Archived: HRE-campaign in Redux v1004 (Hard)

[Stazi]

After carefully checking surrounding area and available units I decided to start slowly and build my economy. 1st two turns was great - 2x 1000fl gifts from pope. I'm certainly the chosen one. Then, I was gathering money, building farms and castles, arranging marriages for my heirs. Generally, 30 years of peace and prosperity. All other countries seemed to do the same (with a small exception of Portuguese and Almohads which really don't like each other).

After 30 years fleets of multiple countries started to grow rapidly. Now, 42 years after start of the campaign, Danes, Aragonese, Italians, Byzantines and Egyptians have their ships all around the known world. So, I decided to break my isolation and get access to the seas too. Frisia and Saxony were the first. The next will be Pomerania and Flanders. Both still independent. Flanders has very nice infrastructure but big castle and strong garrison too. I'd like to get the province as intact as possible so I'll probably send my emissary to show them that their duty under the imperial standard can be much more lucrative with plenty of prospects and opportunities.

Unfortunately, during last 20 years 2 of my emperors died so there are no legal heirs now. The new 22 year-old emperor is one of the youngest ruler I've ever seen. He is married with a very nice hot-blooded Spanish princess so I hope heirs will come soon. Long live the Emperor!

btw rebel fleets are non-existent and rebel armies are generally very passive. Some provinces has many troops but not use them at all. IMHO those big rebel garrisons stops main factions from going anywhere cause they need to keep their own garrisons (they don't even attack "free" provinces with no garrison at all.) It leads to stagnation. Obviously, it's my 1st game with 1004 so these are just my first impressions.