Showing all 513 replies.
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When 4 came out, it was clearly superior to 3
After like 3-4 years of bloat, I’d decided that 4 was done and I hopped off the DLC treadmill
5 remains to be seen, I’m interested in it but giving it some more time in the oven before I dig in
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>>2348946
They just never figured out how to make 'playing tall' and role playing viable. You can make shittons of money and never be able to use it for anything useful. Developing your own provinces gets too expensive too quickly. In the end all thats left is coonqing the world and even that is stopped by government capacity. Also AI WILL try to blob.
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>>2348953
I remember how not so long ago there wasn't such a thing as governing capacity and every country had a state limit instead. Then if you had more territories than your states, you'd get "territorial corruption" malus. I liked how that incentivized taking full states and deving what you already had rather than blobbing and going for optimal but ugly borders. But that system was pretty broken because trade companies didn't count towards the territory limit. Mercs also worked different so my colonial Netherlands runs were absolutely crazy back then. I had no use for manpower because my entire army was mercs and I could instantly spam more of them anywhere I wanted if a war wasn't going well enough.
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File: Screenshot_20260223_175629.png (2.1 MB)
I'll probably spend a few years chilling out because:
1. My manpower is low.
2. My governing capacity is 199/200 even with only about half of Mexico stated (Siberian Native Council can't upgrade their government rank from a Duchy btw),
3. I lack paper mana and only about 7 provinces in Mexico are full cores.
Another Show Strength war is still a good idea, though.
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File: Screenshot_20260223_180915.png (1.8 MB)
Time to start executing the first steps of my master plan. I'll start by discarding Exploration Ideas. I can already reach anywhere I want and I'll still have some leftover explorers and conquistadors for now. The colonist is actually the main reason why I converted to Nahuatl, although other bonuses are nice. I need to be able to colonize, even if slowly.
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File: 20260223151014_1.jpg (550.2 KB)
>>2348953
Playing tall is viable it's just not very fun
>>2348086
Yeah it needs more time to cook and I'm hoping PDX optimizes it better (lmao) or some autists makes a mod to get it to run better on toasters
>>2349694
Naval
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>>2348953
>play as any italian tag
>take a few states
>you have so much mana you have to dev because you're already 10 years ahead on tech and your ideas are capped out
>constantly going over gov cap because italian provinces are super easy to develop and everyone has the too much mana problem.
Playing tall is a problem that goes both ways because I've formed sardinia piedmont and have been the #1 great power with just north italy. Yet I have to wait for gov cap techs to take the rest of italy while I desperately search for non development mana sinks so I don't go even more over cap.
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File: Screenshot_20260224_095112.png (1.8 MB)
I peaced out Kamchadals.
>>2350485
Not much reason to do that right now because I get a lot of PP from Showing Strength against other Siberian tribes and taking provinces from my rivals. I'll probably do it more once I graduate from this shitty government form.
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File: Screenshot_20260224_100433.png (1.8 MB)
I decided to launch an expedition into the Andes because Portugal had already started to expand there and I had to act fast if I didn't want South Americans to be gobbled up into Portuguese Peru.
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File: Screenshot_20260224_152101.png (2.0 MB)
I filled out Diplomatic Ideas and attempted to do the Siberian Native Council exploit strategy for infinite mana: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wV29HDpyuk
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File: Screenshot_20260224_153203.png (2.0 MB)
The only viable Siberian minor left was Kamchadals. Others switched their government forms in the meantime, but Kamchadals decided to stay a Siberian Native Council. It was unfortunate because the travel distance cost between those two Kamchatkan provinces is pretty steep. I conquered Chavchuveny to make it easier for myself.
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File: Screenshot_20260224_160407.png (1.9 MB)
I did it a few times, but things were not going as well as they could. There are a few weak points in this exploit strategy that I was unaware of. Travel distance is one of them. Eventually I brought more troops and some ships over there to make it easier and was able to get decent efficiency that way, but I fumbled a lot at the beginning. Second was the Internal Conflicts disaster. This disaster will start ticking up no matter what if stability is less than 0 and unrest is more than 0, so it's guaranteed to tick up in my case. War exhaustion is guaranteed to reach 20 and it raises unrest. Stability can only be kept at -2 at most to farm paper mana efficiently. Worse still, I had below 100% religious unity, which added an additional +1 monthly tick. My efficiency sucked at the beginning. It became very obvious very soon that I wouldn't be able to get as much from it as I had hoped.
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File: Screenshot_20260224_170310.png (2.0 MB)
Eventually I had to stop because the Internal Conflicts disaster almost started and it would have been a catastrophe if it did. I also noticed that Japan would join the coalition if I trucebroke again, which I really didn't want. Looking back at it, I should have started improving relations with them much earlier. That was another mistake. The good thing was that I could instantly stop the disaster by stabbing up 3 times and using diplo to reduce war exhaustion until my unrest was above 0 again. I only did 10 trucebreak Show Strength wars against Kamchadals. My stab cost was 21 and barrage + storm cost was 54 so I should have gotten 79 x 10 = 790 admin, 100 x 10 = 1000 diplo and 46 x 10 = 460 military points. However, I had to spend some of the diplo to reduce war exhaustion at the end. I also had to hire mercenaries and go into debt a lot in order to stop rebellions cropping up all over my country. Not a very good result overall, I'm not sure if it was worth it. I'll prepare better and try again later.
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File: Screenshot_20260224_175125.png (1.8 MB)
I released Zapotec and made them transfer trade because gov cap is hard to come by these days. Aztec and Chichimeca left the coalition, so naturally I declared war on them. While I was fighting them, France declared on me.
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File: Screenshot_20260224_180142.png (1.4 MB)
I knew that I had to peace out as soon as saw those doomstacks making their way across the Andes. I could have tried to fight them, but I believe that I would have been worse off economically even if I succeeded (especially since they didn't ask for a lot of money).
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File: Screenshot_20260224_180412.png (1.7 MB)
They made me give up Zapotec as a vassal and release Tonala, but whatever. I'll conquer them later on anyway. I think (or at least I hope) that they still count as primitives so I won't have to pay the diplo cost for provinces. They're also Nahuatl, so no one else will care.
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>>2351056
>Did France attack new world without any colonies?
No, they had a colony in Columbia. They colonized some provinces and conquered most of Muisca. Idk if they had the colonial range to take Mexico from me, probably not lmao. I think they would have asked for it if they had. AI LOVES to fabricate a claim and declare wars on whoever holds Mexico regardless if they can actually take it or not.
>Also spain never enforced pt while you're fighting new spain ?
The AI doesn't do that. They could, they just never do. I imagine Paradox hardcoded the AI to never do that because there would have been no end to complaints from people doing American native runs otherwise.
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>>2351054
>>2351051
>>2351053
Why not let them wander around uncolonised provinces wasting manpower to attrition and when length of war modifier ticks down to peace out a favorable/less costly deal, I think you should colonise panama asap as a choke point fort if navy is too expensive to ward off European invasions from sea
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>>2351936
I decided to play beyond 1821 in my Netherlands game and now theres a giant Mughals, Ottomans, Adal, Bengals and Commonwealth with a big Swedish PU.
