A few Questions

[putts]

First off, I typically play as the Germans starting in the Early Period.

Let me lay out my usual strategy and get some critiques from you much wiser folks than I.....
Upgrade to 20% Farms in all territories
Continue to upgrade economy in outer provinces.
Turn Switzerland, Bavaria and Swabia into military factories. Archers, Infantry and Knights, respectively.
Turn Burgundy into my "CIA"....turning out ninjas, spies, etc.
Turn Provence and Friesland into Naval provinces
Start taking over Rebel countries (starting with Pomerania and going West) by means of Emissaries. If the bribe fee is too large, I will resort to force.

This is my pretty standard strategy for getting the game going. I usually build my biggest armies along the French, Italian and Hungary borders. Danes usually stay quiet and Poland's forces are usually pretty small.

Do you see any serious problems with that strategy. Is it totally crap? Has major holes? Could be improved?


The second part of my problems comes in once I've finally conquered all the rebel countries that I want (can get my hands on). The ones I usually always try to get are Pomerania, Prussia, Lithuania, Kiev and Livonia. I like the resources in the Western provinces and the access into the western Mediterranean. All usually goes quite well.....armies start to build up nicely, money starts flowing in.....then the first big problem....my King will go and die on me. This cuts my income greatly and usually makes me drop some tax rates to get certain provinces happy again. Is there something I can do to protect against this great downfall? Secondly, the fact that I get so huge so quickly has advantages and disadvantages. The biggest one is that almost no matter which Catholic faction I get involved in war with, I will be the one who gets excommed.....a serious downer.....even if I basically let them take one of my provinces for a couple years (have experimented with this by leaving just 100 or so troops in Tyrolia or Brandenburg and not putting up much of a fight when the enemy comes knocking).

One other annoying factor.....let's say France comes at Lorraine and I defend successfully....BAM...every ally I have (except the good ole English) will ditch me....even though I won the first battle. Anyway around this?


So...that's it,really...
How can I improve my starting strategy?
How do I make my income not so reliant on my Emperor?
How do I avoid always being the bad guy and getting excommed?
How do I keep "friends" during a war?


Thanks for any help. Greatly Appreciated.

[Martok]

So...that's it,really...
How can I improve my starting strategy?
How do I make my income not so reliant on my Emperor?
How do I avoid always being the bad guy and getting excommed?
How do I keep "friends" during a war?


Thanks for any help. Greatly Appreciated.

Welcome to the Org, putts!

I've not played as the Germans very often -- although coincidentally enough, I just started an HRE campaign myself a few days ago -- so I'm maybe not the best person to give you advice for this particular faction. I'll do my best, however....

How can I improve my starting strategy?

I'd say the placement and disposition of your armies is probably pretty good -- at least as good as it can be, considering the HRE is often attacked by multiple factions -- so I won't go into that.

Obviously, money is a big priority for the Germans early on, as their starting lands simply aren't very good income-wise. Given that, here's what I would recommend:

For one thing, I would hold off on upgrading the farmland in every single one of your provinces right away; it's not cost-effective to do so, especially early in the game when your funds are limited. Initially, you should try to only build farmland upgrades in provinces that already have an income of at least 250 florins or more, as that will mean your income *after* the farmland has been improved will be increased by at least 50 florins/year.

Now in your particular case, I'm not sure any German provinces have even that high an income -- except for maybe Provence -- so you'll have to lower your standards a bit, say to provinces with a base income of around 200 florins. Also, you'll probably want to build the 20% farm upgrade in at least one your troop-producing provinces, so that you can then construct the Horse Farmer line of buildings in order to be able to train your cavalry units. (It's unfortunately not very economical to upgrade the land in the 3 provinces listed, but it can't really be helped.)

Otherwise, however, I wouldn't bother to build farmland upgrades anywhere else just yet. Once your economy has improved somewhat and you have more money available, you can then build them where you see fit. If you've not already done so, I would recommend you build mines and trading posts in provinces with metals (excluding iron of course) and/or trade goods.

How do I make my income not so reliant on my Emperor?

This is a phenomenon most MTW players deal with to some extent or another, and unfortunately it's something that can't really be helped very much. If your Emperor had a high Acumen rating, and/or had one of the income-increasing virtues such as "Trader" or "Steward" -- I'm guessing your Emperor had one of the Steward traits since you built all those farm upgrades -- there's not a whole lot that can be done directly to cushion the economic blow from his death.

