Lord Chungus Plays Europa Universalis IV: This Episode, Uniting The Holy Roman Empire

[Lord Chungus]

The year is 1444.


Fredrich III Von Hapsburg, Archduke of Austria and Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, has become the first of his royal line to become my vessel. My will is his command.

And my will is simple; I want to unite the Holy Roman Empire. Why? Because I've never done it before and it seems like it would be fun. I shall make the Holy Roman Empire Holy (by ennexing the Papal States), Roman (by conquering Rome) and an Empire (by unifying it into a single country).

Europe won't know what hit it.

----

Hello everyone, and welcome to my Let's Play! I'm somewhat of a newbie at eu4, with only 439 hours under my belt.

...

That sounded more reasonable in my head, I swear.

Anyway, I'm going to be sharing screenshots, narrating events, and whatever things I feel like doing for this game of EU4. I have the Mandate of Heaven, Res Publica, Wealth of Nations, El Dorado, and Art of War DLC. This game is an Ironman run. Now, onto the game!


Step 1 of my HRE unification is hiring advisors and such.

Additionally, I picked my rivals, all the same as my enemies.



As for what I'm going to be doing; Burgundy is currently costing me 0.06 Imperial Authority a month, so I'm going to kick their shit in as soon as possible.


Now, let's see how this plays out...

 

[QTesseract]

The year is 1444.


Fredrich III Von Hapsburg, Archduke of Austria and Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, has become the first of his royal line to become my vessel. My will is his command.

And my will is simple; I want to unite the Holy Roman Empire. Why? Because I've never done it before and it seems like it would be fun.

Europe won't know what hit it.

----

Hello everyone, and welcome to my Let's Play! I'm somewhat of a newbie at eu4, with only 439 hours under my belt.

...

That sounded more reasonable in my head, I swear.

Anyway, I'm going to be sharing screenshots, narrating events, and whatever things I feel like doing for this game of EU4. I have the Mandate of Heaven, Res Publica, Wealth of Nations, El Dorado, and Art of War DLC. This game is an Ironman run. Now, onto the game!


Step 1 of my HRE unification is hiring advisors and such.

Additionally, I picked my rivals, all the same as my enemies.



As for what I'm going to be doing; Burgundy is currently costing me 0.06 Imperial Authority a month, so I'm going to kick their shit in as soon as possible.


Now, let's see how this plays out...

Click to shrink...

How much in the way of commentary / suggestions are you looking for; is this meant to be blind, or? Also, yeah, 439 eu4 hours is a newbie .

 

[Lord Chungus]

How much in the way of commentary / suggestions are you looking for; is this meant to be blind, or? Also, yeah, 439 eu4 hours is a newbie .

Click to shrink...

Any and all commentary and suggestions are appreciated. This is my first game with Art of War, Mandate of Heaven, and Wealth of Nations, so tips on what to look out for/expect are helpful.

Also getting commentary is great, and half the reason I decided to try this out.

 

[QTesseract]

Any and all commentary and suggestions are appreciated. This is my first game with Art of War, Mandate of Heaven, and Wealth of Nations, so tips on what to look out for/expect are helpful.

Also getting commentary is great, and half the reason I decided to try this out.

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So, this isn't required now do to the Austrian missions, but generally the early atrategy is to try and royal marry Bohemia, because they're in an interregnum and you can get a free PU vis claim throne. Fighting burgundy is also not common for the emperor due to the wonderful Burgundian inheritance event, which can give the emperor all of burgundy's HRE lands for free.]


e: Actually, thinking on it there's a lot of stuff as austria that's kind of not obvious. I'll make a list, but spoiler it so you can play as blindly as you choose.

Pre 1500:

Spoiler: Goals

Spoiler: PU Bohemia

Royal marry, don't ally. keep an eye on them. there's good odds they get a von habsburg on the throne; if so, immediately claim throne and go to war for the PU. Don't wait, because they can replace him via event. PUing bohemia is huge, do not integrate them because if you inherit them you become an elector

Spoiler: Prevent the Shadow Kingdom

You need all of northern italy, besides Venice or Abruzzi, in the HRE.