Basically the game can only end in a clash of blobs and the rest gets gobbled up over time.
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File: Screenshot_20260225_170308.png (2.0 MB)
My stab cost is really low, my religious unity is above 100%, relations with Japan have been maxed out to prevent them from joining the coalition and I realized that I don't even need a fleet in the area to get optimal efficiency. The trick is to rotate two armies. Once the fort has been successfully stormed, I tell the other spare army to go to the Kamchadal province and then sign peace immediately. The army that just stormed the fort will become exiled BUT the other spare army will continue walking into Kamchadal territory. If I'm at peace with Kamchadals on the day when the army is supposed to arrive, they will just stop. BUT if I'm at war with them again, they will arrive normally and I can use them to storm the fort again. Ironically, this works because the travel distance cost between those two provinces is so high. The other exiled army should arrive in my territory by the time the fort falls again and I can send them there before signing peace again. A single war takes 2 months at the minimum because of diplomat cooldown to declare war and sign peace, so storming speed is actually not that important.
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File: Screenshot_20260226_190019.png (2.0 MB)
Battles of the Isonzo River have nothing on this. Unfortunately, this had to be the last one because Japan had so much AE that they would have entered the coalition despite maxed out relations. This attempt was much better overall. I'm behind by just one tech in administrative and diplomatic right now and up to date with military, I've completed all three idea groups and I developed some of my gold mines.
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File: Screenshot_20260226_210302.png (2.2 MB)
And now I'm gonna go bankrupt again. Now is the single best time to do this because I still have truces with Spain and Portugal until 1579 even though I've just utterly raped their colonies and France is still busy with the league war so they will not bother me.
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File: Screenshot_20260226_210351.png (2.1 MB)
Time to become Alaska. This is what I've wanted to do this whole time. It's why I colonized those provinces and also why I left my capital in the Cascadia colonial region. Alaskan ideas are really good and include -20% CCR.
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File: Screenshot_20260226_210441.png (2.2 MB)
The new color also looks really nice, doesn't it? Forming Alaska also let me recover a bit of prestige to placate some of my vassals. Unfortunately, something else changed later and Quito stayed disloyal at about 51%. I don't think that's a huge problem, though.
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File: Screenshot_20260226_210657.png (2.1 MB)
Okay. Now it's time to chill out for a few years (maybe even decades). I'm still a Siberian Native Council so my country rank is still locked to Duchy. I have to reduce inflation and then start making states and full cores and reducing autonomy to get more government progress faster. Some buildings would also come in handy. I'll start blobbing again once I finally leave this shitty government form. That exploit doesn't make it overpowered at all. In fact, I'd argue that it's necessary to use it to even keep up with other government forms. If I started as a monarchy or a republic, I'd be better off right now because I would be an Empire and have a lot of more gov cap and states and money.
Also, I HATE the Dharma government reform system. Together with governing capacity, it actively punishes the player for playing the game and doing interesting things instead of letting the game run at speed 5 while doing nothing. Oh, you wanna conquer some land? Better leave it as territory because you don't have enough gov cap to make it a state. Oh, your average autonomy sucks? No reform progress for you :^) Oh, one of your missions is locked behind reforms? Too bad, lol. I've hated it in every playthrough now that I think of it, but it's been the WORST during this one because Siberian Native Council is locked to Duchy rank.
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>get back into the game
>playing as France
>Castile don't hate me, strong ally
>finally getting down the England strategy, have a bunch of cores on their mainland
>heir dies in hunting accident
>my king dies less than 5 years afterwards, end up in PU under Castille
>huge succession war fires
I feel like I'm cursed
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File: least wealthy dutchman.png (1.1 MB)
Teach me your ways senpais. How do I abuse The Netherlands' NIs and become disgustingly rich and employ armies of mercs? Give me your idea groups and overall strat to squeeze them all dry.
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>>2348071
My first PDX game was EU4 and no other game they made came close. I loved it so much and then I went through a period that I feel all go through where you start to see the flaws in the game and long for a game which fixes all these. I then learnt to accept the game how it was and got thousands of hours of enjoyment from it. PDX announced EU5 and I followed all the dev blogs and livestreams and the game looked amazing, I played it for a while after it came out and honestly it just made me realise how you do need a game to be a game rather than a heavy sim.
>Start date too late, fucks colonisation timing
>No national ideas meaning every country feels the same
>Every country is just cookie clicker RGO's
>UI/Graphics/Portraits lack the soul of EU4
>Music is good tho
I went back to play a few campaigns of EU4 and I had much more fun.
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File: Reformist Russia MEIOU.jpg (281.9 KB)
>>2352688
Play MEIOU for EU4. It's basically EU5 but polished. EU5 hired some devs from the MEIOU team and even stole entire concepts and mechanics from the mod, the current EU5 right now is just a bleak clone of MEIOU
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1700 hours and I finally understand how trade works.
>be Persia
>try to spawn global trade
>have every coastal center of trade in India
>wonder why my trade node is only at 80 and cant beat 100 in english channel
>try everything
>realize this embargo mechanic
>never tried it before because the game warns you that it decreases your trade efficiency if you embargo people who arent your rival
>embargo everyone in india
>the debuff isn't even that much
>trade in my node shoots up to 130, infinite income per month
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File: Screenshot 2026-03-13 141338.jpg (556.7 KB)
>Protestant Reformation in 1538 because I dismantled the HRE
Lmao, I was starting to think it'd never fire. Reform desire is only 107%
>Utretch is my vassal
Lol that removes 1 CoR
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File: eu4_72.png (3.5 MB)
1700s and the revolution is spreading inside Yuan territory exclusively as the center spawned in Cairo, the Great Yuan after swiping all of the steppes, Russia, Poland, the mediterranean and the sinosphere decided to take hands against the Europeans who were no match for the horsemen of Yuan, soon enough Europe will be but a peninsula of Asia
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File: Screenshot 2026-03-14 094909.jpg (463.5 KB)
Should I stop being such a pussy and just pop the coalition? They've got 781k total manpower and the Pope and I have 666k
Also, are Regimental Camps worth building? I never do, but I think I could get an extra ~25k in force limit from them
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How do I fight ming who's 3-4 times of my manpower and 3 mil techs ahead, I just finished an existential war with ottomans in the west and only 3 loans away from bankruptcy, I'm golden horde already with equipped with offensive and quality, there are no choke point forts nor infantry dominated army like ottoman war, they can afford proper stacks filled with artillery
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>>2361784
>3 mil techs ahead,
Literally impossible. Mil techs are all huge, even being 1 behind is a problem.
As a horde, the general strategy is to engage enemy armies only in flat land to shockmaxx until the Ming are out of manpower, then start sieging. But again that's a moot point when you're 3 mil techs behind.
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>>2361784
If they're coming for you maybe take the L anb become a tributary for a bit there are worse things while you fix yourself up and expand away from them. If you mean when should you attack them wait until their mandate is tanked and go all in fighting them on flatlands and try and pump up devastation.
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>>2361775
Why is AI blobbing so much in your playthrough? It's genuinely odd to see Europe so consolidated as early as 1565. It looks like an MP playthrough. Are you playing with mods? To answer your question, I'd wait until some countries in the coalition are at war with each other so that it becomes smaller.