About the best thing you can do to alleviate the money strain is to just make sure you've appointed decent governors to all your provinces -- preferably generals with 4 acumen or more -- especially to your bigger money-making territories (Austria, Saxony, etc.). Also make sure you bestow the "state" office (Imperial/Grand Chamberlain, etc.) to a general with good Acumen as well.

How do I avoid always being the bad guy and getting excommed? How do I keep "friends" during a war?

LOL! Sorry, I'm not laughing at you; it's just that those are probably the two most frequently-asked questions by people playing the HRE. The unfortunate fact is, that as the Germans, it's extremely difficult -- if not impossible -- to obtain a favorable outcome in either of these two categories.

The empire's sheer size means it almost never has the Pope's favor in any war between it and another Catholic faction, and usually your Emperor's influence isn't high enough to keep many friends during military conflicts, especially early on in the game. And even if you're able to get his Influence to a decent level (6 crowns or higher), it still doesn't guarantee he'll retain more allies than before.



I wish I could give you better advice, putts, but the simple fact is that overall the HRE is one of the hardest factions in the game ("Moderate" difficulty my foot!). A German campaign is going to be challenging at almost every level, especially in the Early period -- you have a large area to defend, generals lacking both ability *and* loyalty, poor lands, enemies on all sides, and the Pope breathing down your neck at almost every turn.

If I discover any strategies that work when playing my HRE campaign, I'll certainly let you know....but I'm probably going to struggle through it just as much as you are now!

[putts]

Thanks for the response.

I'll try your advice tonight....especially the parts concerning making more money.
Do you have any particular strategy that you're looking to use?
I ask because now that I'm sitting back and looking it.....
1. As you mentioned, HRE's lands are too small to provide much in the way of agricultural value
2. Not many of them are "Trade Giants", offering a lot in the way of trade options
3. There's no sea that they will be able to just take full control over and rely on for trade income that way
4. They will not be favored in any war they start with any of the Catholic factions around them
5. There aren't any non-Catholic neighbors immediately available.

That's a whole lot working against them right off the bat.

I really think the best plan is to try to get West and gobble up all those provinces over there that can put out some serious cashflow. Lithuania, Kiev and Livonia (and up to Sweden and Norway if you get the chance) can provide ample trade revenue but means that you have to secure Pomerania and Prussia before Poland can (which, in turn, means that eventually Poland will come after you as they have no other options....so will the Danes if you get Norway and Sweden but that's not a big deal, really). If you go that route, though, you eventually have to plow through Poland.....there's just no way of dealing with them being a pest in your path for too long which brings us back to the problem of always being excommed in a war against a Catholic faction :(

Well, sounds like we're kinda in the same rut at the moment but I will try a few things and will get back to you if I find a good strategy to get going early on.

[seireikhaan]

Welcome to the Org, Putts!

Personally, as the HRE, I try to alleviate the money fix by conqering as quickly as possible. This means blitzing the Italians and Danes ASAP. I don't bother trying to bribe rebel provinces, as they simply aren't going to be worth it given the Empire's economic status. Generally, I try to have invaded the Italians by turn 2. Immediate target is Venice, always Venice first. 1) Its a trade giant, very valuable for the Empire, and 2) It starts with a shipright, enabling shipbuilding quickly to get your income going. If possible, grab Milan as well in the same turn, it will make the rest of the conquests a bit more palatable. More than likely, after grabbing Venice, and possibly Milan, I get a warning from the Pope, and I try to play defensive for 10 years in the South, while I assemble the biggest ad-hoc force I can to attack the Danes in the north, before they get too many royal knights via heirs. If you can somehow take Denmark, then you can take your time(sorta) to take Sweden and Norway. Scandinavia now, along with Venice, makes the Empire very profitable, as well as granting a few shipbuilders. Once the ten years down in Italy are done, try to take the rest of mainland Italy in one fell swoop, so the Pope can't excomm you. Now you've got a lot of trade potential, you've minimized borders(which is critical for the HRE), and knocked out a couple of likely nuisances from the game. From here, God only knows what could happen, but at least the Empire should be in a relatively strong position. Just make sure you NEVER, EVER trust anyone to not attack you. Everyone loves to pick on the HRE, and that includes the Pope.

Also, I agree with Martok about the farm upgrades, your starting provinces, with a couple exceptions, are simply too poor for it. Rather, get some military upgrades so you can spam units for a little bit so you can get the aforementioned blitz to work.

