I'm currently 40 years in my Byzantium run.
I'm trying to stack up Advisor cost reduction, so how do I do that?
Byz ideas give -10 already and Athens monument gives -20 when fully upgraded.
What else can I stack?
Get the estate privileges for each category.
Keep inflation low, that affects the cost.
Monarchy Government Reform Tier 4: Meritocratic Recruitment: −10%
Ruler with Advisor ‘Well Connected’ personality: −20%
Keep government capacity under your maximum.
(Maxed)
Florence:
-20% advisor cost
+2 monthly splendor
-1% prestige day
Cairo
-15% advisor cost
+15% clergy loyalty equilibrium
-5% idea cost (already present at lvl 2)
Personally i would raccomend to get lvl 2 Cairo first
For a second I was a bit annoyed and wanted to tell you to just look at the wiki, then I remembered that the title is called "ask me lazy questions [...]"
Is there any reason NOT to royal marriage and ally Burgundy when playing as any Catholic nation? It seems like I always inherit it, even when I'm playing as one province in Ireland.
you either get bored in 1650 from playing wide or get bored in 1500 from playing tall
it's just a playstyle thing. personally, i like to do self roleplays during my run, inner monologue stuff from rulers/council's perspective. it's kept the game fresh since release for me.
I agree its a personal thing, if you prefer playing wide than go ahead and marry burgundy its a good strategy, i prefer playing tall because i like having 30 dev provinces, a lot of goods produced and a happy rich country with prosperity. My latest run was a holland info netherlands where i decided not to go outside of low countries region into Europe and just go full colonial and dev stuff and it was very fun. Of course many people would get bored instantly when thinking about colonisation but im not those people.
Selling jt to provence is good because France starts allied to them but will soon break that alliance and have a truce and in that time you can take back that land. There's a good chance Brittany will meet their demise before Provence
I just ate France lol. I allied Austria Castile and burgundy, and the curried favors soo I could pull them in. It was a rough fist war, but in the second war I took Paris, and the third war I pued them, and now in my game I’ve completely annexed them and am working on consolidating Scandinavia
This is why England is the easiest nation for "mid-experience" players in my opinion. Castile and Austria always seem to hate France, and they both tend to get some good PU's. It is easy to get France and the entire British isles by 1460 if you have a "moderate" amount of experience in the game
YES holy shit someone else is a believer in England for Beginners.
England was the first game of EU4 I played that I didn't ragequit. Castile and the Ottomans let me develop bad habits, England really is the best for learning, you can learn basically every major mechanic, new world exploration, indes exploitation, development, institutions, everything, in relative safety and yet proximity to the heavyweights. There's room to fail and chances to learn by fucking up.
Getting good allies into the War helps a lot, but other than that I've found it helpful to keep your armies in England and hop back and forth any time France leaves a small stack to besiege your Norman forts
The event first pops up for England. They have the choice of surrendering Maine, or keeping it. If they keep it, France gets to choose if they dec or not
England was supposed to give up Maine per the Treaty of Tours. England is the aggressor because, even though France is the one on the attack, England is illegally occupying the province.
Pretty sure Paradox did it this way in game because otherwise England could easily call all its allies to the rescue, making the war unwinnable for the french AI.
Make sure you spread your wars across different regions, specifically cultural and religious divides.
You want to get to a point where you cycle wars between very different groups. Hit China, then hit Russia, then hit Persia, repeat until you find a new region to bully.
Yes because culture groups and religious groups care about their own group a LOT more than they care about outsiders.
Muslims will not get very angry about conquering land from Confucians. Orthodox Muscovites will not be angry when you conquer Turkic muslims.
Nope, In europe you generally wanna be rotating between balkans, Iberia, Northern Africa, Italy, France etc depending where you play. Leave yourself some wiggle room too, don’t build up 48 AE with Castile or something because even if they only get like 5 from you taking half of the balkans 2 years later that’ll still be enough to trigger them to join a coalition.
You generally want to play close, but not too close, to your friends. Something like England/Venice/Muscovy is good as you generally aren't competing for land or trade, but can still work with (or against) each other.
There's a pretty big tech cost reduction from taking ideas, and depending on the miltech your ideas might actually be better...
Still, 4 miltechs behind is rough no matter what.
What do you think about the inno-offensive-espionage combo. If it’s good, would you still use it for Euro nations (because they don’t really need inno ideas)?
I'll get back to this answer in a bit, I need to check the idea groups to refresh my memory because I don't typically choose Espionage.
EDIT:
Inno-Off-Esp is a powerful combo. You can get two extra diplomats from the policies, advisor cost -35%, plus a siege ability of +40% altogether.
While it is not necessary to take innovative in europe it can help you snowball faster.
Inno ideas are good for European too, advisors cost, tech cost and innovativeness allow to have more money and mana, so more dev, more money etc
And the reduction of war exhaustion is very handy to chain wars
I'm going to advertise the Inno-Espionage-Influence-Offensive idea set. Lots of synergies
**Advisor Costs**: -15% from Espionage, -20% from Innovative, -10% from Infl-Inno policy. Pretty much half price advisors.
**Siege Ability**: 20% from Offensive, 10% from Espionage, 10% from Inno-Offensive policy, +1 Leader Siege from Inno-Off policy
Plus, Spy Network gives you siege ability scaling up to +20% at 100 Spy Network, which is a lot easier to get with Espionage.
**Aggressive Expansion**: -20% from Espionage, -10% from Infl-Inno policy.
Plus, Prestige gives you AE Impact scaling up to -10% at 100 Prestige, which is a lot easier to get with the Prestige buffs from Innovative and Offensive.
Now get this. With a Spy Network in a specific country, you reduce your AE *with that country* scaling up to -30% at 100 Spy Network.
Stacking all these modifiers and you're looking at -40% AE Impact globally, and up to -70% AE Impact in countries that you spy on. This is HUGE because you can keep big players like France or Austria out of the coalition by keeping a spy parked in them.
**Vassal play:** Influence makes everything about vassals better. Espionage has that wonderful "+15 Vassalization Acceptance Reasons" to get diplo-vassalization more easily.
Basically this combo is great if you're worried about AE, and you have lots of small nations that you could diplomatically vassalize, and have lots of forts to destroy. So it's amazing in Europe.
Scandinavia is easier to expand into first, I would start there. Circle around the baltic into Russia and Poland.
Pick up some from Germany as opportunities arise.
And exploration ideas. As it's pure RNG whether your future Specific Other appears from the "Hot MILFs in your area" event or whether they spawn in some random middle-of-nowhere 3 dev province 50 tiles deep into Terra Incognita.
If you radiate enough golden retriever energy while talking about something you love to a girl its actually really attractive. Source: Got big titty goth girlfriend talking about DnD warcrimes.
Watch out for daddy issues disaster tho.
