So my first good start as HRE (out of like three, two horrible starts and another realizing you have to have a Great Prophet building from the start to get the Church of the Holy Sepulcher), and this is where I stand.

http://i167.photobucket.com/albums/u122/OnlySigurd/Civ%20Pics/Civ4ScreenShot0013.jpg

So not only was Mailand occupied by weak barbs, and Rome with somehow equally weak Indies, I got some rare bonus units (rare for Germany anyway) and a pre-settled Wein so I settled Memel and Faustindorf, which I actually like alot more than my usual Budapest/Posen/Indie Kiev which is neato. Also Rome has the Hagia Sophia so I could x3 priest before even built a temple. And as you can see, I've been teching well (+ some decent China/India trades) and working on Printing Press at 1160. So I'd say this is a great start, despite Spain yelling at me when they were Zoroastrian for a bit there :lol:

But now the hard part for me: Vassals. Now when it comes to certain Civs, I'm decent with who I Vassalize (Mexico as America for example), but anytime I've ever tried to go out of my way to Vassalize any Civ, be it by peace or capitulation, it's always gone horridly. So I'm looking for advice on completing this one. The only clue I've got is Greece as a decent option for peace Vassal, then maybe Vikings since they can take a punch or two before collapsing. Any help would be much appreciated :)

I could use some tips on this one too. Everytime I try to capitulate a vassal they either vassalize to another civ or just collapse

When I went for HRE Uhv, I mauled France into submission and vassalized them. Then, when I teched PP, Spain declared on England because of Contrareformation and England accepted to become a vassal. Subsequently, I capitulated Spain.
You should be building KNIGHTS, not Landsknechts ;) Knights really beat everything from their era : you aren't going to do much with a Landsknecht against a longbow or crossbow. On top of that, Knights are faster, meaning your enemy will whip out less reinforcements and you will be able to wage war faster.
You don't really need TGChannel either, hammers are better used on units (it will probably not pay itself back in the 30 turns you've still got). You want your power level as high as possible to increase the chance of getting a peacevassal.
So basically, finish PP, try to get one of the Protestants/Catholics to ally with you and capitulate France/Spain/Sweden.

Germany shouldn't have to take all of Poland and half of Ukraine to play a regular game.

Ewww, Byzantium and Hellas coexisting.

That's a rather old version of 1.9 ...

It 'twas a SVN version...can't quite recall which version but it was obviously before the Canal was western locked :P Also a 3000 BC start obviously :P