HRE

[Cheetah]

EARLY
The Empire is one of the least stable of the factions. It starts out with many low-loyalty generals spread over many provinces that are in contact with a half-dozen rival factions.

My first recommendation would be to simply forget the early era Crusader goals. The Empire is not stable enough to survive a failed Crusade, and you cannot spare enough good troops from Europe to make sure the Crusades succeed.

I like early blitz openings, but even I advocate a build-up approach with the HRE. Build that farm economy and some defenses. The good steward and builder virtues will increase loyalty and happiness, greatly improving stability. I would also highly recommend managing your own taxes and keeping them low to further increase loyalty.

Players that are more adventurous prefer to blitz the Italians, taking all their continental provinces. Then they attack the Pope when they can bear the excommunication, take Rome and Naples and reduced Papal armies to a small remnant cornered in the Papal States. That satisfied the “Holy Roman Empire” goal.

You start with one province -- Bohemia -- that can produce Slav Warriors from the start and can produce Slav javelins once you add a spear maker. These are excellent units for the price. The rebel province of Pomerania can be overrun, and they can produce the same units. Peasants from Provence get a valor bonus.

Exploit rebellions and civil wars. Especially look for any chance to take over Denmark. Rebellion, inheritance and even a quick blitz attack if you can pull it off without excommunication are all options.
Denmark is particularly important for two reasons. It can produce Viking huscarls in the early era. These superb units can be the key to successfully defending the whole empire. Second, Denmark is the land bridge to Sweden. A HRE player who takes Denmark and Sweden relatively early is a happy HRE player.

The Danes produce many heirs, for some reason. Expect their army to have many Royal Knights if you do not attack them early. This is one of the reasons I like Slav javelins. Javelins are great for taking out knights, which would normally slaughter low-tech infantry. They do take some skill and practice to use, however.

If you do not know the details on how excommunication works and how to avoid it, learn. The most important point is that you only get one warning at a time. For instance, suppose that at some point in the game you attack the Polish and get a warning. You go on the defensive with the Poles and attack the Hungarians. You are now free to keep attacking the Hungarians.

Keep track of the year when you get a warning. After the Pope's time limit is up, you can attack the Poles again, in this example.


EDITED: To include the summery compiled by Doug-Thompson.

[Cheetah]

high

[Cheetah]

late

[Doug-Thompson]

EARLY

Writing a guide for the Holy Roman Empire is more difficult than for most factions. The empire is spread out among many different provinces. It borders a half-dozen factions in the opening. Crusades also loom large in the empire's glorious achievement goals, providing a source of conflict with still more factions.

The empire is one of the least stable of the factions, since it starts out with many low-loyalty generals spread over many provinces. You can have a large garrison in one province, for instance, but not be able to automatically move it to another province if you need to. The province that needs the troops might be halfway across Europe.

Other players have far more experience with the HRE. I figured I'd get the discussion going.

My first recommendation would be to simply forget the early era Crusader goals. You're empire isn't stable enough to survive a failed Crusade, and you can't spare enough good troops from Europe to make sure the Crusades succeed.

I like early blitz openings, but even I advocate a build-up approach with the HRE. Build that economy and some defenses. The good steward and builder virtues will increase loyalty and happiness, greatly improving stability. I'd also highly recommend managing your own taxes and keeping them low to further increase loyalty.

You start with one province -- Bohemia -- that can produce Slav Warriors from the start and can produce Slav Javelinmen once you add a spearmaker. These are excellent units for the price, in my opinion; Much better than peasants, vanilla spears or archers. Also, the rebel province of Pomerania can be overrun, and they can produce the same units. I'm biased in favor of javelin units, in part because I had to practice with them a lot before learning how to use them. However, once mastered, they are deadly to armored units and a better value than vanilla archers.

Peasants from Provence get a valor bonus, and should also be considered.

Exploit rebellions and civil wars. Especially look for any chance to take over Denmark. Rebellion, inheritance and even a quick attack if you can pull it off without excommunication are all options.

Denmark is particularly important for two reasons. It can produce Viking huscarls in the early era, which are superb units that can be the key to successfully defending the whole empire. Second, Denmark is the land bridge to Sweden. A HRE player who takes Denmark and Sweden relatively early is a happy HRE player.

