Shadow Kingdom

[EricB]

How does the Shadow Kingdom event work?

I'm playing a run as Naples. It's now the 1530s and northern Italy is still in the HRE. It's made expansion into the north nearly impossible because of the very high AE and any war in Italy will involve dealing with both Austria and Hungary along with a bunch of smaller HRE countries too.

There was a popup early in the game about the Shadow Kingdom event. Every other game I've played northern Italy eventually leaves the HRE. Do they sometimes stay?

I've been expanding elsewhere as a result. Tunis and Tlemcen are wiped out, and I'm pushing into Morocco now. It took awhile to get strong enough to take on Spain, but we're making some progress as Spain now with France's help. The Ottomans are way too strong to take on and about 3 times my size. They keep issuing warnings to me to not attack their neighbors. Never seen that before either. Is it common for the AI to issue warnings?

Also, I got a whole bunch of extra AE in Italy for no good reason, which was annoying.

I've taken over the Papal States land, except Rome because I don't want all the negative modifiers from occupying Rome. So, I left them 1 province. I had a claim on Rome only as a pretext to go to war so that I could attack any HRE country that allied to the Papal State without having to deal with Austria/Hungary.

France, my ally, attacks Provence, who is allied to the Papal States. I join the war and knock out Rome pretty easily. They peace out the Papal States and give me (Naples) Rome because I had the claim on it. lol That generates a bunch of AE, but not enough for a coalition because I had fairly low AE before that. I then release the Papal State back because I don't want the negative modifiers from having Rome, but now there's a bunch of extra AE to cool down from.

At this rate it's going to take forever to form Italy. I'm Two Siciilies now. Just 1 province in Florence/Milan is going to generate over 50 AE I think. How best to proceed? I've heard that you can dismantle the HRE but it requires occupying Austria plus all of the electors' capitals in a war. How do you even accomplish that? If I declare war on Austria, I'm not at war with the other electors. Do you have to declare multiple wars?

I'm thinking that I keep expanding west, take over Iberia. Maybe do some colonization after that and then I'll be strong enough to attack Austria and all the electors, dismantle the HRE myself, then I can expand into northern Italy and finally form Italy. But it seems a little backwards. It shouldn't be this hard to get northern Italy. I shouldn't have to take over most of northern Africa and Iberia before northern Italy as Naples.

[Malvastor]

Originally posted by EricB:

How does the Shadow Kingdom event work?

I'm playing a run as Naples. It's now the 1530s and northern Italy is still in the HRE. It's made expansion into the north nearly impossible because of the very high AE and any war in Italy will involve dealing with both Austria and Hungary along with a bunch of smaller HRE countries too.

There was a popup early in the game about the Shadow Kingdom event. Every other game I've played northern Italy eventually leaves the HRE. Do they sometimes stay?

The Shadow Kingdom is an Imperial Incident now. Basically, the Emperor has to decide whether to let Italy go or try to rein them in. If they choose the latter, they have to ally, win a war against, or just have high relations (>150 I think) with all Italian HRE states before a certain deadline. Once the deadline comes, any Italian states that aren't in one of those categories leave the empire.

So depending on how the AI chooses to handle the incident, and on how good they are at reining in, North Italy could stay in the HRE.

Originally posted by EricB:

I've been expanding elsewhere as a result. Tunis and Tlemcen are wiped out, and I'm pushing into Morocco now. It took awhile to get strong enough to take on Spain, but we're making some progress as Spain now with France's help. The Ottomans are way too strong to take on and about 3 times my size. They keep issuing warnings to me to not attack their neighbors. Never seen that before either. Is it common for the AI to issue warnings?

Not that common in my experience, but not unheard of if they think you're pissing in their cheerios.

Originally posted by EricB:

Also, I got a whole bunch of extra AE in Italy for no good reason, which was annoying.

I believe Italy has boosted AE gain. Could be what you're seeing.