[ArtistofWarfare]

Yeah I just want to throw my 2 pennies in the hat:

The HRE provinces do not churn out big income at all...and your expenses start out quite high.

Of course, you need to expand slightly at first but make sure that you're sending your armies after the most lucrative provinces you can find. If you're going to spend money on an attack, make sure the attack will wind up earning you positive income. Not simply resulting in you taking a province that costs more to garrison than it accrues in income.

Due to the HRE's starting position and circumstances, I find the "dig in" and build a booming economy approach to just not be the most viable. You will of course have to do this at some point, but with the lands you start with it's not going to yield you the kind of results you're looking for.

Set up the best possible economy you can, stabalize the HRE, be prepared to protect yourself on your borders...and then begin forming a large army to expand...early. If you could move south and take some Italian lands, or even southeast into Hungary, you can start building a nice economy soon thereafter.

You just want to make sure that you're not spending time and money pumping out units that are not going to net you any real gain in the end.

p.s.- Just read through a bit more of the thread...considering what Martok is saying too: Indeed, you want to be careful with your farming upgrades early. Look at the time it will take you to begin earning a return on your investment and then calculate how much profit per turn you're looking at past that point.

Example:

Farming upgrade...costs 800 florins, would generate 110 florins per year. So in 7-8 years your entire investment has been returned. Past that point, you'll gain 110 florins per turn above what you were earning from that province before the farming upgrade. You need to decide if this is worth it. This becomes more important past the 20% upgrades to farming, as these are larger, longer term investments. Specifically dealing with the HRE however, your provinces are not going to yield you any large return on investment and will be flat out "not worth it" past the 20% upgrade in almost every province. You'd be talking about 2000+ florin investments, waiting 25-30 years for the return, and then only profiting (in HRE provinces?) an additional 100 florins at best. In other words, the farming production approach would be more viable later on in the game...not at all in the early portion with the HRE. Again- You have a farming income need. Go grab up a province that will fill this gap for you...spend your resources on taking that land, and immediately build the upgrade for farming in there. Now, you have a money maker sitting on the map for you and you can go from there.

[putts]

As promised, I played around with a new campaign tonight using some of the economic suggestions you guys brought up.....

So far, it's a great success.

HRE, Normal difficulty, Early Period

I did the 20% on most of the southern provinces (used 200 Florins as my base req), didn't bother with the Northern provinces since most were below that mark.
I stuck with my typical province setup... Swabia, Switz. and Bavaria as Military factories; Friesland and Provence as Naval capitols
I then proceeded to take Pomerania, Prussia, Lithuania and Kiev with just Emissaries and then finished by grabbing Khazar.

However, instead of just sitting there and building up my new territories, I backed my forces out of Khazar back into Kiev and then grabbed all the forces I had built up in Lithuania, Kiev and Prussia and struck at Poland in full force leaving only enough forces behind to maintain my rule in those provinces. While I was gobbling up these rebel countries in the East, I had built a wall of troops on my Western front as well as built a secondary strike force that hit Poland from Franconia. It took so little time to totally wipe out Poland that I didn't even get excommed.

While I had the army at full tilt I went down and gobbled up Moldavia, Crimea, Hungary and Carpathia. Now I had gobbled up many provinces that are cranking out tons of Florins but also haven't lost any of my original territories.

This is where things slowed down because Italy, Byz and what was left of Hungary kept trying to rip Hungary back away from me. However, while that provence swapped hands about 20 times, I took it upon myself to secure Norway, Sweden and kill off the Danes (again, without being excommed).

When last I saved and closed the game, I had just finally secured Hungary with no immediate threat of losing it. Byz are falling out of power and Sicily is becoming my best friend by helping to wipe them out. Next step will be to wipe out Hungary in 1 turn (they're down to 2 territories).

Annnnnnnnnnnyway, so far, the new strategy is working well.

[Jxrc]

Basically as the HRE you are over-extended as from the outset and you've got many provinces but still the same starting treasury as the Danes (and their single province) so money will always be an issue. Moreover your troop rooster puts you at a disadvantage since you need a keep to build mounted sergeants while the other factions can build cavalry with just a fort (holibars for the French & English, cavalrymen for the Danes, Hungarian and Polish - not sure about the Poles though). Fortunately you can build mounted x-bows with just a level two horse breeder.

