Help With Germany Control

[Samantha]

Okay, I am basically at a fix with commanding Germany. They remind me of the Oda in Shogun: Total War because they have such a large expanse of land and little in the way of means to progress. I haven't the faintest clue how to launch a successful assault in any direction, and I fear the disgruntlement of His Holiness The Pope.

[Bhruic]

You're right, getting censored by his Holiness can be a real blow to the Empire. And while it may look like you have nowhere to expand, the truth is that you simply have an overwhelming number of choices. In a lot of ways it comes down to how well various other factions are doing, but for me, my first strategy is usually a quick strike against the Danes. They start off weak, and with a rush, you can take them out of the game. When the Pope gets upset, make sure to assault the castle. You'll finish them off in less than the 2 years he gives you - problem solved. You then are free to expand to the north. As well, it gives you some excellent ports and the ability to field a navy.

From that point, I recommend watching who's doing what with the computer players. France and England are likely to be fighting - see who's losing, then help the computer take them out. Or, if you are feeling noble, help out the weaker one by attacking the winner. Very likely -one- of them will end up getting excommunicated, allowing you to attack them with full Popely blessing. Or, if that's not to your tastes, you can start fielding Crusades and attack the Holy Land. With some work, you can field a big enough navy that you can ferry in more troops.

Personally, I find the hardest part of playing the HRE to be the first 20 years. If I survive those, I find it only gets easier.

Bh

[Gregoshi]

Hi Samatha. Thanks for joining the Org.

The HRE is the only faction I can speak to on the SP campaign. Bhruic's advice is good. See what the other factions are doing and react to opportunity. Because of your central location, get as many alliances as you can. Along with Denmark, Sweden and Norway, to for the rebels in Pomerania and Prussia.

If you are playing Glorious Achievements, then begin to look south to Italy for the Roman Empire GA. Venice is another juicy incentive there. The draw back though is the close proximity of the Pope.

In general, keep the peace as long as possible and when war comes, try to restrict it to one front. In my HRE campaign, I'm constantly told I have the largest army, but it doesn't feel like it because they are spread out to the four corners of my empire. It is hard to get any significant troop concentrations and I've been begging some factions for peace but they won't listen to me anymore. Long periods of peace towards the beginning allow you to spend more florin on the provinces instead of the army. That in turn will yield better troops and more florin with which to buy them.

[Nobunaga0611]

Also, because you basically spread from the top to the bottom of Europe, see if you can establish ports in the northern seas, and the Mediterranean. Attack the Danes, and establish a port there. Also, get at least one province on the Mediterranean, and build sea routes all the way to the Black Sea. Once you do this you should start getting a large income with which to build your entire empire upon. Of course this will require some diplomacy, as you don't want to have a long drawn out war with another faction with ships, at least in the beginning.

[MadSoul]

If you attack against danes bribe castle first so the cannot retreat there a lot easyer .Make allianse whit english so you can take france lands.and make sure you got few emisaries ready to make peace if needed then go to spain and keep english happy kill them whit assassins.
And you can solve rest because this is sitsuation that im in. and its loking good.

[econ21]

Yes, HRE are the Oda. I agree with Gregoshi's advice - try to avoid a two front war. Wiping out a faction completely may help this - otherwise you start losing allies as wars break out. A couple of ploys to deal with the Pope: when you king is old (or the Pope is), then you might risk excommunication, as that will end when either dies. Also, if you do get into a two front war, when you are warned about attacking X, then you can attack Y with impunity. A little bit of a bug, but it's there if you want to exploit it.

[Naagi]

Stealing your thread a bit here sorry. My first real campaign as a Catholic faction playing English. So if your saying Im fighting the Italians, dont ask how I got to them first, and Pope warns me, I can then turn on say the French and he wont do anything?

Now the Germans will be down the road for me so this was a good learning post for me.

