Considering how difficult this was for me, I figured I'd do a write up. It's considerably harder to pull this off now (patch 1.24) than it was patches ago.
1. HRE "Entry Fee"
Joining the HRE as any large or well developed nation is difficult and usually involves vassalizing/PU 3+ electors so you can become emperor, but if you have 200 or less development for countries in the germanic culture group; 100 or less for other cultures, you can join directly given you're buddy-buddy with the current Emperor. Previously, in old patches, vassals and marches counted for ~1/2 dev points, but from what I can tell, they now count for full dev points. This is what makes it currently much harder to join than in previous patches.
What does this mean for Poland?
You can no longer just give provinces to Moldavia or Mazovia to reduce your overall HRE "Entry Fee." You literally have to give away provinces. The good news you can still give some to Lithuania.
2. Austria Relations
In order to get 200 dev worth of provinces accepted, you have to have maxed 200 relations with Austria. In order to PU Bohemia and Lithuania, this means you cannot get a royal marriage with anyone with a standing monarch. Getting to max relations with Austria without a Royal Marriage is Royal Pain in the BUTT. You basically have to pull out ALL the stops.
3. Get ready to save scum like you've never save scummed before.
Making sure Poland doesn't get the Jagiellon PU event before you're ready to join the HRE, let alone, before Bohemia gets a monarch is basically completely and totally unrealistic without save scumming. So if you're against save scumming, joining the HRE and gaining a PU over both Lithuania and Bohemia is not going to easily happen. In fact, it's near impossible.
Goal #1 Joining HRE (Our target is 173 relations without gifting, 198 with gifting)
Day 1:
1. Restart until Austria has rivaled Bohemia and either Denmark or the Ottomans.
2. Royal marry Bohemia (Don't ally). Rival Denmark/Ottomans based on Austria's rivals, rival 2 others (I picked Hungary and Teutonic Knights).
3. Ally Austria
4. Insult one of your Rivals, embargo the other(s).
5. Pick a Prestige advisor (Yearly prestige: +1) and a Diplomat advisor (Improve relations: +20%); you need to keep prestige high in order to PU Bohemia later and the +20% will speed up "Improve relations" with Austria; time is of the essence as the Jagiellon PU event will start popping up more and more. Fire any +1 advisors as needed to get the correct advisor; money is no option right now. Take loans if you have to.
6. Delete all forts, bring army maintenance to zero, and place armies on Orthodox provinces with highest unrest.
December 12th
7. Embargo other rival. For me I couldn't embargo the Ottomans because I had a truce, but if Austria rivaled Denmark, you could have 3 embargos ongoing at this point.
8. Improve relations with Austria
January
9. Max Subsidize Austria. It should give you roughly +5 relations per year. It'll cap out at +15, but we'll probably get around +10 when we're ready to join the HRE.
February
10. Give Austria military access. You should now have ticking friendship modifiers for Improve Relations, Enemy of my Enemy, and subsidizing. You should also have friendly modifiers for both Military Access and Alliance. Sadly you can't transfer Trade Power. Do NOT, under any circumstances, accept a RM with Austria until after you are in the HRE and have a Jagiellon on the throne.
Ongoing steps:
A. Continue to save scum to avoid the Jagiellon PU event and to prevent Bohemia from gaining a monarch. Extra save scum points if you try to get a Hapsburg on the Hungary throne for a claim throne there later (You too can gain a Hapsburg on your throne through Austria thanks to Poland's Elective monarchy once your Jagiellon PU event monarch dies; Then you can claim Hungary's throne.)
B. Watch your relations with Austria until they hit 173.
HRE time
1. Release Mazovia from their vassalage first. You'll take a -25 Prestige hit. Do NOT do this after selling provinces to Lithuania. Your Prestige has to be above 0 to release a vassal.
2. Sell LWOW to Lithuania. Max out how much they'll pay for it. You'll take a -10 Prestige hit.
3. Check to see your HRE "Entry Fee" is at 198 (Hover your mouse over the HRE icon in the province page).
4. Gift enough cash to Austria until you would get +25 relations from gifting. For me, this was 250 gold. I had to take out multiple loans. Don't fret, attack Teutonic Knights or something to get that loans paid off. Remember money doesn't matter. Power and territory does.
5. You should now have 198 relations with the Austrian Emperor. HRE Entry Fee now equals Austrian relations. 198 = 198. We can now join the HRE.
