The English ruler is always 0-0-0. But just got a 6-6-4 heir so I won't complain.

yeah england has like 3x more ships than anyone starts with, and a very good position.

So they decided (and i think its kind of accuracte historically) that this henry was worthless and even impotent/insane

I was thinking about that and I think that more than anything it's really the geography at the beginning of the game that determines what your optimal line is. A German landlocked country is going to want to expand so it forces you into military first, just as Portugal isn't going to focus on army first cus all that's near them is like Spain, France and England. Talking about England, England won't... wait nvm England gets to do anything they damn want. So will France. But atleast Portugal gets the first explorer and conquistador lol.

Someone needs to play as Inca and then report back. Please. Thanks.

Seems like everyone starts with one of the European countries.

I've put in 19 hours so far

I don't seem to get any game points from my army. It says I'm ranked last (top right score thing), but I'm really not. Am I doing something wrong?

So, how often do new advisors come along? It doesn't appear that a large batch come available one year after start like in EU III.

starting to feeling like my bottle of water is moving when its not

probly time to go sleep

im only @ 1518 lol shame on me. granted first couple games were rough drafts until i decided which country i wanted to play...

Legitimacy is a massive problem for me, I'm playing Milan and constantly at - stab. When you take a province in the HRE without a core then you get a penalty of -.5 Legitimacy a year for a while as well, and I haven't gotten a CB that gave me a province without that penalty in the entire game.

oh yeah brittany? youre too tough to be a vassal because you have 4 provinces instead of 3?

Well I see some rebels on your 4th, and they like gold.
Fu.

Its my biggest problem with the game so far, the way they calculate score. Basically, if you look in the ledger, you can see they factor in things like morale, # of generals (not even how good a general is), as well as such like army size. So you are running low land maintenance to save costs, your land morale will be lower than any other country, since ai runs max maintenance always it seems. That is probably why you are last place, same thing happened to me. Current morale counts WAY too much in the score, same with generals. Each general gives 1 point towards mil score, whereas your giant army counts for maybe 2 points. If you have only 1 general, and the ai is all running 2 generals, you will be lower than them. Hiring a general made me jump from 20th military score to 6th. And the general was 0/1/0/0.

Diplomacy score also includes naval morale in a similar way, although its not as big a problem because you get points for having strong allies etc.

What they need to do is have army size and max/current manpower be BY FAR the most important factor in determining mil score. Maybe also include tech level and somehow make elite generals count for something.

Just purchased this. It's my first paradox game.

Where in the holy **** do you start?

the holy **** is the easiest

Portugal obv

Is the spanish tutorial bugged? I can't get a full annexation

more info needed. what are you trying to annex? if the country is too big they won't let you annex it all at once.

1600 Oman, Ottomans are terror and just rolled me for 3 of my Persian provinces. My navy is enormous with 100+ but my landforce limits and manpower are awful, Ottomans have better tech and 3x my troops. Also slowly falling behind Europe/Ottomans in tech.



Ugliest borders ever

is that ****ing albania

Can't be. GBR?

Man, EU3 looks like it's aged 10 years overnight:



The new world map is seriously beautiful. When you start a game and zoom in on the snow-covered Alps...

wow rebels are a real factor in this game. I never even checked what kind of rebels I was dealing with in EU3. In EU4 I just had a rebel faction fighting along side me because we had the same enemy.

Yeah its Albania, no idea how they are still alive, they were fully occupied by the Ottomans in the war where Bosnia was annexed

Started a new game as Brandenburg, after a couple fails as Poland (picked the wrong idea) and Milan (got owned, chain wars with no manpower against lucky AI's god-generals).

Opening moves: Made claims on Altmark and Vorpommeren, alliances with Bohemia, Saxony and Poland. Warred TO for my Neumark core with all 3 allies, took it + Danzig. Then Poland left alliance due to rivalry with Bohemia. Next I took Vorpommeren from Pommerania, who was also getting warred by TO. (Saxony had taken Altmark on it's own and I was growing nicely - I wanted to keep them as an ally for longer, but soon they ditched me.)