Originally posted by EricB:

At this rate it's going to take forever to form Italy. I'm Two Siciilies now. Just 1 province in Florence/Milan is going to generate over 50 AE I think. How best to proceed? I've heard that you can dismantle the HRE but it requires occupying Austria plus all of the electors' capitals in a war. How do you even accomplish that? If I declare war on Austria, I'm not at war with the other electors. Do you have to declare multiple wars?

Yeah, you may have to declare more than one war to do that. If you have to go that route, I'd advise fully winning one (peace out anyone who's not Austria or an elector), leaving it at 100% warscore, and starting the next one. I'm not certain, but I think having an elector as an ally or subject counts as controlling their capital for dismantling purposes.

The other option is to wait for the Thirty Years' War. Either get involve yourself, on whichever side lets you take the stuff you want from the other side, or wait on the sidelines and attack while everyone's distracted. Either way the Empire tends to be pretty weakened afterwards.

Originally posted by EricB:

I'm thinking that I keep expanding west, take over Iberia. Maybe do some colonization after that and then I'll be strong enough to attack Austria and all the electors, dismantle the HRE myself, then I can expand into northern Italy and finally form Italy. But it seems a little backwards. It shouldn't be this hard to get northern Italy. I shouldn't have to take over most of northern Africa and Iberia before northern Italy as Naples.

Italy is deliberately harder to expand in. Keep in mind no one managed to do it in real life until 50 years after the game's end date.

[grotaclas]

The wiki lists the conditions to dismantle the HRE[eu4.paradoxwikis.com]. So you can ally a bunch of electors and then you don't have to occupy their capital as long as it is not occupied by someone else. Ideally you get all the electors which are not allied to you into one war. If that is not possible, you have the problem that you can't declare a war on an HRE member while you are at war with the emperor. So you might have to peace out the emperor to be able to start a new war. Or maybe you can get into a war with the other electors by declaring on their allies outside the HRE.

[EricB]

Maybe there was a war between Austria and the northern Italy states, but I don't remember it occurring. You'd think that if Austria was befriending them, then some would go and some would stay. In this case, all of them stayed. Everything north of the Papal States is HRE territory well into the 1500s. I kept waiting for an event to fire that never occurred. The extra AE came form accidentally taking Rome. :)

I'm Allied with France, Hungary, Milan, and Florence right now. I'm allied with Hungary as a check on Austria. Austria tends to ally Hungary early, then they break the alliance with Hungary, then they invade and make them a junior partner. I'd rather have a less powerful Austria, so I'm allied with Hungary to prevent Austria from taking them over.

Iberian Wedding fired early again in this one. This time around 1555 or so. That mechanism seems broken. Just about every heir that Castille gets is female. It seems hard-wired to screw Naples. lol

I got 1 war vs Aragon for Independence in 1447 where I took a few Sicily provinces. I've learned to take as much land as possible in the first Aragon war because you don't know if there will be time for a 2nd one before the Iberian Wedding happens. Most of the time you get just 1 shot at them with Castille helping. Take as much as you can.

After the Iberian Wedding fired, I got Castille to help me with Morocco/Tlemcen/Tunis, who were all allied. That got a foothold into Africa.

Castille also got a PU over Portugal, but I've had 2 wars vs Spain/Portugal with France's help and won them both. In the first one I got maybe 30% war score before the situation got unfavorable when Castille hired a million mercenaries. I saw that and just peaced out taking what I could get. Let them bankrupt themselves on mercs.

In the 2nd war we got up to around 60% war score or so. We occupied all of Iberia. Spain took over all my African provinces. I just stuck close to France's army in Iberia and abandoned my African lands. The 2nd war let me get Sardinia and the Western Mediterranean islands.

I'm thinking in the 3rd war I'll get some land in Iberia, then release Aragon as a vassal, who has already been integrated, then go re-conquest vs Spain. I'm hoping that after a couple more wars I'll be strong enough to take on Spain/Portugal by myself without needing France's help anymore.

It's just a weird game. In other tries as Naples I'm able to get a lot of land in Italy. By this point I should have close to 40-50% of the Genoa trade node, and I'm stuck at around 20% due to all those provinces never leaving the HRE. I left them alone for a long time just waiting for them to leave, and it never happened. All of them just stayed.

