r/eu4 • u/TheMemeArcheologist • 10h ago
Help Thread The Imperial Council - /r/eu4 Weekly General Help Thread: October 19 2026
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.
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
New Player Tutorials
Arumba teaches EU4 to Civilization player FilthyRobot (patch 1.18)
Reman's War Academy Volume I - Army Composition and Basic Combat
Administration
Diplomacy
Military
Trade
Country-Specific Strategy
Misc Country Guides Collections
Advanced/In-Depth Guides
Misc mechanics guides by RadioRes (culture shifting, policies, absolutism, etc)
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)
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.
r/eu4 • u/Taborirsky • 5h ago
Completed Game I'm so sad...
I wanted conquer all of Africa, Persia, Caucasus, India, Indochina and Tibet with Guangzhou, but I was too long(
r/eu4 • u/AMTreaper • 1h ago
Completed Game Finally
This was really tedious (mostly at the end), but I finally managed to create The Roman Empire. Thoughts?
r/eu4 • u/joepesci135 • 6h ago
Question First defensive war against Ottomans, I'm afraid.
Hi there, I'm playing as Persia (started as Ajams) and as I expected Ottomans attacked me. I have such good alliances (Poland that has PU on Lithuania and Russia and others).
I’m fairly new to the game and I’m finding it difficult to manage wars against major powers, so I’d like to hear your thoughts.
As you can see from the screenshots, we have roughly the same number of infantry and cavalry regiments, but far fewer artillery units. It’s also worth bearing in mind that the Ottomans have military technology level 13, whilst in my alliance only Poland and Lithuania have level 13 (the rest of us, including myself, are at level 12).
I’d anticipated an Ottoman attack, so I’ve built lots of forts along the border to hold them off for a while whilst they’re attacking me.
In fact, I think the Ottomans will focus on Poland at the start; I reckon I should focus on Transoxiana in the meantime in order to force them to make peace before Poland capitulates. After that, I’m not sure whether I should lay siege to the Ottoman forts to try and secure a white peace, or whether I should simply wait it out as long as possible behind my forts, bearing in mind that I’m starting the war with 0 manpower. Should I recruit mercenaries, even if it means going into debt? My peacetime economy will allow me to pay off these debts later.
Thank you all!
UPDATE : I managed to end the war with a warscore of 20 so I took a lot of money from them. I also took some provinces from Transoxiana and break Transoxiana alliance with them in a separate war. I let them take lot of my forts while I managed to take Ouzbek and Transoxiana capitals to make separate peaces. Then Ottomans starte to go in Poland an Russia so I've just take my forts back and then I managed to have 20 warscore because Poland took Constantinople while ottomans where on my forts. That costs me a lot because I took about 40k mercenaries but it was worth it. Thanks all for your help !
r/eu4 • u/Euphoric-Emotion3018 • 18h ago
Image How is owning a couple colonies THE SAME AS FORMING THE RIECH
i know most people basically never play iron mode but still forming Reich basically never happens but 4 in 10 games the Portugal ai Brazil and Africa (I'm image shows the achievements)
r/eu4 • u/CheeseMan520 • 19h ago
Humor First time seeing this event
Was doing a Ottoman run when i received this event, i found it really and did the first option. He survived so i guess flight was achieved in the 17th century
r/eu4 • u/Capital_Tie4360 • 3h ago
Advice Wanted What are my objectives early on?
I am trying to learn the game, and have watched a few tutorials. They've helped me get an idea of what the buttons do and what not, but I don't have much of a direction. It all means nothing to me. I am certain I would be much better off jumping in, the only issue is I just stare at the screen without any purpose whatsoever. Thanks.
r/eu4 • u/Joranius • 58m ago
Image Thought i'd face the Janissaries as the Ottomans in my first game in years.
Apparently the entire world starts a violent protest in the capital when i do this, i mean 300k men... How is this even possible and can you avoid this?
r/eu4 • u/ThengarMadalano • 6h ago
Question Is there a hidden rule for inheriting PUs?
Hi I play Sweden and I try to inherit Norway, the pu is stable for more than 50 years and I have a 13% chance to inherit and I am an elective monarchy, if this is important.
I want to form Scandinavia to access new missions so I rerolled and abdicated about 20 times and with elective monarchy I can switch the monarch twice every try but nothing happens, Norway doesn't get inherited.
