Holy Roman Empire

[rspete]

In real life, the Holy Roman Empire was a disorganized group of City-States with the Emperor being a title-only position, with the Emperor only holding power within his own City-State. This is not so in Medieval, likely because of the difficulty associated with trying to simulate the disorganization of the German people. Do any of you think that the Germans should just be a group of neutral (or rebel) provinces, or would this deprive us of a challenging and entertaining faction to play?

[Alrowan]

thats very true... i think instead of trying to get rid of the faction, one could go through and drop the loyalty of a lot of thier provs

[Foreign Devil]

I agree that this may be inaccurate historically, but yeah, it works well for the game. Uh.... yeah, thats it.

[KukriKhan]

Yup rspete, the 'historically accurate vs gameplay' argument gets plenty of cussin' n discussin' in these parts.

I'm guessing that gameplay gets the nod over accuracy for several reasons:
1) marketing; can you imagine making HRE a non-playable faction, right in the middle of the continent? And the uproar that would cause in the click-and-smash crowd?
2) coding; say you pick English or French or Polish to play. Does the AI automatically try to unify HRE to present a viable opponent, or does it just dissolve into the duchies, principalities and dukedoms that characerized the so-called HRE?
3) modding; the game hasn't been out 90 days, yet our modding guys (g-d bless 'em and their dark arts) can let you play as any faction, at any capabilty you desire.

IMHO, no prob sending out a game (after consulting with history guys) that slightly tweaks nation's/empire's start positions in the interest of gameplay...knowing that the user community can and will re-tweak it.

[MacGregor]

They could just give you the central provinces of the HRE and make the rest rebel, then have a GA goal of uniting the German states in addition to taking Italy. The problem with that would be that your greedy neighbors would be trying to snatch up the rebel provinces first so you'd have to move quickly.

Long time reader, first time poster.

[einar]

Quote[/b] (rspete @ Dec. 03 2002,18:06)]In real life, the Holy Roman Empire was a disorganized group of City-States with the Emperor being a title-only position, with the Emperor only holding power within his own City-State. This is not so in Medieval, likely because of the difficulty associated with trying to simulate the disorganization of the German people. Do any of you think that the Germans should just be a group of neutral (or rebel) provinces, or would this deprive us of a challenging and entertaining faction to play?

You're right, but MTW isn't an historically accurate game. You can make a mod (i've made one of early period) with more accurate factions initial positions.

[KukriKhan]

Welcome MacGregor, good to finally see you

[Spetulhu]

It`s not like all the others were coherent 'nations' either...For example, England and France Those two were at war for well over a century over such provinces as Aquitaine, Brettony and Normandy. At one time it was so bad for the 'French' that the king didn`t actually rule anything farther than 150 miles from Paris - and everyone knew it.

Just think of it as a strong enough unifier managing to do his magic on the disparate provinces and leave it be.

[SmokWawelski]

I love the possibility of playing HRE, and kicking its butt as Poland. History is one thing, but let's remember, we are here to have fun