I decided to play a game of HRE to try the unique campaign mechanics, excited to try a playthrough where I keep the electors happy and work towards a vassal swarm type deal (seeing that HRE receives bonuses to vassals).

But the game mechanics are really working against you with Attila's diplomacy system. 1212 boasts a vassal release mechanic, so I thought I would be able to conquer states and release them as vassals, but 20 years after taking Hamburg I still don't have the option to release the Hanseatic League. So getting vassals is harder than I anticipated, to start with. Not to mention it's impossible to maintain all the HRE states without letting my enemies take cities to liberate them.

So force vassalage on a few factions I sieged down and... their war diplomacy is all over the place. My vassals are attacking my allies and everyone hates me because of it. Foreign factions attack my allies and vassals, but I can only make peace for myself... In other words whenever I am attacked by any faction it is a fight until I destroy their faction. Really fun now that I'm at war with England! Attila has no option to force factions to make peace with eachother, even if those faction are your vassals! With war weariness, how the hell can you justify ever having vassals in this game?

Seriously, the discontent doesn't make any sense. Milan has +144 relations with me and they are "discontent". Excuse me?

The game mentions "vassal levies" but I have no idea what these are, can't find anywhere that explains it.

Not to mention Saxony, my ally who never made an army the entire game to date. I'm not sure why, but it seems like it's because they're a player aligned faction.

All these headaches just make me want to slash and burn half the empire to the ground, or better yet, play a faction that doesn't have to deal with these broken mechanics.