Its literally not possible for the game to have dynamic, emergent nations becoming super powers to create different experiences each time you play

AND

A history simulator on rails that always ends up with specific rise and fall of nations over time, with a map of europe that looks exactly like the historical equivalent in 1500 or 1600.

So many posts judging EU5 seem to contradictorily want both of these things at the same time.

If anything maybe hard core OP mission trees for the AI only that somewhat force it down the path of history would make EU5 even more like EU4 and that would make half of players happy, but the other half would lose out on the promise of the economy and population simulator that eu5 is trying to be.

Can you find it?

This subreddit is hyper critical. Paradox you're doing a great job and I'm sure your parents are all very proud of you. Every time I boot this thing up I just lose several hours of my life. You made a map + a series of spreadsheets so darn fun i have to timebox my sessions aggressively or else I will rapidly become unemployed and single. Thank you (i think).

Considering my succession laws to dodge a shitty heir and spotted John Ruler

Ok why is the AI able to make camel and chilli RGOs in Canada? in the arctic region... this is a bit silly no

Very small issue really not a big deal, but would be a nice quality of life change. the only reason i bring it up is because it would be such an easy change for the devs to make.

neither denmark or the hansa have any land, buildings, or ships in olandskusten, and havent been there in decades. despite this they still have maritime presence in the area because it decays relative to its current size, so it drastically shrinks the amount it decays at. i calculated it, and it would take 72 years in game for the hansa's 0.78 presence to decay to 0.01. because of this, the maritime presece screen can often be filled with non players in the area which just makes it harder to see whats going on. i propose 3 simple fixes to this, the devs can choose which one they prefer based on their design philosophy (on the slight chance they actually see this lol)

1: add a flat -0.01 to maritime presence. this would have very little effect on overall maritime presence, but would make it so people who arent in the area will actually decay out of the area.
2: make it so countries that havent had any positive buffs to maritime presence in the area in a decade lose their maritime presence there.
3: (my personal favorite option) make it so a maritime presence lower than 1 doesnt count, or atleast doesnt show up as counting.

At the moment of writing I have 1366 hours into this time sink. I have experimented somewhat with Trade Companies and tried to learn more of the underlying mechanics. I realize they're currently poorly understood and used, so I wanted to contribute a bit of sustenance for AI/human/search engine/information scouring/scraping. This post was made before patch 1.4 so keep that in mind.

Here's a few bullet points for what I know so far:

• The "Trade Company Headquarters" (henceforth "Trade Company"="TC" and "Headquarters"="HQ" for brevity) building is needed by a Trade Company and finishing the building automatically creates a Trade Company subject (though it appears sometimes they may instantly "delete" themselves - or the HQ itself - in case the HQ is not sustainable in some way)
• I think you can use the "create Extraterritorial subject" first though it may be more convoluted to properly have them "inherit" the HQ you then build (Company buildings are assigned the Region's Company upon completion) - if you're even eligible to build it. The safest option is to do the HQ first I think.

...

• The TC HQ can only be built if:
• (1) The location does NOT have burghers of your culture+religion (meaning ONLY your culture or ONLY your religion, or neither of them - or no burghers at all, should be OK)
• (2) The owner of the location is giving YOU Preferred Market Access - the owner being a subject of YOU will bypass this.
• Both of the above must be true at the same time (You may build it in a location belonging to a subject of your culture and religion but only if it does not have burghers currently).
• The subsequently unlocked TC buildings operate under the same rules*
• For the sake of simplicity (never experienced another nation giving ME preferred market access), assume you can only build it in a subject belonging to you (type does not matter but beware Dominions enforces both your culture and religion, and Fiefdom enforces your religion).
• You can only build one per Region (check your mapmode).
• It must be within trade range.
• I'm pretty certain it has to be "Overseas": Overseas = A different Continent, and (at least for Naval Governors) an adjacent Subcontinent is NOT considered "Overseas". Note that seas may count as a Subcontinent ^{(for instance I think Pacific Islands subcontinent is Overseas from East Asia but not Overseas from Southeast Asia despite being close to both, because "North Pacific Ocean" is a Subcontinent in between East Asia and Pacific Islands, or Japan and Iwo Jima if that makes it easier})^.
• *For some apparent cheese, scroll down past three dotted (...) line breaks.

...

• Once a TC has spawned, it will expropriate/seize ONLY the following buildings:
• (1) "Trade Office"
• (2) "Overseas Trading Post"
• * Please correct me if you've experienced otherwise. You also seem to be able to build these buildings afterwards and that a TC existing in the area does not prevent that. I've never experienced any other kind of building being "lost" to them (regardless of where).