6. Add as many provinces that you want to in order to join the HRE. At least add your capital.
7. Cancel subsidies.
8. Celebrate. The hard part is over.
Goal #2 Gaining Lithuania under a PU (The easiest of the 3 goals.)
1. Unpause
2. Wait until Jagiellon PU event fires.
3. Pick Jagiellon ruler.
4. Celebrate. You now are in the HRE and have a PU over Lithuania.
Goal #3 Regaining Positive Prestige
1. You're probably sitting at roughly negative -25 to -30 prestige now for selling a territory. The good news is that it could have been worse if you didn't have your prestige advisor this entire time, but you need it to be positive and higher than any of Bohemia's other Royal Marriages.
2. You have 3 main targets for war: Brandenburg, Pomerania, and the Teutonic Knights. For me, I picked Teutonic Knights for 3 reasons: #1 I had a mission giving instant claim on Kulm, #2 because they have really rich and developed provinces which I sorely needed, and #3 attacking HRE nations gives higher AE. For an added bonus, they were allied to Livonian Order who was allied to Riga. I made all 3 co-belligerants. Why? In order to get 3 separate peace deals to max my prestige gain. You can go for War Reparations and Trade power or to fully max prestige gain, you can choose to strip the cobelligerent of its allies and rivals. It's up to you and how much prestige your RM competition has. I did mostly war reparations and rival stripping for Riga and Livonia Order to max my prestige gain.
3. Fight Bradenburg, Pomerania, or Teutonic Knights. Separate peace each of their allies to maximize prestige gain. Peace out your main target as you wish (land, prestige, power projection, etc). If you had a mission for taking Kulm, make sure to select Kulm in the negotiations as the mission rewards include another +1 yearly prestige.
4. You should now have enough prestige to get a Jagiellon on Bohemia's throne. You can stop save scumming now.
Goal #4 Gaining PU over Bohemia
1. Once a Jagiellon reins over Bohemia and your army is recovered, use the Claim Throne cb.
2. Fight, win.
3. Celebrate.
Congratulations, you now are in the HRE, have a PU over Lithuania, and have PU over Bohemia. The world is your oyster, Poland. Next up, a PU over Hungary.
...Or you could just rofl stomp everyone.
The choices are endless.
1. HRE "Entry Fee"
Joining the HRE as any large or well developed nation is difficult and usually involves vassalizing/PU 3+ electors so you can become emperor, but if you have 200 or less development for countries in the germanic culture group; 100 or less for other cultures, you can join directly given you're buddy-buddy with the current Emperor. Previously, in old patches, vassals and marches counted for ~1/2 dev points, but from what I can tell, they now count for full dev points. This is what makes it currently much harder to join than in previous patches.
What does this mean for Poland?
You can no longer just give provinces to Moldavia or Mazovia to reduce your overall HRE "Entry Fee." You literally have to give away provinces. The good news you can still give some to Lithuania.
2. Austria Relations
In order to get 200 dev worth of provinces accepted, you have to have maxed 200 relations with Austria. In order to PU Bohemia and Lithuania, this means you cannot get a royal marriage with anyone with a standing monarch. Getting to max relations with Austria without a Royal Marriage is Royal Pain in the BUTT. You basically have to pull out ALL the stops.
3. Get ready to save scum like you've never save scummed before.
Making sure Poland doesn't get the Jagiellon PU event before you're ready to join the HRE, let alone, before Bohemia gets a monarch is basically completely and totally unrealistic without save scumming. So if you're against save scumming, joining the HRE and gaining a PU over both Lithuania and Bohemia is not going to easily happen. In fact, it's near impossible.
Goal #1 Joining HRE (Our target is 173 relations without gifting, 198 with gifting)
Day 1:
1. Restart until Austria has rivaled Bohemia and either Denmark or the Ottomans.
2. Royal marry Bohemia (Don't ally). Rival Denmark/Ottomans based on Austria's rivals, rival 2 others (I picked Hungary and Teutonic Knights).
3. Ally Austria
4. Insult one of your Rivals, embargo the other(s).
5. Pick a Prestige advisor (Yearly prestige: +1) and a Diplomat advisor (Improve relations: +20%); you need to keep prestige high in order to PU Bohemia later and the +20% will speed up "Improve relations" with Austria; time is of the essence as the Jagiellon PU event will start popping up more and more. Fire any +1 advisors as needed to get the correct advisor; money is no option right now. Take loans if you have to.