The Danes produce a lot of heirs, for some reason. So expect their army to have a lot of Royal Knights. This is one of the reasons I like the Slav Warrior/Slav Jav combo. Javelins are great for taking out knights, which would normally slaughter low-tech infantry. At least Slav Warriors are armed with spears, though, with make them better for attacking the Danes than peasants, for instance. Slav warriors are also better fighters than regular spears.

If you don't know the details on how excommunication works and how to avoid it, learn. The most important point is that you only get one warning at a time. For instance, suppose that at some point in the game you attack the Polish and get a warning. You go on the defensive with the Poles and attack the Hungarians. You are now free to keep attacking the Hungarians.

Keep track of the year when you get a warning. After the Pope's time limit is up, you can attack the Poles again, in this example.

Good luck.

[katank]

I suggest a quick blitz of the Italians.

Wipe them off the continent and you might even get a ransom to help your cash poor state.

carry the momentum onto taking Rome and Naples before the Sicilians get it.

Then beat the Popesta into a castle in Papal States when that come on line and then starve him until last possible year and move out.

this would leave him a depleted BG and possibly scraps of UM units that mean he isn't a threat.

he will also be neutral.

this nicely satisfies the HRE goal.

you will be excommed for attacking the Papacy but your Emperor would die soon and you can satisfy your crusade goals.

taking italian states and particularly venice this early means good naval prescence in the Med which makes Crusades easy.

now be sure to build tower and borderforts in all your provinces on the first turn as this will help with the loyalty greatly.

Taking out the Danes is preferably done early once you are secure down south.

wait too long and they will have a huge pile of RKs.

note: ally with English and defend yourself well against the French who will inevitably have designs upon Lorraine.

use UM in the forests to kill them.

be defensive in the West.

after Italians, and Danes, go for the 2 P's.

knock out Poland if you so desire.

If taking on Hungarians, take Hungary first to force the king to one side and ransom him.

this is another boost to your economy.

farm like mad or you will be broke all the time.

don't develop military and only use spears/archers/UM/slav troops.

regularly check govs and don't be satisfied with below 4 or 5 acumen.

[Chimpyang]

Royal Knights are killable, just gotta send lots of troops to swamp them anduse javalins to get them. Once they start running use and cav to chase and dont let them regroup.

[katank]

yep, sniping from long range with archers.

once their ranks are sufficiently thinned, let them get impaled upon your nice deep spear wall where upon swords flank, javs hit from the rear and they are gone.

even better is naptha when you have access to those.

in one magic poof and those annoying RKs are gone, often their king and heirs too.

[Brutal DLX]

Before this is digressing further, I want to note that how you are going to play the HRE depends not only on your personal taste but also on the game mode. In order to win in total domination mode it's necessary to expand, and the best option would be to eliminate the Danes first and early in the game before they amass too many vikings and royal heirs. If you mass a big army composed of basic spears and peasants along with some archers and headed by your king, you may not even have to fight that battle as the Danes might retreat to their castle. However, if you do, make sure you bring more archers as it will likely be a bridge battle.
Make sure to attack the castle right in the next turn to eliminate the faction and then take Sweden. Norway is not necessary at this moment, it might prove too rebellious to control with a small garrison. Save it for later.
By this time, let's say after about 20 or 30 turns, you should look where to strike next. If no opportunity arises, lay low and build up your farmlands and tech up some provinces so you can produce Mtd. Sarges, MAA and MS at least, these will likely give you an edge against other early armies. If France and England started warring, it may be possible to move into Toulouse, Ile de France and Flanders, but be aware of the chance that the victorious faction (either England or France) might attack you next after they finished off their adversary. You could also attack Italy while France and England are busy, this can lead to a great increase in income, but bears potential risks of drawing the Sicilians, Hungarians or even the Byzantines to attack your new Italian provinces. I would advise against an early attack on Poland because this will neither give you a much better position to defend nor a noticable increase in income. Save them for later, once you have either consolidated Western Europe or Italy. After all of this is done, you should have significantly more influence and income, and the rest of the game can be played according to your personal designs.