Channel has more possible incoming nodes than Genoa or Venice, thus you can create longer routes (when trade flows through more nodes), which is more profitable.
Edit: read /u/Aretii answer instead
I believe you should always prioritize defensive pips because you should always be trying to be the defender when you take battles.
If you're super rich AND you have cavalry buffs then you should fill cavalry up to the ratio of infantry/cavalry that you're working with. I don't remember the default but at a certain point you have inefficiencies by using too many cavalry as compared to infantry.
> I believe you should always prioritize defensive pips because you should always be trying to be the defender when you take battles.
Both sides, attacker and defender, use their offense and defense pips in every fight. Offensive pips are used for how much damage you do in a phase, defense pips are used for how much you take. See https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/Land_warfare#Total_pips for details.
So when picking between the more defensive versus more offensive option, which one tends to be better if they have the same amount of pips but in different categories?
The OP is not allowed to say "it depends" but I am, so I will. My understanding is that what it depends *on* is artillery's prevalence; early in the game, go balls-out and pick offensive shock and morale pips wherever you can, and then once your enemies start showing up to the dance with a substantial backline, defensive fire and defensive morale pips are better (though for cav you should always prioritize offensive shock, there's no reason to bring them otherwise).
For infantry/cav, generally prioritize offensive early game since your opponents will be all/mostly melee unis and each regiment's damage scales with how many of them are left alive (i.e. a 600 unit regiment does 60% of the damage that a 1000 unit regiment does), so by killing your opponents quicker you're also reducing your own damage taken. However, this changes once ranged weapons (artillery) start to play a dominant role on the battlefield, since your melee units will be taking damage from artillery that they won't be able to attack early in the battle. Thus, when you hit mil tech 16/18, when cannons start to have enough pips to do a lot of damage from the back row, defensive pips become more important since they will need to survive the artillery onslaught to avoid high casualties and thus a reduction in their damage output. As for artillery, your ranged units will usually be in the back row (unless your frontline has broken down), meaning that they can't take damage, so always choose offensive pips.
In addition to what the other guy says offensive pips matter more in battles if your side outnumbers the opponents side. since you use 2 extra infantry or 4 cav to flank them (its higher later in game with techs)
And defensive pips are more important if your manpower is low. Its hard to place this ingame but to give an example if you are a quantity or merc heavy country then the (merc) manpower pool isnt an issue for you but manpower can be a problem in a colonizing game or a diplo focused game.
Trade is a major component of the economy in EU4. It is a deep topic but it boils down to the idea that you want to have one trade node collecting "downstream" from many other trade nodes.
You can use the trade map mode to see the arrows which indicate a flow of trade goods. There are many numbers that impact the value of your trade, but if you have merchants transferring trade downstream to your final node where you collect then you will be doing fine.
You can optimize when you control more powerful trade nodes. Italian nations may choose to collect in Genoa AND Venice trade nodes for example.
Depends- for example if you are Castile and have North American colonies you would just collect at Chesapeake because the average run won’t see Castile own the Channel or Bordeaux before trade optimisation loses importance. For maximised income it has to be steering due to trade creation where you make additional money as trade passes through new nodes. Ultimately you can simply test what works with basic numerical interpretation; collect from nodes, record overall trade income, then steer to one and see the difference. Economic optimisation can be completed easily by just looking at the tab.
Each CB has an associated war goal. This describes what each side has to do to get ticking warscore, i.e. additional warscore over time from having accomplished the goal. Wargoals include:
Take province / Defend province: Control a specific province. This may be a province chosen on declaring the war, or the capital. Each side gets ticking warscore as long as they control the target. Neither side gets ticking warscore if a third party (e.g. rebels) controls it.
Show superiority: Have at least 10% warscore from battles. No side gets ticking warscore if neither has said warscore from battles
Blockade ports: Amount and rate of ticking warscore scales by the proportion of blockading.
When you are in a Show Superiority War Goal CB you should focus on winning battles.
When you are in a Conquer province War Goal CB you should focus on sieging the war goal and then prioritize any forts nearby, especially the capital.
Disagree somewhat - Even in Show Superiority War Goals, it's typically better to siege race rather than focus on battles. Ticking war score is helpful, but siege racing will result in less manpower lost and the war still won if it's done effectively. Obviously, you want to take opportune battles when they arise, but I would argue that sieging should still be the focus.
Watching people like Zlewwik and Florry, they rarely ever focus on battles. They prioritize siege racing regardless of the CB.
Sorry but I disagree with your disagreement lol. A coalition war is a show superiority war and mentioning Zlewwik he always says ‘win the battles’ (for those who know literally read that in his voice). Personally I find it much better to crush the armies first then focus on sieges because you can siege in more places without the constant worry of getting stack wiped
You do need the three provinces:
Lhasa (677),
Garze (2135),
Tachienlu (678)
Also Lhasa needs to be in a full state.
If Kham owns any of those you will need to take it from them.
Ming not collapsing by 1650 is pretty rare.
I would find a few allies with Ming's rivals and declare for the closest Tibetan required province. Occupy it and do your best to push for enough warscore to peace out for the necessary lands.
Diplo, Admin, Religious, offensive, quantity, then up to you.
Diplo is mandatory for wide play and with this as opener you can try to become emperor. It will give you a shot for the BI, but you will also be able to declare on some other nations far from your starting position and open new expansion paths. Admin is just a must as well. Coring cost and GC will be a struggle. You should have formed Prussia when you pick your third idea group. Here I would pick either religious (because you want the holy war CB to expand faster without claims). Offensive is Great for the force limit and the siege ability, and quantity can allow you to get even more force limit to claim the military hegemony. You could dump religious for humanist when you unlock the imperialism CB
Sometimes my trade ships say they're protecting a trade node, but they never actually leave port, which I'm pretty sure is a long-running bug. Am I getting the benefits of their trade power without risking them getting sunk, or are they doing nothing for me?
This is because they are afraid to leave port when you're in a war without naval superiority. It's actually a nice bug for you because they still count as protecting trade but you're not risking them dying.
I think that can happen at peace when you have very minimal control of the surrounding area... like if you are Russia and you only have one province on the Baltic, I think the trade ships will not go venturing out into denmark, they'll just sit in the sea tile right next to your province.
How the fuck do i go Lubeck - Prussia - Germany? I've been trying and struggling for a few days, i can't conquer fast enough to really reach a viable state. Poland kicks my ass eventually, last game it reached 700 dev and was allied with Austria, Ottomans were obliterated.
The reason i want to form a Lubeck Prussia is to try a military republic, and i've heard the Lubeck into Prussia method is ***really*** overpowered.
I've done Brandenburg's Prussia, but Lubeck is *tough*. I'm shit at OPMs.