There are 2 ways to do this. Way 1 is to conquer it yourself. This is better, but requires careful handling of truce timers and lots of AE, which can stop you from doing too much else at this time.
The second way is to ally some of the Italian HRE princes, and feed them the land. If you have >100 relations, they'll add cored territories to the HRE for you, but it means fighting wars for no personal gain.

Spoiler: PU Hungary

There's a good chance this will happen automatically. Alternatively, however, Hunyadi can steal the throne from Ladislaus the Posthumous, so you'll have to use the "restoration of union" CB you get. Usually happens around 1480-1500, so be sure not to have any serious wars around then, like with france or w/e. Avoid allying or royal marrying hungary prior to this, since that will make you lose stab to declare war.

Spoiler: Burgundian inheritance

Prior to 1500, there is an event that can fire called the duke of burgundy dies. There's technically another one, called the fate of burgundy, but that one is harder to trigger so we'll ignore it.

This can technically happen on its own, however, that's unreliable, so you need to make it happen manually.
Requirements:
Have a royal Mairraoge with burgundy and be in the Empire or be Castile / Spain or be the emperor. For either of the last two, having a royal mairrage helps.

This is sped up by
Burgundy is losing a war, and has occupied no territory of its foes.
Burgundy has no heir
Burgundy's king or heir is a general


You achieve this by RMing burgundy, and then attacking one of its allies. Fully occupy burgundy, then sit on it until the event fires. Avoid seiging down allied territories, since if you stay below 75% war score you won't get calls for peace. If 1500 passes and the event doesn't fire, you can either reload or just price out with 100 war score.

 

[xa na xa]

If you conquer the papal states, the pope will generally set up new business in some new HRE states. It's amusing make him pack up again and again by annexing them!

 

[DB_Explorer]

I've barely played EU4 so this will be interesting to follow.

I have no advice, I can merely watch. ... long live the Hasburgs!(?)

 

[Lord Chungus]

Sooooooo, I may or may not have Done A Dumb and did a few things that would make my life harder (allying with Bohemia and Hungary and choosing some sub-optimal rivals) but since literally 2 days have passed in-game I'm just going to bite the bullet and restart the game.


So, what's my status? Not much has changed from the original start: I have a half-cost tier 2 diplomatic advisor, and my rivals are Venice and The Ottomans (keeping my last slot open for whoever I attack after Venice.

Speaking of Venice, I forgot I was supposed to do regular updates and went to war with them. Oops.



They currently have more war score, but I'm confidant I can beat them; they're also at war with Serbia and Bosnia, so I'm not the only problem they have to deal with.


Now, onto less warry topics; ally-wise, I have Milan, the Papal States, and Poland as my allies, and Royal Marriages with all of them (except the Papal States, of course). I also have Royal Marriages with Bohemia and Hungary, but no alliances.

Now, time to get punked by Venice outplay Venice and win this war!

 

[Lord Chungus]

I have good news and I have bad news.

Good news, the war is going well; I finished the siege of Treviso, and wiped out 11k Savoyan troops before they could finish sieging Wien.


With 11k troops gone, the war against Venice becomes much easier.

Now onto the bad news.

To get a general for the war, I used this thingy.

I didn't read the stuff below "Gain General with 40 tradition", and I've used it before so I saw no problem with using it now. Unfortunately, the Nobility estate starts out with 80% influence, and that pushed them to 100, which triggered a disaster.

To curtail the nobility, they need to have 60% influence or less.

So, any tips on reducing their influence? I considered revoking all their provinces, but that would be a lot of unrest for reducing their influence by 5%. However, there's one thing I'm confused about.

It says that revoking this province won't affect their influence, but also that this province gives them 12% influence?

 

[Ruaire]

It says that revoking this province won't affect their influence, but also that this province gives them 12% influence?

Click to shrink...

There is a cap on the influence estates can gain from provinces. The nobles have so much influence from provinces they've gone over the cap, and after removing that province they'll still be over it.

The solution of course is to remove more provinces.

 

[QTesseract]

I have good news and I have bad news.

Good news, the war is going well; I finished the siege of Treviso, and wiped out 11k Savoyan troops before they could finish sieging Wien.


With 11k troops gone, the war against Venice becomes much easier.

