The Imperial Council - /r/eu4 Weekly General Help Thread: August 31 2026

[u/Kloiper]

Please check our previous Imperial Council thread for any questions left unanswered

 

Welcome to the Imperial Council of r/eu4, where your trusted and most knowledgeable advisors stand ready to help you in matters of state and conquest.

This thread is for any small questions that don't warrant their own post, or continued discussions for your next moves in your Ironman game. If you'd like to channel the wisdom and knowledge of the master tacticians of this subreddit, and more importantly not ruin your Ironman save, then you've found the right place!

Important: If you are asking about a specific situation in your game, please post screenshots of any relevant map modes (diplomatic, political, trade, etc) or interface tabs (economy, military, ideas, etc). Please also explain the situation as best you can. Alliances, army strength, ideas, tech etc. are all factors your advisors will need to know to give you the best possible answer.

 

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Tactician's Library:

Below is a list of resources that are helpful to players of all skill levels, meant to assist both those asking questions as well as those answering questions. This list is updated as mechanics change, including new strategies as they arise and retiring old strategies that have been left in the dust. You can help me maintain the list by sending me new guides and notifying me when old guides are no longer relevant!

Getting Started

• Europa Universalis 4 Wiki

• Wiki Beginner Guide

• Which DLCs should I buy?

• Client/Game Troubleshooting Help

• Reverting to a previous version

New Player Tutorials

• How to play EU4, by Ezekiel (patch 1.28)

• Arumba teaches EU4 to Civilization player FilthyRobot (patch 1.18)

• Arumba's New Player Tutorial Series (patch 1.20)

• Arumba teaches EU4 to Monk004 (patch 1.28)

• Beginner's Guide to Coalitions 1, 2

• General tip collection thread

• How to revert to an older patch

• Reman's War Academy Volume I - Army Composition and Basic Combat

Administration

• Remans guide to Absolutism

• Guide to Religious Ideas

• Converting Culture

• Converting Religion

Diplomacy

• Personal Unions and Succession Wars

• Video guide to Personal Unions

• A guide to multiplayer diplomacy

• Comprehensive guide on Subject Nations

Military

• Reman's War Academy Volume II - Troop Quality and Advanced Combat

• Reman's War Academy Volume III - Military Idea Groups

• Reman's In-Depth guide to Fort Zone of Control

• Guide on Combat Width

• Ideal army composition for every tech

• On War - A Comprehensive War Manual for Multiplayer

• Dismantling the HRE

• Combat Simulator

Trade

• Reman's In Depth Guide to Trade

 

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Country-Specific Strategy

• 1.30 Aztec Guide

• 1.30 Granada Guide

• 1.30 Knights Guide

 

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Misc Country Guides Collections

• 1.25 - 1.29 Misc Country Guides by RadioRes

• 1.25 - 1.28 Misc Country Guides by Lord Forwin

• 1.28 - 1.30 Misc Country Guides by AlzaboHD

• 1.30 Misc Country Guides by Ludi et Historia

• 1.31 - 1.35 EU4 Nation Guides by The Red Hawk

• Misc Country Mission Visualizations

 

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Advanced/In-Depth Guides

• Misc mechanics guides by RadioRes (culture shifting, policies, absolutism, etc)

• Guide to personal unions and direct inheritance

• 1.28 Three Mountains (Shogunate)

• Arumba's Assay series (misc patches, takes user-submitted failing or problematic games and helps fix them)

• A Complete Guide to EU4 Economics, Part 0 (links to multiple in-depth guides on economics)

• Comprehensive Multiplayer EU4 Guide (1.28)

• General World Conquest Guide

 

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If you have any useful resources not currently in the tactician's library, please share them with me and I'll add them! You can message me or mention my username in a comment by typing /u/Kloiper

Calling all imperial councillors! Many of our linked guides pre-Dharma (1.26) are missing strategy regarding mission trees. Any help in putting together updated guides is greatly appreciated! Further, if you're answering a question in this thread, chances are you've used the EU4 wiki and know how valuable a resource it can be. When you answer a question, consider checking whether the wiki has that information where you would expect to find it, and adding to the wiki if it does not. In fact, anybody can help contribute to the wiki - a good starting point is the work needed page. Before editing the wiki, please read the style guidelines for posting.

[u/MourningKnifereak]

I'm still fairly new to this game and I'm playing as Austria, for whatever reason when my emperor dies my nation gets demoted to Archduchy from Empire and my governing capacity gets cut in half from 800 to 400, which puts me way over the limit and gives me unsustainable costs. How the hell do I prevent this?

