself. It is crucial that at this point you do not siege Venice. If you attack the Venetians and the Danes at the same time, the Pope will consider Venice the priority and force you to stop attacking them. You do not want this, you want the Pope to ban attacking the Danes. This is because within the next few turns, you can destroy the Danish faction. Destroying a faction that you're not allowed to attack lifts the excommunication (either that or it does not apply to you at all). So take Arhus as quickly as possible - you'll need the troops to further your conquests.

Down south, I tried to attack Venice, but they had a pretty decent stack waiting inside consisting of those Italian spear and normal militias. My own spear militia and my cavalry would be slaughtered, so I decided to attack Florence instead. Venice will be the first faction that openly attacks you, so prepare well. Stock up on cavalry in Innsbruck, and built the barracks series - you'll need the sergeants.

Convert as many castles to cities as possible. Castles you should keep are: Innsbruck, Hamburg, and Bern if you can get it (the Milanese tend to ignore Bern in M/M, so you can wait a long time, but don't do that. Bern is an integral castle, the focal point of your attacks on Milan. I realized that way too late.) Staufen can serve as a secondary cavalry factory for a short time - only until you capture Bern and Metz. Metz should become a city as well, it tends not to be attacked for quite a while (the French seem to have no interest in me at the moment).

Capture Stettin with your Arhus army only for the religious conversion mission. Your current cardinal, Peter, is unlikely to become the Pope, as he will die before Gregory. Instead, train a new priest (the Pope may give you 500 florins to do so in Hamburg) and use him and Peter to get the new priest some piety points. Heretics tend to pop up a lot especially in the northern HRE, so use them wisely. You always want to have at least one cardinal in the college as the HRE, and for the moment that's all you can really ask for considering your income.

Be careful when trying to capture Prague. Firstly, it is fairly well garrisoned for a rebel settlement, similar to Antwerp, Bruges, and Bern. Secondly, the Venetians will go for Vienna if you do it too late, and Vienna is a major cash settlement. Prague is fairly safe in M/M from the Poles, for some reason they want dirt poor Stettin. Vienna and Venice will be the focus of attacks from the Venetians, so prepare.

Buildings should focus on the economic. In castles, always build with castle upgrades as a priority followed by barracks upgrades to get to your spearmen. In cities, go roads first - the bane of the HRE is the incredibly long time it takes to traverse it. Moving troops is impeded by the mountains and the far too numerous rivers. farm upgrades should come next - the population boost will be extremely important for your finances (more people=more taxes), followed by market upgrades. In attack-prone cities, however, you want to modify the order a little bit. Get those city barracks upgraded, at least to crossbow militia level, if not halberd militia level. Cities this applies to are all of the northern Italian cities - Venice, Bologna, Genoa, Florence, and Milan, as well as Vienna. These cities are your economic base - you must protect them at all cost. A lot of the time, the 5 free militia garrison will be enough if you know how to defend chokepoints, but there will always be a few times when the enemy will bring a number or quality of soldiers you cannot defend against. This applies most to Venice and Bologna, with Vienna also being included occasionally. Ballista towers may be a good investment to protect against siege towers and the like, but in all likelihood you won't get these until very late in the game.

While it may not seem to make a lot of sense, release prisoners often. Get your generals' chivalry up. Try to do this in Bologna with your king, as he already has 4 chivalry in the beginning. This is to attract a Teutonic Knights Guild to your cities. While I did not manage to get one in Bologna, I did in Hamburg, and these are without a doubt the best units you will get for a very, very, very long time, and you'll likely be using them even toward the end of the game. If I had managed to get one in Bologna, the game would have gone much, much, much easier for me. Those Italian spear militias would have been toast with strawberry jam on one side and stale butter on the other.

Remember, even with armored sergeants and sergeant spearmen, the Italian militia units will fight on par with your infantry (they are, after all, pretty much equivalent to the mercenary version, and the pavise crossbows are equivalent to the mercenary crossbows plus extra defense while reloading). Innsbruck will not upgade to Fortress for a long, long time, so in the south, those sergeants are all that you'll get, plus whatever militia you can come up with in the cities. You will have a noticeable lack of missiles - it's too much of an investment, and all you get really is a support troop, nothing that can overcome the pavise and genoese. It is imperative to use your cavalry well. Either make use of hills and mountains to make your charges unstoppable, or use the standard anvil and hammer. This would be a lot different if you got access to dismounted Feudals in Innsbruck a lot earlier.