Naagi

[castle]

I always attack the french then the italians. I ignore the pope's warnings as you have to take on other nations at some point. The spanish may crusade against you so be ready to repel it. The pope will die during this time and you can head east with a clean slate.

[econ21]

Oh one more thing - to crusade, the AI needs a chapter house. These are quite hard to get early in the game so maybe you can risk excommunication very early. With HRE, the lack of loyalty means that there may be a risk of rebellion if you are not careful.

[sassbarman]

I agree with those suggesting laying low because its just a matter of time before the sh*t hits the fan playing as the HRE. In my first campaigne with them the french attacked me 5 years into the game, a year later the hungarians joined in the year after the italians followed by the danes. To my credit it wasn't until the pope excommed me and the subsequent 3000 man spanish crusade showed up at my door that I quit. I'm On my third go around with the HRE and I'm faring alot better having time early( about 70 years of peace) to build up my economy, defences and my allainces and oh ya making sure the whole time that I keep my lips firmly pressed against the popes holy arse. So my advise to you is again lay low, don't piss off the pope, and aggressively jump on your chances to expand without declaring war on a christian faction. On your western frontier make burgundy the anchore of your defence I believe 5 french provinces have access to this province and with each one the enemy will have to cross a bridge check it out To take advantage of this I built up my castle defences in anjou and the province south of burgundy I believe its pronvence or toulouse leaving a small castle in burgundy. Since the ai will generally follow the path of least resistence and attack the province with the weaker castle you can entice it to attack burgundy. Garrison 4-5 units of archers here with some spears to block the bridge and let the carnage begin. I've ended many a french invasion this way especially when their king leads the attack and my wall of arrows takes him out. To garrison those two flanking provinces use what ever calvary you can muster they are dead-pan flat. This strategy will free you to take your best troops and attack pommerania and prussia both of which when developed will yield alot of trade income. Aswell as the extra florins these provinces are the gateway to the orthodox provinces of the east again yielding tons of trade income and steppe calvary which are super fast units great for flanking. well I've gone on long enough, trust me you will end up loving the german campaigne. Good luck.

[Brutal DLX]

It depends a bit on whether you play GA or not. In GA, garrison your borders, take a risk and build infrastructure, it helps a lot, as Gregoshi said.
Of course, you can't afford to sit idle forever, because your influence will suffer. And that is especially bad for the HRE. Try to complete your glory goals by taking Pomerania and Prussia as soon as you can.
After that, you have to act according to the situation.
The Italian campaign should only be undertaken if there is turmoil in those provinces, also it is hard to arrange for the Pope to leave Rome and reside in the Papal states.
See to it that in the Franco-English War, neither side gets all those lands to the West, they will be too much trouble then. If you can't keep the balance there, try to take a piece of the cake, if England wins, take Ile de France, Champagne and Toulouse. If France is winning, invade Britain and try to take as many provinces as you can (sans Scotland).
After this phase you should be in a good position, as in GA the AI factions aren't that aggressive, perhaps you will forge a Catholic alliance against the Eastern powers such as Byzantium or Egypt. It should be smooth sailing from there.

In total conquest mode, there are indeed many options, if you feel like it, wipe out the Danes early, but I would let them be for trading reasons. Then basically you can decide whether you wish to do an Eastern campaign or a Western one. Again, I would advise you to do an Eastern campaign.
It is risky, but potentially rewarding. Ally with the Poles, they are usually very loyal and will attack you only if they have no other way to expand. your next aim should be to take Pomerania, Prussia, Lithuania and Kiev. Crusades will help, and don't be afraid to go to war with the people of Novgorod, if you have to. Once you have secured these lands, you have to assess the political situation. If the Poles now attack you, march in and eliminate them quickly.
Next should be the Hungarians, unless they fight the Byzantines/Egyptians/Turkish. One of these will probably have a big empire now, so that makes them your primary concern. Don't expand beyond Kiev, stop on this front and wait for the arrival of the Mongols in 1230. Focus on the Balkans and try to help anyone fighting the empire of Asia Minor. Take as many provinces in the Balkans as possible.