In nutshell, I would say that you have the following options:

1) blitz the Italian as someone already suggested. Can be done but you need to do that fast and to make sure that you wipe the entire faction. IF the Doges ends up in Corsica you will have for quite a will no way to get to him and the Italian galleys will happily sink all your ships ....
2) blitz the Poles. Can be done quite easily. Just move your Vikings from Saxony to Brandenburg and move you king to Bohemia on turn 1.. Next turn gather all you can and attack Poland and Silesia at the same time. If you are lucky, the bulk of the Polish troops and their king will have remained in Poland and will either abandon the province or be defeated by your king (Polish King is a "great warrior" so that killing him is hard business). All you got to do to wipe the faction is manage to conquer Silesia which is usually defended by one or two units at most. Poland has nice agricultural income and reduces the amount of provinces needing a garrison.
3) keep a low profile and avoid any war for as long as possible (see below).

Blitzing the French and Hungarian is not really doable according to me cause you lack the units necessary to get rid or the Hungarian HA's and cause the French have usually a five stars general appearing very early and which you cannot hope to beat without very heavy losses.

If you lay low, you need to increase your garrison in many provinces ASAP in order to have the AI consider that attacking you is not the better option. If you pile bodies at your border normally the Poles and Hungarian will go after the rebels, the Italian will invade Serbia and get bogged down there for a while and the French and English will go at war with each other. IF that happens you can hope to be left alone for about 50 years (I was left alone for 100 hundred years once only in many campaigns so don't expect that).

In the meantime I usually do the following:

turn 1: build watchtower in all provinces (king gets builder v&v) and build emissary in Swabia, UM in Switzerland and Spearmen in Burgundy. Chancellor title should be given to a four quills governor that will also be the ruler of Provence or Burgundy (you best to provinces for cash);
turn 2: build fort border in all provinces (king gets great builder v&v) and same units as in turn 1.
turn 3: forts in all provinces except Swabia, Switzerland (spearmaker) and Burgundy (Agri 20%). Build same units as in turn 1.
turn 4:Build same units as in turn 1.
turn 5: build spearmen in Burgundy, Swabia and Switzerland. Start building a keep in Switzerland, horse breeder in Burgundy and whatever income-producing facility you can in Swabia (salt mine or agri 20%).
Turn 5: Build same units as in turn 4.
Turn 6: Build same units as in turn 4. Start building Agri 20% Provence, Lorraine, Bavaria, Franconia (mines when you can afford it) and militia house every where else.

After that it all depends too much on whether you got enough money (Papal donations can be a blessing then) but you should aimed at:

- Austria: 40% agri + advance copper mine + mounted X-bows
- Bavaria: 40% agri + advance salt mine
- Bohemia: 40% agri + advance silver mine
- Brandenburg: 20% agri + advance copper mine
- Burgundy: 40% agri + keep + mounted sergeants and X-bows
- Franconia: 40% agri
- Friesland: no agri - keep - Shipbuilding - trade
- Lorraine: 40% agri - mounted X-bows
- Provence: 40% agri - shipbuilding is not really a priority since the Italian will probably attack you as soon as your first ship is built (in any event you have no trade in Provence so)
- Saxony: 40 agri - advanced salt mine - keep - Shipbuilding- trade- advance salt mine. Not something that you will be able to afford soon but as the HRE you should always have two ships per sea square in order not to tempt the AI;
- Swabia: 20% agri - advance salt mine- Royal knights (not that you will be able to afford many of those). Go for castle as soon as you can afford it in order to build Swabian Swordsmen (not that I often manages to produce those before +/- 1170)
- Switzerland: no agri - keep and sword smith to build FMMA ASAP
- Tyrol: 40% agri

Regarding your armies, archers are a luxury that you cannot really afford. They would come handy to deal with the Hungarian but their maintenance costs is too high IMHO. Since you are not able to produce any cheap cavalry, I find that mounted X-bows are a better option since they give you some missile capacity and can actually be used as light cavalry to chase routers or attack weak units (peasant, joggaby, HA, etc). If you do not build mounted X-bows, your army will be made of infantry alone (together with your prince or king) and even though that can be enough to win the battle it will very often prevent you from reaping the full benefit of your victory cause the defeated army will be able to escape too easily. Moreover X-bows can be a great help when dealing with other faction's royal knights. If you do as I suggest you will end up with a vast army of spearmen (forget about peasant - even from Provence - they just cannot fight at all) which should be able to deal with the French (they use way too many peasant), the Poles (too many Slav warrior and peasants), the Hungarians (Slav warriors, joggaby and HA). Italy can be more difficult cause they will produce UM with valour +1 in Tuscany and those can be the death of your spearmen. I suggest to take advantage of the low morale of those units and target them with your RK while your spear engage the Italian peasants and RK. You'll probably have less RK than they have UM but in that case your spear should be able to hold them for a while if you keep them tidy and all. Should give you enough time to recover your RK for another attack or enable you to have your x-bows charge from the rear.

