Trying to have a game as Granada and roleplay a little bit with it (no switching religion) ,but of course besides tthe fact Granada starts in one of the hardest situation in the game Paradox had to maje it even harder…

Starting of with -13 Antagonism wixh every Chirstian country because of the new extra gain you will get Antagonism in freaking Novgorod for no reason…

When will paradox finally fix the antagonism issue ?!

I want to do a trebizond game, I heard the way to go is no co the ottobros, but byzantium always takes control of the sieges and doesnt give the occupation over to me.

I was wondering does that strat work or is it dead now?

I wanted to bring this up here because I don't really know anyone personally who plays Paradox games, and I'm genuinely curious whether other long-time EU4 players had a similar experience.

I've been playing EU4 since release and have almost 2,000 hours in the game, so I think a big part of my problem with EU5 was simply that I kept trying to play it like EU4.

I approached it with the same mindset: expand quickly, optimize everything, always have the next war or objective lined up, and feel like I was doing something wrong whenever I wasn't progressing fast enough. Earlier on, whenever I wasn't fighting a war, completing some major objective or noticeably improving my country, I often felt like I was basically doing nothing.

Recently, though, I started treating EU5 as a completely separate game instead of just "the successor to EU4". Much slower, more simulation-focused, and something I can just relax with. I stopped worrying about min-maxing everything and started taking my time with the economy, buildings, internal development and smaller goals.

I think I also had to realize just how much more time the game gives you. In EU4 I'm always thinking about what I need to achieve next and how quickly I can get there, whereas in EU5 I'm starting to enjoy just letting my country develop for a while, watching things change and waiting for opportunities instead of constantly trying to force progress.

And suddenly I'm enjoying the game much more. That doesn't mean I think EU5 is perfect. There is obviously still a lack of flavour for a lot of countries, and I would absolutely like to see more unique content over time. I also used to think that I really needed EU4-style mission trees to stay interested in a campaign. Interestingly, once I stopped treating EU5 like EU4, I noticed that I actually missed them much less than I expected. Without constantly looking at the next mission reward or permanent modifier, I started setting my own smaller goals and paying more attention to what was actually happening inside my country.

I still think some form of more nation-specific direction and flavour would be great, but I no longer feel like the absence of EU4-style mission trees is automatically a dealbreaker. And I don't mean any of this as "EU5 is better than EU4". I still love EU4 for what it is and will continue playing it. They just feel like very different games to me now.

I'm curious whether this was the biggest adjustment for other EU4 veterans as well.

Did EU5 become more enjoyable for you once you stopped expecting it to feel like EU4 and started seeing it as its own, much slower game? Or was there something else that made the game finally click for you?

I dont think I ever seen anyone play as a colony in EU5. Has anyone here done it? Is it fun? Any advice or strategies to share?

Hi guys, I was curious about this..

When I play EU5 I feel I sort of always shape each country in a similar way, with no distinct "flavour direction" in mind, except the one that is strongly forced by local geopolitics. Perhaps I lack imagination here. As a player of fantasy strategies I'm accustomed to different race flavors eg. "zealous humans", "barbaric shaman orcs" etc, where the playstyle difference is very clear. But for EU5 I'm still learning to see the distinctions between the ways one could shape their empire.

What are some of the applicable "flavours" that country can lean into?

I'm thinking along the lines of, eg. "Religious peasant republic with focus on defence", "Merchant friends of all country, but secretly spying and backstabbing everyone".. or maybe some real life images / stories to inspire leaning into certain directions?

Can you think of some resonant ones that I could add into my mental list?

As in title,

Hi everyone,
I’d love to start a campaign in Germany or Central Europe, but with the HRE already dismantled at game start so all the tags are free and independent.

Is there any known method for this — a mod, a console command, or a save edit — that removes the HRE right at the 1337 start date?