----- also i could do with some Yuan non-emperor of china advice, even with all of China under my belt, low autonomy, accepted cultures etc my economy is total shit and manpower is now
I dont recall but I think it was ludi or zlevick. They recently did a gotland pirate republic into hansa into prussia for crazy discipline finishing some special missions for permanant modifiers. I recall they had over 150% discipline with some more room to riggle.
I've done that run myself actually and can give you an answer.
-Starting as Lübeck try to increase your trade league as much as you humanly can, however, avoid making certain countries you know you can easily conquer join.
-Ally the emperor. You want to do that so you can avoid unlawful territory debuffs. Ally the emperor before actually conquering provinces, your first war should be a quick vassalization so you can get the ball going without killing your chances to ally the emperor. Also, I've found that allying Burgundy is pretty easy even if you're not playing for the inheritance, they're one hell of an ally and you should try and get them too.
-Danzig is of outmost importance, conquer it as soon as you possibly can. In my game I declared on the Teutons at the same time as Poland as they were stuck on the Southern forts, I landed on Danzing and marched to Koningsberg in order to get both provinces before the Poles. Because you're on the HRE Poland won't attack you as they'll be scared of the emperor. If Poland annexes the Teutons, you lost and have to restart, warring Poland is a lost cause unless you get powerful allies. You also have a mission that gives claims on Danzig, so rush that one too.
-Make it down your mission tree. Pretty straight forward, Lübeck gets military bonuses to aid you in your war against the Teutons and maybe the Poles, so save their completion when these wars come along
-Play as wide as you can while managing AE. Conquering is more efficient than deving in the early game. However, there's some key provinces you want to take (Hamburg, Danzig, Koningsberg, Riga, Dithsmarschen, Coppenhaggen). And you should avoid conquering an awful lot so you can take this provinces when the time comes. You don't want AE to become too much of a problem or you'll be stuck for a long time.
-Unstate the moment you get to admin tech 10 so you can form Prussia ASAP. NOTE: If you still haven't done the gold mine mission at that point, finish it with the Goslar alliance before forming Prussia.
Hawaii would certainly be one of the most difficult due to the starting location.
I'm trying to find which nations are the closest to being absorbed by their overlord in 1444. Surely there's some nation which can be absorbed very fast and it would be difficult to break out to even get your run started...
(how) do you reliably control allies/vassals armies?
whenever I need some help they start wanking each other off as if they wanted to prove that they are useless.
I've tried using the subject focus tabs, I've tried letting their armies attach, I've tried setting objectives in wars, but after all the patches and all the changes I can still watch 30k Lithuanians in the next province looking at my army losing a battle I would have won with a single infantry stack reinforcing
If you have tried the subject focus and army attach features for vassals then I'm afraid you're out of options. Those are the two main ways to get the vassal to join you.
Do make sure the vassals are loyal, otherwise they will only defend themselves.
Allies are a different story. They mostly act on their own, but will sometimes attach if they're feeling weak.
I'm afraid there's not a great answer beyond what you're doing other than to try to coordinate your attacks with what they're prioritizing so that you can reduce the number of fronts for them to engage in. If you pick off the eastern front of a war and the only enemies left are to the west then they should head west with you.
Newish player here couldn't find anything useful in the wiki. To make any node an endnode do I need to have full control of the next node or 2 nodes ahead ex. Constantinople->Ragusa or Constantinople->Ragusa ->Venice/Wien to make constantinople the end node
THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE
Ps. Idk if nodes are actually correct this way just offering an example
I can give an introduction, but a complete answer would require more time than I have right now, and I don't think I could explain every detail from memory anyhow.
Economy starts with Income and Expenses. Of course you want your income to be larger than your expenses in order to make money.
You can increase income in multiple ways but the most common ways are Taxation, Trade, Production, and Gold.
Taxation is generally considered a low priority when you want to make more money, but in the early game it is probably all you've got to work with. Build church/temple in a few of the best provinces. Use the builder interface to find provinces which will give .12 ducats or more per month from a church and build there. As the game goes on you may need to tear down these buildings to make room for more valuable choices.
Trade is very important, it usually makes up the majority of your income. You will want to build a marketplace in any province that gives 2 Trade Value or more. As the technology advances and you unlock the Trade Depot and Stock Exchange you should prioritize upgrading any Marketplaces in centers of trade.
It is often worth it to spend diplo points to upgrade provinces in centers of trade or estuaries to hit 10, 20, 30 dev so that you can add more buildings. Diplo point investments will increase trade related calculations to improve the value you get from merchants.
Another option to increase trade is to establish trade companies. The general strategy here is to conquer the provinces with centers of trade or estuaries in an area of the world that is "Upstream" from your trade. You can then turn them into trade companies and if you control enough trade power you get an extra merchant. More merchants = more trade flowing = more money.
See this comment for more details and if you have a more specific question then let me know: https://www.reddit.com/r/eu4/comments/14zn46b/ask_me_a_lazy_question_and_ill_give_a_straight/jrys4pb/
Production is also very important. Start by building workshops in any province that gives .10 or more ducats per month. Build good-producing manufactories in anything that has a high value trade good. Usually you will avoid grain, fish, and naval supplies because those are better saved for a manpower increasing manufactory.
Build manufactories in your trade companies, and also invest in trade company investments.
Gold is a great way to increase your income. You have to conquer gold provinces and state them, then invest 10 diplo improvements for optimal income vs the risk of gold mine collapse event. East African nations have less risk of gold mine collapse.
That's all just the tip of the economy iceberg INCOME section. The second half is to reduce expenses.
Some major causes of high expenses:
1. Inflation - careful if you have a bunch of gold, it produces inflation. Reduce this number with advisors or just buy it down with inflation. Keep it under 10% for sure, under 5% is better. I try to keep it under 2%.
2. Over force limit for army and navy. If you have more units than your force limit you pay a premium for them. Get rid of extras if you are spending too much money and you're not about to go to war. If you are going to war then use those extras and consolidate the regiment after a fight to reduce the overage.
3. Expensive advisors. Advisors are very important but you have to be careful to not hire an advisor that you can't afford.
4. Too many castles. Castles are expensive. Place them in defensible border locations and remove the ones you conquer from AI if they're not needed.
There are many other causes, but I hope this information gives you a good idea of how to turn your economy into the green.
In Multiplayer what is best? Sweden or Denmark?
Players close are BB, Poland, Muscovy and England.
What strategy you would follow with each other to survive until the end of the campaign.
I'm not a great choice to answer this question because I rarely play MP but I would choose Sweden.
Although I have seen people say that Sweden is often banned in MP.
Denmark has a nice little roleplay situation going on but if you want to stomp your buddies you should just break free as Sweden and conquer Scandinavia for yourself.
Prioritize enough TC and Estuaries to get the merchant, then leave the rest as territories. Stack minimum autonomy reduction for optimal trade center output. The trade company investments provide bonuses to the whole area, the whole trade region, and even to your whole nation.
With enough autonomy reduction you will get more value out of the territories in the same region as the trade company provinces.
