Well, that's impressive. I think we need a report.

So far I'm 3 1/2 hours in

Am playing as England now (no Ironman, I never bother). Forced PU on France in the initial war (and got Naples as a bonus, because France had just PUed Naples after Aragon got its ass kicked early), and in the early 1550s just claimed throne and beat Austria (who had the PU on Hungary). Also vassalized Portugal.

I may never get another diplo tech again. But it’s been a fun start. Game featuring the largest Teutonic Order I’ve ever seen.

There's a country called "Commonwealth?" I don't get it

When Poland and Lithuania get together and make a baby, that’s what it’s called.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish...n_Commonwealth

In EU4, Poland has event early on that forms personal union with Lithuania. They also have a unique decision to unite onto single country called Commonweath.

I think EU is singlehandedly responsible for all of the reading I've ever done on European history, and framing it in a way where I'm not like "uhhhh so there's a million different German princes and I basically can't tell them apart"

late edit: and, thinking about it more, the HRE is an exceptionally confusing political organization from a modern perspective yet the game does a great job of modeling it

okay I'll stop asking dumb questions and just play

I finished a series of tutorials by someone called quill18 and I think I have enough to get me started. I kinda wanted to play Castille but that's what the tutorial was so I feel like I played it already. I'll start with England and see what happens.

I've not played England but they strike me as probably having a higher degree of difficulty than others, due to
- lots of naval mechanics to fight in Europe
- I think War of the Roses usually hits them hard in the early game?

Ottomans feels like probably a good starter nation, they're terribly OP compared to everyone they start around so you get to spend decades just conquering **** around you unchallenged.

For a different flavor but still lower degree of difficulty, Portugal is an excellent starter nation for colonizing - Castile doesn't really give a **** about you so you're pretty safe from having to fight land wars, and you begin with a huge headstart on getting to the new world

Second Portugal if you like the idea of colonizing. Ottomans if you like just beating stuff up, Muscovy is also good for that I think.

Recent discussion has me thinking about a new game and I've never done WC. Curious about this:

So, how does this work in practice (I assume 200% WS means 200% overextension?)? They've generally nerfed vassal feeding, right? How strategic do you have to be about making sure the provinces you take can be fed to vassals (or do you release them?).

Hows Venice for noobs?

Pretty difficult. It‘s probably good to learn trade mechanics, but colonizers will give you the same advantage.
In addition as Venice you have the Ottomans and Austria both interested in taking stuff away from you. Any nation that relies on naval power has the risk of forgetting part of your (especially trading fleets)fleet when war is declared and being easy to pick at.
I also think Republics have some mechanics that keep you from growing by just conquering new territory. So Venice seems like an interesting choice for advanced players, but not well suited for beginners.

I think the only nerf to vassal feeding was the change to AE. In past if you gave land to vassals, you didn't get AE. Now you get 100% from vassal lands too.

You either release some nation from conquered land or create vassal land chains, just giving each them bunch of adjacent provinces that create thin, long lines through enemies so that you can give them more land from next enemy again. Ideally you give the land after the war through subjects tab, but if you have multiple wars going on you can just transfer occupation to vassal and force them to take the land in peace deal. Their administrative efficiency is likely lower than yours and they lack CB, though, so you can take more land for cheaper DIP cost if you first take it to yourself.

For new players:

Small, fairly easy start: try any of the Japanese daimyos and unite Japan,
Medium, easy start: Portugal, colonize half the world while big bro Castile keeps you safe.
Large, easy start: France, Ottomans, England, Muscowy, Castile, Poland.

Bit different games, require some more knowledge of game mechanics:

Small: Holland, become Netherlands. Lubeck, dominate trade and eventually form some Germanic country.
Medium: Brandenburg - > Prussia, Sweden, Papal States
Large: Austria -> Unite HRE

Hard, but doable:

Byzantium: conquer Anatolia.
Novgorod

That's a pretty good list. The only thing I would add is that England can be frustrating, as you will have the War of the Roses and the end of the Hundred Years War (well I guess you can now skip the latter by surrendering Maine). Even though England is still in a pretty strong position, that might lead to a very frustrating start for beginners.