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>>2361846
>Why is AI blobbing so much in your playthrough?
I dissolved the HRE in 1500. That caused a German free for all
>Are you playing with mods?
None that alter the AI
>To answer your question, I'd wait until some countries in the coalition are at war with each other so that it becomes smaller.
Britain left, Austria PUed Saxony, and Poland has been warring in the East. I think I'm going to stop being a pussy and just do it. I've been at peace for about 10 years. But I have more questions. My army is currently 7 stacks of 35k inf/cav and 1 stack of 30 artillery that I break up for sieges. I have a spare 40 land force limit. Should I build another inf/cav stack for battles, or another arty stack for sieges? And, as for my artillery, should I keep them in concentrated stacks, or disperse them amongst my armies? Keeping them concentrated is much more convenient for sieges, but dispersing them means it's easier to make sure I have artillery in battles.
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File: Screenshot_20260227_103648.png (2.2 MB)
I embraced Printing Press from provinces conquered from New Spain.
>>2357662
It's not an easy start. As I've said before, I consider them harder to play than Ryukyu. The plan was to exile myself to the New World from the very beginning. Colonies are expensive so my initial land acquisitions were from wars against North American tribes. Early game was an endless debt spiral. I went bankrupt twice and still had above 40 inflation until fairly recently (I got lucky with the gold, too!). It didn't help that I had too many territories and kept the Native Siberian Council government for too long. Even with the infinite mana cheese, it was barely worth it. I feel like I usually come out worse off at the end of those exile playthroughs than I do when I keep playing in my starting region, but I still keep going for the Americas from time to time because it's cool. In this case I probably would have gotten better results staying in Asia, trying to kill the Jurchens and Oirat, and then stating all of that land. I would have gotten rid of that awful government form much earlier and I still would have been able to do the mana exploit many times over.
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File: Screenshot_20260302_143257.png (1.7 MB)
I declared war on Kamchadals again because I want a foothold in Asia. I lost those provinces when I became Alaska. I decided not to do the cheese for the third time, though.
>>2357662
Here's an archive link to the previous thread where my current playthroough started btw, I forgot to link it in the previous post: https://arch.b4k.dev/vst/thread/2295364/#q2345113
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File: Screenshot_20260305_181547.png (2.0 MB)
Shortly after I killed off the remaining Mayan tags, my subject decided to just abandon some of their land. I think it happened because they passed a religious reform. Never make Mayan vassals, friends, anons. Sadly I didn't release Zapotec again before because I already had cores on some of their cores.
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File: Screenshot_20260312_100854.png (2.0 MB)
And just like that, all of Caribbean with not a single diplo point spent and 0% OE (I still don't understand how OE for overseas provinces works and what counts as overseas). Also no separatism for some reason (maybe because their cores disappeared?). You might think that going horde so late is a mistake, but it was actually a great decision. I can raze all of this and keep it uncored as long as I want. I made a lot of mana through this war and the subsequent ones.
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File: Screenshot_20260313_120517.png (2.1 MB)
I can finally see Europe and it looks pretty interesting. Spain seems to have gotten Burgundian Inheritance but Burgundy still exists, Ottomans own Southern Italy and Kiev, England kept Gascony and Normandy, France is really weak, Saxony is the protestant HRE emperor, Russia is pretty strong.
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File: Screenshot_20260313_120657.png (2.6 MB)
It's intriguing how the protestant reformation went almost the exact same way as it did in real world history (as long as you discount for England staying on the continent and all of HRE turning protestant after the League War).
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File: Screenshot_20260313_160258.png (2.2 MB)
And now it's time to finally link up Cascadia and California with Mexico. I think I forgot to mention, but Spain went right into the uncolonized Miskito tribal land released from my subject and split Alaskan Mexico from Alaskan Yucatan. I'm not worried because they will make a new Mexican subject soon and I'll attack them to take it back.
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File: Screenshot_20260314_180105.png (1.8 MB)
It looks like this for now. Vassals are in the process of being annexed so I'm going to make new ones in Brazil and North America. I'll conquer Japan and try to make my borders prettier before I get bored and abandon this playthrough.
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>playing comfy Bohemia game, become Emperor
>rare game where Hungaria isn't under PU with Austia, take some provinces
>start war with Poland, pretty close but I'm making games
>suddenly Castile DOW
>get confused, look around
>apparently now have Muscovy under PU, 100% disloyal as expected
>eventually take provinces from Poland, too weak to push much against Castile, just pay them off to peace
>allies all exhausted
>suddenly Austria DOWs, none of my allies join
I can really feel that this game has a weird sense of humour at times. I need a break from that game anyways but what's the strategy for having a big nation under PU? Last time I had one, they were disloyal constantly because my rivals would just support independence and there wasn't much I could do. In this case, the lesser partner is disloyal by itself
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File: Protectorate.jpg (93.8 KB)
Does this not go away? I thought I was meant to get a restoration of the monarchy event after Cromwell dies (funnily his death was what finally made me inherit Ireland) but its been 3 months and some random is in charge now
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File: Screenshot 2026-03-16 132705.jpg (460.1 KB)
>carving up Germany
>Spain's king dies
>their new king is a Valois with a weak heir
>immediately claim their throne and attack through the truce
The Napoleon RP is hitting so hard right now. Spain and I have been allies since day 1 and now their whole empire will fall into my hands. The best part is that they're PUed Naples, which means I will be able to complete the Papal Italy tree all at once
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File: Screenshot 2026-03-16 140402.jpg (556.2 KB)
>I_can't_hold_all_these_subjects.webp
It might've been a mistake to grab Spain&Naples... the Kingdom of God is way more disloyal than I would've thought and that's jacking up Switzerland's LD. I was sure that the KoG would've gotten a "historical friends" modifier like Lithuania gets with Poland, but I guess not. Plus, I'm a little concerned about what will happen with my German subjects once I stop feeding them land. The Rhine is basically at it's final borders.
I'm not going to bother conquering Britain or Portugal, but should I take Jerusalem? I don't really want more subjects since I'm already at 7/5 relations (I have Espionage and Diplomatic ideas), though I'm not above using the console to give Naples to Spain since I could justify that with RP.
If you're wondering why Saxony is still alive, that's because Austria PUed them decades ago and German provinces are expensive as shit to take even with Diplo ideas. I still need to absorb the Polish and Austrian parts of Germany
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>Kingdom of God has 900 development
>at 53% LD even with a -100% LD from events
Fuck this shit, NEVER make a Dutch or Italian puppet, anons. Learn from my mistake, those regions have too much development to ever have a loyal subject
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File: Screenshot 2026-03-16 233709.jpg (483.6 KB)
Yeah, that's game. Even I'm getting bored at this point of pure map painting. Imagine the Danube Republic owning Bavaria and Austria Proper. Also, apparently Spain gets cores on Portugal, so give them that too.