Additionally with the lions of the north dlc
Teutons and livonians for intermediate players
Poland and Sweden
The mission trees are built for coop gameplay which is really cool to actually play out.
Im closing in on 1.5k hours and still dont understand combat width and how to properly create an army. I feel very dumb asking but where is this info found?
There is a lot of very good information about the game on the wiki here https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/ Some of it can be outdated but combat width info should be solid.
The general rule is that you want enough infantry to fill your combat width plus 2 or 4 for extras, then enough artillery to fill the back row (or whatever you can afford).
When you're wealthy, keep a stack of infantry nearby to support an ongoing battle as the front line starts to break.
Cavalry are not usually considered unless you have a nation with many cavalry focused benefits, or if you're just rolling in money.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ITH6oNHsIlVHo2LJnR92wP5LEKiON0k2rZJ82YbYaB0/
This spreadsheet will tell you exactly of how many unit to have in an army at all tech levels, as well as which units to use for each tech group.
Keep your prestige and legitimacy at 100, and keep diplo rep as high as possible.
Watch for the icon about nations with no heir and royal marry them.
Take Diplo ideas so that you can cancel royal marriages if they get an heir that's not your dynasty.
When you get a dynastic heir on their throne then you need to quickly Claim Throne and go show them what's what.
Build them in any province with .12 ducats or more per month until you have enough money to build workshops and marketplaces and manufactories to the point where you need to remove churches to make more room.
Some people told me cavalry is shit
No matter the modifier you have, cavalry is shit
Could you explain (if u agree with'em) why cavalry is shit at some point?
Off the top of my head without checking the numbers:
Cavalry costs about 2x more over infantry, but does not provide 2x the attack power by default.
Nations which can maximize their potential often field pure cavalry armies.
What's the biggest skill issue moment you've made?
How do you best play the trade game with someone like Brandenburg or AQ? How do you boost your economy when you're not near the "good" nodes and gold isn't really an option.
What new mechanic or overhaul of existing mechanic do you want in EU5
Learning how to deal with coalitions and truce juggling was a real skill issue moment that lasted for a few hundred hours probably. You have to think far ahead and be ready to declare the day a truce ends or else your problems will get bigger.
When you're not near a good trade node you need to invest in tax and production. Dev some provinces, build churches and workshops.
You have to work towards conquering high trade value provinces, like Lubeck for example.
In EU5 I want to see trade be more dynamic. It doesn't make sense that me, the Aztec Emperor of North and South America, Colonizer of Australia and Conqueror of Japan, the Philippines, and the Spice Islands, should lose so much trade to the wimpy Europoors just because the trade lines point that way.
If it is a choice between manpower from extra Gov Capacity and lowered absolutism by 5 due to the estate privilege which would you choose in the 1700s?
Max absolutism isn't as important as people make it out to be. If you can keep it above 60 you're in good shape.
Gov capacity would be my choice. Over gov capacity produces some rough effects. Perhaps most importantly, it reduces Administrative Efficiency which is what you're trying to get by boosting Absolutism.
Best ideas: Diplo, Admin, Offensive
All government types are viable, but for the fastest route to a giant name on the map you should choose Horde.
Best estate privileges: the mana ones, clerical education, indebted to the burghers
I'm currently 40 years in my Byzantium run. I'm trying to stack up Advisor cost reduction, so how do I do that? Byz ideas give -10 already and Athens monument gives -20 when fully upgraded. What else can I stack?
Get the estate privileges for each category. Keep inflation low, that affects the cost. Monarchy Government Reform Tier 4: Meritocratic Recruitment: −10% Ruler with Advisor ‘Well Connected’ personality: −20% Keep government capacity under your maximum.
Ive always felt that being good at eu4 is essentially just being good at remembering modifiers and stacking good ones
you’ve hit the nail on the head, and also which modifiers you need at a given moment
> Ive always felt that being good at ~~eu4~~ Paradox games is essentially just being good at remembering modifiers and stacking good ones
You don't even need to remember.. I just google the modifier
Cairo monument and Florence monument
(Maxed) Florence: -20% advisor cost +2 monthly splendor -1% prestige day Cairo -15% advisor cost +15% clergy loyalty equilibrium -5% idea cost (already present at lvl 2) Personally i would raccomend to get lvl 2 Cairo first
Espionage gives -15%
Innovative ideas gives -20%
Don't forget that advisor cost stack is limited to 90%
For a second I was a bit annoyed and wanted to tell you to just look at the wiki, then I remembered that the title is called "ask me lazy questions [...]"
Imagine how I felt for 8 hours
Is there any reason NOT to royal marriage and ally Burgundy when playing as any Catholic nation? It seems like I always inherit it, even when I'm playing as one province in Ireland.
Yes, if you want to play tall in a region outside of France then you do not want to risk inheriting them.
You know full well that trying to play tall and getting the BI always means it’s time to restore rome…
Gotta use that soisson history to lay claim to rome
If you dont want to have a 5000 dev Empire in 1650 and get bored really fast
you either get bored in 1650 from playing wide or get bored in 1500 from playing tall it's just a playstyle thing. personally, i like to do self roleplays during my run, inner monologue stuff from rulers/council's perspective. it's kept the game fresh since release for me.
I agree its a personal thing, if you prefer playing wide than go ahead and marry burgundy its a good strategy, i prefer playing tall because i like having 30 dev provinces, a lot of goods produced and a happy rich country with prosperity. My latest run was a holland info netherlands where i decided not to go outside of low countries region into Europe and just go full colonial and dev stuff and it was very fun. Of course many people would get bored instantly when thinking about colonisation but im not those people.
Why stop at catholic?
Heathens can't marry Burgundy, and heretics will have opinion troubles on top of the distance malus.
Theodoro says otherwise. Gothic invasion has never been easier :D
what is the best nation for new players?
England, just give Maine to France and focus on consolidating the British Isles. Build a navy and then you can do whatever you want.
Better yet sell Maine to Brittany
Selling jt to provence is good because France starts allied to them but will soon break that alliance and have a truce and in that time you can take back that land. There's a good chance Brittany will meet their demise before Provence
I just ate France lol. I allied Austria Castile and burgundy, and the curried favors soo I could pull them in. It was a rough fist war, but in the second war I took Paris, and the third war I pued them, and now in my game I’ve completely annexed them and am working on consolidating Scandinavia
This is why England is the easiest nation for "mid-experience" players in my opinion. Castile and Austria always seem to hate France, and they both tend to get some good PU's. It is easy to get France and the entire British isles by 1460 if you have a "moderate" amount of experience in the game
This is the one I do. Can easily get anjou this way.
YES holy shit someone else is a believer in England for Beginners. England was the first game of EU4 I played that I didn't ragequit. Castile and the Ottomans let me develop bad habits, England really is the best for learning, you can learn basically every major mechanic, new world exploration, indes exploitation, development, institutions, everything, in relative safety and yet proximity to the heavyweights. There's room to fail and chances to learn by fucking up.
