Montferrat: Part 16: 1629-1643: War to Unite Two Romes

I ended up unlocking religious CB in super late 1633

HRE became officially Catholic in 1635.

I got my income over 1000 a month and proclaimed myself economic hegemon, slowly getting economic benefits, but instantly getting -100 with everyone. My monthly income has gone over 1200 since then and keeps climbing.

I forgot about Treaty of Tordesillas and sent colonists to Australia, causing Pope to break our alliance and totally hating me. The whole thing was just bad gameplay by me, as I could have spent some bird mana to take French colonies in a peace deal instead, but I was sort of wondering how that treaty really worked. Turns out it's totally stupid, -50 per colonized province, yearly decay of 1, with no max and no time limit.

Switzerland also broke our alliance due to some bad event on top of hegemony penalty, and them being Reformed heretics.

I popped a Golden Era, as it's not like I'm going to continue this beyond 50 years anyway.

I got a coalition against me, and now that everyone -100 hates me, I can't really fix it with diplomats. But I can guarantee then unguarantee them.

I managed to install my dynasty on thrones of Poland and Austria. Austria had a succession without an heir, so I attacked them, with full truce break, as who even cares about AE?

By the way this war is extremely counterproducive - if I PU Austria, I won't be able to take over Wien (which for some reason is needed for restoring Rome) for 50 years, and someone else, likely Bohemia, will become the next HRE emperor anyway, not me. Also massive coalition coming. Mainly I'm trying out the new features to see how strong they are in practice.

What I need for Restoring Rome button, not much:

• finish integrating Leon (almost done)
• PU Austria and finish integrating them, that's 60+ years
• conquer Aragon (my former ally, but as they also allied Austria that's over now)
• conquer Pope (that has some serious penalties, but then again, I already have huge penalties due to hegemony and Australia problem)
• France, Savoy, Cilli, and Flanders

Another thing - playing this way (hegemony and PU Austria war) I really have no way to destroy the HRE - I can't ally any electors, and getting 7 in the same war is nearly impossible as they tend to rival each other. It used to be possible to start multiple wars, but now you cannot declare was on HRE member if you're already at war with the emperor, to prevent exploits.

Meanwhile my monuments are all close to finishing their upgrade to tier 3, and it's a lot of monuments.

Montferrat - Austria alliance lasted nearly 200 years

So far my opinion of hegemony is that it's probably fine for World Conquest attempts, and probably a bit later; not really for casual Roman Restoration games. That -100 opinion penalty with everyone is just dumb.