German provinces are so goddamn expensive that I can't take more than 10 per war, which makes expansion super slow. IIRC, absolutism will help with that, but I'm not waiting that long
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File: eu4_439.jpg (998.5 KB)
Basically conquered most of the world, can't be assed with cleaning up the rest. Inca is #2 great power and then Portugal and Castile but only because their colonies haven't been conquered yet. I gave my colonies fun roleplaying names. Fun roleplaying campaign. Used a mod to make Ottomans more dark green and also change their flag and also changed the name of The Caliphate
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File: Screenshot_20260315_112327.png (2.2 MB)
A(inu)AR part ???
I decided that I'm ready to move my main trade port to Panama. That way I can also pull trade from some of South America.
>>2367603
Not rare at all, though I've not seem them do that in my last couple of runs. Inti countries can and are encouraged to expand normally. They don't get a bad modifier that scales with their number of owned provinces like unreformed Nahuatl tags and they don't completely implode like Mayan tags when they pass a reform. Big Aztecs or Maya are much rarer.
>>2367604
They claimed all of Burgundy and beat Austria in the war over it, didn't they?
>>2363388
You could probably get to 100 pretty fast by focusing on mil and harsh treating small rebel groups (always gives 1 point). Strengthen government has the same conversion ratio, it gives 2 points for 100 mil mana. Very useful if you can get your legitimacy to decay naturally to get to 99 points every 2 months or so, but that's not always possible. You should already have plenty of absolutism right now because it's been 10+ years since the age started. You should also pick the age ability that gives +5% admin efficiency if you've not done that yet. Admin efficiency is the actual modifier that makes taking and coring provinces cheaper war score- and mana-wise. 1 point of absolutism = 0.3 points of admin efficiency, so that age advancement is worth the equivalent of 16.66 absolutism in of itself. It's much better to pick it first rather than +1 yearly absolutism. Realistically, 10-15 years is going to pass before you can select the first ability and then another 16+ years from that point you should already hit your cap anyway. Oh, and lower autonomy if you can. It also gives absolutism. It's useful to keep yourself from lowering it for a while before the AoA begins for this reason.
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>>2367808
This is a problem common to all postcolonial formables. They have default colonial parents set, which influences their default ruler/heir culture/religion, their general names, and their graphics, and all the rest of that sort of thing. Even if it doesn't match your actual culture/religion. And for some reason it's actually outright impossible to reset. Even if you edit the save to remove all such references, they'll come back the next time you save unless you rewrite it to make your innate colonial parent someone else instead
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File: Screenshot_20260315_115536.png (2.0 MB)
I decided to finally clean up this bordergore. I'm leaving New Spain with one province because that way the provinces that Spain hypothetically colonizes will still automatically go to them and I don't have to fight Spain itself.
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File: Screenshot_20260315_120206.png (2.1 MB)
Time for an invasion of Thirteen Colonies.
>>2367811
Interesting, I didn't know about this. I think Spanish names also came up fairly often in my Irish playthrough after I flipped to Texas, but I assumed it was because I owned a lot of Castilian culture provinces. Also checked.
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File: Screenshot_20260316_115442.png (1.8 MB)
England brought over more troops than I anticipated and they even occupied my capital for a moment. Fortunately, I trapped one of their armies on this island and beat the rest.
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File: Screenshot_20260316_123244.png (2.0 MB)
I wasn't coring these provinces that I conquered before because I planned on feeding them to vassals. I wouldn't be able to core them anyway because I was in another war with CNs that I'd just fought. I was pretty strong at this point so the wars themselves weren't a challenge. A much bigger problem was being stuck around 100% OE for way longer than I should, and without being able to do anything about it.
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File: Screenshot_20260318_121808.png (2.1 MB)
On the other hand, the war with Spain and Portugal (who's their junior PU partner) was quite productive because it allowed me to take some of their non-CN colonies. They lost all of their remaining trade power in Panama, which is great.
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File: Screenshot_20260318_130246.png (2.2 MB)
I released some more native vassals in North America and Brazil after the war with Spain ended, I forgot to take the screenshots of that. I seized land from one of my vassals to get a border with Canada and then I declared on them.
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File: Screenshot_20260318_154032.png (1.9 MB)
And then England tried to enforce peace on me! It turns out that AI colonial overlords can do this, I've just gotten lucky until this point. In any case, they can only do it in one of the wars you have against their CNs. In my case England joined the war with Canada but not the war with Thirteen Colonies.
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File: Screenshot_20260322_093537.png (1.9 MB)
Unfortunately, Portugal started colonizing a province in the Brazilian colonial region after I already wrapped up the war with Brazil. I'll have to declare on them separately soon.
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File: Screenshot_20260322_095458.png (1.7 MB)
Japan actually defeated my army two times, but each time it was a Pyrrhic victory with them losing more men. The Mutsu fort guarded Tsugaru Strait crossing, so my army could just retreat to Hokkaido and reinforce while Japan quickly ran out of manpower.
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File: Screenshot_20260323_114525.png (2.4 MB)
Now, I've already fulfilled most of my goals for this campaign. Annexing the rest of Japan and getting rid of remaining CNs is a formality. Should I tag switch to New Providence and try to do another exodus, possible to Europe or Africa? Dubs decide.
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File: eu4_441.jpg (1.3 MB)
Making a mod which adds 'Unify Islam'-type decisions to all other religions. The Confucian decision renames the country to 'Land of Harmony' and turns it yellow (yellow is linked with heaven in China). If anyone has any objections to the country's colour being changed to piss-yellow then there is a decision to return to the country's previous colour.
>>2367904
Probably too late for me to say but I would just play as the pirates, you can't do more as Alaska imo
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>>2367904
>Should I tag switch to New Providence and try to do another exodus
Sure, if you think your campaign is getting a bit stale. But your post reminds me of something I've been meaning to ask
Would it be a fun idea to play a tall game as an HRE OPM or something until the Ottomans subjugate Egypt, then switching to Egypt? I have kinda wanted to play an Egypt game for a while, but the Mamluks start off so strong that it's a bit boring. And taking over an AI country that just lost a huge war seems kinda fun. I've never tried turning around an AI nation before. But if I do, who should I play while I wait? Being a Free City seems really boring, so I was thinking of playing as Ireland and unifying the island
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>>2367972
I like the idea. I've wanted to make a mod that changes the Protestant religion to Lutheran for a while now, but I can't be fucked with all the work. It's just just replacing all mentions of Protestant with Lutheran since some uses of Prot are correct.
I also tried making a mod that re-added Russian culture upon the formation of Russia. The idea was to have all the Novgorodian, Muscovite, and Ryazanian culture provinces in your borders change to Russian culture when you formed it. That way the culture mapmode would look a lot nicer. But I was too stupid to make that work
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>>2368117
As Spain you probably should just rely on vassals / PUs / colonies since you won't get any core-cost reduction from national ideas. It's probably a little bit harder than Austria since you aren't HRE-focused but you can still join the HRE of course and do a world conquest that way
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>>2368427
>>for some fucking reason wolgast always allies denmark or bohemia,
At this point, you should be well aware that the AI behaves differently when around the player. Small nations who border you at the start will ALWAYS get large allies. I'll never forget when I played as Ardabil and Shirvan allied the Ottomans. Learn to use allies to isolate your enemies
>Brandenburg
Man, I always feel like the idea of brandenburg is always more fun than actually playing it. I start campaigns with ideas of being tiny small Prussia up against big strong Austria, Denmark, Poland, etc. But by 1500 I'm a GP in total control of my destiny
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>>2368521
The only way the AI behaves differently against a player on game start is when deciding rivals, which will influence early game diplo. The real reason it seems like AI always cucks your expansion is because of the hidden modifier called 'threat level' which is essentially a value for how much you've expanded relative to your starting dev. When your threat level crosses a certain threshhold relative to the target country it will start taking actions (like allying your neighbours or paths of expansion) to try to slow you down. AI has a threat level too but a human player is much more efficient and usually will be the highest threat after the first 10 years
>>2368445
Based, do you plan on having any colonies? What are your goals?