As the HRE, once you start a war you can be sure that all the other faction will cancel their alliance with you (only exception being the French who are usually not allied with anyone) and attack you at the first opportunity. As a result of that, you need to crush anyone attacking you ASAP. Loosing your first defensive battle or abandoning a province is thus not really an option and you need to win the defensive battle and counter-attack immediately to cripple you enemy. You thus need to target as many provinces as you can with you counter-strike. For instance, the Italian will usually attack Provence. After you've repelled you need to attack Venice, Milan and Genoa the next turn . If you get those provinces, the Italian will only retain Tuscany on the continent. The next turn just keep enough troops in Venice, Milan and Genoa to siege the keep and avoid rebellion and attack Tuscany with all your remaining troops. With a little luck their king will retreat once more to Corsica or will be made prisoner (10,000 florins would come very handy). Even if you have not wiped out the entire faction in the process, the Italian will have lost most of their troops and will become a nuisance rather than an actual threat. They will be stuck on their island with no material income so that you will only need to repel a few attempts at landing in Genoa or Provence in the following years (a good way to make money is to destroy the ports in the provinces they could attack and retreat to the keep when they do. the next turn when you counter-attack the Italian will have nowhere to escape by sea).

Finally, regarding strategic agents I have read somewhere (Total War centre) a piece by someone advocating that you should build assassins ASAP in order to kill all AI emissary and princess scouting your territory. On the face of it that could work but honestly I doubt it is doable cause you do not have enough cash to spare for that course of action. Moreover after a while the AI will attack anyway so that the few years that you might gain are not worth the investment.

Hope it helps.

[putts]

Back with just some basic questions.....

1. What, exactly, is the order of construction in this game? Let's say I have a Royal Knight queued up in Swabia and a Steppe Calvary queued in Kiev....is there any way that I can force it to try to build the Knight first and then the Steppe? Same question applies to Provinces (I've noticed that Austria is almost always the last to get their upgrades built)

2. How useful are armor upgrades to Archer units? You never really want them in hand to hand but do the armor upgrade give substantial enough missile defense to make it a must for archers as well as foot/calvary?

3. I always have a hard time deciding what to do with Friesland (and I'm sure this applies to a variety of provinces for a variety of factions). It doesn't produce enough income for me to invest any money into it. I used to use it as a Naval center but since France always targets it or Lorraine first, I don't want to anymore because I don't like constantly losing ship production that I have in process. I could make it a troop center but it's really remote to most of my provinces so that doesn't really work either. Basically, I have this "dead" province that I don't see any real use for........are there any good suggestions of what to do with these provinces?

TIA for any suggestions.

[Jxrc]

Back with just some basic questions.....
1. What, exactly, is the order of construction in this game? Let's say I have a Royal Knight queued up in Swabia and a Steppe Calvary queued in Kiev....is there any way that I can force it to try to build the Knight first and then the Steppe? Same question applies to Provinces (I've noticed that Austria is almost always the last to get their upgrades built) .

I thinks that the construction is started first in the North provinces and for provinces on the same level West before East. Since it's difficult to know exactly where the production will first start (it all depends on the provinces that you conquer), I find it easier to check how much I have in my coffers at the start and substract the cost of all buildings and units ordered during that turn to see if I can afford everything. If the answer is no, I then cancel the stuff that is not important. Can be a bit tedious at times but it's not that difficult (usually is just adding round figures) and after a while you do not need to bother cause you have enough cash to pay whatever you need.

2. How useful are armor upgrades to Archer units? You never really want them in hand to hand but do the armor upgrade give substantial enough missile defense to make it a must for archers as well as foot/calvary?.

Additional armor is nice but that really is not a must cause you will seldom notice a huge difference in practice. Of course if you make the test, you will see a difference but nothing that would justify waiting for the armour upgrade before building what you need. In any event you can keep the units with armour upgrade when mixing units that have lost men.

