Do HRE die early in your campaign?

[Jace11]

I have been playing a few campaigns and quite often one of the first factions to be destroyed is th Holy Roman Empire.

Have other people noticed this too? And is it historically accurate - were they weak etc.

Usually Milan, Denmark and Poland seem to go straight for them..

Just an observation, but I was thinking about strengthening their units and finances etc in the desc_strat file so that they stick around longer..

[madchoochter]

Usually Portugal (or Scotland if I'm in a bad mood) go first for me as English. Spain just seems to kick their ass, even with an alliance with the Moors.

[Dutch_guy]

I have been playing a few campaigns and quite often one of the first factions to be destroyed is th Holy Roman Empire.

Have other people noticed this too? And is it historically accurate - were they weak etc.

Usually Milan, Denmark and Poland seem to go straight for them..

Just an observation, but I was thinking about strengthening their units and finances etc in the desc_strat file so that they stick around longer..

They're still alive and kicking in my 200 + turns game, albeit, they have a mere two provinces.

[katank]

They usually get smashed pretty badly by the Danes and often the Poles and Venetians join in.

Whenever I play as a Catholic faction, the HRE usually commits suicide by attacking me.

[Quillan]

Their position has them bordering the Danes, Polish, Hungarians, Venetians, Milanese and French. As a result, they usually end up in a war with any or all of these at the same time, and can't handle it. However, in my current Venetian campaign, I allied with the HRE to secure a border, have made efforts to maintain the relationship at a high level, and have deliberately maintained an extremely good reputation. This seems to be rubbing off, as AI factions are approaching me wanting alliances and some of the HREs natural neighboring enemies have allied with them after allying with me. It's only 40-45 turns into this game, but right now the Holy Roman Empire has only lost Bologna, and that's because I bought it from them on the first turn of the game. They have taken Metz and Bern, and possibly Stauffen (I don't recall if they start with that or not); they are at peace with all factions currently.

[Raxxius]

the HRE became a vassal of Milan in my last campaign after about 20 turns and were wiped out in 40

[zulukiller]

The HRE & Russia are always the first one to go in my campaign (that i didnt wipe out). As everyone has said time & time again the HRE are just in a bad posistion but TBH i think the Russians must be just totaly crap. I have litteraly moded the game and gave myself the max amount of money possible and then gave it all except for 10K to Russia for alliance. Now in that game they managed to last for 100 turns and expand to a [sarcassm] massive 10 provinces [/sarcassm]. Then to total get themselfs wiped out by the venetians of all people before the mongals even turned up. Now not counting scotland (because i always wipe them out right at the begining) Russia has to be the most worthless faction in the game to always be anhilated even when they had max possible money.

[IPoseTheQuestionYouReturnTheAnswer]

HRE was the first to go in my campaign. They still managed to survive for about 120 turns, but they finally got killed off when they were invaded from every direction. Portugal was eliminated soon after.

[Dan.o6]

They seem to survive a fairly long time in my campaigns, but most of the time they are crippled and have only a few provinces.

[Cranky Hobbit]

In my last game, the HRE got anhilated in europe, but survived in north africa due to an earlier crusade. Towards the end of the campaign, they had actually conquered the moors and spread into the middle east. It was a rather bizzare game.


One thing I have noticed so far is that the sucessful factions often vary somewhat from game to game. I find this a very welcome change from Rome and the original medieval where the exact same result occured 99% of the time: in Rome for example, the Egyptians always ended up conquering the eastern half of the map when I was playing a Roman faction.

[CaesarAugustus]

The HRE in my Venetian Campaign is doing quite well in all of its wars (conquering most of France and even taking Rome from me, briefly). it is my biggest competitor right now (I'm still fairly early in the game though 1200-something). In my Milanese campaign, however, its it getting totally torn apart by the other European factions (me included )

As for your other question, no the HRE being weak is not historically correct. They were probably the greatest power in Europe at their high points, and historically lasted nearly 1000 years (800 to 17-something, I believe.)

[ZachPruckowski]

I have the opposite problem: They hang around, but once they pick a fight with you, they won't accept peace. No matter what I offer them in two campaigns (English and Milan), once they've started the fight, even when I have the upper hand. I offer them pretty much anything, but they freaking won't take peace.

