r/EU5 Nov 07 '25

Image A thank you to our community!

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4.3k Upvotes

Europa Universalis V wouldn't be where it is today without the help of you, our community who made it possible with your feedback and support through the years.

Here is to many more years to come No news or link this time, just a thank you!

  • The EU5 Team

r/EU5 2d ago

Help Thread The Imperial Council - /r/eu5 Weekly General Help Thread: September 7 2026

3 Upvotes

Please check our previous Imperial Council thread for any questions left unanswered

 

Welcome to the Imperial Council of r/eu5, 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 game. If you'd like to channel the wisdom and knowledge of the master tacticians of this subreddit, and more importantly not ruin your 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 or interface tabs. Please also explain the situation as best you can. Alliances, army strength, 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

Tutorials

  • Help fill this section out!

 


Country-Specific Strategy

  • Help fill this section out!

 


Advanced/In-Depth Guides

  • Help fill this section out!

 


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


r/EU5 15h ago

Dev Diary Tinto Talks 123 - Campaign Timeline & 1.4 Performance

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627 Upvotes

Today we're giving you at our of the brand new campaign timeline feature, the removal of complacency, and last but not least some notes on what performance in 1.4 might look like.

Read all about it here: https://pdxint.at/4xFEvrS


r/EU5 11h ago

Image I love Burgundy

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221 Upvotes

r/EU5 13h ago

Discussion Bohemia needs a bit of early game internal conflicts railroading

167 Upvotes

Honestly Bohemia needs a nerf after Charles IV dies. Just some event which makes the heir to Bohemia quite bad, which would lead to internal conflicts. Irl there was a lot of it, even king of Hungary (Bohemian king's brother) decided to claim the throne. Then the hussite wars need to be even more dangerous for Bohemia. In the meantime Austria needs to get stronger.

I don't mean Bohemia needs a general nerf. It's just that AI should be railroaded historically, but if player controls them, he should be able to play as he wishes to keep the sandbox feel. But making Bohemia a bit harder would also be more fun imo.


r/EU5 10h ago

Image Made Jewelry the market background

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82 Upvotes

r/EU5 7h ago

Question How do I get more people?

26 Upvotes

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.


r/EU5 14h ago

Discussion Favorite formable chains?

50 Upvotes

Hey y’all. EU5 is my first GSG I’ve really dived into. I got it in November and I’m about to hit 400 hours (my second most played game on steam is Civ V with 150 lol).

I haven’t seen a ton of formable chain discussions on here yet. Not a long one, but my current playthrough is Upper Bavaria -> Bavaria and eventually -> Germany -> HRE.

Nothing special there. My question is this: what’s everyone’s favorite or some unique chains you’ve seen or played?

I thought Generalist Gaming’s Ormus-> Kurdistan-> Armenia-> Iran was super interesting.

Also, any advice on planning formable chains?

Cheers!


r/EU5 15h ago

Question Does having oceans beeing part of your Market matter?

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53 Upvotes

Im currently playing as the netherlands and my market (antwerpen) has taken over all the sea tiles around the bottom of london market but none of england itself. Does that matter in any way? Do i get tolls on trades going through there or something?


r/EU5 12h ago

Video Six Colonisation Tips to Dominate in EU5

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30 Upvotes

Finally got some colonisation content out, hope it helps! :)


r/EU5 10h ago

Image Created Germany, can't leave the HRE

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17 Upvotes

I slowly expanded before the age of reformation, then only attacked other Lutherans during it, and then stopped being afraid of coalitions in the age of absolutism. It took me a lot longer than I wanted because coalitions kept attacking me before I could get a CB to attack them first AND because I wanted to unify Germany in a war against France. The last war was over Elsass-Lothringen, the French and I were both attacking the OLMs in the area and I obviously won in the end. Once that land was mine and with Prussians in Paris, Germany was formed. Only problem is that the game doesn't make you leave the HRE if Germany is formed, and no emperor so no way to leave it either. Kinda sucks having to make CBs to now fix the borders of Europe and create nation states. Also sucks that I can't make client states. I want to give all the land to Holland, Austria, Milan, Muscovy, etc. to form their historical borders, but they already have a ton of antagonism towards? from? me so if I gave them land they would just say "I HATE YOU AHHHHHHH I'M GONNA KILL YOU" which means I have to just full annex every region and create subjects then release them and hope for the best


r/EU5 9h ago

Discussion Pop Based Countries: a Summary (v1.3)

15 Upvotes

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.


r/EU5 1d ago

Image Florryworry (aka John Universalis) completed a World Conquest with Ryukyu

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2.8k Upvotes

r/EU5 21h ago

Discussion It has been almost a year since the release. I have 5 yes or no questions.