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>decide to play as Egypt as soon as the Ottomans subjugate them
>in the meantime, play a tall Switzerland game
>1561 and the Ottomans have never been to war with the Mamluks once
Holy fuck, the ONE time I want the Ottos to expand, and they fucking don't. I might actually just use the console to gimp the Mamluks so the Ottomans move in because at some point I want to fucking play as Egypt
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>>2368987
I suppose that would've been smarter. I just thought it'd be more fun if I didn't touch the region at all
>>2368988
The point is not forming Egypt, it's that the Mamluks in 1444 are too strong to be a challenge. I want to take over an AI nation that's in the doldrums and try and put them back on course
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>>2368995
Tbdesu, I might just take over France or Russia in my current game while I wait. England surrendered Maine then took over more of northern Iberia and Burgundy chose the Habsburg prince, so France is in a tough spot
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>>2362822
Funnily enough, I was having similar problems with my current game as Austria. Bohemia was rebellious for barely any time until Venice supported them, followed by France and then the Ottomans just to add insult to injury. I ended up just going to war with them
Venice was weak, but the Ottomans war started to drag out a bit until France threatened to intervene. I white peaced the Ottomans (got pulled into another war while fighting the Ottomans) and then just declared on France to take back HRE land. Finally got Bohemia loyal after that.
It is funny how the AI does target you like that, though
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>>2368987
I hit 1575 as Switzerland and the Ottomans still hadn't attacked the Mamluks, so I'm just doing this. I haven't played the Ottomans in years, so it's not totally boring. I'm actually kinda annoyed that they have almost no cash and manpower day 1. I want to consolidate the Balkans and Anatolia before moving into Egypt
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So i just won my first war against my former overlord as karabakh and took all the provinces the first mission gives you.
Im waiting for them to core. My ally is the mamluks, aq and Samtskhe, shirvan is allied to ajam. I could attack some iranian minor sincr they are allied only to aq and maybe get my cores from them.
Any tips?
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File: eu4_2026-03-29_00-55-25.jpg (1.6 MB)
>>2369572
War was decided in the first 3 years but somehow took 8 because Austria really wanted to cap all the other powers first. Thank goodness Ottomans were distracted with their eastern wars and Spain was in bumfuck central murrica.
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>>2369577
Probably late, but if the Timurids haven't imploded already the Ajami rebellion is a good opportunity to expand into Iran/Azerbaijan. Make sure to watch over Mamluks debt with the 'transfer favors for ducats' interaction. If they get too much they will dishonour cta, especially if you have low diplo rep. If possible try to keep relations with Ottomans at +80, so you can easily flip them to neutral/friendly attitude by dissolving your alliance with Mamluks if they start to look threatening/expanding eastwards. Usually as long as their ruler isn't a Militarist you should be able to buy yourself some time by allying them/keeping good relations. Also maybe pick up a vassal or two for the extra forcelimit and the Amirs privilege for diplo relations.
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File: 2pm vassal to 3rd great power.jpg (939.1 KB)
Why'd they make a guy who as far as I can tell in real life took the throne in a palace coup to became a mildly competent ruler and whose families main claim to fame is the were a slight stumbling stone for the Mughals one of the best leaders in the game? Its like Skanderbeg with no Ottomans holding him back
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File: Screenshot 2026-03-31 132613.jpg (634.9 KB)
It's Egypt time
I started as the Ottomans and made sure to properly set them up as an overlord. The first thing I did was to secure the Balkans before moving into the Middle East. Wallachia, Serbia, and Bosnia are the Otto's subjects. I didn't attack Genoa because they stayed in the Empire and frankly I didn't want to get bogged down in Europe. Then, I consolidated Anatolia before BTFOing the Mamluks the first time and taking Syria. Then I waited for the second war where I held onto the Eyalet event, took every Mamluk province except Cyprus (it had a fort I forgot to take) and Arabia because of War Score. Then, I tag switched. The Ottomans ended up giving me back the provinces I circled in red. I don't get why, they were only at 80% OE and had more than enough admin to core it all (I know because I did that before switching).
Anyway, the economy was brutal. Devastation made it so my whole income was just 12 ducats a month, and my expenses with no army or advisors was 20. I ended up having to sell all my galleys to stave off bankruptcy, and I used burgher loans to pay off my normal loans. It's been 3 years now and I've just stabilized the economy. The Mamluks don't even have the Renaissance, so I'm 2 techs behind the Ottomans in everything
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The good news is that it took me about 7 years to balance the economy.
The bad news is that the Ottos immediately started integrating me as soon as the truce ran out. I can't find anyone to support my independence, so now I have to fight for my fucking LIFE. I'm immediately going back into debt to afford forts, ramparts, and an army. I'm equal in tech with the Ottos, but I know that they have like 115% discipline and I have only 105%. The only real advantage is that the Ottos already have 0 manpower, but they also have 120k men to my 44k deployed 40k reserve
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File: Screenshot 2026-03-31 172526.jpg (601.9 KB)
Welp, FUCK. It's all over. I basically had to attack the Ottomans when I did because I'd have been integrated in a year. Ottos had 120k troops and 0 manpower when the war started, and 2 years later they still have 120k troops 0 manpower. I couldn't get anyone to support my independence.
I was totally blindsided by the Ottomans integrating me as soon as the truce was up. That basically forced me into fighting ASAP when I thought I'd have way more time
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Really wish there was a fleet basing rights reminder. I just realised I've been paying Kilwa 2 ducats a month for what must have been going on 2 centuries. An African tribe I'm nowhere near and have barely interacted with has had nearly 5k off me.
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>>2372977
Yeah honestly? I played a few games of EU5 and gave up in January I'll be sticking to 4 at least for a few years at this point at least until they've added more nation content to make it feel less like every country is basically the same and they aren't releasing deckchair on the Titanic patches every other week. But as it stands playing 200 years before I'm an unstoppable snowball in EU4 is more entertaining than doing the same thing in 5 only with a lot more micromanaging and general tedium.
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File: 1732754311960755.gif (3.0 MB)
>>2372977
Most of the mechanics in EU V are dogshit, it's bugged as fuck and the performance is so bad the game shits itslef if France/England/Spain go to war.
Meanwhile EU IV is great. Not perfect, but great.
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How the FUCK do I win as Byzantium?
I thought the strat was
>build galleys
>ally Albania
>vassalize Epirus
>wait for Ottos to war in Anatolia
>use your combined fleets to storm Galipoli
>occupy Europe and wait
But when I attack the Ottos, the whole combined fleet is like 80 cannons short of being able to breach the walls. Should I be building man o wars? The problem with that is where the hell am I going to get the ~200 ducats to do it from?
