How to stop shadow kingdom event HRE, as Austria ?

[Nioe1995]

Basically i had a really good game as Austria by 1490, 2 imperial reforms passed as well as authority rising by 0.20 every month, 5 out of 7 electors loyal to me, All of the empire with the exceptions of Holestien and the one Poland starts with are under the control of imperial states, including Venice which rejoined the HRE. Hungary was in a personal union under me, as well as having a strong army and economy.

I thought i would be safe from the event as all De juro provinces in Italy were owned by members of the HRE.

This all went to ♥♥♥♥ shadow kingdom event, all italian states leave HRE, imperial authority only at 0.01 every month, all electors turn on me except one meaning i will lose emperor status on my monarch's death. All my alliances breakdown, Brandenburg aillies my rival Poland, Saxony now hates me. I rage quit because ♥♥♥♥ this ♥♥♥♥ it was probably the best campgain i ever had in EU4.

I tried starting a new campgain, i immediately attack Venice and take all their italian provinces except Venice itself and the mainland province that joins it. This severely hinders me however, i lose scores of administration points and my diplomatic reputation suffers alot ontop of Brandenburg breaking their alliance with me and losing all but the support of 2 electors.

Should i just basically invade all of northern Italy and if so what provinces ?

[Kelldath]

First of all, shadow event only makes the northern italian states leave the HRE, it has strictly nothing to do with you losing your alliances or not being able to keep the electors woting for you.

Second, preventing this event is meant to take a lot of ressources, as to avoid the event, you need the entire kingdom of italy to be under the control of HRE member.
The map is here, green is in HRE by default, red needs to be added :

http://www.eu4wiki.com/images/7/70/Shadow_kingdom.png

Other than that, Italian states that are vassals to a germanic member will choose to stay, and a germanic state controling italian region won't have the event.

[Black_Rat]

allowing the shadow kingdom to trigger can actually help ia as you can re-add them to the hre for 1 ia each.

[trisstann]

wow according to the map, do even rome need to be part of HRE?

[Chappie]

You need all The Papal State and Urbino to be part of the HRE to prevent it aswell

[Azsouth.TVR]

I took all the Venetian holdings including Venice (as an alternative to Rome) as well as all but Rome from the Papal States (as I didn't want to get the negative modifiers for occupying Rome) but the Shadow Kingdom event still happened even though I controlled and had added 8 Italian Provinces to the empire so I guess Rome is an absolute requirement?

[Glokenpop]

Originally posted by Azsouth.TVR:

I took all the Venetian holdings including Venice (as an alternative to Rome) as well as all but Rome from the Papal States (as I didn't want to get the negative modifiers for occupying Rome) but the Shadow Kingdom event still happened even though I controlled and had added 8 Italian Provinces to the empire so I guess Rome is an absolute requirement?

It is but there's no need to core it. You can stop the Shadow Kingdom after taking the decision which is available after controlling central Italy and other regions. After this Rome can be released in an event.

[mischa.zehnbauer]

But you do need to take it! The tooltip of the decision exactly tells you which provinces are needed. There are no substitutes, so Venice can't be used as an alternative to Rome. As Flying Dutchman noted, it doesn't need to be cored, so take rome last, enact the decision, re-install the papal rule in rome.