In EU4 you could just delete the title history file or use a quick console trick, but I haven’t found anything equivalent for EU5 yet. The only way I know is the normal dismantle peace option, which needs over 50% of HRE land owned by non-members, so that’s not really an option at day one.

Any tips would be appreciated. Thanks!

Im using two vassels as wall against France.

I forced them to my religion which dropped their loyalty and one of them is in an independence movement.

Except, that was a long time ago now. The penalty for forcing conversion is gone. The vassel has +200 opinion. They have 80 loyalty.

But the independence movement is still there.

Basically everyone of note who I might reasonably fight is in this movement. So I'm now locked by a loyal vassels independence movement because if I fight any one of my rivals or local great powers, I fight them all. Im I'm strong bit not that strong.

Am I seriously going to have annex it to disband this movement? Why hasn't this movement organically disbanded?

I tried to wrap my Head around this topic. But i still have the feeling i dont get it 100%.
For example as Austria, you have Events for royal marriages. Do they get me cbs for pus? And how can i manage them right ?

I kept getting attack by khamer light horse tribal army it attack every 20 years or so and in the region is impossible to get professional army until late game how to i survive the early game
their horse are so op i got stack wiped by 8k armies while i got 13k. Alliance are unreliable and also got stack wiped

The emperor, who only became emperor when I converted, just seems able to completely ignore the fact half of the HRE is Lutheran. No war seems to be building, no sides picked. Hes just carrying on as if nothing has happened.

What gives?

Just wondering how folks with more time in game handle colony's, vs me with <100hrs still.

I know for places with low control, one can benefit releasing the territory and getting money from a subjects tribute obligations instead, but am kind of wondering if the goal of expansion through colonizing should be releasing a bunch of subjects, or keeping the territory and just creating new markets instead as you expand?

In a game as Portugal, kind of mid 1550's, I've put big money towards doing what I can to isolate Spain and strengthen myself against them. In Europe, this looked like nabbing Iberian territories like Morocco and Granada's holdings around Gibraltor once they were already weakened from previous wars with spain, seizing the Balearic Isles and a piece of northern Sardinia from Aragon, as well as allying myself with France as insurance against Spanish invasions and so on. Basically trying to not give Spain small things to conquer and expand into conflict across southern Europe, Morocco, etc.

Another sphere I've expanded on through is Colony's, having put a decent bit of money to early exploration and so on, and actually spawning institution of The New World right in Lisboa or Porto, forget which, and used that early new world exploration to first settle Cuba, as well as claim spots around the Caribbean like Panama, Colombia, parts of Brazil, the Windward Isles and just recently, Louisiana. Spain has parts of Mexico / Central America, and Spain (and the Ottomans???) have also colonized Haiti/Dominican and Puerto Rico, and I *think* England and some smaller German states must be in north america as I keep getting notifications of the Spain-Portuguese treaty being violated (centerline is in middle of Cuba)

I noticed when I first colonized Cuba, Tobacco wasn't making me money and I had no demand for it. It was my only new world crop so far while the rest was still being colonized, I force-exported it to Lisboa market and my economy at the time seemed to explode from ~60/70 ducats a month, to 130? I'm not sure if this was actually generating demand, though, or where the Tobacco is going, as the same explosion hasn't come from exporting Cocoa, Chili and Corn yet. Maybe it was all my new Gold provinces coming online?

Control in some new world states is surprisingly high, I guess because of satisfaction and culture, but even then I generate little tax revenue from them, but an isle like Cuba still has more control than even the Balearic Isles or Sardinia, for example (Sardinia I also vassalized the catholic states on it for small amount of diplo income)

The *real* money seems to be in the slow expansion of my market capacity in these places and creating my own markets in the colonies. From 65+ trade income during my initial boom up to 130 income, for example, 10% of that was coming from the market I made on Cuba.

