Nobody wants to be a free city

[Meneldil]

As the title says. I'm the emperor as saxony, trying to maintain some order within the HRE. Somehow, a free city got annexed, and I'm trying to find someone to replace it, but nobody wants to become a free city. Every OPM has a a -50 modifier because he's either a monarchy or some other thing. Even the nation that start as a free city and that I liberated don't want to do it anymore. What should I do?

[Cymoric]

You should take one for the team and become a free city.

[Corrupted Sanity (Vex)]

You can get a monarchy OPM to accept becoming a free city if you increase your diplomatic reputation and their opinion of you enough. There are some other positive factors - I think them having a threatened attitude towards you helps.

That doesn't always work, though, even at +200 relations. Look at the positives vs negatives that the OPMs already have, and add 1 for every 10 relations points you can get with them... If it goes over 50 they'll accept, so you should start improving relations if you can do that.



I imagine it's technically possible with a theocracy, but I certainly haven't managed to scrounge up the 100 positive points required.

You can also try to beat OPMs out of other HRE nations. I'm not sure if there's a way to ensure they become republics though - I always end up with monarchies, even for ones that used to be republics.

[Snizzlet]

Yeah, I had a Austria HRE emp the whole time game, slowly lost free cities and was only able to replace one iirc. The modifiers for it are wrong imho but that's the way it is. Enjoy the free IA while it lasts.

[Meneldil]

I found out how to do it. You pretty much have to do everything you can to improve relations (mariage, alliance, guarantee, gift...) before the -50 can be overcome. And if your target is a theocracy or a merchant republic, it will never work.

This is a bit stupid. A -25 for monarchies and -50 for other regimes would be less annoying, as you can usually get +25 with OPM that really like you, without having to get an alliance and all that. Anyway, I converted to protestantism and gave the emperorship to some other poor sob. Have fun dealing with this, punk.

[Corrupted Sanity (Vex)]

Originally posted by Meneldil:

I found out how to do it. You pretty much have to do everything you can to improve relations (mariage, alliance, guarantee, gift...) before the -50 can be overcome. And if your target is a theocracy or a merchant republic, it will never work.

This is a bit stupid. A -25 for monarchies and -50 for other regimes would be less annoying, as you can usually get +25 with OPM that really like you, without having to get an alliance and all that. Anyway, I converted to protestantism and gave the emperorship to some other poor sob. Have fun dealing with this, punk.

Haha, that's similar to my current game. I didn't start as the emperor but I accidentally got elected - I basically just revoked the free cities (... Hard to take the bloody bastards over), spent IA for some relations boosts and handed it back over to Austria.

[OscarTheGrouchiest]

I think the entire new Imperial Authority mechanic is worse than it was before.

You get IA from free cities, but no one provence nations want to become a free city. Because which opm would want the protection of Austria from their neighbours, they are monarchies after all. :D Makes no sense, they should WANT to become free cities. Not that the emperor should increase relations and diplo just for the chance for them to say yes.

Having less princes and heretic ones hurt IA, but releasing nations or making them become the true religion doesn't actually give you much gain apart from a 0.00001 point count per month. If they thought you could too easily gain points before, just reduce the bonus you got (they basically did, but it's next to nothing now) Hell, even a 1 point IA bonus for doing these things would be an improvement.

You don't even get the nice event for getting Holstein back in the HRE. :(

[Meneldil]

Originally posted by OscarTheGrouchiest:

I think the entire new Imperial Authority mechanic is worse than it was before.


You don't even get the nice event for getting Holstein back in the HRE. :(

Agreed. I have no idea how you can form the HRE now. Playing as Saxony with influence and its already good diplo bonus, I couldn't even pass the first reform in 50 years. And that is while constantly releasing annexed princes. Unless you conquer Russia and Poland and add all those provinces to the HRE, I couldn't see myself ever advancing through the HRE reforms, hence why I gave up on being the emperor, as it seemed more of a hassle than anything.

[OscarTheGrouchiest]

Try having Bohemia, Poland and Lithuania under a PU as Austria (didn't even know you could get Pol/Lith tbh, was a nice surprise) so no one in the Protestant league dares start the religion war. So you'd have to wait 100 years before you can get any IA points due to heretic princes. Not even a measly 0.00000001 IA for 100 years.

I'm glad I got the form HRE achievement before these changes. It's doable now that's not the problem, but much less fun (not "easy" but less fun/entertaining/drag/less boring)

[OscarTheGrouchiest]

Originally posted by Ultrix Prime:

Diplo and influence plus a diplo rep adviser is key for free cities. Then you typically need an alliance, marriage, max relations and whatnot. Best is to go for it when the +1 diplo rep RNG event happens. I think it's called effective diplomats or some such.

I had the +1 dip rep ideas, and even then still I had to up relations. It usually worked right away right after releasing a nation as they like you a lot at that moment.

The problem is still that I'd think they want to become free cities without me having to 'coerce' them. Despite being a monarchy or having a militaristic leader or liking you at all. How many times do you see a nation saying no to becoming a free city, only for a few months later to be gobbled up. What possible reason could they have to NOT want the protection of a bigger nation?

They should jump at the chance, especially if they don't like me as I'd have to go to war for them if they get attacked.