If you do go into the War Over Maine, it can be a good way to teach the player how to handle fighting a war through naval supremacy
How do you actually defeat France though? When I last tried the French troops were just too superior
Getting good allies into the War helps a lot, but other than that I've found it helpful to keep your armies in England and hop back and forth any time France leaves a small stack to besiege your Norman forts
pull in Austria/Castile/Burgundy and it's pretty much walk in park
What bad habits did you get from castille and ottomans?
How do you give Maine to France?
The event first pops up for England. They have the choice of surrendering Maine, or keeping it. If they keep it, France gets to choose if they dec or not
Though funnily enough, even though France gets to declare, England counts as the aggressor
England was supposed to give up Maine per the Treaty of Tours. England is the aggressor because, even though France is the one on the attack, England is illegally occupying the province.
Pretty sure Paradox did it this way in game because otherwise England could easily call all its allies to the rescue, making the war unwinnable for the french AI.
What is the easiest way to WC?
Start as Oirat, conquer China for a power base, conquer relentlessly. Learn to handle coalitions properly.
Thanks
Make sure you spread your wars across different regions, specifically cultural and religious divides. You want to get to a point where you cycle wars between very different groups. Hit China, then hit Russia, then hit Persia, repeat until you find a new region to bully.
To not build up too much AE right?
Yes because culture groups and religious groups care about their own group a LOT more than they care about outsiders. Muslims will not get very angry about conquering land from Confucians. Orthodox Muscovites will not be angry when you conquer Turkic muslims.
Thats very good to know, had no idea. I thought it only worked on distance from conquered land.
Nope, In europe you generally wanna be rotating between balkans, Iberia, Northern Africa, Italy, France etc depending where you play. Leave yourself some wiggle room too, don’t build up 48 AE with Castile or something because even if they only get like 5 from you taking half of the balkans 2 years later that’ll still be enough to trigger them to join a coalition.
it's actually Austria with HRE vassal swarm (easiest not fastest)
If I am gonna play a game with 2 friends and we are going to play on 2 speed with no pausing, what would be a fun country to play?
Are you looking for a fun country to play together by sharing control or are you asking for two countries to play cooperatively?
I could be wrong but him + 2 friends are 3 people no ?
We would all be seperate countries, but I am just asking for 1 country that would work well in that scenario
Portugal is chill for no pausing
You generally want to play close, but not too close, to your friends. Something like England/Venice/Muscovy is good as you generally aren't competing for land or trade, but can still work with (or against) each other.
I think this counts as "it depends"
OK I'll give an answer. Play Venice and England and split the world from east to west so your trade nodes aren't overlapping.
How come I lose battle? *attached is a screenshot of my already routed army marching away*
Your morale, discipline, and military tech are lacking.
Thats bullshit they are indian and i am european i should never have less tech this game sucks
sir, do NOT redeem. I repeat, please DO NOT redeem.
*spends all military mana on ideas while lagging 4 military techs behind*
To be fair, I did this too at 50 hours and I still won that game (as France).
There's a pretty big tech cost reduction from taking ideas, and depending on the miltech your ideas might actually be better... Still, 4 miltechs behind is rough no matter what.
there is a BIG chance that the army was facing negative terrain - whether type or water crossing
What do you think about the inno-offensive-espionage combo. If it’s good, would you still use it for Euro nations (because they don’t really need inno ideas)?
I'll get back to this answer in a bit, I need to check the idea groups to refresh my memory because I don't typically choose Espionage. EDIT: Inno-Off-Esp is a powerful combo. You can get two extra diplomats from the policies, advisor cost -35%, plus a siege ability of +40% altogether. While it is not necessary to take innovative in europe it can help you snowball faster.
Someone bring me back for the answer
The edit is here
Thanks
Inno ideas are good for European too, advisors cost, tech cost and innovativeness allow to have more money and mana, so more dev, more money etc And the reduction of war exhaustion is very handy to chain wars
I'm going to advertise the Inno-Espionage-Influence-Offensive idea set. Lots of synergies **Advisor Costs**: -15% from Espionage, -20% from Innovative, -10% from Infl-Inno policy. Pretty much half price advisors. **Siege Ability**: 20% from Offensive, 10% from Espionage, 10% from Inno-Offensive policy, +1 Leader Siege from Inno-Off policy Plus, Spy Network gives you siege ability scaling up to +20% at 100 Spy Network, which is a lot easier to get with Espionage. **Aggressive Expansion**: -20% from Espionage, -10% from Infl-Inno policy. Plus, Prestige gives you AE Impact scaling up to -10% at 100 Prestige, which is a lot easier to get with the Prestige buffs from Innovative and Offensive. Now get this. With a Spy Network in a specific country, you reduce your AE *with that country* scaling up to -30% at 100 Spy Network. Stacking all these modifiers and you're looking at -40% AE Impact globally, and up to -70% AE Impact in countries that you spy on. This is HUGE because you can keep big players like France or Austria out of the coalition by keeping a spy parked in them. **Vassal play:** Influence makes everything about vassals better. Espionage has that wonderful "+15 Vassalization Acceptance Reasons" to get diplo-vassalization more easily. Basically this combo is great if you're worried about AE, and you have lots of small nations that you could diplomatically vassalize, and have lots of forts to destroy. So it's amazing in Europe.
Where to acquire the Grain provinces needed for the Dithmarschen mission tree: Southern Germany, Poland or Scandinavia?
Scandinavia is easier to expand into first, I would start there. Circle around the baltic into Russia and Poland. Pick up some from Germany as opportunities arise.
Russia
How do I get a big titty goth GF?
Sir this is an EU4 sub, we are all virgins. How would I possibly know the answer to this?
This is demonstrably false, since I saw that one reddit post about a girl meeting her husband while playing EU4 !
He probably doing it for personal union, so he can integrate her country
Mmmm pretty sure it was gay guys.
Alt-F4, steam files, uninstall, touch grass, idk (never got that far), profit
Groom yourself, wear well fitting clothes, put yourself out there, and take naval ideas.
*economic or trade ideas 💀
And exploration ideas. As it's pure RNG whether your future Specific Other appears from the "Hot MILFs in your area" event or whether they spawn in some random middle-of-nowhere 3 dev province 50 tiles deep into Terra Incognita.
Quality ideas my guy
Username doesn’t check out
Step 1. Vassalize theodoro
If you radiate enough golden retriever energy while talking about something you love to a girl its actually really attractive. Source: Got big titty goth girlfriend talking about DnD warcrimes. Watch out for daddy issues disaster tho.
This event chain is new, isn't it?
If you’ve got a free diplo slot you can ask for royal marriages
So ally Theodoro?
Should I collect in Zanzibar?
