Holy roman empire

[Samsel0o]

Hi Hello!

basically im sort of a noob still at medieval two total war and i think that i would want to play as HRE as my main (between scotland and milan) and was wondering what some strategies, army comps, and general tips and tricks were. Thanks!

[Gunther von Rittersburg]

1. Besiege Hamburg, Turn 1. Its poorly garrisoned, and you have a small army nearby that can reach it in a single move!

2. After Hamburg, take out Denmark. If not, they become too powerful to even begin thinking about wiping out, and they become this defensive struggle in the north that neither side will ever win. They start with one region, so they're easy to take out.

3. After that, you can decide where to go. Beware Milan and Venice. France and Poland vary when they attack, depending on how the Pope feels and how their own campaign is going. Hungary usually wont attack unless the Pope despises you.

Army wise, almost all units have their uses. I'd go for a more sergeant spearmen as the basic infantry early game and work towards having Armoured Spearmen, which are stronger. A balanced mix of calvary, missile infatry and artillery can be more upon personal prefernce, situation and what units can be recruited locally. Mounted Crossbows are extremely OP so once you can recruit those, you pretty much have the strongest units in-game.

Beware the late game units as they aren't as good. Gothic Knights are the only unit I remember at the moment.

[Samsel0o]

thankS! well I think in the kingdoms expansion they fixed the bug

[Surtha Ek the Everchariot]

I think there's a strategy online somewhere that allows you to double your regions in 15 turns.

[Improper Use]

Denmark's Heavy Horse, the War Clerics or somesuch get massive bonuses in auto battles.
Most of the factions have special cake units that are buffed into terrors.
eg
Frenchy is a pita while on defence.
HRE loves plate stormtrooper spam
England does the swordsmen smash
Spain spams plate, heavy plate. light plate and a side of plates.
and so on.

As far as late gane units, it really depends on if you play using auto resolve or in the battle map.

Auto resolve spins around two tiers - heavy plate and heavy horse.
You can win against every faction using auto resolve using just 1 of these for that specific faction/time period

HRE has both of these, all you really need to do is plan in advance and lock down your starting regions early.

Do some reading at http://forums.totalwar.org or www.twcenter.net
there are some interesting tricks you can do with pike + plate stacked on each other (the pike 1st rank is placed behind the plate 2nd rank) and such.

edit: got the order reversed.