Now onto the bad news.

To get a general for the war, I used this thingy.

I didn't read the stuff below "Gain General with 40 tradition", and I've used it before so I saw no problem with using it now. Unfortunately, the Nobility estate starts out with 80% influence, and that pushed them to 100, which triggered a disaster.

To curtail the nobility, they need to have 60% influence or less.

So, any tips on reducing their influence? I considered revoking all their provinces, but that would be a lot of unrest for reducing their influence by 5%. However, there's one thing I'm confused about.

It says that revoking this province won't affect their influence, but also that this province gives them 12% influence?

Click to shrink...

The nobility can only gain so much influence from land. Any land behind that has no effect on their influence. You're over the cap by a fair margin, so taking away this territory won't reduce it any.

I advise just stripping away land freely, but leave an army on top of the province you strip away. That way, when the noble rebels spawn you have defensive bonus and prevent them from seiging anything down.

Also, remember that you can just return Brescia to Milan rather than taking it and getting AE. I also advise allying Castile if you can, since if you're allied and RMed they can get an event to put bob habsburgs on the throne, and be prepared to de-ally the pope (he's handy now, but won't stay that way forever as you march through Italy.)

 

[Lord Chungus]

There is a cap on the influence estates can gain from provinces. The nobles have so much influence from provinces they've gone over the cap, and after removing that province they'll still be over it.

The solution of course is to remove more provinces.

Click to shrink...

The nobility can only gain so much influence from land. Any land behind that has no effect on their influence. You're over the cap by a fair margin, so taking away this territory won't reduce it any.

I advise just stripping away land freely, but leave an army on top of the province you strip away. That way, when the noble rebels spawn you have defensive bonus and prevent them from seiging anything down.

Also, remember that you can just return Brescia to Milan rather than taking it and getting AE. I also advise allying Castile if you can, since if you're allied and RMed they can get an event to put bob habsburgs on the throne, and be prepared to de-ally the pope (he's handy now, but won't stay that way forever as you march through Italy.)

Click to shrink...

Thanks for the help; I'll wait to revoke until the war's finished, because rebels in the middle of the war would fuck me over much harder than I'm prepared to handle.

As for Allying with Castille, I'll do that once I de-ally the Pope to take Italy; I wasn't sure who I would replace him with, tbh, but now I've got a sure pick.

As for the war, it's progressing well.

My biggest problem is that Serbia has Brescia occupied, meaning I can't occupy it, and Venice can't seem to figure out how to liberate it; hopefully, that war will soon end.

On a bad note, my economy is, ah, not doing so well.

I took out 1 loan not too long ago, and I'll have to take out another one next month; the only way to save it seems to be to end the Nobility disaster, which I'm leery of doing while at war with Venice.

 

[QTesseract]

Thanks for the help; I'll wait to revoke until the war's finished, because rebels in the middle of the war would fuck me over much harder than I'm prepared to handle.

As for Allying with Castille, I'll do that once I de-ally the Pope to take Italy; I wasn't sure who I would replace him with, tbh, but now I've got a sure pick.

As for the war, it's progressing well.

My biggest problem is that Serbia has Brescia occupied, meaning I can't occupy it, and Venice can't seem to figure out how to liberate it; hopefully, that war will soon end.

On a bad note, my economy is, ah, not doing so well.

I took out 1 loan not too long ago, and I'll have to take out another one next month; the only way to save it seems to be to end the Nobility disaster, which I'm leery of doing while at war with Venice.

Click to shrink...

Reminder that you can mothball forts that aren't in use; I also tend to skip out on the diplo advisor at first.

The big solution to not having enough money as Austria, though, is to develop the Schwaz Silver Mine (it produces gold, don't ask) in Tyrol, which will give you some inflation but lots of cash. Usually up to 10 production dev.

 

[Lord Chungus]

Reminder that you can mothball forts that aren't in use; I also tend to skip out on the diplo advisor at first.

The big solution to not having enough money as Austria, though, is to develop the Schwaz Silver Mine (it produces gold, don't ask) in Tyrol, which will give you some inflation but lots of cash. Usually up to 10 production dev.

Click to shrink...