I think Holland is the easiest in the middle category. The only thing you need to do is gain independence, which should be easy enough, if you can get at least two out of France, Austria and England to support you and choose your timing wisely (not while the Hundred Years War is going on). After that it should be a very interesting first "real" campaign as the Dutch provinces are both prosperous, make for good trade income and your manpower should be decent.

Holland is only easy if you have the DLC to ask support independence though (same with Sweden.)

I think England is easy, the War of Roses is imo beneficial disaster as you get to replace that 0/0/0 ruler with one of two random leaders, so you will get like 10 or 11 stat leader on average. The disaster is easy to end, just kill all the rebels which shouldn't be a problem for your starting army. Only time it is challenging is if you let it fire during war with France. For simple England game you can give up all mainland holdings and just focus on consolidating the Isles and colonizing new world.

I agree. If you give up the continental posessions it is an easy nation to play. It's just that a beginner might easily make the mistake of joining the War with France, which can seriously cripple you.

Didn't know that "Support Independence" required a DLC. That will make Holland a lot tougher. Sweden seems a lot easier in comparison if you time your independence correctly, but again that is nothing a beginner could judge acurately.

I decided to go with Ottomans. I almost immediately ****ed myself by attacking Byzantium the minute the truce expired without a casus belli. The good news is it went very well and now I have whatever the game is calling Istanbul + Athens since Athens foolishly decided to help my enemies. People are starting to like me again.

The controls and menus are daunting but everything gets a tiny bit easier with each click. Holding the scroll wheel to drag the map around takes some getting used to but so far that's my only complaint with the controls.

I'm LDO running in windowed mode so I can easily consult the wiki when needed, but it's frustrating that I seemingly cannot resize the game screen in windowed mode. Does anyone know if there's an .ini file I can edit to adjust the window size in windowed mode (and if so what is that file named)?

Also it seems kind of odd that The Knights keep hitting me with their pirates but I still need a casus belli to attack them. Like, I could fabricate one, but there's one that's legit staring me in the face but I can't use it? That does not make sense but whatever their days are numbered, seems like that would be a megahard one to play, anyone tried them yet? I think they start with just the island of Rhodes.

I think Brandenburg is a pretty good choice for like a 2nd or 3rd campaign. Its imo the ~most fun country. You start relatively small and poor and expansion can be initially slow since most targets are HRE so AE is a huge factor, but you can quickly become a powerhouse once you form Prussia and take lubeck/hamburg/etc and start to dominate trade. Plus later on you get Prussian space marines which is always great. Also a great way to learn HRE mechanics and religious war mechanics without having the pressure of starting as emperor. Can also dabble with Royal Marriages/personal unions/diplo vassalizaing to expand.

You are also far away from any real threats like Ottos or France, and can ally Poland/Austria and to either kill or protect against Bohemia. Later on when you want to stab Poland/Austria, you can again easily pick up alliances with Russia or Ottomans. Its hard to blob early on, and combined with your central location, you usually have a pretty interesting game.

Namath:
- Athens was probably a vassal of Byzantium, and vassals always join their overlord's wars
- Did you try clicking and dragging the window edges to resize in windowed? (just guessing)

I also started an Ottomans game last night. This is my first time seeing the new mission system, for Ottomans at least I like it a lot, lots of options to pursue.

I'm probably going slow for a WC attempt because I'm bad at the game but in 1480ish I've taken all of Greece + islands, vassalized Crimea and taken Genoese provinces there, vassalized + fed Serbia a little, and expanded east in Anatolia towards a blobbing QK.

I think this was nerfed a little - after a war with Cyprus, I couldn't grant it to my bordering vassal Karaman. Not sure if it's for culture group reasons or if they have to have a claim. It's at least nice that you can fabricate claims and grant those to vassals.

This is a dumb post but everytime I read the title I feel it should be EU IV Greatest game of 1444 - 1821.

Yeah that makes sense

I tried that, it can't be resized manually. I found a post on one of the Paradox forums stating that I need to find "settings.txt" and I can resize it there. Apparently when you run in windowed mode it runs at a fixed resolution, so you have to go into that file and tell it what resolution you want otherwise it opens at whatever the default it, which on my 38" monitor is roughly 1/4 the size of the screen. I'll try it when I get home and report the results.

TIL it doesn't have to end at 1821

https://steamcommunity.com/app/23685...6114828093563/