However, if you are playing a GA game, it is possible to act defensively right from the start, perhaps conquering Pomerania as the only province. However this requires micromanaging your troop production with regard to their loyalty, priority of building all early happiness increasing buildings in all provinces and a central army, stationed in Franconia perhaps, that can quickly intercept any hostile incursion. Of course you should not neglect garrisons in your border provinces, but only Burgundy and Saxony should have a larger force than usual. In order to do this and still make a surplus, it's vital to upgrade your farmlands too, and thus you'll be able to increase your amount of troops proportionally. I also agree with another poster that early crusades are usually a hopeless effort, unless the Eastern factions have fallen into anarchy. Another opportunity may arise when other Catholic factions start crusades simultaneously, then it could be a smart move to tag along and conquer one GA province. However, it will be hard to hold that one and may exceed your financial resources at that time. But it is possible..It's your call...
Anyway, playing defensively of course doesn't mean neglecting one's GA goals, and since Italy is a GA goal while Denmark is not, I'd try to look South in my plans of conquest rather than North. However, this conquest has a larger window of opportunity, thus you can work on upgrading your provinces and perhaps start to get a North sea trade network going all the while waiting for a favourable situation to occur. Don't overexpand your shipping link early, only do so if you have a sizeable reserve in your treasury, at first I would suggest a link from the Balticum to the Spanish North coast (coasta verde) or till Portugal.
While this defensive strategy may be risky, it is also more challenging and more in the spirit of the game mode, as one should try to win by not rushing early but by surviving and prospering through development of one's homelands and the pursuit of the GA goals, thus, it may be more suited for the veteran MTW player.
However, if you are going to play that way with the HRE, make sure you keep a good watch on your ruler's influence and on the loyalty of his troops. Every battle will be important and you cannot afford to lose more than two provinces at the same time, so make sure your armies are positioned in a way to prevent this. And while you may retreat to a castle in one turn, never overuse this ability, and be quick in relieving the siege with your main army(s). Every battle counts.. and this holds true twice for the HRE.

[katank]

blitzing Italy and winning as well as Danish is usually enough to get his influence high enough for you to not need to worry about it that much any more.

[Kristaps]

EARLY

If one is so inclined to blitz and to take Danes, I'd suggest to do it in the first year of EARLY. Just move the initial garrison with the viking units and archers from Saxony into Denmark. Cleverly managed this should be more than enough to overrun the king, vikings and spears which are located there at the time. The tricky part is to keep Denmark from rebelling so you don't get a Danish reemergence: a high dread governor should help.

In the same blitz, I'd suggest moving the two units from Bourgoundy into Milan: Italians will retreat. Better still, wait a turn until you can have most of your initial units in Austria and move simultaneously into Milan and Venice.

I pulled it off myself the other day. First year: eliminated the Danes, second year: Stormed Kopenhagen (now, a rebel fort), attacked Milan (Italians retreated), Venice (Italians retreated, abandoning the keep with a shipyard...). Third year: attacked Genoa (used the troops from Milan which doesn't have a fort at the beginning) and Tuscany (the troops from Venice). Fourth year: storm the forts in Genoa and Tuscany. Voila - Italians and Danes are done for and the pope didn't even whisper a word... Also, due to his majesty's success in Italy, the Danish got happier and more loyal for some reason ;)

As a bonus: you get +1 valor militia in Tuscany :)

While my emperor was busy mincing the Italians, his emissaries established alliances with the Poles and the Hungarians. The French refused an audience to the german duke sent to offer friendship and thus sealed their fate. But that's another story ;)

[garion]

After the rush consolidate you're empire and hope for wor between the english and the french. This will take the tention of your western borders and you can now focus on poland (this will also be a good step in the direction of a later goal to be achieved). The polish and the rebels can be resilient, and the polish must be conquered ASAP, because you run the risk of being excomd. Try to leave volhynia, because it's almost a natural border. If you take it, rebels, mongols, russians and byzantines caninvade your Reich much easier, so whatch for that..

[katank]

why not Volhynia?

that combined with Hungary and Serbia forms a very nice border.

Volhynia has always been a nice buffer for me protecting the rich lands of Poland which is now integrated into the Reich.

Frag Nacht Osten is certainly simpler with the Polish out esp. the Livonian GA.

I do something similar to Doug on Germans.

It's always nice as Huns or HRE to rush Venice ASAP for a free keep and shipyard which they invariably abandon or else their king would starve to death in there.

[Doug-Thompson]

EARLY
The Empire is one of the least stable of the factions. It starts out with many low-loyalty generals spread over many provinces that are in contact with a half-dozen rival factions.

My first recommendation would be to simply forget the early era Crusader goals. The Empire is not stable enough to survive a failed Crusade, and you cannot spare enough good troops from Europe to make sure the Crusades succeed.

