Quote Originally Posted by TeutonicKnight
Can the HRE win in a defensive mode? Playing the honorable, high-rep method, and simply teching up? Or do you absolutely have to go apeshit on your neighbors to stay afloat?
Yup, they shure can. I remember one game where I initially I blitzed all rebel settlements accessable from my provinces. Also took Corsica, Sardinia and Malta (BigMap-mod) through a crusade. Next Rhodes and a new crusade secured Jerusalem, Acre, Antioch, Aleppo and Damascus. All of this before my first king, Heinrich, was dead. Need I say his traits was maxed out?!
From here I just teched up and defended. At one point 6 cath-factions was x-ed for messing with me. I own the CoC and had a HRE pope since Gregory died (the first one). Eventually I winded up with the Danes, Sicily, Poland and Hungary as my vassals. Unfortunately I had to take out Milan and Venice but gifted their holdings to Sicily.
Later I fought off both the Mongols and the Timurids. When the game ended all of America and the New World was well educated in the german language.