I'll mothball forts once the war is over, of course; it's my favorite way to save money when I'm not busy trying to murder someone.

Developing the mine is this, right?

 

[QTesseract]

I'll mothball forts once the war is over, of course; it's my favorite way to save money when I'm not busy trying to murder someone.

Developing the mine is this, right?

Click to shrink...

Yep. Remember to put it on development edict first, though.

 

[Lord Chungus]

The war with Venice is over; I made a seperate peace with Savoy for a shitton of money and them breaking their alliance with Venice, then called Milan in and kicked Venice's ass. In the end, I made them give Brescia to Milan and two provinces to me along with some money and war reparations.

Now that the war is over, I can turn my attention to putting the Nobility in their place; once this is posted, I'm going to revoke all 4 of the Nobility's provinces and get ready to put down whatever revolts spring up.

 

[Lord Chungus]

The Nobility has been crushed. They do not control a single province, despite their revolts. They have been curtailed, have only 16% loyalty, and are no longer a threat.

They also have 60% influence, because this is eu4 and of course they do.

My finances are in quite a good state, now that the Nobility has been curtailed. My biggest problem is technology; namely, that I haven't had any tech improvements since the game started. My only tech upgrade was in Diplo tech, which I got a few months ago.

Aside from that, little has happened; my diplomats are busy ensuring the electors don't hate me, and t some point I'll get myself a reason to go to war with one of the Italian nations. Eventually, the Hapsburg heir of Hungary will come of age and replace the Regency Council, and then I'll claim the Hungarian throne.

 

[QTesseract]

The Nobility has been crushed. They do not control a single province, despite their revolts. They have been curtailed, have only 16% loyalty, and are no longer a threat.

They also have 60% influence, because this is eu4 and of course they do.

My finances are in quite a good state, now that the Nobility has been curtailed. My biggest problem is technology; namely, that I haven't had any tech improvements since the game started. My only tech upgrade was in Diplo tech, which I got a few months ago.

Aside from that, little has happened; my diplomats are busy ensuring the electors don't hate me, and t some point I'll get myself a reason to go to war with one of the Italian nations. Eventually, the Hapsburg heir of Hungary will come of age and replace the Regency Council, and then I'll claim the Hungarian throne.

Click to shrink...

Did bohemia not get a habsburg, or did you just not act fast enough to grab it? Unfortunate regardless.

Also, you do realize that the habsburg heir of hungary is also your heir, right? Either they let him ascend and you get the PU for free, or they kick him off and you get a restoration of union CB. There shouldn't be any need to claim throne, I don't think.


Two things to mention. First off, your first idea group should be religious, so you can crush the protestant princes and force them to revert via DEUS VULT. Secondly, you plus castille + poland lithuania should try to take some land off france before they finish their easy blobbing and then get elan, both of which will make them more of a bitch to face than they already are. You're currently the strongest military in europe and #2 in the world, so it should be possible.

 

[The Victorian]

I'm somewhat of a newbie at eu4, with only 439 hours under my belt.

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You know, if someone didn't know what the game this was, they could probably tell it's a Paradox game just from this quote right here.

 

[QTesseract]

You know, if someone didn't know what the game this was, they could probably tell it's a Paradox game just from this quote right here.

Click to shrink...

It could also be chess

 

[Lord Chungus]

Did bohemia not get a habsburg, or did you just not act fast enough to grab it? Unfortunate regardless.

Also, you do realize that the habsburg heir of hungary is also your heir, right? Either they let him ascend and you get the PU for free, or they kick him off and you get a restoration of union CB. There shouldn't be any need to claim throne, I don't think.


Two things to mention. First off, your first idea group should be religious, so you can crush the protestant princes and force them to revert via DEUS VULT. Secondly, you plus castille + poland lithuania should try to take some land off france before they finish their easy blobbing and then get elan, both of which will make them more of a bitch to face than they already are. You're currently the strongest military in europe and #2 in the world, so it should be possible.

Click to shrink...

Bohemia didn't get a Hapsburg, unfortunately. And for whatever reason, Hungary just got a ruler; he's a Hapsburg, and he was inaugurated a few months ago. This mean I can't claim the throne, unfortunately.