I'm rivaled to Morocco, Mamluks, and Spain. Spain and Mamluks are both stronger than me, but I'm stronger than Morocco. The stupid warning from the Ottomans makes it so that I can't even attack the Mamluks. If I attack the Mamluks, then I'm at war with them (who is already stronger than me) plus the Ottomans.

[EricB]

I thought that the warning from the Ottomans meant that I couldn't trigger any war without bringing the Ottomans into it because that's what the caption said. When I looked it up it said a warning applies to only nations that are neighboring the Ottomans, so they have to have a land border with the Ottomans or be in the same sea zone to trigger it.

It's happened twice now. In the first one it was when I joined an offensive war with Florence (Florence as the war leader) vs the Papal States/Venice. I think the Ottomans wanted to go after Venice next. They had a truce with Venice at the time, and they didn't like it that I was potentially taking land from Venice.

In the 2nd one, it was after an offensive war in Africa. I attacked Morocco, who was allied with Tunis. Tunis had an alliance with the Ottomans and was very weak. I took 1 province from Tunis and 2 from Morocco in that war. I think they didn't like it that I was still getting at Tunis despite their alliance.

So, in the first one I was taking land that they wanted for themselves, and in the second one I was taking land from their ally. I think it's an interesting game mechanic. It's not affecting me too much as most of the land I want isn't bordering the Ottomans anyways. My targets are in Africa, Iberia, and northern Italy.

[Malvastor]

Originally posted by EricB:

Maybe there was a war between Austria and the northern Italy states, but I don't remember it occurring. You'd think that if Austria was befriending them, then some would go and some would stay. In this case, all of them stayed. Everything north of the Papal States is HRE territory well into the 1500s. I kept waiting for an event to fire that never occurred. The extra AE came form accidentally taking Rome. :)

It's not that hard to get high relations with all of them. Especially if you're Austria, since that's pretty much what they're designed for.

It's also possible the incident hasn't concluded yet; I'm not sure what the time window is.

Originally posted by EricB:

Iberian Wedding fired early again in this one. This time around 1555 or so. That mechanism seems broken. Just about every heir that Castille gets is female. It seems hard-wired to screw Naples. lol

It's not broken. Wiki says it's supposed to fire between the late 1400s and the first half of the 1500s.

Originally posted by EricB:

I'm rivaled to Morocco, Mamluks, and Spain. Spain and Mamluks are both stronger than me, but I'm stronger than Morocco. The stupid warning from the Ottomans makes it so that I can't even attack the Mamluks. If I attack the Mamluks, then I'm at war with them (who is already stronger than me) plus the Ottomans.

Wait til the Ottomans and Mamluks inevitably go to war. That's probably why the Ottomans warned you- they don't want you taking stuff they've got their eye on.

[EricB]

Wait. So if the Ottomans go to war with the Mamluks, and then I attack the Mamluks too, then the Ottomans won't go to war with me?

Mamluks are around 50K in troops. Ottomans around 120K. Naples is about 40K, so I'm not interested in a solo war vs the Mamluks and definitely not the Ottomans. I'll probably need all of Italy, north Africa, and Iberia before challenging the Ottomans. For now I'm keeping Hungary and France as my big allies to deter the Ottomans from coming at me.

[Malvastor]

Originally posted by EricB:

Wait. So if the Ottomans go to war with the Mamluks, and then I attack the Mamluks too, then the Ottomans won't go to war with me?

Mamluks are around 50K in troops. Ottomans around 120K. Naples is about 40K, so I'm not interested in a solo war vs the Mamluks and definitely not the Ottomans. I'll probably need all of Italy, north Africa, and Iberia before challenging the Ottomans. For now I'm keeping Hungary and France as my big allies to deter the Ottomans from coming at me.

The Ottomans can't protect the Mamluks and attack them at the same time. Plus, if you join while the war is on the Mamluks will be too busy with the Ottomans to focus on you.