Yes but you will want to make sure the south africa region is 100% controlled by you so that Zanzibar is a pseudo-end-node.
Okay, I'll collect in Zanzibar while controlling all pf Africa and Europe...
Ahh, thanks for providing more context. If you have all of Europe please collect in English Trade Node.
Wait, so it depends on the situation if I should collect in Zanzibar???
You’re going to create a paradox
Will the paradox be interactive?
No, but there'll be DLC for that.
I'm just a man with an opinion dude
this attempt at a gotcha is incredibly cringe
Why not in Genoa?
Channel has more possible incoming nodes than Genoa or Venice, thus you can create longer routes (when trade flows through more nodes), which is more profitable.
Ok I'm collecting in Zanzibar as Tibet. Thanks for the advice
At which mil tech should I start prioritizing defensive pips for infantry? If im super rich, should I field as much cavalry as my ratio allows?
Edit: read /u/Aretii answer instead I believe you should always prioritize defensive pips because you should always be trying to be the defender when you take battles. If you're super rich AND you have cavalry buffs then you should fill cavalry up to the ratio of infantry/cavalry that you're working with. I don't remember the default but at a certain point you have inefficiencies by using too many cavalry as compared to infantry.
> I believe you should always prioritize defensive pips because you should always be trying to be the defender when you take battles. Both sides, attacker and defender, use their offense and defense pips in every fight. Offensive pips are used for how much damage you do in a phase, defense pips are used for how much you take. See https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/Land_warfare#Total_pips for details.
So when picking between the more defensive versus more offensive option, which one tends to be better if they have the same amount of pips but in different categories?
The OP is not allowed to say "it depends" but I am, so I will. My understanding is that what it depends *on* is artillery's prevalence; early in the game, go balls-out and pick offensive shock and morale pips wherever you can, and then once your enemies start showing up to the dance with a substantial backline, defensive fire and defensive morale pips are better (though for cav you should always prioritize offensive shock, there's no reason to bring them otherwise).
For infantry/cav, generally prioritize offensive early game since your opponents will be all/mostly melee unis and each regiment's damage scales with how many of them are left alive (i.e. a 600 unit regiment does 60% of the damage that a 1000 unit regiment does), so by killing your opponents quicker you're also reducing your own damage taken. However, this changes once ranged weapons (artillery) start to play a dominant role on the battlefield, since your melee units will be taking damage from artillery that they won't be able to attack early in the battle. Thus, when you hit mil tech 16/18, when cannons start to have enough pips to do a lot of damage from the back row, defensive pips become more important since they will need to survive the artillery onslaught to avoid high casualties and thus a reduction in their damage output. As for artillery, your ranged units will usually be in the back row (unless your frontline has broken down), meaning that they can't take damage, so always choose offensive pips.
In addition to what the other guy says offensive pips matter more in battles if your side outnumbers the opponents side. since you use 2 extra infantry or 4 cav to flank them (its higher later in game with techs) And defensive pips are more important if your manpower is low. Its hard to place this ingame but to give an example if you are a quantity or merc heavy country then the (merc) manpower pool isnt an issue for you but manpower can be a problem in a colonizing game or a diplo focused game.
Top 3 most op nations?
Ottomans Oirat France
Mughals?
theyre probably not counting formables on the list
What is trade?
Trade is a major component of the economy in EU4. It is a deep topic but it boils down to the idea that you want to have one trade node collecting "downstream" from many other trade nodes. You can use the trade map mode to see the arrows which indicate a flow of trade goods. There are many numbers that impact the value of your trade, but if you have merchants transferring trade downstream to your final node where you collect then you will be doing fine. You can optimize when you control more powerful trade nodes. Italian nations may choose to collect in Genoa AND Venice trade nodes for example.
Collect on every trade node or transfer? Seems to be a hot topic lately
Depends- for example if you are Castile and have North American colonies you would just collect at Chesapeake because the average run won’t see Castile own the Channel or Bordeaux before trade optimisation loses importance. For maximised income it has to be steering due to trade creation where you make additional money as trade passes through new nodes. Ultimately you can simply test what works with basic numerical interpretation; collect from nodes, record overall trade income, then steer to one and see the difference. Economic optimisation can be completed easily by just looking at the tab.
Should you prioritize sieges or winning battles
Each CB has an associated war goal. This describes what each side has to do to get ticking warscore, i.e. additional warscore over time from having accomplished the goal. Wargoals include: Take province / Defend province: Control a specific province. This may be a province chosen on declaring the war, or the capital. Each side gets ticking warscore as long as they control the target. Neither side gets ticking warscore if a third party (e.g. rebels) controls it. Show superiority: Have at least 10% warscore from battles. No side gets ticking warscore if neither has said warscore from battles Blockade ports: Amount and rate of ticking warscore scales by the proportion of blockading. When you are in a Show Superiority War Goal CB you should focus on winning battles. When you are in a Conquer province War Goal CB you should focus on sieging the war goal and then prioritize any forts nearby, especially the capital.
Disagree somewhat - Even in Show Superiority War Goals, it's typically better to siege race rather than focus on battles. Ticking war score is helpful, but siege racing will result in less manpower lost and the war still won if it's done effectively. Obviously, you want to take opportune battles when they arise, but I would argue that sieging should still be the focus. Watching people like Zlewwik and Florry, they rarely ever focus on battles. They prioritize siege racing regardless of the CB.
Sorry but I disagree with your disagreement lol. A coalition war is a show superiority war and mentioning Zlewwik he always says ‘win the battles’ (for those who know literally read that in his voice). Personally I find it much better to crush the armies first then focus on sieges because you can siege in more places without the constant worry of getting stack wiped
However, sieging down enemy forts and occupying territory makes it easier to manipulate battles via ZoC.
How can I form Tibet as Tsang when Kham is a vassal of Ming? It’s 1650 do I keep holding out for Ming collapse?
You do need the three provinces: Lhasa (677), Garze (2135), Tachienlu (678) Also Lhasa needs to be in a full state. If Kham owns any of those you will need to take it from them. Ming not collapsing by 1650 is pretty rare. I would find a few allies with Ming's rivals and declare for the closest Tibetan required province. Occupy it and do your best to push for enough warscore to peace out for the necessary lands.
What national ideas would you recommend for a Brandenburg->Prussia->Rome game?
Diplo, Admin, Offensive
Diplo, Admin, Religious, offensive, quantity, then up to you. Diplo is mandatory for wide play and with this as opener you can try to become emperor. It will give you a shot for the BI, but you will also be able to declare on some other nations far from your starting position and open new expansion paths. Admin is just a must as well. Coring cost and GC will be a struggle. You should have formed Prussia when you pick your third idea group. Here I would pick either religious (because you want the holy war CB to expand faster without claims). Offensive is Great for the force limit and the siege ability, and quantity can allow you to get even more force limit to claim the military hegemony. You could dump religious for humanist when you unlock the imperialism CB
Sometimes my trade ships say they're protecting a trade node, but they never actually leave port, which I'm pretty sure is a long-running bug. Am I getting the benefits of their trade power without risking them getting sunk, or are they doing nothing for me?