[ZeratulR]

IIRC 6 or 7 members of the HRE start as republics. Two of them (Lucca and Friesland, I think) have only one province. One province republics are almost guaranteed to accept your offer to become a free city (unless they have a very low opinion of you due to aggressive expansion. You can try to reduce the size of those princes to one province but prevent them from being wiped off the map. Having a couple one province republics at all times (in case one of the free cities gets annexed and you need to replace it) is a good idea. In my current game as Austria I managed to prevent the number of the Free cities from dropping below 7.

At the same time I think that the emperor should get a special CB when a free city is annexed so that you can release it as a free city/republic. It doesn't make much sense that a country which had the word "free" in its government form is released as a duchy.

[Meneldil]

I just gave up on the whole HRE stuff. I stay emperor to get the forcelimit and diplo relation bonus, but don't even try to get IA. It's pretty much impossible nowadays. Screw the free cities, too.

[ZeratulR]

Originally posted by Meneldil:

I just gave up on the whole HRE stuff. I stay emperor to get the forcelimit and diplo relation bonus, but don't even try to get IA. It's pretty much impossible nowadays. Screw the free cities, too.

I don't know how it is as Saxony (since you dont have an imperial ban and ability to demand unlawful territory right away), but as Austria it's really not impossible. Actually it's pretty easy. Just warn all the princes, enforce peace, go to war to released annexed princes, return territory to the empire/add outside territory to the empire and crush the reformation ASAP. I revoked the privilegia in 1600 and I think it can be done much earlier.

[Meneldil]

Releasing princes or enforcing religion gives 0 IA... And since you need big allies as Saxony (or anyone other than Austria...) you're gonna have to let Poland or France eat some HRE provinces.

Princes that dislike you never call you up for war and thus get swallowed. Princes that like you never get attacked, unless you do ridiculous things like disband your army to look weak.

[Darksinth]

Originally posted by ZeratulR:

Originally posted by Meneldil:

I just gave up on the whole HRE stuff. I stay emperor to get the forcelimit and diplo relation bonus, but don't even try to get IA. It's pretty much impossible nowadays. Screw the free cities, too.

I don't know how it is as Saxony (since you dont have an imperial ban and ability to demand unlawful territory right away), but as Austria it's really not impossible. Actually it's pretty easy. Just warn all the princes, enforce peace, go to war to released annexed princes, return territory to the empire/add outside territory to the empire and crush the reformation ASAP. I revoked the privilegia in 1600 and I think it can be done much earlier.

Crushing the reformation is the hard part. As austria I can't get a cb on the northern provinces, but it's mostly those nations who turn to protestantism first. Do you have any advise on how to keep it under control?

[ZeratulR]

Originally posted by Belphegor:

Originally posted by ZeratulR:

I don't know how it is as Saxony (since you dont have an imperial ban and ability to demand unlawful territory right away), but as Austria it's really not impossible. Actually it's pretty easy. Just warn all the princes, enforce peace, go to war to released annexed princes, return territory to the empire/add outside territory to the empire and crush the reformation ASAP. I revoked the privilegia in 1600 and I think it can be done much earlier.

Crushing the reformation is the hard part. As austria I can't get a cb on the northern provinces, but it's mostly those nations who turn to protestantism first. Do you have any advise on how to keep it under control?

Well, first of all with full diplomatic ideas (and you should have diplomatic ideas as Austria) you get only -1 stability hit for starting a war without a CB. If you can destroy a CoR as a result of such a war, it's well worth the admin points required to increase stability.

But usually even that is not really necessary. Everybody is allied to everybody in HRE, plus heretics naturally tend to ally one another. It's just a question of finding a way to get close to the target prince's allies. Based on my current game, if you border half of the princes you can get into war with almost everybody. It's also very usefull if the heretic prince is a free city (iirc you get -3 stability for declaring on free cities). For example, I needed to convert Frankfurt and Lubeck but didn't have border with either of them. Both of them were allied to Bremen with whom I didn't have border as well but it was allied to Friesland with whom I had a border. So I fabricated a claim on Friesland, declared war, made Bremen co-belligerent and voila I converted both heretics in that war without losing stability.

Usually it's not advisable to capture anything in the HRE if you care about reforms (because AE penalty is huge) but if you can get a border with 3-4 princes it can be worth it. Finally you can get an imperial liberation CB if a target refuses to return the territory but you shouldn't use it too much since it decreases IA by 1.

Originally posted by Meneldil:

Releasing princes or enforcing religion gives 0 IA... And since you need big allies as Saxony (or anyone other than Austria...) you're gonna have to let Poland or France eat some HRE provinces.

Princes that dislike you never call you up for war and thus get swallowed. Princes that like you never get attacked, unless you do ridiculous things like disband your army to look weak.

You get 0,004 IA per month for releasing a prince and 0,01 for Converting a heretic. As an emperor France and Poland are your worst strategic enemies, why would you ally them? You always get called to wars if an outsider attacks a prince. If you have high enough opinion of many princes you can get into most wars by enforcing peace, warning helps as well. If it's not enough just keep track of who was annexed and constantly go to wars to release them.
As the greatest Austrian in history put it (it was either one of the Holy roman Emperors or Arnold Schwarzenegger, I don't remember): "You can have results or excuses, not both!"