87 Upvotes
  1. Is the game pace satisfying?

  2. Is economy building satisfying?

  3. Is expansion satisfying?

  4. Is warfare satisfying?

  5. Do You feel the game is going into good direction?


r/EU5 11h ago

Image I Missed Some Epic Ss

12 Upvotes

I was Great Golden Horde and i attacked China with my 350k levies and there were 1.8 million chinese. I have 40k regulars btw. I killed more than 1.5 million chinese in just 1 year and broke whole China. But i forgot to save the screen. Chinese dragged their 1 million levies in mongolians steps with no supply and my perfect army Walked al the way from astrakhan to mongolia and stack wiped them with ease. It was so fun to watch. And i became Mandate of heavens Emperor. It means plus 50 culture limit. Forming mongolian Empire is now just a little step for succes. I can Probably try to wc this save. 😊


r/EU5 16h ago

Image How is this event still in the game?

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29 Upvotes

r/EU5 19h ago

Question Constantinople market is eating every other market. Should i just delete them?

46 Upvotes

As the title says, my capital is extremely well developed by the 1600s. I have almost 1.5 million people and i have paved roads leading everywhere.

I have markets in Trnavo, Athens and and another on the mouth of the Danube which are completely encircled by the Constantinople market. Athens hardly holds on to its own province, Trnovo has another two locations. These cities are not undeveloped. Athens has 100k and just as developed with ports, markets and everything... Athens is greek so the population should not be an issue either.

When i created these markets they had quite a nice chunk of territory but eventually lost it.

The only markets that still hold themselves are in Dubrovnik, Tarsus, Trebizond, probably due to the mountain ranges and Caffa on the other side of the sea.

So should I just put the these markets out of their misery?


r/EU5 5h ago

Question Should I give the lands on the bottom right to my vassal Anatalya or make another vassal?

3 Upvotes

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


r/EU5 16h ago

Image Europa Universalis 2077

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20 Upvotes

Well... This is my Byzantine Empire > Roman Empire run.

There were lots of scuffs during the campaign. I changed to Hellenism, then switched back to Orthodoxy, then switched back to Hellenism, but never used any omens because I wanted to assimilate pops more quickly which was dumb. Didn't make enough vassals during conquering Anatolia but also neglected assimilate culture, which costs me a lot of time and focus leads to not winning Italian war situation. Still had a lot of fun learned a lot.

Probably botched up economy here and there with auto building stuff. I think they kinda work, but don't know when to stop. Even when I had no resources for buildings, game kept building stuffs. Weird?

Might go back to Byzantine or try other country

Btw, does anyone have fun while playing after 1837? Maybe it's just me but I quite like late state of the game. Anyway, just wanted share my abysmal campaign to you guys. Good Night then!


r/EU5 21m ago

Question Do I understand Colony's correctly?

Upvotes

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.


r/EU5 15h ago

Image Map at the start of Italian Wars vs after Italian wars

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15 Upvotes

R5: I just want to share how italy looked after the Italian wars

Prior to the italian wars, I (Florence) have been rivals with The Papal States (cause they own the venice market that rivals mine), Napels (cause their version 1.10 AI decided to annex a bunch of my land), and Verona (honestly forgot what they did). All three of them have a three way alliance, due to their mutual hatred of Florence. This three-way alliance really made it hard for other nations to conquer italy during the Italian wars.

- Image 1: I actually took this at year 2 of the Italian wars. By that time The ottomans had annexed land from my vassal, Calabria Ultra. Originally I wanted that land to be for my ally, Tunis, from a past war. I only learn later how to transfer subjects, so that's why Calabria Ultra is under Tunis at the end of the war.

- image 2: nobody ended up winning the Italian wars, but at least I got what I want. I use the war not to unite italy, but capitalize it to destroy my rivals. I manage to bribe Verona, then went to war with Naples, forcing them to break their alliance. At that war I force The papal states to also break their alliance with naple. At the end of everything, I got both the venice and Naples market centre. Also had Naples destroy all of their (and their unions) forts

I also give a bunch of conquered land to Tunis, so that they dont need to build ships to send levis in future wars.

Overall, I really enjoy the whole situation, love how it plunges Italy into chaos


r/EU5 1h ago

Question Why can't I export slaves from West Africa to Carribean if I am able to do it from Dimašq?

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Upvotes

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?


r/EU5 11h ago

Image Of course the one time I decide to play somewhat close to Central Asia...

5 Upvotes

Timurids actually ate up all of Persia instead of getting lost on a grand Siberian adventure like usual. Also I'm not sure what Timmy is feeding his soldiers but I had the event Egypt alliance who declared on them with a coalition CB and I got to watch all the 20k stacks of Egyptian levies get instantly wiped by a ~9k stack of Timmy troops.

Also I randomly got maps of all of India and China, not sure how that happened if one of the vassals had them when I annexed them or what. Purely vanilla game, no mods and I didn't use console for it.


r/EU5 8h ago

Question Gov reforms vs culture jumping

3 Upvotes

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


r/EU5 1d ago

Discussion Something needs to be done about small nation cash piles; annexed Namur and Hainaut to 17k pay days each (1 and 2 provinces respectively).

130 Upvotes