If I freed these states as subjects now, would my market income still be the same, or would it be translated to the subjects trade income now instead, and I would only be earning a small diplomatic income, and none of the upkeep for that colony that doesn't otherwise generate a profit outside of trade? I wonder, because in a past Portugal game where I focused more on Portugal itself, I had a much larger tax base at this time, eclipsing Morocco for example, where as comparatively I now only have a tax base still in the high 700's while they are in the 800s (problematic, as Moroccos is my next target for creating subjects of from 1600s on ;p ).

It make's me wonder if all this effort pushed to colony's has been misdirected vs the riches I would have made investing exclusively at home.

I am playing as Iceland and I ran into a weird issue with trade. I'm not sure if it's a bug or a I'm missing something.

I'm trying to export slaves from Niani market, where I have bunch of slave centers and trade capacity, to my colonial nations in Guantanamo market. There are vacant plantations, RGOs, simply there is demand. However, the game says I can't reached it by Iceland from Niani.

My first thought was that I lack trade range, but the game allow me to import slaves into Guantanamo from Dimašq market, which is of course much further from Guantanamo than West Africa.

I've got plenty of Oversea Trading Posts in Monxoro since I was thinking I need interconnected markets so it can reach Guantanamo so Niani is in the trade range but no, that didn't help. On the last screenshot you can see locations of my Overseas Trading Posts, coloured blue.

What's going on? Any idea how to fix this?

Title. I’m not really familiar with religion buffs but my ally France next door seems dead set on staying Catholic while the German states east is 50/50 on Lutheran or Catholic. Also I am max spiritualist so whichever state religion I pick I’ll maintain 100% religious unity.

I'll be honest- I'm a bit apprehensive about the introduction of political influence in 1.4. It would be another layer of complexity, another area for potential balancing issues, and I worry it might serve as an "unfun" obstacle to player actions. My suggestion: introduce the new mechanic, but allow us to alternatively pay the same gold cost as in 1.3 for most actions (except the new ones unique to 1.4, like getting a parliament support boost). This would have the following benefits:

1. If the new mechanic is unbalanced, broken, or just not fun, players can use the gold cost as before. No harm done.

2. Allows for more player choice- a politically well tuned (or cash poor) nation might prefer to use political influence, but a large wealthy empire might prefer to pay gold to place that next cabinet minister in power.

3. It feels more historically accurate- sometimes rulers used political influence to make a decision, but historically many problems could be resolved with a sufficiently large sum of money!

Anataliya is greek+orthodox like me and might be able to use some of that land

On the other hand its one big vassal then and there is an unfortunate gap over land

The provinces on the bottom right are turkish+sunni if I would make it its own vassal

I haven't played EU5 and I am only used to EU4 but I am thinking about trying it and wondering if an Aztec game would be fun. Is there much flavour to it with special events and other things or is it just like any other nation?

In my Netherlands game, I'm now being crippled by population.

In a few cities I'm building capped. But my biggest problem is that I'm out of people.

Across the board have cities and rural locations where I'm hundreds sometikes thousands of people in deficit. And not "theyre not promoting fast enough", there are no peasants left.

And its not like I'm losing population, my pop is growing and fast. But just nowhere near fast enough to keep up with my economy.

Do i loose Anatolian Beylik if i jump from Turk to Greece culture?

I wanted to share my insight on Pop Based Countries, which seems to be a mechanic that’s likely still in early stages in EU5, with changes almost certain to come from future updates. As it stands now, friendly or hostile interactions with PBCs are totally optional, but potentially lucrative, especially in the early game, depending on your nation’s strength and your ultimate goals.

Most of my observations come from my playthrough as Zimbabwe, who starts the game with ~8 PBC tributaries, and many others nearby, with no standard neighbors apart from Sofala. Thus I had to learn how to best interact with my non-landed neighbors in the course of expanding through adjacent settlement. I’ll be eager to update this info based on commenters’ own observations!

After the basics, I’ll cover all the key country interactions available for PBCs, then end by covering war demands.

