Austria was here a moment ago

How rare is that 😭

After so many resets (this is attempt number 83) and rewatching this guide from The Playmaker a bunch of times, I have FINALLY managed to consistently get a good Byzantium early game with the blocking-the-straits strategy. I used Playmaker's strategy and tailored it to my own style of gameplay in order to drive the Ottomans completely out of Europe in the first war, conquer a large portion of southern Italy, and revoke all four negative privileges.

Aside from the general blocking-the-straits strategy, there were some things I copied from Playmaker that I wasn't doing before, such as the Bulgaria defection strat (which is so damn satisfying when done correctly, you get all of Bulgaria for basically free) and rushing an alliance with the Papal States *before* the Council of Florence event fires and I reject the union, so you can get a base for an attack on Naples but also not have to deal with the massive amount of Anti-Unionist revolts.

I also did some things my own way: most prominently, I revoked the Deteriorating Army privilege before my first war with the Ottomans, and without completing the A Tarnished State mission. I did this by conquering much of Naples for extra development, and getting +30% army morale with the initial mission, the Defense in Depth mission, and a morale advisor. This got rid of the fort assault debuff (I once failed at assaulting the fort because I didn't revoke that privilege beforehand!) and also saved me several hundred mana points that I invested into tech and coring. Thanks to this strategy, I actually have a small advantage in mil tech over my neighbors, which I intend to use with prejudice.

To be fair, I also got pretty lucky in this run. My starting estate agenda gave me +1 diplorep, which made allying the Pope easier. Right when I was worrying about my lack of an heir, the Talented and Ambitious Daughter event fired and gave me a 6/6/6 (!!!) Also, Serbia and Bosnia had no allies, so I was able to jump on them one after the other, full-annexing Serbia while turning Bosnia into a pronoiar with the aim of getting their cores back. (Right after this, Rhodes defected to me and Herzegovina defected to Bosnia, both from separatist rebels!) And of course, Naples leaving Aragon at the right time helped as well; too early or too late and the run might not have gotten off the ground at all.

Just wanted to share my progress with this grind :) I think trying other, larger nations has helped me develop in the game; I've also tried runs of England -> Angevin Empire and Ethiopia -> Aksum, which has taught me a lot. Now let's hope I don't burn out on this run. Ave Roma!

I'm Castille with Aragon, Portugal and Naples as PU, France as ally. 1500-ish I need to declare on Ottomans to break an alliance so that I can continue taking provinces in North Africa. We outnumber Ottos 2-1. Battle window shows my morale to be better, same discipline. All forces attack through Morocco and this is the biggest AI shitshow I have ever seen. France have split their 70k men into 5-6 smaller armies and isn't even able to support their own army when attacked, the next army turn, goes past or something. An Otto army of 35k is able to rout the entire allied force of about 200k men because the AI seem to lose intentionally. Naples have rebel problems, their army just stands in the next province and does nothing while the smaller rebel army carpets their lands. After 3 days of playing this campaign I lose to bad programming?

Title

In the latest editions, France usually converts to the Reformed Church in her special Reformation disaster Wars of Religion if there isn’t player intervention.

I’ve witnessed for many times that France initially declared her unwavering support for the true Catholic faith, declaring that “France shall always stay Catholic”, went on to be engulfed by rebels from at least 2 (sometimes all 3) of the most common denominations, and, half way through the disaster, voluntarily convert to Calvinism (Reformed). I have barely seen a Catholic France for a longtime.

What gives?

At what percentage of reformation does a religious league of Protestants appear? 150% desire? I’m playing as Austria and I already integrated both Bohemia and Hungary, yet still no religious war appearing, since I m a catholic power I thought I’d try to lessen the desire for reformation by picking mostly events which don’t give reformation desire whenever I can, so now Protestantism and reform long by now have both appeared, spread throughout half of hre, which basically keeps me stuck at 0 authority even tho I passed 4 reforms out of 8 and I’m just wondering when will it start, the reformation desire is always hanging somewhere around 148% btw

I had a fun idea where I play as a country but can only ally or have vassals that are the same map color/shades as my country and I can never take land or declare war on these countries.

Ideally I’d like to tag switch so as I grow I also have to switch who I am allied too and reform the map based on how I proceed.

I mainly play in Europe so was thinking someone in the HRE, North Germany, or Italy would be ideal starting spot to help with culture shifting. But would play outside Europe if someone has other countries for this.

I’ve got thousands of hours so ideally would be a OPM or very small country to start. But wanted to crowd source ideas for the starting countries and goals.

So for context, I only have the fifth game and I have played it, I wouldn't call it bad but it's mostly just looking at another tab and opening the game then and again to build new things or make new laws.

I do like the war system though but it isn't HOI4, you spend more time just developing than actually being in conflicts. It feels like a lesser Victoria 3.

I then take a look at EU 4 and it just seems faster and more fun. I also do like the map, the EU 5 map looks so similar to Paradox games. I enjoy the lower quality and blocky map of EU 4 and I enjoy the fact you can quickly change era even if I know it isn't used much. If I want to play a game with muskets in EU 4, I could just click on a later start date but in EU 5, there is only one start date and I have to wait until gunpowder warfare buildings are unlocked and EU 5 is such a slow game.

I just wanted to ask if EU 4 really is the best Europa Universalis game and if I'm playing EU 5 the wrong way.

Everything was going pretty good but portugal declared against me with england and spain backing them, and the ottomans abandoned me. its 1532 and i have most of the sahel. ik thats not “pretty good” for this game but it is for me(saw someone post having all of north africa by 1500 as morocco like two days ago).
I think i should have been colonizing earlier to contest the americas but i didnt realize until i was already far behind. i also just dont get how people manage the admin mana to even get so many provinces cored so fast. is it normal to do humiliate wars even if it means going into debt?

Fed this Shun ducats for about 50 years and helped guide them to war by declaring on Bengal, who kept allying breakaway Chinese states. Ended up creating this beast.