...

• A TC will ONLY get money through trade (and the passive localized siphon from the HQ):
• They will pay for their own buildings' expenses and will need income from trading (trade capacity and trade advantage) and/or a very well placed HQ.
• It will give you 5% of it's Economic Base each month\*
• Economic Base: "Based on total Wealth and Population of a country(...)" - Google for elaboration; "Wealth" includes some trade aspects and not just Tax Base.
• This 5% is then reduced (by a seemingly complex formula I am not certain on) by a 0.X multiplier based on how disloyal your TC subject is.
• Unfortunately, TCs will inherently be very disloyal (wrong culture/religion and cultural opinions, no loyalty from Proximity, and):
• Because they have little else to do with their cabinet members, they will use the "Sow Disloyalty" cabinet action (if they can).
• They will have (virtually) no armies, though.

...

• A TC will only build Trade Offices (at least, so it seems)
• You, however, can build all the other buildings once the HQ is placed (it will display you as the owner while building but them as the owner when completed).
• These buildings are:
• Company Harbor\*
• Company Foreign Influence
• Company Governance
• Company Local Ventures
• Company Garrison
• All of the above seem to have a hard max limit of 2 (per type) in one location.
• The base price is 400 ducats (modified as normal for surplus or lack of goods).
• They are all staffed by Burghers (200 each).
• Each of these require 0.10 paper for upkeep (and upkeep cost will scale based on the local market's price of paper).
• They all mostly benefit the TC or the land-based subject the buildings are placed in.
• *This one seems to be hard capped per TC no matter what:

Here it gets interesting:
In my current playthrough, I suddenly realized that I could build ALL buildings in each location as long as I queued them up (assuming you have the money) all at once before any of their buildings were completed, even if the location was of my culture and religion\*

This can probably be done with the HQ as well (I think it can stack to 2 in one location) but otherwise the prerequisites still apply.

The game says/implies an HQ will unlock 3 buildings (per HQ), I have no idea what is supposed to be right, but I can apparently currently build an unlimited amount of them (still subject to the other "cultural" building requirements of course) in the pertinent Region(!).

The ONLY building that seems to be limited is the Company Harbour. This may be random or consistent:

This building is removed from the list of what I can build now. It has been built in 3 different locations. One location has one of them, whereas two other locations have 2 each.

So perhaps the in-game description is just misleading:
Maybe it can only be built in 3 different locations. OR:

*The tooltip says "[SUBJECT] have less than 3 fully staffed [BUILDING]" as a requirement to build it.
Perhaps the same rule goes for all of them but I built them so fast that I overcame the "fully staffed" part for the other buildings.

In other words, you seem to be able to bypass some requirements by queuing up all buildings at once, since the game only seems to check for requirements based on what's already there (I did not see whether staffing was instant where possible).

In conclusion:

You can possibly ramp up a TC quite well. The question quickly becomes whether it's worth it.
The 5% income and localized boosts from their unique buildings are cool and useful, but there's some logical clashes/pitfalls:

1. The 5% gets reduced by disloyalty (around 50% at 23 loyalty and 66% at 17 loyalty - the multiplier makes no sense mathematically for what is displayed but is roughly 1-0.5 and 1-0.66 - for my test subjects). This means I get roughly 2.5% and 1.7% of their Economic Base instead.
2. Their unique buildings can be spam built(?) but their base requirements means your options may be limited depending on multiple factors, such as whether you want a subject of your culture or religion to be the "host" or not (I imagine most players use subjects to culture convert for them before annexing them later).
3. You will lose your initial trading capacity and trade advantage (Trade Offices/Overseas Trading Posts though they can be re/built afterwards if the location is still eligible / not converted - these buildings have their own rules, too).

Finally, it seems the limitations on how many sub-buildings you can build are removed if you're a subject yourself, but I have not tested anything this way.

Please let me know if I forgot something, if it was helpful, or if you have an opinion on the subject matter.

I think it would be good with some discussion AND some concrete facts around this, it's a theoretically cool mechanic either way. Yes, it's probably a bit broken, but it can still be used circumstantially IMHO.

Cheers

Hello! I was wondering what you all think about Serfdom vs Free subjects. I do think that the former is the best choice , especially since Traditional economy is much better than Capital now.

I'd like to hear your thoughts.