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I'm experimenting with the save and apparently the only canons the game looks at in your fleet are the ones in your navy, even though I have fucking vassals attached that bring me well over the 200 I need
Give me one fucking reason not to use the console to put a breach in the walls, because this is fucking BULLSHIT
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>>2376678
Sell crownland to fund the navy, you should get a good ~150 ducats or so. Selling pays more the less crownland you have, so do that after giving the estates any privileges that cost land. You'll get it back when you beat the Ottos. You can also sell the 2 light ships you start with for 10 ducats each. I'd also delete the fort in Morea, it's useless and you could better use that money on an advisor.
Galleys have 12 cannons each so breaching the walls will require 17 total. More is better since you'll inevitably lose a few fighting the Ottoman fleet.
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File: Broke Ottomans.jpg (893.1 KB)
>>2376678
God forgive me for saying this but Ludis BYZ guide is actually helpful. Get the money off Serbia, the fleet off Epirus, Merc up and declare war for Thessaly and push up through Greece while they seize Constantinople, in 1445 if you can. There's not really much point in waiting for them to go to war in Anatolia they can still rush you its too close and they're only getting stronger.
I'm playing them now and its going pretty well off the back of that.
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You don't need to have previous institution embraced to spawn colonialism right? For whatever reason I can't spawn it as mali despite owning most of brazil's coast already through colony and rng gives it to spain or england who have two or three provinces that aren't cities yet (had to do with more centres of trade ig)
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>>2377330
>get burnt out on a fun game
>fall into the cynical 4chan mindset of hating popular things
>meme yourself into believing EU4 is actually a terrible game
>play EU5
>finally understand that you've been taking everything for granted for ages
>realise EU4 was a good game all along
character growth
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>>2376678
>conquer epirus
>get claims on naples
>conquer most of naples when they get free from aragon with no allies
>ally moscovy and austria
>develop up with south italy
>take out ottomans without naval shenanigans
That's my new strategy with byzantium
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>>2379333
The strategy for the byzantrash is conquering Napoli and shifting to neapolitan before the meme griko culture thing
Ottomans will always support some shitty Timurid vassal you get navy superiority over him while he is busy with that and occupy balkan you don't need ally for that
Then you ignore asia and focus on italy s you are empire and accept all italian culture. Also revoke the horrible privileges you start with
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>>2381633
>>2381614
Very nice, what difficulty are you playing on/how did you unify Germany so quickly? Did you just disband HRE to manage AE. What map mod are you using also thank you kindly
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File: Screenshot 2026-04-19 173516.jpg (524.6 KB)
Finished by BYZ game. My initial plan with Savoy and Mantua was to use them to conquer North Italy because I didn't have the gov cap. However, by the time I was done up there, I'd gotten the tech and reforms to be able to annex it. But I kept with the initial plan anyway because why not? Austria has been my long time ally, that's why I don't have more of the Balkans. Persia is actually giga-timurids who reformed into it. Circassia is my subject, but not Georgia. I could never get the diplo rep to vasallize them and fighting for it was just not that worth it. I don't really like warring in the Caucuses or Persia, that's why I stopped where I did. I barely touched Medina/Tunis just because I was always busy somewhere else.
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Culture map mode. Greek naturally spreads over Anatolia, which is cool (but does show how bad the culture system is). Syrian, Romanian, Serbian, Umbrian, Tuscan, Sardinian, and Egyptian are accepted. I assimilated Neapolitan into Griko, and was doing the same with Sicilian, but I didn't want to wait until the 1660's and apparently you can only use the console to change things to your primary culture, which is a bit absurd. I guess I could've released a Griko pronoiar and tag switched to them, but that's silly. I just made it all Greek for the screenshot.
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>>2348938
No it's the other way around. After university tech unlocks you have so many dev modifiers stacked that it's really cheap to dev provinces, while average development is so high that you can take like 5 provinces in a war and it costs billions of mana to state them (unless you are optimising for province warscore cost and coring cost reduction).
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>Yas gaming
Trying to get a couple of achievements in Arabia. If you don't know what to play I would reccomend, they're an opm next to Hormuz and Oman. How fares the campaign anons?
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How exactly does the AI decide when the Religious Leagues are a good idea.
Just had a game there where Protestant Sweden declared a League War despite their entire forces + allies being half (150k vs 300k) of the HRE Emperor + allies side
I was always under the impression that the AI only declares wars when they calculate a high enough chance of winning. And I wish they didn't drag me into it.
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>>2384816
Not super common but not super rare either, have had it happen with Portugal/Spain due to weirdness with the War of the Roses when their 0/0/0 king dies before the disaster fires
>>2384434
Doubt you'll find confirmation one way or the other but I think AI is hardcoded to start the League War at some point before a set time after the Leagues form as otherwise the game will default to a Catholic/Emperor victory
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>>2385414
>>2384816
Portugal/Castille specifically because often England doesn't have any other stronger alliances made before the Surrender of Maine and the game will pick highest dev ally with royal marriage for succession and highest dev bordering that country if no other allies of the PUed country are eligible iirc
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>>2384434
Oh and sort of unrelated but Ruler traits/personality of the country who is League leader/in general will have much more of an impact on whether or not they declare war (militarist vs diplomat; conqueror vs babbling buffoon for example) despite the perceived odds difference
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>>2385414
>I think AI is hardcoded to start the League War at some point before a set time after the Leagues form
it is very much not, unless that is a recent change. plenty of documented cases of it just letting that time out, should you look for them
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File: Eastern Roman Empire 1595.jpg (1.4 MB)
Was fun haven't played them since they got updated. Really don't have the patience to try and PU France or pump Constantinople's trade value up to do the final 2 missions though.
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>>2363370
EIC/VOC are some of the biggest traps in the game IMO, significantly worse than just owning the land directly and slapping trade companies in all the centres of trade. The only real advantages of it are the adm saved on coring and gov cap.
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>>2387671
probably the closest legit way, confucian would work too. its possible to have 'no religion' as state religion but it requires exploits
old.reddit.com/r/eu4/comments/1jqiuh1/i_converted_the_world_to_no_reli gion_no_culture/
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Mehmet ambition is borderline impossible
My strat is basically consolidating greece and south balkan, expand into east anatolia, take syrian provinces from memeluks, attack cyprus for truce reset, attack venice and make them pop out opms in the aegean to eyalet, eyalet arabian minors, eyalet memluks, eyalet tunis, eyalet morocco, diplo vassalize italian minors, attack venice again to take treviso venice itself and make them pop out the minors in veneto, attack milan, naples, pope, savoy at the same time then focus everything on france, iberia and britain and I still run out of time
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>>2389692
Post your attempts. I think the simplest route is to generally beef yourself up by playing optimally and expanding relatively fast and when you reach the tipping point of "you're stronger than everyone else by a lot" you can start trucebreaking and going crazy. You can get all of Europe into a coalition against you then give up unneeded provinces for 100 warscore for infinite truces with everyone.