I like early blitz openings, but even I advocate a build-up approach with the HRE. Build that farm economy and some defenses. The good steward and builder virtues will increase loyalty and happiness, greatly improving stability. I would also highly recommend managing your own taxes and keeping them low to further increase loyalty.

Players that are more adventurous prefer to blitz the Italians, taking all their continental provinces. Then they attack the Pope when they can bear the excommunication, take Rome and Naples and reduced Papal armies to a small remnant cornered in the Papal States. That satisfied the “Holy Roman Empire” goal.

You start with one province -- Bohemia -- that can produce Slav Warriors from the start and can produce Slav javelins once you add a spear maker. These are excellent units for the price. The rebel province of Pomerania can be overrun, and they can produce the same units. Peasants from Provence get a valor bonus.

Exploit rebellions and civil wars. Especially look for any chance to take over Denmark. Rebellion, inheritance and even a quick blitz attack if you can pull it off without excommunication are all options.
Denmark is particularly important for two reasons. It can produce Viking huscarls in the early era. These superb units can be the key to successfully defending the whole empire. Second, Denmark is the land bridge to Sweden. A HRE player who takes Denmark and Sweden relatively early is a happy HRE player.

The Danes produce many heirs, for some reason. Expect their army to have many Royal Knights if you do not attack them early. This is one of the reasons I like Slav javelins. Javelins are great for taking out knights, which would normally slaughter low-tech infantry. They do take some skill and practice to use, however.

If you do not know the details on how excommunication works and how to avoid it, learn. The most important point is that you only get one warning at a time. For instance, suppose that at some point in the game you attack the Polish and get a warning. You go on the defensive with the Poles and attack the Hungarians. You are now free to keep attacking the Hungarians.

Keep track of the year when you get a warning. After the Pope's time limit is up, you can attack the Poles again, in this example.

[ah_dut]

great guide Doug but it's a bit risky to do a lot of your other strats mentioned in other threads

[katank]

I personally prefer a blitz opening.

I prefer to blitz Danes and Italians simultaneously on the first turn.

Hit Venice with everything you got and the Italians should retreat, leaving you an intact keep.

The Danes are trickier as you require some maneuvering to kill the Danes.

you can use forests and lure the Danish king there where he would be destroyed by your vikings and spearmen.

the rest should be destroyed in short order too.

move all other units south.

next turn, hit Tuscany and with king and Genoa.

Tuscany is piece of cake while Genoa is a tricky battle if the king is there.

storm denmark keep as I doubt you could have caught all the routers without cav.

at the end of the second turn, you should have an intact keep in Denmark, Venice stabilized and cpable of producing ships but instead build towards some feudal sarges or FMAA first.

Genoa and Tuscany should also be yours.

next turn, hit Milan and collect ample ransom for Italian doge.

the Italians are thus crippled due to only having two islands that are rather poor and having dished out 8k at the min.

similarly, you have more cash which is always good for your cash strapped empire, shipyard this early to help you become a sea power, and rich lands with trade in Italy.

similarly, Genoa provides sailors and are better than vanilla archers as well as costing less upkeep which makes them cheaper in the long run.

You should ideally also have Denmark with an intact keep for early sea power in the north as well as access to the rest of the kalmar union which is mucho trade and huscarles.

I like to either take a breather or be a bad boy and attack the popesta in Rome.

careful maneuvering coudl get you a perfectly intact castle if you manage to capture all the routers.

then attack Papal states and siege the sucker until almost dead.

move out and sack Naples if the Byz still have it to comeplete HRE goal.

I recommend against hitting Sicily although you could.

If you do, it's a nice rich province and a welcome addition but you'll likely not get a ceasefire with Italians or Sicilians and having random landings along your sizeable shoreline isn't good.

if you attack them, you can cripple further production to ensure naval dominance and playing your cards right can yield a third intact keep with a shipyard to boot

to achieve this rush, you must be a good tactician capable of using spear/archers/UM that come from Burgundy, switzerland, and swabia yearly.

know their limits and use them well will yield amazing results.

know their limits especially morale as they are all 0 morale.

if attacking pope, do so while your first emperor is alive as the excomm is immediate upon waring with his holiness.

if you get excommed with second, you'll not have crusades.

this is important as you need crusades early or Eggy will often become too strong to fight easily.

good luck

[econ21]

Not sure I agree that Crusades are a hopeless GA achievement. I find a turtling GA HRE game about my favorite MTW campaign. What I do is asap take Pomerania, then devote that, Saxony, Freisland and Provence to ship-building. This gets priority over any other builds in peacetime (and usually war). This way, you will fairly soon get a pan-European trade network that will pay-off in a large way economically, as well as being the fast track for your Crusades. I do the same thing for England and see no reason why HRE should be any slower. Of course, there will be more demands on your armies for defence but you should be able to spare one strong army, especially with all that trade income.

