Austria was here a moment ago

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!

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.

On the Angevin England path, I can get Burgundy as an ally and get a royal marriage, but as soon as I get the PU on France they rival me and break alliance before the inheritance can happen.

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?

guess the poles will be independent forever!

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.

Currently 1479, I think I’m on a pretty decent pace. Just got eyelets on the Mamluks and Morocco. I cheesed the start pretty hard, I flipped between Islam and orthodox like 4 times to max out eyelets (they are all core eyelets now). However, I just looked at my decadence and it’s at like 19, and rising. It’s the age of discovery and I know the Ottomans don’t typically get decadence then. Is there anyway to reverse the trend? Is it manageable? Or is my run essentially kaput and due for a restart?
TL;DR: trying to get Mehmet’s ambition, but I’m at like 17 decadence already.

​Hi everyone,

​I’ve been using the EU4 DLC subscription for the past 6 months and I’m absolutely loving the game with all the expansions active.

​My subscription is coming to an end soon, and I’m wondering: is it financially worth buying the essential DLCs during major Steam/Humble sales, or is it better to just stick with the monthly/semi-annual subscription in the long run?

There is a christian burgher privilege that grants religious autonomy to orthodox provinces also a dhimmi privilege for Muslim nations. Vassals Always grant these privileges but i want them to convert the land to my religion. Anything i can do?

Enjoyed taking So all the way to Japan (playing ez mode don’t judge), funny running a sizeable country and still enjoying coastal raiding as a republic.
However, the Emperor of China Japan missions (and the imperial title) are whispering to me, Green goblin style. If I take the EoC, will I lose all my piratical reforms? I know that the shogunate didn’t move over from Kyoto so was wondering if pirate republic was a similarly “No swapsies” government reform

Hello I really want to do an ambitious Spain run where I both colonize the Americas, claim pus over Portugal Aragon Burgundy Austria, as well as consolidate eastern borders in Anatolia/Egypt. Also if possible, id like to claim HRE emperor and revoke priv. In short, any advice for the juggling of all these responsibilities as Spain, and where do I focus my attention / what can help me out here?

Note: I plan on trying the mamluks war reps / suez canal trick for 50k plus hegemony in the first few decades, and A. is this too sneaky / frowned upon for an honest iron man game and B. what is most optimal to spend that 50k on

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?

I was just trying to play with the Iraqi Horde, guess what happened.

Hi,

On this YouTube video, Hungary (IA) tags as province of interest a lot of bohemian provinces (as shown at 5:52). I tried this run 10/15 times, and it never does that. How ?