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File: Ottomans.png (2.2 MB)
>>2389010
I did their mission but nothing looks to be being built so don't know if it bugged, will just appear in 10 years, or they were too broke to go through with it.
>>2389659
Don't know why it was on terrain but political is pretty much useless for Ottomans since 80% of my empire is just scutaged vassals that lets everyone wander in past their fort lines.
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>>2394629
In total I think it lasted 12-13 years, and the fuckers landed their whole army in Egypt it was painful. I posted some screenshots during the war in /gsg/. The first 'stage' of the war was to wait for the wargoal to tick down to -25 so that France would get the 'call for peace/length of war debuff' to war enthusiasm. During this time I sent most of my manpower troops down to East Africa to peace out Kilwa then to Persia to peace out Shirvan. In the meantime I had to hire a bunch of mercenaries and keep rotating the companies out to defend Basra/the mountain forts near Egypt while taking care not to hit -50 warscore so that the Ottomans couldn't peace me out through stability hits. I spammed 'scorch earth' and tried to take battles where I would deal more casualties than I recieved, targeting the french troops specifically. Once France peaced-out it was a matter of overwhelming the turks through constant battles and going over the force-limit until I could get the provinces I needed to form Arabia/a peace I could be satisfied with. I had to drop Infrastructure for Quality ideas and find as many military buffs as possible to make it happen though (Jafari scholars/Expansionist Zealoutry/etc...). I also have a fort on the island of Hormuz that I used to stackwipe 100K or so.
>>2394661
Here is all the cosmetic mods I use; you might have to fiddle with the load order to make them all work together.
>Initial Playset:
>Stellaris UI Font
>Cmushi's Simpler Peace Terms
>Bigger UI
>The Great Exhibition
>Europa Aesthetic Arrows Only
>Decree Event Window
>DLC Subscription Remover
>Banners 5.0
>Minimalist Mapmod unofficial Ironman version
>GMI - Darker Water
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File: russia ideas.jpg (1.4 MB)
Current Russia run is going well despite the serfdom events being bugged so need to wait until tech 17 to get modernization. I need to pick 4th ideas slot and was going to pick humanist since rebels are my main bottleneck atm but game says can't have over 50% of my idea groups be 1 type so I'm thinking I might go quantity. People say you shouldn't do that on Russia but honestly I want the ability to wage wars on both continents and that's a bit of an issue right now. Most take offensive for the siege ability but I'm going to change it up and human wave sounds fun.
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>>2396251
i like trade/religious/quantity/admin as russia, covers all your expansion, money and military needs and has excellent policies
offensive is a good 5th pick
i would never do both humanist and religious. if you have rebel problems convert harder, there's another missionary from the stave church monument in norway aswell as jerusalem
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There was some strategy for the Nagaur Germany game that I saw where someone kept hopping their army in the very beginning and conquered some shit and ended up forming Bavaria really early, but I can't find it and forget exactly what they did, anybody know what I'm talking about?
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File: ideas.jpg (1.2 MB)
>>2396608
I think humanist is always a great pick especially later in the game when you are going to be conquering swathes of land even if you already have religious having reduced unrest means you save on manpower. I know there is a meta but I always like to view ideas as "what is my next bottle neck and what ideas can be used to resolve it"
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>>2396627
I tried playing it but couldn't find where the fun in it is. Everything is restrained and slower compared to EU4. I want to start conquering ASAP but everything about that game (right now) feels cluttered and designed to deliberately obstruct. Maybe in a few years they'll reintroduce mission trees and idea groups and we'll have EU4 again
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>>2396627
I was someone who was extremely hyped for EU5 and read a lot of the dev diaries. I thought everything sounded amazing yet when it came out I just found it extremely boring and tedious. EU4 shines because of the gameified nature of it and you know what the limits of those systems are and how to break them. Mission trees are whatever but national ideas and choosing idea groups are something that really give the game flavour, like when ottomans take quality and you think fuck me they've got and endless horde and they are decent units, can't really get the same experience in EU5. I do wish EU4 had population and a supply line system that didn't allow them to march armies all the way to siberia, some updates to the war score for colonisers would be nice and military access changes.
But overall I think many people go through a journey with EU4 where they first start they think the game is absolutely massive and amazing then they play it so much they long for something more granular but then come back round to realise it's actually still a great game despite it's flaws.
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>>2397510
its just inevitable when a new installment in a long running series doesn't have 10 years+ of dlc and qol/bugfixes/balancing. i remember when eu4 was fresh how half of /gsg/ preferred to keep playing eu3 cuz the expansions and mods gave it so much more polish and flavor
eu4 on release had like 15 unique idea sets, all other tags had some atrocious generic idea set, you had a frankenstein version of the old eu2/3 mission sets etc. the new forts and zoc system was introduced years after release aswell, people really forget how long it took for the game to actually resemble what you see today.
eu5 is gonna be be experimenting with the fundamentals for years to come, in many ways its far too ambitious for its own good
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>>2397993
The two idea groups have benefits that are not mutually exclusive. Early on religious is amazing as it allows you to convert provinces within your lands and you will have a lot of that playing Russia. Most important thing is it gives you access to Deus Vult CB which as an orthodox nation you can use on basically anyone and helps keep AE down and helps with truce juggling.
Humanist has :
-2 National unrest (great for obvious reasons)
-10 years of seperatism (this is just more layers of reduced unrest on provinces just captured (this saves manpower)
+2 tolerance (less unrest)
+2 tolerance +20% religious unity (less unrest and more buffer of religious unity leading to less unrest)
+1 tolerance of both (less unrest)
It has a policy with offensive which offers -1 national unrest and -5 years of sepatism.
In total from humanist we have got:
-3 national unrest
-15 years of seperatism
+3 Tolerance of heathens
+3 Tolerance of heretics
Newly conquered lands offer +30 Seperatism and each 1 of seperatism = 0.5 unrest so we have just reduced the unrest in newly conquered lands from +15 to +7.5. Then you add on national unrest modifiers and tolerance modifiers and your rebel problems go away very fast.
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Long time player here, I don't think I have ever played as a republican nation.
I want to try something different from monarchies, but the lack of royal marriages always feels like I'm sabotaging myself.
Try to sell republics to me.
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>>2398987
>Try to sell republics to me
Re-electing leaders gets them insane stats and you're very unlikely to ever have to choose between garbage candidates. Plutocratic ideas are also very nice, usually always better than aristocratic ones.
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>>2398987
>Try to sell republics to me.
Higher average monarch point generation. Re-electing leaders gives them a +1 to every stat. so if you re-elect a 4/1/1, he becomes a 5/2/2. So if you take reforms to have elections more frequently, you can get 6/6/6 leaders pretty easily. Bonus if you have a reform that gives you a random candidate, because those guys are sometimes pretty good as a base
But the real reason to play republics is to cleanse Europe of it's monarchical tyranny. Government of the people will wash away decrepit old aristocracies
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>>2397993
If you're playing an Orthodox country you get manpower in true faith provinces so you want to convert as much as possible and religious ideas give you more manpower in true faith provinces so it synergises really well.
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What's the best version of EU4 to play? I remember people really hating 1.18 and back in the days some people, including me, stuck to 1.17.1 I can see from my back ups I was liked 1.14.4 too.
