Poll : Pope or Imperial diet

Simply vote, for details about the actual dillema see the 'New thread for centralized data access' thread, pages from 3 onwards.

I am leaning towards Diet with a non-typical german minion or two to spice things up, but I have not yet decided.

Wow... 2 to 1, imperial over pope. I'm the only one to vote for pope thus far... sigh.

Everybody who is dedicated enough to one or the other could you please post your opinions, I am leaning towards the HRE but am not 100% certain so it would help to have the pros and cons reiterated in one place where they can be measured and weighed. This will also hopefully help other people who are not confident enough to vote.

Having the Imperial Diet is a better gameplay choice as well as more historically accurate.

If we had the Italian factions and the Papcy it would make them impregnable. Naples guarding the South, Milan the West, and Venice the North and East.

However, if we had the Imperial Diet and three other German factions, i.e. Saxony, Hapsburgs, and Bavaria, They would have to cooperate to keep themselves alive. As they would be surrounded by Burgundy, Milan, Venice, Kalmar Union, Hungary, and Poland. Then when the civil war happens, you have to defend your borders as well.

The main point is, that Italy is too denfensible.

And the Pope had little power over the Italian states anyway.

So instead of only fighting 1 or 2 enemies at once, you could be fighting 3 or 4.

Germany was Europe's battleground and with the senate and roman faction's aggressiveness this would be portrayed to some extent.

1300th POST! not as big a landmark as 666th post granted, but a landmark nonetheless.

Am I to understand that even though the Imperial Diet will replace the Senate of RTW, the Papacy will still exist as a faction, possibly starting in alliance with the other Italian states?

No, if the Diet gets chosen we'll probably drop the Papacy.

I've voted the pope, since this seems to me more historically accurate (the Imperial Diet had no power of it's own, no regions of it's own, no armies of it's own, and the presiding leader would be the emperor, a Habsburg. It was just the gathering of the states of the Empire, with precious little influence at all. Meanwhile the Pope had armies, land and power). However, in gameplay terms you would probably have to go with the Imperial Diet.

It seems to me we are really chosing the lesser of two evils. I'm sort of in favour of the Imperial Diet, but no Pope... that seems strange.

Anyway, I still haven't voted, I'm giving myself some time to think.

To Brutus

It doesn't really matter that the Diet had no lands or armies. We can pull it off by giving the Senate (Diet) a very small possession, just one province and a token army. And the Senate is programmed to be very passive so we wouldn't see an expansionist empire by the Diet. The real fight is not with the Diet, but with the other German factions. And in the meantime, before the civil war, you have to do their biding, collect offices etc. The real bonus is that, in order to become emperor, the player has to increase his influence in the Diet...and that seems to corelate to what really happened in the HRE in those days.

I think that the Imperial Diet would be the best choice, for gameplay reasons.

I voted Imperial Diet because:
* HRE (holy roman empire) was an emperor-led alliance on the paper and to a certain extent in reality, but not even on the paper was there an italian alliance.
* HRE had formal votes rather like the senate.
* Northern italy was conquered by france and southern by aragon, so italy shouldn't be strong.
* venice and milan warred in the beginning of 15th century, while the german states warred later thus more like the roman civil war in vanilla.
* more mixed senate factions' units and starting positions for HRE, both german and italian are possible.
* I don't think having the pope conquer florence is such a sweet thing.
* the pope had supported a war against naples in the late 14th century, so I doubt naples would have listened to any papal dictates.

I has not been decided which faction will in if Imperial Diet is chosen, but I think my favorite combination for HRE is Imperial Diet (ruling only Hesse, capital Frankfurt), Saxony, Hapsburg and Milan. As you can see, it is easy to spread the HRE factions out, resulting in a greater number of enemies, thus liming the power of HRE factions and drawing the war to HRE, which is good for gameplay.

I am sure there is a way to give Hapsburg more sway over the diet if we'd want it so, like giving it trait with senate bonus.

The pope did have a part in assassinating one of "the" Medici borthers, I am voting for the HRE.

* The meaning the two I saw a history channel special on and can no longer remember the names of....

I couldn't find any info on how the pope helped in any assassination. Tell me, it's interesting.

It seems the Medici of Florence controlled the papal chair from 1410 till the HRE emperor conquered both Florence and Rome.

Well I only remember the vague details, two Medici brothers were ruling their city with an iron fist, another family wanted to throw them down. They got together with the Pope and a one eyed mercenary who was at one point aligned with the Medici. The Pope did not necessarily want the brothers killed, but he wanted them removed from power and was not too naive to see that it would likely come to violence. The mercenary captain was to be the family's muscle after the coup, but the coup failed. They knifed one of the brothers in the church they attended, but the other escaped with only a minor injury. He then killed the other family and displayed their bodies, after a clever bit of politics, saying freedom or something after assassination attempt to the masses, he gained public support and was back in full control. The mercenary captain never intervened because the coup failed. Oh, the other reason he was involved was he owed the Pope. This was all discovered from the mercs letters, they were heavily encrypted and he was known as one of the best encrypters of the time, but the code was cracked.

The Fad Diet doesn't work. But the Pope can magic your fat away.

I think the HRE=Roman Factions side has won. Barring some unforseen event work will progress forward in the direction of no pope and an Imperial Diet.

yeah seems that way but still a long way to go, so ne need to write this in stone. I do agree that from now on we have to think and work with the HRE=Senate disposition

Well, it seems we have finally gotten a decisive vote off quickly. Sweet. Yeah from now on SPQR=HRE.