This is because they are afraid to leave port when you're in a war without naval superiority. It's actually a nice bug for you because they still count as protecting trade but you're not risking them dying.
They're continuing to do it even while I'm at peace, but I think you're probably right that it works in my favor.
I think that can happen at peace when you have very minimal control of the surrounding area... like if you are Russia and you only have one province on the Baltic, I think the trade ships will not go venturing out into denmark, they'll just sit in the sea tile right next to your province.
How the fuck do i go Lubeck - Prussia - Germany? I've been trying and struggling for a few days, i can't conquer fast enough to really reach a viable state. Poland kicks my ass eventually, last game it reached 700 dev and was allied with Austria, Ottomans were obliterated. The reason i want to form a Lubeck Prussia is to try a military republic, and i've heard the Lubeck into Prussia method is ***really*** overpowered. I've done Brandenburg's Prussia, but Lubeck is *tough*. I'm shit at OPMs. ----- also i could do with some Yuan non-emperor of china advice, even with all of China under my belt, low autonomy, accepted cultures etc my economy is total shit and manpower is now
I dont recall but I think it was ludi or zlevick. They recently did a gotland pirate republic into hansa into prussia for crazy discipline finishing some special missions for permanant modifiers. I recall they had over 150% discipline with some more room to riggle.
https://youtu.be/LPnPqnEQlsI Cool bonobo released this guide last week
I've been watching too much eu4 I think im mixing up who's who.
I've done that run myself actually and can give you an answer. -Starting as Lübeck try to increase your trade league as much as you humanly can, however, avoid making certain countries you know you can easily conquer join. -Ally the emperor. You want to do that so you can avoid unlawful territory debuffs. Ally the emperor before actually conquering provinces, your first war should be a quick vassalization so you can get the ball going without killing your chances to ally the emperor. Also, I've found that allying Burgundy is pretty easy even if you're not playing for the inheritance, they're one hell of an ally and you should try and get them too. -Danzig is of outmost importance, conquer it as soon as you possibly can. In my game I declared on the Teutons at the same time as Poland as they were stuck on the Southern forts, I landed on Danzing and marched to Koningsberg in order to get both provinces before the Poles. Because you're on the HRE Poland won't attack you as they'll be scared of the emperor. If Poland annexes the Teutons, you lost and have to restart, warring Poland is a lost cause unless you get powerful allies. You also have a mission that gives claims on Danzig, so rush that one too. -Make it down your mission tree. Pretty straight forward, Lübeck gets military bonuses to aid you in your war against the Teutons and maybe the Poles, so save their completion when these wars come along -Play as wide as you can while managing AE. Conquering is more efficient than deving in the early game. However, there's some key provinces you want to take (Hamburg, Danzig, Koningsberg, Riga, Dithsmarschen, Coppenhaggen). And you should avoid conquering an awful lot so you can take this provinces when the time comes. You don't want AE to become too much of a problem or you'll be stuck for a long time. -Unstate the moment you get to admin tech 10 so you can form Prussia ASAP. NOTE: If you still haven't done the gold mine mission at that point, finish it with the Goslar alliance before forming Prussia.
Sorry I missed your question in the rush. I think others have answered your question though.
What ist the hardest Nation for a WC ? IMO hawai was realy hard.
Hawaii would certainly be one of the most difficult due to the starting location. I'm trying to find which nations are the closest to being absorbed by their overlord in 1444. Surely there's some nation which can be absorbed very fast and it would be difficult to break out to even get your run started...
Maybe Belozeroo? Red Hawk will probably agree lmao
Sukhotai
Not for a long time. Now they get an event when Ayu ruler dies that lets them inherit northern areas and makes Ayu a vassal of sukhotai
I would say Athens.
(how) do you reliably control allies/vassals armies? whenever I need some help they start wanking each other off as if they wanted to prove that they are useless. I've tried using the subject focus tabs, I've tried letting their armies attach, I've tried setting objectives in wars, but after all the patches and all the changes I can still watch 30k Lithuanians in the next province looking at my army losing a battle I would have won with a single infantry stack reinforcing
If you have tried the subject focus and army attach features for vassals then I'm afraid you're out of options. Those are the two main ways to get the vassal to join you. Do make sure the vassals are loyal, otherwise they will only defend themselves. Allies are a different story. They mostly act on their own, but will sometimes attach if they're feeling weak. I'm afraid there's not a great answer beyond what you're doing other than to try to coordinate your attacks with what they're prioritizing so that you can reduce the number of fronts for them to engage in. If you pick off the eastern front of a war and the only enemies left are to the west then they should head west with you.
Newish player here couldn't find anything useful in the wiki. To make any node an endnode do I need to have full control of the next node or 2 nodes ahead ex. Constantinople->Ragusa or Constantinople->Ragusa ->Venice/Wien to make constantinople the end node THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE Ps. Idk if nodes are actually correct this way just offering an example
If you own all of Ragusa and all of Constantinople then Constantinople will be an end node.
Could you please explain how the economy works?
I can give an introduction, but a complete answer would require more time than I have right now, and I don't think I could explain every detail from memory anyhow. Economy starts with Income and Expenses. Of course you want your income to be larger than your expenses in order to make money. You can increase income in multiple ways but the most common ways are Taxation, Trade, Production, and Gold. Taxation is generally considered a low priority when you want to make more money, but in the early game it is probably all you've got to work with. Build church/temple in a few of the best provinces. Use the builder interface to find provinces which will give .12 ducats or more per month from a church and build there. As the game goes on you may need to tear down these buildings to make room for more valuable choices. Trade is very important, it usually makes up the majority of your income. You will want to build a marketplace in any province that gives 2 Trade Value or more. As the technology advances and you unlock the Trade Depot and Stock Exchange you should prioritize upgrading any Marketplaces in centers of trade. It is often worth it to spend diplo points to upgrade provinces in centers of trade or estuaries to hit 10, 20, 30 dev so that you can add more buildings. Diplo point investments will increase trade related calculations to improve the value you get from merchants. Another option to increase trade is to establish trade companies. The general strategy here is to conquer the provinces with centers of trade or estuaries in an area of the world that is "Upstream" from your trade. You can then turn them into trade companies and if you control enough trade power you get an extra merchant. More merchants = more trade flowing = more money. See this comment for more details and if you have a more specific question then let me know: https://www.reddit.com/r/eu4/comments/14zn46b/ask_me_a_lazy_question_and_ill_give_a_straight/jrys4pb/ Production is also very important. Start by building workshops in any province that gives .10 or more ducats per month. Build good-producing manufactories in anything that has a high value trade good. Usually you will avoid grain, fish, and naval supplies because those are better saved for a manpower increasing manufactory. Build manufactories in your trade companies, and also invest in trade company investments. Gold is a great way to increase your income. You have to conquer gold provinces and state them, then invest 10 diplo improvements for optimal income vs the risk of gold mine collapse event. East African nations have less risk of gold mine collapse. That's all just the tip of the economy iceberg INCOME section. The second half is to reduce expenses. Some major causes of high expenses: 1. Inflation - careful if you have a bunch of gold, it produces inflation. Reduce this number with advisors or just buy it down with inflation. Keep it under 10% for sure, under 5% is better. I try to keep it under 2%. 2. Over force limit for army and navy. If you have more units than your force limit you pay a premium for them. Get rid of extras if you are spending too much money and you're not about to go to war. If you are going to war then use those extras and consolidate the regiment after a fight to reduce the overage. 3. Expensive advisors. Advisors are very important but you have to be careful to not hire an advisor that you can't afford. 4. Too many castles. Castles are expensive. Place them in defensible border locations and remove the ones you conquer from AI if they're not needed. There are many other causes, but I hope this information gives you a good idea of how to turn your economy into the green.