Bremen had expanded into 2 provs and given me the Dishonourable Scum CB, so I used it as a pretext to vassalize them. Vassals are a great way to grow - they give you some money, and raise more troops themselves to help you than you get in force limits for owning the land directly.

Saxony starts with Thuringia in a PU, so after Hansa snatched Mecklenburg, the north was pretty consolidated. My Diplomat went to work making claims in TO's Pommerania, but aside from taking those 2 cities there's not much to do.




With Bremen vassalized, Pommerania is easily liberated:




Having less place to expand actually worked well for me, as it kept my AE down. The new plan:
-keep Bohemia happy and allied
-diplo-annex Bremen, then make claims on Hansa's port towns and take those
-keep an eye on TO, as I'll need Ostpreussen to form Prussia later. Vassalization and Conquest both options, but mainly just keep them away from Poland.
-look for other opportunities to diplo vassalize or force PUs

Speaking of Poland. They were overrun by Orthodox Zealots and forced to convert, but have embraced the new faith:



This would eventually contribute to the end of their PU with Lithuania, who has managed to stay catholic despite living in the land of the Orthodox. Catholicism has no bonuses really, so I'm thinking this is actually a great plan for Poland.


After a few minor wars helping Bohemia, the next major opportunity: Saxony's crown is contestable, and I have a RM from the good old days. Only issue is their long standing Austrian alliance. Luckily Austria is fighting Venice already, so I take the chance to strike, with Bohemia and Bremen helping.




Austria was clearly doing worse in the other war than I thought. An easy victory for some ducats, and most importantly, a huge union member, was won. With a dedicated diplomat there (Diplo Ideas too good), I was able to repair relations before my king died, meaning the PU would keep going without problems.




The next 20-odd years were quiet. I diplo annexed Bremen. Built up my Constables and Workshops. Got the mission to build up my fleet so did that too (Trade Fleets only ofc). Keeping relations high was the most important way to expand, so no aggressive wars. I did help fund rebels in old Prussia after Poland+Lith took the lands. Over 30k rebels spawned and kept Poland very beaten down, eventually flipping the provs back to TO. Also, my von Hohenzollern king died without heir, replaced by a Polish-descended Jagiellon (and that's when I noticed the Polish-Lithuanian union had died - 2 different rulers from the same dynasty as mine).

After Bremen was annexed I went ahead with the plan to make claims in Bremen proper and Hamburg. But uppity Denmark wanted Danzig and brought it's kids to the party. With high losses on both sides they were pushed back, and eventually I got Holstein freed, to restore Imperial Unity (there were fewer than 25 states left and I wanted the bonuses back, you see).




A few years later, Bohemia fell under a union with my completely by dumb luck. I now have a tripple union, just like the Scandinavians: Saxony and Bohemia under Brandenburg.




The Tripple Crown then went to work bashing the Hansa, taking Hamburg+Mecklenburg (for mission). TO is still free and is now a high priority to deal with.


Here's the world near the turn of the century:


The eastern Archbishoprics are all doing well (Trier just took some land from Munster, but I have a feeling it'll be back). Sadly they can't be diplo-vassalized at all due to no Royal Marriages allowed, so my future peaceful expansion opportunities are limited. The Scandinavian union has fallen apart, as has the Polish-Lithuanin ones.. all those countries have separate rulers. Venice and the Pope are doing well to the south. NFI what's happening in Iberia.

Forgot to mention: Saxony, Brandenburg and Bohemia are all HRE electors, so I have 3 votes basically locked up. Only need to get 1 elector to flip and the crown will be all mine :O

had trouble breathing after my marathon session never had asthma but it felt like what people would describe as asthma, weird.

will post where Im at soon after I finish this small war.

PS: there is absolutely no way to play in windowed mode right?