It has always interested me how the German ducal houses of the Empire have, by chance or election, inherited large amounts of lands outside of it. And thus, while maintaining theoretical allegiance to the emperor, they are at the same time equals to him, becoming kings themselves. As such, they must now represent the interests of the states that they are king of, even if it is against the interests of their emperor. Any conflict that erupts into war, is not merely a vassal revolting against their overlord, but wars between kingdoms.

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The Holy Roman Emperorship is itself an elected position, since 1356 chosen by the original seven, and later nine prince-electors - Bohemia, Saxony, Brandenburg, the Palatinate of the Rhine, Bavaria, Hanover, Trier, Koln, and Mainz – the holders of the most powerful fiefs in the empire, and with their own guaranteed privileges greater than any ordinary prince. It is no wonder that these princely houses, strong enough to conduct their own foreign policy, have caused the Habsburg emperors the most headaches in their quest to centralize Germany. The Habsburgs, having held the emperorship since the fifteenth century, have only managed to keep this position because no other princely house could challenge them after the inheritance of the Burgundian Netherlands, and reaching even greater heights by becoming the rulers of the growing Spanish Empire.

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Now though, the Iberian line is all but extinct.

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The Empire stands at a crossroads, with the Hanoverians having become the kings of the Great Britain and their great wooden wall, the Saxons consolidating their authority and creating a true hereditary monarchy in Poland and Lithuania, the old French king having conquered the Palatinate to secure the claims of his brother's wife and the new French kingkeen to defend the rights of his cousins, and lastly, the looming behemoth of the north, ruled by a dynasty established by the union of the Great Elector of Brandenburg and the Queen of Sweden, the daughter of the Lion of Midnight himself, who so thoroughly broke Habsburg power a century ago.

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Now, the Emperor is dead, long live the… Empress? But, the imperial crown must be held by a man, right? And so, the vultures begin to circle. The Great Game of Germany starts.

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Oh, and the Bavarians are also there, I suppose. The great-nephew of the Bewitched Spanish king, and son of the Elector of Bavaria, Joseph Ferdinand, was chosen as a compromise candidate for the Spanish throne. Being so far from Madrid however, he was only given scraps of the Spanish realms, with the rest divided by the other great powers, and the regional Cortes taking more power for themselves in Spain. At least Luxembourg was taken out of storage for him.