Otherwise, not much has happened; my diplomats have been earning their pay, as every single elector is voting for me, and I'm currently working to fake a claim in Mantua so I can invade them. There was a brief uprising that caused me some trouble, and I had to increase the size of my army to deal with it, but it didn't cost me much. Burgundy's been costing me a lot of Imperial Authority, so they better get inherited sometime soon.

 

[QTesseract]

Bohemia didn't get a Hapsburg, unfortunately. And for whatever reason, Hungary just got a ruler; he's a Hapsburg, and he was inaugurated a few months ago. This mean I can't claim the throne, unfortunately.


Otherwise, not much has happened; my diplomats have been earning their pay, as every single elector is voting for me, and I'm currently working to fake a claim in Mantua so I can invade them. There was a brief uprising that caused me some trouble, and I had to increase the size of my army to deal with it, but it didn't cost me much. Burgundy's been costing me a lot of Imperial Authority, so they better get inherited sometime soon.

Click to shrink...

You need to trigger the inheritance. The fate of burgundy event is rare, but "the duke of burgundy dies" is eminently doable.

 

[Lord Chungus]

After much waiting, I've finally started the war with Mantua. Their only ally is Genoa, who has little in the way of an army.

Other than that, not much has been going on; I completed the Secure Electorates mission, and am on my way to completing the Decline of Hungary mission. I also upgraded another technology, Diplomatic again. I'm pretty close to getting the next Admin and Mil techs.

 

[QTesseract]

After much waiting, I've finally started the war with Mantua. Their only ally is Genoa, who has little in the way of an army.

Other than that, not much has been going on; I completed the Secure Electorates mission, and am on my way to completing the Decline of Hungary mission. I also upgraded another technology, Diplomatic again. I'm pretty close to getting the next Admin and Mil techs.

Click to shrink...

When you finally get there, you probably want either diplomatic or religious ideas. Diplomatic is more broadly useful, but religious comes in handy sooner thanks to it a) helping you grab lots of territory off the ottomans whenever they're distracted, say, with the Mamelukes, and b) with converting back all the Protestant princes. If you don't have Deus vult, you have to go after their allies and separate peace them to force a religion change, which is significantly harder and doesn't work on large princes.
Diplomatic tho is basically the god idea set for Austria, only influence comes close, so obviously get both when you can (who needs bird mana or diplotech).

 

[Lord Chungus]

The war with Genoa is progressing well. I won a few easy battles, sieged Mantua, and am now sieging Genoa.

I was originally going to take Mantua, but the peace screen made me reconsider.

All that AE is making me wary, and I'm not sure how much it would impede my relationships in the HRE; should I take it slower, or is this just something I'm going to have to live with?

When you finally get there, you probably want either diplomatic or religious ideas. Diplomatic is more broadly useful, but religious comes in handy sooner thanks to it a) helping you grab lots of territory off the ottomans whenever they're distracted, say, with the Mamelukes, and b) with converting back all the Protestant princes. If you don't have Deus vult, you have to go after their allies and separate peace them to force a religion change, which is significantly harder and doesn't work on large princes.
Diplomatic tho is basically the god idea set for Austria, only influence comes close, so obviously get both when you can (who needs bird mana or diplotech).

Click to shrink...

I'm probably going to get Diplomatic first, then Religious, then either Influence or a Military group. Like you said, Diplomatic would be very good, and I remember it being super useful in my previous France game when I became the HREmperor.

 

[Lord Chungus]

The war against Mantua ended pretty well; I got a whole bunch of money, and decided against annexing Mantua. Now I've got cash to spare, though that does come with the problem of my constantly growing Inflation. I'd say the gold is worth it, but the inflation is a problem nonetheless.

In terms of long-term problems, I'm not sure what to do about the fact that I've got no clear path to getting Bohemia and Hungary in a PU; also I'm not sure how I missed this before, but

Also, you do realize that the habsburg heir of hungary is also your heir, right? Either they let him ascend and you get the PU for free, or they kick him off and you get a restoration of union CB. There shouldn't be any need to claim throne, I don't think.

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Hungary's Hapsburg heir is different from mine, unfortunately.