At the same time, watch for the West, keep the war between England and France going, the Italians are unlikely to attack you, they will trade and be more focussed on naval wars. Place agents in Iberia to see whether Spain or the Almohads are winning, if either of those conquers all of Spain, it is time to worry. See if you can lure France/England into a war with the Iberian power, that will buy you time. Never forget to upgrade your provinces, then you should be able to afford 3 main armies, one in the East, defending, one in the Balkans, defending/expanding, and one in the West, ready for anything
Yes, it sounds like war on all fronts, but you will most likely have the support of the Pope because of your war against the infidels. Of those 3 fronts, you have to focus on one of them and try to end the war there, perhaps if you can march into Constantinople you have a nice choke position to defend, which also happens to make good money.
You should have achieved this by the time the Mongols arrive. They will usually attack the owners of the most eastward provinces, and that will not be you, ally with them and let them fight the Byz/Egyptians/Turks for you while you focus on another matter:
If you are in that position, then try to conquer Iberia and Western Europe, the order depends on who's your ally there and who's not. After that, you are in a splendid position and should rest for some decades, to cultivate the land and increase the loyalty of the population.
Once that is done, you can go on conquering the rest of the world.

[Jxrc]

I have played many games as the HRE the way to act greatly depends on what the other factions will do.

The best thing that can happen is to manage to conclude alliance with nearly everybody so that you can focus on building your empire. Taking Pomerania in the first turn is ok with the Vikings based in Saxony but there a chance it will rebel the following year. The risk gets down to about 6% if taxes are very low, you have a governor with reasonable dread and bring troops from another province (build a spearmen unit in Burgundy, move it to Lorraine, move one unit from Lorraine to Friesland, Saxony etc so that you get one hundred additional men in Pomerania).

War with the French is not too bad since they are usually not allied with anybody. Since your alliance remain, you can concentrate your troops in the west.

War with Poland, Hungary, Italy or Denmark is more tricky since it triggers a cancellation in chain of alliances and, thus, the risk of a war on all fronts. In that case, my tactic is to stop any building construction and raise armies of spearmen. Even though they are not very good units they, at least, hold their ground against peasants, archer and light cavalry. Since you are unlikely to face anything else you should do ok unless a loyalist revolt takes place.

Hope it helps

[Obex]

I just completed a sp campaign with the HRE, and I confess that it was a little rocky at first. I always seem to have multiple enemies, which is a bit tough in early HRE. Defending is easier than attacking, however, so you should be able to weather the opposition if you have a good income to support your troop production.

Taking Denmark early was nice. This gave me some room to expand while awaiting a weakness in my other neighbors. Italy will generally attack the papacy, which leads to a wonderful excuse to take their land in southern europe.

The warned against X, so attack Y plan works for me quite well.

[youandwhosarmy]

My strategy with HRE is to sit back and wait, building up facilities in my provinces and making the peasants happy. An early attack against the Danes is a good option, and for me the only one, but imho it should only be made before a lot of major alliances have been made. It can be devastaring to launch an attack thus destroying some good alliances and having old allies suddenly attack you

Keeping you population happy is essential for long term survival. There's nothing better than loyalty, having someone attack and siege a province and having the population rise up (often with really great troops&#33 bolstering your defence.

The ability to defend provinces with decent units is also a plus, something you can only achieve with technological advancement. Armies cost money, and unless a war is essential and guaranteed of success, hang back.

HRE is hold to control as initial territory is vast. Sure this brings in a lot of income, but these provinces have to be defended. If you can, it's always a good idea to have a few spies around, warning of imminent invasion plans by neighbours so you can prepare.

HRE has the potential to become powerful and rich very quickly, even without expansion, and its quite fun to watch your neighbours take each other out while you wait for an opportunity to strike at a depleted neighbours army.