Or mods now fix the new shit?
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>>2401834
>What's the best version of EU4 to play? I remember people really hating 1.18 and back in the days some people, including me, stuck to 1.17.1 I can see from my back ups I was liked 1.14.4 too
I fucking hated Mandate of Heaven and hopped off the DLC train there, and always rolled back to before that
IMO, the development added by common sense and the institutions added by rights of man were what fucked the game up. If I could, I'd like a version of EU4 that predated development and still had tech groups, but had the QoL features of Art of War
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I don't understand why people think this is the easiest PDX game to get into. I've been able to do well in every single main PDX game, Vic2, CK2, HoI4, and even a bit of EU5, but no matter how many times I try to wrap my head around it, I can't understand EU4.
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>>2403598
it's definitely not for someone starting new, especially with all the DLCs out and different mechanics piled on top of everything. however, the curve is steep, but as soon as you climb it you find the game, in general, is straightforward.
i'd say currently the easiest Paradox game would be Crusader Kings 3 followed by Stellaris, Crusader Kings 2 (maybe?), Hearts of Iron 4, Europa Universalis 5, Europa Universalis 4, Victoria 3 and Victoria 2
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>>2403938
main things I struggled with, and still struggle to this day to be honest, is how to properly balance military industries per what you will be deploying in the fields. the rest of the game is easy if you have a basic comprehension of battalion/division stats from the wiki, and the idea that most of the game is lead by mission trees. whole game is basically numbers build up then numbers crunch
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>>2403598
Eu4 is wide but shallow. There are a lot of individual mechanics to understand but none of them are very deep, only some are very obfuscated but just require a guide to understand like army comp.
Eu4 has a very slight difficulty curve until you reach near mastery where it spikes. So you can become very proficient with no effort but mastery requires esoteric knowledge.
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>>2407213
>eurocentric institutions
I had to stop using that one because the game kept spamming me technology sharing notifications. I'm using Rebalanced technology spread which basically does the same thing, I think this one is even harsher.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2799561031
>colonization mod
That one has been a stable addition to my games for years now, I am a dedicated hater or Spanish/Portuguese Africa lol.
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Played a game with Jianzhou after a long break from EU4, I am being reminded how much this game sucks in the late game, sieging level 8 forts and moving 100 different armies is so fucking boring when it should be a reward for reaching those insane numbers.
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>>2398987
Play florence. Babby's first republic. Cosimo de medici is op as fuck as long as he doesn't die by rng early and you actually get royal marriages as the italian republics, but they teach you specifically when to marry and how to maneuver in the boot because alliances shift constantly.
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Tried out ante bellum as England because of this thread and honestly, the Heptarchy War was kino. I really liked the challenge. I think I'll do Andalucia or Francia next since they seemed to have huge civil wars too
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protestant spawned in the balkans? i checked and there are less rules about where it spawns than i thought. in all my games ive only see it spawn in and around northern germany though
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Wish I could forget EU4 and then play it all over again, game has lost its fun with me now. Only so many horde campaigns I can play before I don't see any point in it any more. Trying to play with mods and none of them feel right. Anyway no reason in posting this, just wanted to complain about playing a game so much that it isn't fun for me now
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Greetings esteemed Anons, I am fleeing the EU5 century of humiliation and seek your knowledge. EU5 was my first paradox game and while it's made me like the idea of Grand Strategy, it has clear problems that seem will only get worse. I got over 500 hours out of it (some of them were fun!) and feel that I have mastered its systems, but with that experience now when I look at it I see it as a boring, passive, easy game that is going to play out the same ahistorical way every time. At least until Tinto next patches it, where it will change to play out a slightly differently ahistorical way every time.
My biggest issue with EU5 though isn't the lack of history, or the retarded AI, or the UI. It's the lack of opportunity cost - the feeling that I am specializing my country for something and as a result will be unable to do something else. The way EU5's core systems play out, getting better at anything makes your country better at everything. And while the tech tree may make you have to chose between getting better military or the ability to colonize the new world, it's a fake choice because you'll get the techs for the other one too, just maybe 10-20 years later when you're done with the first one. I'm looking for a game where, for example playing England, wanting to colonize America, and wanting to take over France and the continent, are best done as two different campaigns because it will be meaningfully, mechanically, more difficult to do both at once, instead just for roleplay reasons. EU5 is a win-more game that incentivizes and makes it easier for me to do both. Is EU4 the game I want?
Some other specific questions I have:
>I will acquire this game through piracy. Can I still get most popular mods? Do I need many/any?
>What EU5 knowledge will help me play EU4? What do I need to unlearn?
>Is the random new world feature any good? My brother showing me that back in high school was the closest I ever got to playing EU4. The IDEA is fantastic.
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>>2414642
Runs as fast as vanilla, not a bad mod but the AI has zero clue how to play it. It can't deal with the amount of attrition or the level 1 forts everywhere, it moves it's armies around aimlessly losing thousands. The increased warscore cost for provinces makes it so you can occupy 90% of their provinces and it will barely be at 30%. By the time you peace out, they have 20 war exhaustion and will implode into rebels like it's Vicky 2. I like the idea but with the execution i might as well go back to EU3, at least the AI can play that one
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>>2416332
>EU5 is a win-more game that incentivizes and makes it easier for me to do both. Is EU4 the game I want?
I haven't played 5 but no, EU4 it's a big snowball
>I will acquire this game through piracy. Can I still get most popular mods?
There's skymods for that, or buy the base game and crack the dlc's
>Do I need many/any?
There's Xorme AI if you feel the game it's too easy, i personally play with these 2
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2930131718
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=826635217
>Is the random new world feature any good?
I tried it a few times and was novel but also a big meh
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Why do State Houses in these provinces decrease governing cost by this much? I don't have expanded infrastructure in either and Krakow doesn't even have the "right" trade good.
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>>2418009
>Do you guys think this league war is winnable?
>2:1 odds
>no Spain inflating troop count
No, nigga. Unless Britain is hugely committed to America (unlikely, since they seem to have eaten lots of France), you need to get the Ottomans
im not sure how to fight this
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>>2419072
There's plenty of guides on Youtube, if you go that route make sure the one you watch is up to date for the current patch (1.37). Personally I would reccomend just picking a large country like the Ottomans, Castile, Muscovy, etc. and playing a game on easy or normal with the wiki open. You'll learn much quicker by blundering your way through a game and reading tooltips. That being said if you're familiar with Vicky you should be able to pick this game up quickly as it is far simpler (imo)
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>>2419332
Morocco got kicked out of Morocco and migrated into the Sub-sahara, honestly I keep forgetting just how insanely powerful the Spanish can get without player intervention.
The West of Africa is dominated by Somalia formed from Adal.
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>>2419483
Europa Veritas by Nesserino on Steam is the only way I've found EU4 playable, and EU4 is the only Paradox game I've found worth playing single-player. Europa Universalis: the Price of Power is the best, but that's a board game. It rolls in FFE and a ton of other quality of life fixes, as well as an Heir tutoring chain
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>>2419895
god dammit, it was the first result on g**gle and the steam workshop so i assumed it changed name
>by Nesserino
this one?
https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=2857683974
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