Milan will attack you after Venice does, followed by the Poles quite a while later in my game. Read the diplomatic information scrolls - are the Poles suddenly allies with Milan? If so, you can be sure that they will launch an attack on Stettin very shortly. The Sicilians will attack around now as well.

Very likely you will not have the resources to specialize your cities for guilds until the Italian factions are done with. Milan is pretty much done for once Genoa and Milan are taken. Venice is a harder nut to crack - take down Venice, Zagreb, and Ragusa, as Zagreb and Iraklion will do for the Venetians what Venice cannot once you take it, and Ragusa will be their unit factory. Be agressive. You can afford to lose these provinces to, say, the Hungarians, who won't be much of a threat for now. Venice with its high quality missiles and infantry will. Sicily is not a threat for most of the beginning, but when they become one, take Palermo using a navy. In M/M it is usually very lightly defended, as very few armies if any come to attack it (Moors are too busy in Iberia). Once they lose Palermo, you have gained a very well upgraded fortress and they can only come at you now with militia, which your Teutonics should slaughter. However, attacking Sicily is too much of a risk until you can secure all of Northern Italy and the Venetian lands. (I wonder if giving Zagreb and Ragusa to the Pope will be a good Idea - they don't tend to be very valuable settlements and often suffer attack when I play as Venice.) It will be a very difficult time for the HRE - the Pope is constantly warning you against attacking, and agression is hard when your enemies can launch waves of cheap yet superior units at you. Even once you drive Milan from Italy, be on your guard - they tend to have full stacks wandering around waiting to siege your cities. Destroy them utterly, and be at peace.

Things not to do. Remember, everything depends on Italy.
I feel you should not try to take Scandinavia. It takes a very long time to conquer these areas because of lack of any roads, and while they may provide good Baltic trade, they are hopelessly undergraded settlements. Oslo in particular will be a horrible battle considering the units garrisoned there and the units you can afford. If you have secured Italy, and you have an extra general wandering around Hamburg, give him a few strong units and send him to take the towns. Otherwise, just bide your time.
Magdeburg seems to incite the wrath of the Poles. You don't need another castle, you certainly don't need another war this early.
Antwerp and Bruges have always been early-game no-no's for me. Those Flemish Pikemen paired with those mailed knights are quite frankly scary to confront. By all means, wait. These are rich provinces, yes, and they do boost North Sea trade, but you don't have that many North Sea ports apart from Arhus and you don't have the resources to protect cities that far from Hamburg.
Do not expand farther east than Stettin and Prague, father west than Metz. Avoid war.
Cagliari and Ajaccio, the isles off Italy, are good settlements to take, however they begin as castles and you want them as cities. Only go for them if you're absolutely certain you can spare the troops and time spent upgrading to produce town militia.
Do not attack Zagreb until you have a sizable military base. Otherwise you thin your lines too much between Zagreb and Vienna.

[Olaf Blackeyes]

I have won BIG time with several M2TW factions. However my very best campaign was with HRE. I say this because i tried to make the name alot more truthful. At the end i had Germany, France, Spain, everyone of those american territories, the Holy Land(German Crusades ftw) and all of Italy, including Rome. I must say that if you can get off the ground, you can crush ANY faction, those sergent spearmen are a staple of my armies at least until you get to near end game.
BTW ALWAYS get the Teutonic knights if you can, excellent heavy cavalry.

[Schiltrom]

If you take (or bribe) Florence and then send a diplomat to the Papacy, you can offer them an alliance and give them Florence, and if you do it before the fifth turn, they ought to accept, just occasionally give them a gift to ensure the alliance holds, and you've got favour with the Vatican, not to mention that if you ask for military access (with, of course, a fitting price) you've got easy access to the Cornered Republic of Sicily. Have fun, hehe.

[Schiltrom]

If you want to defeat the Italian powers, convert a large town into a castle, you will be able to upgrade it to a fortress straight away. Build military production buildings and you'll eventually be able to recruit Feudal knights (mounted and dismounted) and pavise crossbowmen. These can defeat most Italian Militia units.