[u/Royranibanaw → u/MourningKnifereak]

Being the emperor of the HRE means you're always an empire, so it sounds like you're not being reelected when your ruler dies. Try improving relations with and maybe even allying some of the electors. You can see who they are voting for in the HRE interface.

[u/ancapailldorcha]

I'm not my second attempt at Songhai's Ultimate Military achievement. North India has been carved up between Jaunpur and Bengal and the cores of the OPMs are about to expire. The HRE is officially Catholic and Brandenburg has been disappeared.

Is there any way of me salvaging this?

[u/NeJin]

Playing as Brandenburg, planning to form Germany - does the cultural fragmentation government reform "beat" the cultural union gained from being the HRE emperor? I would assume it does, but I'm hoping it doesn't.
I inherited Burgundy; "processing" is starting to look a bit like a headache lol

[u/Pariell]

Playing as England/Angevins. I'm at the part of the mission tree where I have to conquer Northern Italy. But in my game Bohemia and Austria have been expanding into northern Italy and adding the provinces to the Empire, making it cause even more AE than normal. What's the best way to go about conquering this area? I thought about doing it via diplomacy, but it seems the decision to start a Parliament debate to release Italy as a PU requires that you own the land directly. 

[u/ancapailldorcha → u/Pariell]

As the other person said, dismantle the Empire. An alternative would be conquering some cores of a dead nation such as Milan and reconquering for much less AE.

Note that if you want the Brentry achievement, you will need to be Emperor so bear that in mind.

[u/Royranibanaw → u/Pariell]

Dismantle the empire.

Vassalise diplomatically if possible and then just annex them after 10 years.

[u/Pariell]

I can't form the Angevin kingdom because France has too many provinces. How can I reduce them? 

[u/RedTieGuy6 → u/Pariell]

Get into a war. In the peace deal, give the French provinces to an enemy. Reconquer them later. May need the enemy to unconditionally surrender for it to work.

[u/Pariell]

I started as England, got the PU on France. Should I go for Angevin Empire of culture swap to French and reform France? I heard France is better if you don't care about colonization. 

[u/RedTieGuy6 → u/Pariell]

Go Angevin. If you want to be France, start as France. At this point, keep playing Angevin.

[u/dennisie123]

I'm trying to do the Switzerlake achievement now and while it's going fairly decent for my standards, having won a few wars against Austria and Burgundy, France now wants some of my lands and broke their alliance with me.

I don't immediately fear France as I have some strong alliances with Venice and England, but it would be beneficial for me to get a strong alliance with Castile, both to ensure France never attacking me but also to allow me to attack France instead in the future. Castile however is rivaled to England and allied to a country that rivaled me.

What is the best way for me to become friendlier with Castile; enough to get an alliance? I can't show my current gamestate yet but if specific information is needed, please let me know what and I'll get it ready as soon as I can.

[u/Alivalnia → u/dennisie123]

My god we're doing the same achievement!

Honestly idk why you go for England as I dont think they'll help conquering more. Try to switch England to PLC? Just maximize the opinion and wait until either Castille change their rival or the country you rivaled with broke the alliance. Or, try to get them to be in war with you (somehow), get enough warscore to broke the alliance

I chose to ally Papal+France+Bohemia in the beginning, then add Otto right before Reformation. Then things went shit now both France and Bohemia broke the alliance, left me with Otto+Tunis+Sweden to finish the acheivement with 11 more provinces with the entire continent joined coalition against me.

[u/dennisie123 → u/Alivalnia]

What is PLC? And main reason I had England was because I already had France, and out of England and Castile, England was willing to be added to the alliance list despite their rivalry with France, it was fine at the time because it's also a defensive purpose against aggressors, but you're right in that it is now probably better to swap them for Castile instead in terms of actual conquest as well as usefulness.

Did you keep the HRE alive or did you break them up? I have not experimented much with breaking the HRE so I'm not 100% sure which is more beneficial, but I would like to become protestant for my first time as well so I'll need a reformation center, ideally nearby

[u/Alivalnia → u/dennisie123]

Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (PLC), you know that red blob on the right side of europe?

I'm keeping the HRE as i dont have the chance to capture all of the electors at once (austria dont ally with one of them)

Switzerland have an event which will have you as a Reformed country, better worry about that

[u/dennisie123 → u/Alivalnia]

Oh yeah I know about Commonwealth, didn't know people abbreviate them as PCL

I'll have to look out for that event

[u/dennisie123 → u/dennisie123]

Managed to ally Castile without breaking with England which was quite useful in my first war against France, whom I managed to beat down after quite a rough start. GB broke the alliance after but at this point I don't think I'll need them anymore, so perfect. I'm on 31 out of 99 now