Europa Universalis IV

Guide? WTF like 99% of my fun in this game is thinking about and planning what the optimal strat is. someone telling me defeats the entire purpose of this game.

And the other half of the 99% of fun is reacting to the cursed things that happen. On my steam deck I started a game as France at work, another major power I'd never played before. Revoking the guarantee to Scotland seemed the smart thing to do, but expected Scotland to die in a fire to England. So after I beat up England in the surrender event, england immediately declared on Scotland. Unfortunately, the war of the roses crisis triggered the next day for England, and apparently that evened things up. I watched as the two countries had a back and forth for the next 5 years. Eventually scotland won, though didn't take land.

Scotland then immediately died in a fire to me and Denmark.

The most cursed thing in this game was my ally Aragon to the south. In 1454 or so the leader of their rival Castile died, and they got a PU over Castile. That lead to Portugal having no effective allies. Morocco immediately invaded, and Aragon also followed up with a quick succession war, and during that war his leader decided to keel over dead without an heir, and a royal of my family took up the throne (If he had kindly waited until the war was over, I'd have gotten a PU on all those countries). So the year is 1455, and I can claim the throne of Aragon, which has a PU over both Castile and Portugal (and Nevers). I know it's probably smart to wait for a more tactical time to do it, but I can't resist this war. Do PUs of PUs count toward aggressive expansion? I might make the most magnificent coalition ever if they do.

Kaines said:

You are correct. I'm not a fan of that playstyle but that's typically how it's done.

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I'm kinda over blobbing for a while especially after my last Mughal run where the only thing I didn't take was Western Europe, Africa, Scandinavia, Canada and South America.

Going to try a tall game with Riga

LMAO. Apparently I got no AE for inherenting Aragon's PU's of castille, nevarra and portugal either. Coalition is tiny. This is the most absurd PU chain I can remember.

Lmao is this game serious right now. I was improving relations with burgundy to aim for the inheritance at some point after I got too big to be a rival for them. Instead austria inherented them super early. I've played this war from the other side, and usually isn't too difficult when burgundy holds so much, but I think I'm going to dick punch them into outer space. I was gonna chill on the continent and go for some gains in africa, ireland and england after I built a navy, but sure, why not add another PU.

Also what sort of cursed thing is happening in Teuton lands. Lubeck of all countries holds Danzig while Danzig formed without danzig?

Edit: Coalition after stomping out Austria and friends is all of the HRE, all of italy, and eastern europe. I'll probably die in a fire and have to give up land if the coalition triggers, but burgundy has a lot of value, so I'll definitely end up a net positive. I was expecting this from the first war, so still worth it.

Chris said:

Got a couple of good games in.

Took all of southern Manchuria and Japan as Korea but got cockblocked by Ming who was protecting literally anyone I could get to and could beat me despite me also being a great power.

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with Ming, it’s usually worth having a go even if you think you’ll get stomped. They often look a lot scarier than they actually are, kinda like colonial Castile, and with their size I feel it’s easy to just cause lots of chaos.

Getting into the learning of paradox games, I picked up hoi4 and thought I’d share my kinda universal method of learning their games. I usually pick a minor country in a precarious position and don’t mind if I die in a fire. I find that approach helps me learn. In HOI4 I picked Estonia, while being hostile to the Soviets. And oh boy I sure died in a fire the first dozen games, but now I find myself clicking through the interface knowledgebly, and in my most recent game I think I’ll die in a fire a lot less slowly than any of the other ones. I just slowly learned from my mistakes and refined my plan, trying different strategies to see what was most effective. I find I learn best when I have to struggle to survive. Debasing currency, exploiting development, taking out lots of loans. If you pick a big safe country you will probably avoid these things, but if you pick a really challenging country they can be entirely necessary to take on a country above your weight.