Holy Roman Empire - any tips ?

[Pauper]

Hi guys HRE is my favourite faction ( always play H/H or M/H ) - I am from Slovakia and I really dont like Hungarian ( nothing offense ), I try start many times, and I find fine way, but really dont know if is best so some tips will help me many ...

On start I allies with France and Hungarian - what mean most vulnerable borders are fine - France can interest with England, Hungary with Poland and we have time for prepare on them
so now we can interest only on south and north border - what means Pisa, Venetia and Denmark - Venetian come and attack first - mostly Freiburg ( this mean we must be prepare there ) and if all come fine we have good army in Milan too
On start - merge army from Frankfurt, Collen, Trier - with this army we can conquer Utrecht, Loven to 5 rounds
- merge army from Regensburg and Branderburg - this is fine against Praha and Olomoc and then return to Freiburg ( you know why )
- army in Lyon - there is general without any loyality, when you put him with army before end 1st round ( he cant be Duke of Lyon - loyality will be down as hell ) so attack Nizza ( Duke of Nizza up his loyality on 2 points ), then with some mercenaries we can conquer Genoa, and with some lucky Milan too
- army in Hamburg merge with army from Bremen ( when you find good general for that city, or recruit him from Hamburg ), than with this + again some mercenaries we can conquer Liubice

Venetians: mostly attack Freiburg in 1st 20 rounds - because they have only 1 full stack army, if we are ready, conquering them ( Bologna, Verona, Venezsia ) will be really easy ( attention if we conquer Venezsia - we must really quickly do vassals from them and avoid rebelion !!! - low tax and destroy market will help )
Pisa - same situation, they attack mostly Bologna, but we have good army prepare in that zone
Denmark - they attack many times first port, so if we conquer Ribe, mostly they have only 2 settlements and is easy doing vassals from them
Pope - if we have 4 fine assasins ready for him - any excomunication will be end sooner then start and with some spy we can conquer Rome from him too

This all I mostly do in first 50 rounds ... then I interest on muslims faction as I say before, this work, but if is great to do I dont know, I come only to 150 round, but maybe 3 or 5 time in row - but this means you dont have really good reputation - deceitful mostly - so order are utopy

Now I listen what you doing better, or how, or what is your way ... I really want advice

[LordValinar]

If I've learned anything about the Holy Roman Empire, is that LegendofTotalWar does it right xD You have to be an aggressive early game 1-10 turns ... 5 if you can accomplish it like Legend did) in taking out a few of the early factions... because of a couple reasons: Mainly because Venice is going to attack you sooner or later, so might as well attack them first.. Anyways here's a few points that I think I've summed up from my own research:

* Take the following rebel cities as soon as possible, preferably by turn 2-3 if you can muster it
-> Up in the north east you have Hamburg (take it before Denmark does), and Prague (north and north-east of that are Megdberg and Breslau -- take those too, but these can be done in later 6-15 turns to be honest, depending how bad you want them)
-> West of Staufen is Metz (get it before the french xD), south west of Staufen is Bern (will need a sizable force for that one)
-> South of Bologna is Florence and below Vienna is Zagreb

NOTE: Sorry if I've misspelled some of these names lol...



* CRUSH the weak enemies first!
-> After Hamburg falls, you'll want to launch your army north to take Arhus as soon as possible eliminating the Danes
-> get your southern armies (even from Innsbruck) to take out Milan, followed by Genoa to eliminate a 3rd enemy

NOTE: By now the pope is probably pretty pissed and you might have been ex-communicated but meh.... who cares xD

-> Lastly you'll want Venice and their Venecian Castle to fall (which is south-east of Zagreb) and I might be missing one more.... not sure how many cities venice has... uhhh just refer to Legend's video at the bottom here



*Financial Details (you should've been doing this along with the above)
-> building things like markets, roads, land clearances, mines, anything to increase your TRADE income (it's one of the biggest)
-> Accepting trade offers from other nations (try to also get some more money out of it... demand payment (usually 500-1000) and they'll either accept or counter offer with a smaller amount)
-> You can also convert a few of the castles on the borders to settlements if you want even more of an income. You don't need castles everywhere after all (especially on the west if you plan on having France as a long term ally)

*The Aftermath
-> Now you can start making churches, priests, and send a diplomat to kiss the pope's arse if you feel the need to avoid a crusade on you xD

Holy Roman Empire (Grand Campaign)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zA--88FNH7s

[Larkin]

HRE is one of the easiest factions in the game to play. You have a strong standing army and a good economy to back it up. The only downside is you are fighting Christian nations which the Pope dislikes and you will find yourself constantly at war as a result, if you are aggressive. Obviously, that might not be a downside to you.

But for me, I find myself rushing to rebel cities that other factions are likely to take in order to steal them and establish a flashpoint - forcing them to be the war declarers - as well as making borders nice and big, get that money flowing.