Of course the hard part is surviving until your ships reach Palestine but I am not convinced that going for a crusade makes this any harder (I guess it precludes an early rush, but I find them boring). If anything, the trade income from your ships will make it easier.

[katank]

Simon, blitzing Italy for the HRE goal can help with ships.

if you attacking into Venice first turn, you can capture the keep with shipyard intact which means ships to the Holy Land extremely fast.

Milan and Tuscany are HRE goal provinces and Genoa produces sailors which are better and cheaper (support) than vanilla archers.

I see no reason to not kick the Itakians off the continent. Then turtle if you like.

[killmslow]

Can someone please give me some hints on how to start with the HRE on hard difficulty starting in the high period? Or does the tips you've all been giving for HRE early period apply to high period? I can't seem to get my economy off the ground before one or two factions start conquering everything. I've done two campaigns on hard with HRE and I got smoked both times. I'm bound and determined to win with HRE in high period. Any help would be appreciatted.

[ah_dut]

welcome to the sweet crap on a stick faction. u need to turtle a while annd spin out militia in the forests, then blitz later. it's really hard unlike what the rating says

[katank]

As High HRE, blitzing the Italians right away is not much of an option any more as their starting troops are better.

Heavy use of mercs might allow you to do quite some damage to many factions and tip the balance.

Warring on the French might be a good option as taking all of their continental possessions will get their king ransomed off to Outremer and help with your econ athough that would result in the Brits having nohwere to expand to except into you and bring their formidable longbows and billmen into play.

Turtle more in High unless you can knock out the French or the Italians using mercs and some starting troops. Use you great farming and huge number of provinces to overwhelm the enemy through mass of your armies as you can outproduce all.

[Mightypeon]

HRE, the eastern approach:

well, there is a general consensus that killing Italy is the first bojective for any HRE player.
However, there is another possbility: Poland and Hungary.
Poland only has 2 provinces, neither one is too developed, and especially in High defeating them is quite easy.
In general, dismoutning your King gets you 20 Chiv foots knights.
Put them in a wood, protect them from ugly Woodmen (yes, you Chivs will slauighter them but they will take losses.) And let your King duke it out with their cav.
You King will valour up quickly and will propably get some decent virtues out of it.
I found out that he almsot always gets valour if he personally kills the enemy King (Polish Kings arent Jedis) in addition there is a good chance to get "brave" or mighty warrior traits. This chances are lesser for heirs, but you will usually get somehting out of it.
Poland is an easier target than Hungary for several reasons:
A: It does get you borders with Lithunia, Which is a nice thing because the Russians will leave you alone.
B: Mucho Slav troops.
C: Poland does not have dozens of Szeleky
D: There is one empire that can face the HRE in a 1on1, this is Byz in early, you do not want a border with Byzantium.
E.If you make your grab timely you could get Avar nobles.

Hungary also poses a valuable target.
Your army should be composed of Spears Bows and some Knights.
Use the Spear bow combo to shoot the Hungi Horses, The Hungarian infantry is usually composed aof a Gazzilion Jobbagy and does nto tend to be a threat.
The good thing about Hungary is: You have to be quite stupid if you do not get a ransom.
In addition, acces to the black see and the adriatic is ncie to have for crusades.
The bad thing is: You could well end up at the mercy of the Byz.
The Byz tend to be peacefull if oyu have a big army (quilty does not count to much) , but it is still a risk.

[katank]

but Italy is GA for you and Venice is free shipyard with adriatic access and also a cash cow.

ransoming their doge off the continent also nets you a nice ransom.

you can go all the way to Sicily without much trouble and don't have to fear Italian light later which are so hard to kill in early.

