The uniqueness of HRE

[Arizal]

I'm an heretic and I assume it, but...

While everybody want to have a better system representing the HRE, Japan or China, I think the real solution would be to make it so that each country could, in specific condition, acquire those characteristics.

I'll try to explain my view by some fictious example: What if France failed to centralized? Wouldn't it had been possible to become like the HRE? And Poland, was it so different from the HRE since its nobles were able to elect their king? I think the different political systems that existed and that could have existed should be more properly depicted in the game, but this is whichful thinking. I just wondered if anyone shared my view.

 

[Comes Imperii]

I completely agree. Also, most of the player efforts should be put on fighting the nobles and their local privileges.

 

[icedt729]

If you're saying EUIV should be more like CK2, then I agree with you.

 

[unmerged(271387)]

I think this is hard to implement,but i would love this!

 

[ANO1453]

I thought the Holy Roman Empire was something unique. Wasn't the Emperor crowned by the Pope?

 

[Ruwaard]

oh you mean the as a state and not because it is an empire. Yes, it would be plausible that France stayed an elective monrachy, which IIRC it formally was until king Philip II August and the German kingdom could have become hereditary, if they would have had a dynasty, which survives long enough.

In that regard the HRE isn't special, but in terms and being a Roman Empire and the relationship with the Papacy it is.

However by the start of EUIV a lot of those elements were already set in motion, changing those pathways is more likely in the CK time period.

 

[HolisticGod]

In the time period, the likelihood of France (or Spain or England or the Scandinavian countries, or Italy for the opposite reason) becoming anything remotely resembling the HRE is so remote that I hope Paradox wastes no time on it. The HRE was not unique because it was elective (as Poland was), or because it was an Empire (as Russia, France, Spain, Britain, etc., all became), or because it was decentralized (as was Poland, the outer regions of the OE, France and England at game start, etc., and Italy was moreso). What made the HRE unique (and for an overview, I would heartily recommend The Thirty Years War by Peter Wilson) was its specific political culture, specifically its law codes, institutions, courts, and procedures. These evolved over many centuries, and none presented much evolutionary advantage in the period 1444(or whenever)-1820. Why, then, would even a crumbling France adopt them? Against the forces of technology and political, economic, and social change, an HRE-style system, with powerful semi-sovereign Electors not unlike late Roman imperial generals, land courts, etc., was hopelessly outmatched, which is why it did not survive.

That said, I, too, would like to see more management of domestic politics even outside the HRE. It just shouldn't be specific to CK-style nobles, which does not reflect 80% of the period in 80% of Europe.

 

[Byzan]

Didn't France only use an elective anything concerning when deciding who is to be the new dynasty? I mean that's how the Valois and Bourbon were chosen.

 

[ANO1453]

Didn't France only use an elective anything concerning when deciding who is to be the new dynasty? I mean that's how the Valois and Bourbon were chosen.

That is not an elective anything. It is an election.
I think most monarchies in Europe had at least one; it happened very rarely though, only when a king died before designating an heir.

 

[Stratagyfan101]

I'm not sure about this. I mean the amount of tags would be a bit over the top.

At this point in time, the feudal structure should be breaking down, not increasing.

However there should be a real battle between the player and the nobility over centralization.