3. I always have a hard time deciding what to do with Friesland (and I'm sure this applies to a variety of provinces for a variety of factions). It doesn't produce enough income for me to invest any money into it. I used to use it as a Naval center but since France always targets it or Lorraine first, I don't want to anymore because I don't like constantly losing ship production that I have in process. I could make it a troop center but it's really remote to most of my provinces so that doesn't really work either. Basically, I have this "dead" province that I don't see any real use for........are there any good suggestions of what to do with these provinces?.

Shipbuilding is always my choice for Friesland. A province that is worth keeping since that is the only part of your homeland that enables you to directly attack Flanders. Losing a 700 florins bark that you have started to build is difficult to accept but its worth a try. Would suggest that once the keep has been built you add improve the outter ringwall, it cost only 200 florins and makes a huge difference in a siege. Lorraine is a constant target of the French and that's a province you should hold onto as much as you can. The income you get from Lorraine is not great (but not bad either) but if the French grab it, they secure Champagne and, more importantly, are able to target Franconia and Swabia (which were safe until then) so that you have to put garrisons in two provinces rather than just one. That's why usually the decisive battle between French and German takes place in Lorraine. Losing Burgundy would be even worse for an HRE player but in my experience the French do not often attack there (perhaps cause of the possible bridge battle)

[BAD]

Back with just some basic questions.....

1. What, exactly, is the order of construction in this game? Let's say I have a Royal Knight queued up in Swabia and a Steppe Calvary queued in Kiev....is there any way that I can force it to try to build the Knight first and then the Steppe? Same question applies to Provinces (I've noticed that Austria is almost always the last to get their upgrades built)

2. How useful are armor upgrades to Archer units? You never really want them in hand to hand but do the armor upgrade give substantial enough missile defense to make it a must for archers as well as foot/calvary?

3. I always have a hard time deciding what to do with Friesland (and I'm sure this applies to a variety of provinces for a variety of factions). It doesn't produce enough income for me to invest any money into it. I used to use it as a Naval center but since France always targets it or Lorraine first, I don't want to anymore because I don't like constantly losing ship production that I have in process. I could make it a troop center but it's really remote to most of my provinces so that doesn't really work either. Basically, I have this "dead" province that I don't see any real use for........are there any good suggestions of what to do with these provinces?

TIA for any suggestions.

1. I'm pretty sure the game starts the construction/production in the order that the provinces are listed in the game files. Not sure which file that is though. I have also noticed that the game starts this production before you get your yearly income. So have a look how much is in your treasury then quickly add up what you want to start constructing/producing. Anything in excess of this amount will remain queued and will not start to be produced. Basically only start constructing/producing things you really need asap. This obviously only applies when funds are tight and not when you have 50,000+ in the bank. . . even then I'm sure you could end up with things not being started if you really tried.

2.) Normally archer armour upgrades only matter if you anticipate a big missile exchange. ie you are fighting the Mongols, Hungarians or one of the Steppe powers. the extra armour can make a huge difference in the exchange. Could also be recomended for hybrid archers, like Futuwwa's, Janissary Infantry, Trebizond Archers, Ottoman Infantry, Mongol Warriors for extra staying power in melee.

3.) You could use those useless provinces for building agents or artillery. It's what I normally do anyways. Still have to build the castle's and such but if you have the spare florins then why not.

Hope that helped a bit. =]

[drone]

Back with just some basic questions.....

1. What, exactly, is the order of construction in this game? Let's say I have a Royal Knight queued up in Swabia and a Steppe Calvary queued in Kiev....is there any way that I can force it to try to build the Knight first and then the Steppe? Same question applies to Provinces (I've noticed that Austria is almost always the last to get their upgrades built)

I think BAD is correct here, the game traverses a list in one of the game files and does them in order. I asked this question some time ago, here is Ironside's answer:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=67799

3. I always have a hard time deciding what to do with Friesland (and I'm sure this applies to a variety of provinces for a variety of factions). It doesn't produce enough income for me to invest any money into it. I used to use it as a Naval center but since France always targets it or Lorraine first, I don't want to anymore because I don't like constantly losing ship production that I have in process. I could make it a troop center but it's really remote to most of my provinces so that doesn't really work either. Basically, I have this "dead" province that I don't see any real use for........are there any good suggestions of what to do with these provinces?

Agents, either bishops or assassins/spies. Don't want to build up too much infrastructure if you keep losing it. An Inn would be good there for recruiting mercs (if you are into that), since it's on the front lines.