[PheliarearY]

Perhaps if Charles V would have managed to break the backs of the Prince Electors during the first skirmishes of the Reformation it would have managed to last longer, but as soon as these got to reassert their independence, the Empire was practically done for. The only thing a foreign potentate needed to do was to buy out a good chunk of them in order to either get the crown or get concessions. If Louis XIV wouldn't have been so rabidly anti-Protestant, he might have gotten his Dauphin crowned at ease after the Dutch conflict.

I think a unified Germany is better than the continuation of the HRE and that would have been impossible without the Reformation.