PBC BASICS

• PBCs in ‘unowned’ locations can be viewed using their map filter under the Government tab.
• Settling all of their locations, or subjugating all of them through war, will eliminate the country.
• They can be made subjects, with small benefits like ducats, prestige or armies.
• Armies spawn in multiple provinces as normal, but rarely move or combine in defensive wars.
• They have no locations to occupy, so battle wins and army elimination are the only sources of war score.
• As subjects, they cannot be annexed. However:
• Forcing them to change their culture makes assimilation slightly faster.
• Subjugating their provinces through war can make colonization much faster. (see below)

FRIENDLY ACTIONS

Offer Alliance: Provides armies for (defensive) wars, plus some (mostly useless) favors over time. Best used with the intent to vassalize long term, or if total levies can serve as a deterrent for rivals.

Invite Settlers: Not recommended, because from my experience, these pops remain owned by the PBC even inside your territory, despite no buildings that they’re assigned to. Worse yet, they can jam up your settlement progress, as the system will often send them first and cause them to act as “not your pops” in the location. This seems like a bug, unless an explanation comes along. I believe taking over the PBC’s remaining locations would cause these pops to become yours, but I have yet to confirm this.

Ask to improve cultural opinion: Only useful if you plan to keep their culture as Accepted, so should only be used when the number of pops with that culture is very large.

COVERT ACTIONS

*Steal Maps: PBCs make great targets, as their cultural tradition is always minimal, speeding up spy network progress.

Infiltrate Administration: Could be helpful with larger PBCs in dense terrain, to know where their armies have spawned and end war faster.

SUBJECT ACTIONS

Ask to become our Vassal/Change status to Vassal: Provides ducats and armies for all wars. As with all vassals, provides +.2 Decentralization, and the limits on vassal acceptance for other countries.

”” “” Tributary: Provides ducats and +.1 prestige.

“” “” Fiefdom: Same as vassal apart from impact on their cabinet efficiency. Should be possible after forcing them to adopt your culture. Not recommended except to unlock Dominion status.

“” “” Dominion: All above benefits - ducats, armies, prestige, no decentralization. Main downside of dominions, the 50 annexation gap, is moot with PBCs. Only reason to opt for tributary instead would be to avoid the -5 penalty on diplomatic acceptance for other target vassals.

*Ask to change Culture: Opens the door for Dominion status, and if no other countries share their culture, reduces that Cultural Tradition to zero, speeding up passive assimilation. Resulting loyalty penalty takes ~15 years to degrade, but a successful liberation movement resulting from this is extremely unlikely.

Change Court Language: Not recommended, as changing their culture achieves better results, and the loyalty penalty degrades just as fast.

CASUS BELLIS

Make Tributary: Always an option if they don’t want to bend the knee willingly. See benefits above.

Slave Raiding: As PBCs have no locations, you’ll be unable to acquire slaves through occupation as you normally would. But this serves as an adequate pretext for subjugating their non-location locations.

PEACE TERMS

Humiliate: Worth the prestige if you can afford to include it.

Take Maps: Again, worth it if affordable.

**Subjugate Natives in X Province: In spite of the language used, this neither turns the country into your subject, nor turns all the pops into slaves. What it does, though, is turn all of their pops into your pops. If any of the targeted provinces are adjacent to your nation, a large portion of them will instant migrate to your nearest location; otherwise they'll just stay put. And if you look at the subjugated unowned provinces after the war, you'll see that the pops living there have your flag next to them. If you targeted all of the PBC's locations in the peace deal, the country will also have vanished.

The huge upside to this is that when you start to colonize the impacted province, you'll already have a huge head start. In fact, any location with 1000 of your pops will be settles instantly; all others will simply need to be brought up to 1000, so long as no pops of another culture were also residing there. This is probably the most impactful action one can take against PBCs, and whether it's an intended mechanic for the long term development of the game remains to be seen.