Holy Roman Empire

[Antagonist]

I'll take a crack at this one from observations in my campaign:

Overview
The Holy Roman Empire (often abbreviated HRE), corresponding approximately with modern-day Germany, is one of the most complicated and strangest entities in Europe, having being everything from a confederation of petty princelings to among the most powerful nations on Earth during the course of it's history. As far as M2TW is concerned in 1080 it's a quite large but somewhat fragmentary faction smack-dab in the middle of Europe, surrounded by both enemies and opportunities.

Unit Roster
Fairly conventional during the Early and High eras, with knights, sergeants and crossbowmen in castles and militias in cities. Look out for the Teutonic Knights guild. The HRE comes into it's own late in the game, with a number of powerful unique untis including Gothic Knights (heaviest of the heavy cavalry) Zweihanders and Forlorn Hope (heavy infantry with greatswords) Landsnechts (excellent mercenaries including pikes, musketeers and swords) and Reiters (one of the few gunpowder cavalry units in the game) Their choice of artilliery and naval units is similar to that of other Northern European factions.

Starting Position
The Empire's central position has a number of ramifications: the player can expect to be attacked by several factions (at least) early in the game, but also has numerous options as to where to expand. To the west you have France and England - they seem more likely to get bogged down with each other initially, but will likely become a threat later on. To the North is Denmark, which has little choice but to attack you and almost certainly will. To the East are a number of independent settlements, such as Magdeburg, Prague and Zagreb. Beyond them lie the kingdoms of Poland and Hungary. The game recommends that you capture at least some of these settlements, although this will certainly bring you into conflict with both of these factions. To the South are the Italian factions - Venice, Milan, Sicily and the Papacy. The southermost Imperial settlement, Bologna, is surrounded by these factions.

Diplomacy
My own experience is basically don't bother: Your central position and Papal unpopularity (see below) make it very difficult to be everyone's friend. The best I have been able to acheive is to placate the factions on one particular fronteir (I chose the France and England) but otherwise expect to make a lot of enemies very quickly, especially on Hard difficulty and higher.

The Pope
The Holy Roman Empire has a complex and unique relationship with the Papacy. Most of the time this relationship is characterized principally by mutual hatred. You start out in very poor standing with the Pope and it is difficult to improve this. In particular, the game objectives make it virtually certain that you will go to war with the Papacy sooner or later (you must capture Rome with default victory conditions) It is possible that with numerous priests hunting down Heretics and Witches, prompt responses to Crusade appeals and generally pious behavour you could rescue this relationship and wait try and wait for someone else to capture Rome but this would be very difficult to say the least. Note also that warring against the Papacy will not do any service to your standing with the other Catholic factions, especially if you find yourself attack Crusading armies.

The Campaign
Unlike factions such as Denmark or England which have limited initial opportunities and clearly defined enemies, the Empire's position means that while you will likely be fighting people in every direction at some point. The main focus of your efforts will shift as time goes on, but will likely be different for each player and in each game. I personally chose to focus on Italy, but have had numerous problems with Denmark, Poland and Hungary as well. If you're looking at Italy it's an important priority to capture the northern cities of Genoa, Florence, Genoa, Milan and Venice. The latter two are factions and are unlikely to appreciate Imperial militarism. One particularly important issue with the HRE is the choice between castles and cities. Italy and the area east of the HRE has very few castle settlements, and it would be a good idea to convert some cities to castles both to establish a more effective frontier and to provide better troops for your armies.

Hopefully more people will add their impressions (particularly late game, I'm still around 1250) as each HRE campaign is likely to very different depending on where the player chooses to focus their strategy.

Antagonist