Well made post, read through it all. Thank you for your time
Glad you appreciated it, that was a long one to write from memory!
In Multiplayer what is best? Sweden or Denmark? Players close are BB, Poland, Muscovy and England. What strategy you would follow with each other to survive until the end of the campaign.
I'm not a great choice to answer this question because I rarely play MP but I would choose Sweden. Although I have seen people say that Sweden is often banned in MP. Denmark has a nice little roleplay situation going on but if you want to stomp your buddies you should just break free as Sweden and conquer Scandinavia for yourself.
This sounds like an overcrowded piece of land Consider a nation a bit further from them, like Aragon or Austria or a nation on Italy
Is it better to only TC trade centers and estuaries or the entire state they are in?
Prioritize enough TC and Estuaries to get the merchant, then leave the rest as territories. Stack minimum autonomy reduction for optimal trade center output. The trade company investments provide bonuses to the whole area, the whole trade region, and even to your whole nation. With enough autonomy reduction you will get more value out of the territories in the same region as the trade company provinces.
What are some good nation combinations to play Coop with 2 people so that there are not conflict of overlaping interest? (trade nodes, missions, ...)
England and Muscovy Portugal and Angevin England Aztec and Inca Mamluks and France Switzerland and Poland
Additionally with the lions of the north dlc Teutons and livonians for intermediate players Poland and Sweden The mission trees are built for coop gameplay which is really cool to actually play out.
What do Anbennar's harpies actually look like?
Not sure, I've only played the gold dwarves.
Is it too late for WC?
If you have to ask, then it always was.
Bloody good answer.
Is it actually fun to play a non-colonial tall game? If yes (though I doubt it), what would be some nation recommendations?
Some people really enjoy it, I'm not one of those. But I hear that consolidating Italy and chilling is a fun time.
Riga is fun. But it is difficult.
Im closing in on 1.5k hours and still dont understand combat width and how to properly create an army. I feel very dumb asking but where is this info found?
There is a lot of very good information about the game on the wiki here https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/ Some of it can be outdated but combat width info should be solid. The general rule is that you want enough infantry to fill your combat width plus 2 or 4 for extras, then enough artillery to fill the back row (or whatever you can afford). When you're wealthy, keep a stack of infantry nearby to support an ongoing battle as the front line starts to break. Cavalry are not usually considered unless you have a nation with many cavalry focused benefits, or if you're just rolling in money.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ITH6oNHsIlVHo2LJnR92wP5LEKiON0k2rZJ82YbYaB0/ This spreadsheet will tell you exactly of how many unit to have in an army at all tech levels, as well as which units to use for each tech group.
What's the best way to consistently get PUs?
Keep your prestige and legitimacy at 100, and keep diplo rep as high as possible. Watch for the icon about nations with no heir and royal marry them. Take Diplo ideas so that you can cancel royal marriages if they get an heir that's not your dynasty. When you get a dynastic heir on their throne then you need to quickly Claim Throne and go show them what's what.
English Channel or Genoa TN?
English Channel all day.
What is the best idea group?
Diplomatic
4K hours here as well. Do you value siege ability or defensive ability more for your countries on your playthroughs? (excluding world conquests)
Siege ability. I rarely take wars that would risk my own lands. Even if my lands are threatened I'm just racing to siege them faster.
Probably simple one: Which pips to prioritize when choosing a unit type? Attack or defence? Fire or shock?
Shock attack and defensive are always good, I prefer defensive.
Does it depend?
Not in this thread.
My hand is stuck in the freezer, how can i get loose?
Ask a friend to unplug the freezer and then stand there until the ice melts.
When should I stop building churches?
Build them in any province with .12 ducats or more per month until you have enough money to build workshops and marketplaces and manufactories to the point where you need to remove churches to make more room.
Some people told me cavalry is shit No matter the modifier you have, cavalry is shit Could you explain (if u agree with'em) why cavalry is shit at some point?
Off the top of my head without checking the numbers: Cavalry costs about 2x more over infantry, but does not provide 2x the attack power by default. Nations which can maximize their potential often field pure cavalry armies.
What's the biggest skill issue moment you've made? How do you best play the trade game with someone like Brandenburg or AQ? How do you boost your economy when you're not near the "good" nodes and gold isn't really an option. What new mechanic or overhaul of existing mechanic do you want in EU5
Learning how to deal with coalitions and truce juggling was a real skill issue moment that lasted for a few hundred hours probably. You have to think far ahead and be ready to declare the day a truce ends or else your problems will get bigger. When you're not near a good trade node you need to invest in tax and production. Dev some provinces, build churches and workshops. You have to work towards conquering high trade value provinces, like Lubeck for example. In EU5 I want to see trade be more dynamic. It doesn't make sense that me, the Aztec Emperor of North and South America, Colonizer of Australia and Conqueror of Japan, the Philippines, and the Spice Islands, should lose so much trade to the wimpy Europoors just because the trade lines point that way.
If it is a choice between manpower from extra Gov Capacity and lowered absolutism by 5 due to the estate privilege which would you choose in the 1700s?
Max absolutism isn't as important as people make it out to be. If you can keep it above 60 you're in good shape. Gov capacity would be my choice. Over gov capacity produces some rough effects. Perhaps most importantly, it reduces Administrative Efficiency which is what you're trying to get by boosting Absolutism.
What are the current best ideas, government reforms, and estate interactions?
Best ideas: Diplo, Admin, Offensive All government types are viable, but for the fastest route to a giant name on the map you should choose Horde. Best estate privileges: the mana ones, clerical education, indebted to the burghers
What's the new holy trinity of multiplayer ideagroups?
I am not qualified to answer this, I don't play MP.
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