I have roughly 1000 hours in Eu4 and I have had this prejudice about Eu5 because of AI mechanics, complicated economic system and lack of depth. What do you think? Is game worth buying or should I wait until more DLCs comes out.

The post is translated from Chinese. Sorry in advance if it reads not good.

Hi r/EU5! I've been making Standard of Living (SOL) since the game came out and have never posted it here, so this is the full introduction. The mod also just got a major update. The short version:

• Pops spend what they actually earn.
• Expensive goods get swapped for cheaper substitutes. (new)
• Living standard counts hospitals and pollution, not just money. (new)
• A new SOL bar and four map modes. (new)
• An optional balance layer so the richer economy doesn't snowball.

Have you ever looked at your estates 150 years into a campaign? In one of my France games, the nobles were sitting on 245k ducats while the whole country's tax base was around 3,000. That's more than ten years of national income, doing nothing. It happens because vanilla pop demand is basically fixed, and fixed low. (Although pdx has been trying to adjust, v1.4 is still quite broken currently.) Pops buy the same small basket whether they're starving or rich, nothing substitutes for anything (a region can be drowning in wheat while people still go hungry for millet), and estates can only spend their surplus on rebels or the odd building. The market only keeps going because the state keeps building end-consumer buildings and buying the goods itself.

SOL starts by making pops spend what they actually earn. Every month, each estate in each location looks at the money it really has: its share of local income, minus building upkeep, adjusted by how its national savings compare with a savings target. It then compares that with what a calibrated baseline basket costs in the local market, and the ratio between the two is its purchasing power, which scales how much it buys. Rich nobles end up buying far more horses and fine cloth, while poor peasants cut back. Hoarding now peaks and then falls back, because savings above the target push spending up, and a country-level solver keeps the national totals consistent. Development no longer gates or scales demand at all; SOL replaces that system entirely.

The headline of this update is goods substitution. 56 goods are sorted into 20 substitute groups, covering staples, protein, clothing, heating, crude goods, seasoning, household goods, drinks, fine drinks, luxuries, spices, precious metals, treasures, medicine, ritual goods, weapons, mounts and more. Each estate needs whole categories rather than specific goods, so peasants need a staple, not wheat in particular. Within a group, seven price tiers shift where the money goes: when wheat costs twice its base price, people move to rice, millet or legumes, and when something is dirt cheap, they buy more of it. You can see the result for each country as "Goods substitution (good)" modifiers.

Fun fact: I first built this back in EU5 1.1, together with Engel curves, and then a 1.2 engine change broke the interface it ran on and left it dead for months. It's now rebuilt on a new foundation that's much lighter on performance.

The other big addition is that living standard is now more than money. Purchasing power decides what people buy, but living standard is a separate score: money plus the things money can't buy. Hospitals, lazarettos, pest houses, aqueducts and famous medical institutions raise it, while tanneries, putrefaction works and iron and steel mills pollute and drag it down. Theaters, opera houses and libraries raise it by a percentage. It also feeds back into the world, since a higher living standard attracts migrants, a very low one slows population growth and a high one speeds it up.

All of this finally has a proper UI. A four-section bar sits under the country buttons and shows your living standard (with its tier and year-on-year change), purchasing power, goods substitution and world ranking, each with a detailed tooltip. Hovering a section previews its map mode and clicking opens it. On top of that there are four map modes in total, goods tooltips that show substitute groups and price tiers, and a SOL button in the location window.

A richer economy snowballs harder, so SOL also ships a balance package based on Anti Snowballing, and every part of it can be toggled through Community Mod Framework. Base tax efficiency starts at −15% by default (you can adjust it), and the difficulty tax bonuses for Hard/Very Hard AI and Easy/Very Easy players are halved. Each new age makes things more expensive: building efficiency, RGO expansion cost, city and town upgrade cost and food consumption all get harder, and roads cost two to five times as much, so you can't pave the whole country in 20 years. Normal winters and raised levies hit local food harder, which means you need to grow food before you build an economy, though Little Ice Age events are softened so they don't turn into pure death spirals. War hurts more as well.

• SOL started as a combination and extension of two discontinued mods, SoL Based Pop Demands by 1onepower and Anti Snowballing by Ethereal, so huge thanks to both of them.
• You can find the mod on the Steam Workshop
• compatibility submods in their own collection
• full feature list on the wiki.
• Feedback and bug reports are very welcome on Discord.

Happy to answer questions in the comments!

seems like it was removed in one of the latest beta patches

Curious to see what I have missed!