[spmetla]

I find that they and the French always get smashed early on. The large amount of rebels lets their neighbors expand quicker and then the cash problems and extended borders of an essentially landlocked power hurt them.

That's why I've changed my desc_strat file a bit to make the rebels, France and HRE actual powers. As I have it they are definate power houses but the the borders and numbers of enemies limits what success they have, at least so they wouldn't be wiped out each time they're excommunicated.

[Zanderpants]

I've played 4 campaigns now, and the HRE always gets the crap kicked out of them, but they don't get destroyed. They always end up with one or two provinces and become someone's vassal. As for the Scots always getting wiped out, I have no idea what you guys are talking about. In all of my campaigns, the Scots just mopped with the floor with the English.

[IPoseTheQuestionYouReturnTheAnswer]

That's interesting, The scots got killed pretty quickly by the English in my campaign. Then the English got pushed off the continent by the Moors, who control all of western Europe.

[Decker]

In almost all of my campaigns the Spanish, Danes,Poles, and the HRE have the most territory. I find that the Danes become rather dominant and usually come to blows with the English with the HRE and their southernly neighbores make each other eat as much dirt as possible before calling a ceasefire and returning to the upside of the Pope-o-meter. The first factions to go usually are the Portugese and the French.
And in the Med areas, it fluctuates depending on the success of the crusades and jihads.

[dopp]

I find that the factions who successfully conquer a Crusade or Jihad target usually end up losing everything back home. I had just finished conquering Egypt as Spain, only to discover the rest of the Middle East was Venetian Red and a their 6-8 province empire back in Italy had revolted and become Hungarian. But the elephants showed up soon after and stomped them into extinction.

[PseRamesses]

In most my games HRE crumbles and is totally unable to uphold a strong central european presence as Milan always move in on France with ease. IMO Milan and maybee the Danes are a bit overpowered. The Italian spears are strong and with genoese x-bows decent def.stats Milan is atleat 1 or 2 upgrades ahead of all othe non-Italian states. France might hold on better but that huge blank area in central France, where there should have been atleast 2 more cities means that once Milan get Bern and maybee Dijon she can strike at any French city from there. The danes should have been awarded more potential reb-settlements to conquer in Scandinavia and HRE should start with more settlements and/ or a stronger startup. Nothing that can´t be modded later.

[CaptainSolo]

I have noticed that they have struggled in my games too,usually at the hands of the Danes.I restarted a game once as they were destroyed pretty early.Checking the diplomacy screen regularly they always seem to be at war with everyone.
I have also restarted a game when the French were down to one province,just didnt seem right to me,they are one of the factions i really like to have in my game.

[FactionHeir]

HRE usually lives fairly long in my games until I pick on them. Usually its the Poles which get eliminated fairly early and Venice usually ends up as someone's vassal.
Guess it depends.

[Sarmatian]

The HRE dies early in my campaigns, too. I think it has something to do with overpowered Danes. They usually end up being pretty strong. They can be only attacked by HRE, which allways have their hands full with venetians, poles, hungarians, milan, french. So they defeat HRE easily, and the expand everywhere. Another scandinavian faction could solve that. They can keep the danes busy, like scots do with english. Or putting land bridges between scandinavia and russia... Only once I've seen Danes getting their butt kicked by the english, when english defeated the scots early in the game and conquered whole france.

[katank]

I checked out the Danes and concluded they are totally overpowered. Not only do they have a wide assortment of armourpiercing infantry and cavalry, they get access to Norse archers at castle level (12/17 melee which is better than retinue longbows) and also warclerics (armour piercing heavy cav that can put up a decent fight against lancers and gothic knights) available at city level.

This makes smashing the HRE as the Danes quite easy.

[CrownOfSwords]

In everysingle one of my campaigns the HRE as been totally crushed, whether smashed into only having like 2 provinces or completely annihilated. Im suprised many of you say the French get wiped out in nearly all my campaigns other than the ones I crushed them myself theyve survived and ended up being one of the super powers i have to face. I have yet to see anything like the Moors take all of western europe! The spanish usually crush them. But i agree about the Danes in all of my campaigns theyve totally blitzkrieged the map, even in my Spanish campaign where I conquered all of spain then focused on the holy lands im dealing with the Danes invading me from the north lol.