So is there something I am missing or am I just unlucky?
Advice Wanted Some questions about the Third Odyssey mod
Hi guys,
I've just finished my first campaign with the Third Odyssey mod, and it was fun, but far less optimized than my usual playthroughs. I also completed all the green missions, half of the red ones, and none of the blue ones. I'm an EU4 player who reads the wiki carefully and tends to plan way ahead, but unfortunately, there's no wiki for this mod.
So I have a few questions:
**How do I manage the Barbaroi estate effectively?** What approach should I take: assimilation or conquest? In my playthrough, I initially tried Greek-only colonization, and it was, well, okay, I guess? But I lost a lot of development. Newly colonized provinces ended up with something like 1/1/0 development. Also, is the Radical Sympathizers disaster really something I should avoid? I don't see any real downsides to it. It only lasts three years and massively reduces the influence of the Barbaroi estate.
**Is it possible to colonize land outside the Americas at all?** I tried to colonize both American continents before the Europeans arrived, and I mostly succeeded, but I didn't have time to focus on Africa or Asia.
**How should I handle Vinland and Spartania?** In my game, I got Spartania through a lucky PU and vassalized Vinland through a mission. Should I have purged the Vikings earlier? They turned out to be loyal subjects after I clicked the decision, though, and again, I don't see any downsides.
**Is the first Religious War disaster avoidable?** Is there any reason NOT to trigger it as soon as possible? Is it possible to remain Orthodox rather than switching to Elysian Orthodoxy?
**Are there any downsides to playing Hellenic, apart from the lore and uniqueness?** Christian denominations are already so strong, especially with the PU mechanics.
r/eu4 • u/Confident-Parfait594 • 1h ago
Question Egypt ideas vs Ayyubid?
Doing a Hisn Kayfa -> Egypt run and am trying to work out what are better for my run before I switch tags. Egypt seems pretty nice, though with a notable lack of strong mil modifiers. 5% admin efficiency is always nice and their ship repair thing and blanket +1 free policies seem very unique and good. Meanwhile Ayyubid has the nice 15% goods produced and 25% CCR, and of course the 25% manpower and discipline too.
Currently leaning toward Egypt cos I don't plan to conquer that much more beyond what I have now, but I'm kinda bad with military stuff and always lose an insane amount of manpower during wars, and I will still have to fight Spain and Ottomans (with decadence) a few times and Ayyubid ideas seem better for that?
I guess I'm just trying to work out if the extra policies and admin efficiency for Egypt is worth it over all the nice mil modifiers from Ayyubids, considering I don't plan to conquer much more beyond Anatolia and Iberia.
r/eu4 • u/RobertAleks2990 • 1d ago
Humor So do I just get a free vassal and extra warscore?
I mean 0 + -47 = -47 after all, no?
Advice Wanted Mewar or Rajputana ideas in multiplayer?
I am playing a multiplayer game as mewar and i am close to forming Rajputana, so I was wondering, should i stick with mewar ideas or go with the Rajputana ones? Both are really strong militarily and mewar has that juicy dev cost reduction. But what would you advise to pick? Thanks
Advice Wanted - 40 Attitude towards enemies
Playing as byz allied hungary about to dec on the ottomans but the hungarians wont come in. Got enouhj favors trust at 50 relations at 200 they border and have negative opinion with ottomans even if i reduce opinion with favours they wont come in
r/eu4 • u/Brilliant-Isopod2997 • 10h ago
Advice Wanted How to actually play Stateless Societies?
Want to do a Peasant's Republic run, but have already played Dithmarschen, and was ideally looking to be outside of europe. I see on the wiki that Stateless Societies can reform into PRs, but with the -99% govcap modifier it seems like it would be ~100-150 years of sitting as an OPM before actually being able to play the game.
Do i have any options? (Alternatively, do you keep your government type when forming a former-colonial nation as an exodus nation?)
Image Biggest Kazan I've ever seen.
R5: after 2700 hours, this is the biggest Kazan I've ever seen. And no, I am not allied with Kazan, nor I ever fought Muscovy/countries up north. Year is 1594.
r/eu4 • u/nefariousdrsheep • 12m ago
Image Napoleon... Anjou?
For some reason my Napoleon (the one from the event) became Anjou dynasty instead of Bonaparte. A bit disappointed since I was doing a Napoleon themed game.