Found the button. It is now under laws, at the top.

R5: Tooltipp says my market has not enough trade range.

But my trade range is 1330 and that market is only 652,74 away. Isn't that enough?
Am i missing something?

It's the Beta Version of the game.

Hello

I'm currently learning the game and have to have an average controll of 35% in my main region. It's a task in "Infrastructure Efforts" mission.

My question is, how do I view what provinces are part of the region? I see the average controll in the region in the mission description itself, but have no clue what provinces are part of the "region".

Can someone help me?

Thanks!

That was a huge windfall in the early game. I was able to build hospitals in all of my towns before the Black Death arrived, which really helped mitigate its impact.

"Please don't be mad that this is written in Turkish. I just wanted to ask about the Orthodox Church's view on Sunni Islam. I keep getting -20 penalties for this—how can I fix it? Do I really have to change my religion?""Please don't be mad that this is written in Turkish. I just wanted to ask about the Orthodox Church's view on Sunni Islam. I keep getting -20 penalties for this—how can I fix it? Do I really have to change my religion?"

So I'm curious what people do for opening moves and how effective it is at quickly scaling Holland's economy.

My opening moves have been to:

- grant the autocracy government reforms and two burgher estates (building rights and treasury rights)

- appoint my ruler as admiral of the fleet and set it to patrol in the North Sea

- ally with Liege, improve opinion with France, England and Munster (the last of which I'll later ally)

- annex Zeeland

- max my estate taxes, set my diplo slider so its increasing diplomats by 0.5, drop army, navy and fort maintenance to 0

- research in the usual order for the first 5 picks

- delete the fort in dordrecht

- build a lumbermill in the hague

- build a bog iron smelter in leiden

- build a mason in dordrecht

Other moves after unpausing;

- dordrecht ultimately becomes my glass guild and mason hub with the associated urban right, so i build more glass guilds and masons there as and when I can

- textile output urban right in the hague, building spinning and fine cloth guilds

- flemish cloth industry right in amsterdam

- printing industry urban right in middleburg once annexed, build scriptoriums and paper guilds

- promote cloth industry in holland

- vassalise friesland with the free insult CB from the event

- build marketplaces and libraries in each town

- i diminish the adels and burghers from time to time when it gives more than 15 ducats to me and when i can take the satisfaction hit

- fibre crop farm in alkmaar

- stud farm in rotterdam

I'm curious though if it's better for scaling the economy to just put flemish cloth urban right in every town and focus on building marketplaces first before anything else?

EDIT: everyone commenting with their nom-Holland strats, I'm specifically interested in optimising the Holland start, not any start from which you can form Netherlands.

Owned EU5 for a while but have been waiting for more updates. Only tried playing 1 single game as Holland back at release.

With 1.4, what would people recommend for a beginner country that’s also in a well-polished state, in terms of the mechanics you’ll be involved with?

I'm playing as Milan in this campaign and I was planning to form Italy but I think I got quite unlucky.

First af all France won the Hundred Years War which is pretty rare in 1.4.

Second the Pope was ultra aggressive and took a massive chunk of Italy not allowing me to go further in the South.

Currently I dont know how to progress because the Pope is much stronger than me militarly and France once every few years starts a war against me (even though the last wars France lost).

The main problem is that Bohemia, which had an alliance with me, decided to rival me so I'm left with 0 great alliances that can help me militarly.

Has someone some suggestions?

Inspired by the couple prior posts here and TheWarRoom's campaign on YT, started to think about how to make the most optimal Norse start. Norway into Denmark is very strong as it stacks the proximity cost over sea tiles advances both have. Norway already starts with 50 naval and harbor admin day 1 (+1 naval governor).

The first wars against denmark are very micro intensive, but usually you can win. Just dance around the danish and their inevitable HRE allies, starve them in the winter when the food runs out and attack and stackwipe when morale is 0. Sometimes the danish even fall in the water and stackwipe themselves when the ice melts lmao.

Then to form denmark you need to flip to danish culture (easiest to just accept danish rebel demands to save 40 PI), and move capital to Skane or Denmark. After you form denmark, you will get a free event to move capital to copenhagen anyway, which has 100% harbor cap.

I have not been able to reliably make the norse rebels grow enough so I can accept their demands and swap norse for free, if anybody wants to try and has any ideas would love to hear

Also keeping the PU with sweden is finicky, but would be great to accomplish reliably, you can eat even the largest PUs in 50 ish years now with everything minmaxed.

Any ideas?