6. Delete all forts, bring army maintenance to zero, and place armies on Orthodox provinces with highest unrest.
December 12th
7. Embargo other rival. For me I couldn't embargo the Ottomans because I had a truce, but if Austria rivaled Denmark, you could have 3 embargos ongoing at this point.
8. Improve relations with Austria
January
9. Max Subsidize Austria. It should give you roughly +5 relations per year. It'll cap out at +15, but we'll probably get around +10 when we're ready to join the HRE.
February
10. Give Austria military access. You should now have ticking friendship modifiers for Improve Relations, Enemy of my Enemy, and subsidizing. You should also have friendly modifiers for both Military Access and Alliance. Sadly you can't transfer Trade Power. Do NOT, under any circumstances, accept a RM with Austria until after you are in the HRE and have a Jagiellon on the throne.
Ongoing steps:
A. Continue to save scum to avoid the Jagiellon PU event and to prevent Bohemia from gaining a monarch. Extra save scum points if you try to get a Hapsburg on the Hungary throne for a claim throne there later (You too can gain a Hapsburg on your throne through Austria thanks to Poland's Elective monarchy once your Jagiellon PU event monarch dies; Then you can claim Hungary's throne.)
B. Watch your relations with Austria until they hit 173.
HRE time
1. Release Mazovia from their vassalage first. You'll take a -25 Prestige hit. Do NOT do this after selling provinces to Lithuania. Your Prestige has to be above 0 to release a vassal.
2. Sell LWOW to Lithuania. Max out how much they'll pay for it. You'll take a -10 Prestige hit.
3. Check to see your HRE "Entry Fee" is at 198 (Hover your mouse over the HRE icon in the province page).
4. Gift enough cash to Austria until you would get +25 relations from gifting. For me, this was 250 gold. I had to take out multiple loans. Don't fret, attack Teutonic Knights or something to get that loans paid off. Remember money doesn't matter. Power and territory does.
5. You should now have 198 relations with the Austrian Emperor. HRE Entry Fee now equals Austrian relations. 198 = 198. We can now join the HRE.
6. Add as many provinces that you want to in order to join the HRE. At least add your capital.
7. Cancel subsidies.
8. Celebrate. The hard part is over.
Goal #2 Gaining Lithuania under a PU (The easiest of the 3 goals.)
1. Unpause
2. Wait until Jagiellon PU event fires.
3. Pick Jagiellon ruler.
4. Celebrate. You now are in the HRE and have a PU over Lithuania.
Goal #3 Regaining Positive Prestige
1. You're probably sitting at roughly negative -25 to -30 prestige now for selling a territory. The good news is that it could have been worse if you didn't have your prestige advisor this entire time, but you need it to be positive and higher than any of Bohemia's other Royal Marriages.
2. You have 3 main targets for war: Brandenburg, Pomerania, and the Teutonic Knights. For me, I picked Teutonic Knights for 3 reasons: #1 I had a mission giving instant claim on Kulm, #2 because they have really rich and developed provinces which I sorely needed, and #3 attacking HRE nations gives higher AE. For an added bonus, they were allied to Livonian Order who was allied to Riga. I made all 3 co-belligerants. Why? In order to get 3 separate peace deals to max my prestige gain. You can go for War Reparations and Trade power or to fully max prestige gain, you can choose to strip the cobelligerent of its allies and rivals. It's up to you and how much prestige your RM competition has. I did mostly war reparations and rival stripping for Riga and Livonia Order to max my prestige gain.
3. Fight Bradenburg, Pomerania, or Teutonic Knights. Separate peace each of their allies to maximize prestige gain. Peace out your main target as you wish (land, prestige, power projection, etc). If you had a mission for taking Kulm, make sure to select Kulm in the negotiations as the mission rewards include another +1 yearly prestige.
4. You should now have enough prestige to get a Jagiellon on Bohemia's throne. You can stop save scumming now.
Goal #4 Gaining PU over Bohemia
1. Once a Jagiellon reins over Bohemia and your army is recovered, use the Claim Throne cb.
2. Fight, win.
3. Celebrate.
Congratulations, you now are in the HRE, have a PU over Lithuania, and have PU over Bohemia. The world is your oyster, Poland. Next up, a PU over Hungary.
...Or you could just rofl stomp everyone.
The choices are endless.
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