[Mightypeon]

Well, in my experience always blitzing Italy gets boring.
Apart from that I minly play HRE do have a challenge.
One thing I noticed is that, apart from the start, HRE usually cannot choose its wars, in one game, I have just beaten Hungaria and Italy, however this caused the Spanish king to attack Friesland with roughly 2000 good troops, Oh, 6000 eggys got over to Croatia for a talk too.
I was just like: "Yeehaw! Now I can build up and get trade!" before this happened.
Well, the Eggy horde was a boon to my economy, the Spanish guys were really pesky because I only had some deterance forces in the area.

Another points is: The wars you start as HRE have to be short.
The wars others started on you will be quite long anyway.
Therefore, "little" states like Poland (2 provinces) Denemark (1-2)
or Hungary (about 3-4) are a nice goal which can be reached quickly.
In addition, the Huns/Bulg Danes cant constantly pirate you form some stupid island.

[Mightypeon]

Oh, a Question by myself, did anyone ever manage to oversome the heavy unit disadvantadge the HRE has in medmod?
Well, you get a Gazzilion times more money than the rest(who also gets much more money), but Heerbans cant exactly kill the Italian uberblokes.
The most reliable way I got it done was massing mtd. X-bows/Knechte and playing HRE like the Golden horde...
Swabian Swords tend to loose to equal Pavisiers if both are in the woods, which just constantly freaks me out.
So what to do with the med mod Italian Juggernauts?

My Heerbans get beaten even if I attack one group of Pavieisers from 3 sides.
My Peasants do better, I send them in from the rear and let them rout immeidatley, the Italian überguys pursue them of the field which gives me som time to deal with the rest.
Another pesky thing are their strange archers, who happen to eat my Spearmans for launch.

[katank]

medmod italians can be won by a child.

just pick and click on the little green dudes. they are also apparently capable of pretel formation which means they can contort their units into strange shapes and then can resist being hammered from all sides without even losing rank bonus.

playing like the horde is best way.

herrban are junk. mod their morale higher if you want more mileage out of em.

knechte and swabians are all you can depend on in melee but try and killt he italians using missiles as all units are jedi.

[Mightypeon]

Well, I have to confess that slightly pumped Heerbans from Fanconia can be quite handy, I threat Heerban as Urban Militia with shields, in this role they are ok. However, agasint the Italinas they can beat their archers most of the times and their Contadina infantry some times, but apart from that...
However they do not solve the problem that Medmod HRE has no advanced Spears (this means Feudal sarges) nor men at arms (excluding Swabians which can only be built in Swabia and require a long buildup). Nor X-bows or Archer mellee hybrids....
Oh, that countrys like Silesia are not HRE homelands is a really good joke....

To the subject of medmod, did you try other mods such as BkBs? I would be interested in how they work etc.

[katank]

I think I tried a BKB game but it crashed for me and I never got a chance to get into it.

NTW is pretty good but the arty is waaay too OP. massed arty can even slaughter cav disproportinately.

medmod heerban are supposed to be the m@a but they need some serious beefing up.

I think in later periods you get saxon m@a and teutonic spears which are good.

[Mightypeon]

Saxon men at arms and Teutonic Spears are ordinary, which is a huge boost from utterly crappy, but no real match for Italian or Byzantine troops (statwise medmod Byz troops(vesteritare) are Swordsmen, who happen to carry spears and large shields and come in groups of 100).

Late medmod HRE is only difficult because you are in 3 wars before turn 4, Usually Poles in turn 1, Huns/Italians shortly thereafter.
The horde usually sacks Prussia but ceases top fight you after it.
Add Swiss and Burgundy before turn 10, Danes and France tend to be docile though.

[katank]

true.

crap units and multifront wars with delicate must win situations (otherwise civil war) make HRE pretty hard in medmod.

try and blitz before you are hit usually is good policy.

[henoch]

a.) build churches, get the pope`s "1000" florins moneybucket
b.) go on crusade..no not the holy lands
1.pommeria, 2.prussia
c.) lose these provinces to rebels (they will hand them over to polish)
if not..back to b.)
d.) after the horde appeared in 1227 they will march there, or stay polish. anyway, the polish have silesia (GA-goal) so "spreading" their forces is vital to a later war.

just make sure you get a "fine" crusade core. this changes from year to year, no matter where you start it.(bohemia is good)

along with teutonic sergeants (fine not best sergeants imo) you will now have swordbrothers: teutonic knights

until late these guys rule in german terrain, beside crusaders get perfect stats to become *gorgiousesly* generals..