Beginner Help

[uglyduckling81]

I've played a lot of HOI over the years. Love HOI 4. Thought I might as well expand into EU4.

I have all the expansions except the latest one and am running on the last patch for that release.

I've tried a few nations but mostly just Castile on repeat. My longest game is probably 20 years or so before I'm done for, usually a lot less.

Every nation seems to be in big alliances. Despite improving relations with everyone around me to try and hold back the horde they always attack me as a huge group and wreck me.

What's the trick? What am I supposed to be aiming for early on? I've tried taking Granada early. I've tried being everyone's friend. I can't figure it. Eventually France and a bunch of others walk into me with 60-80k troops and the best I've been able to muster is a little over 40k.

There is something I'm missing in this game.

 

[Vincentst]

It looks like your talking about coalitions? If you expand too fast, too soon, you'll get a coalition against you. Before making peace, always look if your agressive expansion is not too high.

You might want to begin with Portugal. Ally Castille and you'll have a fairly easy game in which you can learn about colonisation, which is a major aspect of the game. In this way, Castille will always act like a buffer.

 

[Parapluman]

The wiki has got you covered: https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/Alliance#Coalition
There is also a coalition map mode in game where you can quickly view your aggressive expansion a perceived by other countries and who is in a coalition against you.

 

[netherlink]

I don't think coalitions are OPs problem, but regular alliances.
There are some really common alliances in the start of the game, since alliances are often related to common rivals.

So lets say you're Castille and rivaled Aragon, France and Morocco. Every nation who is a rival to any of those is more likely to make an alliance with you.
Austria is a natural ally, since he often rivals france.

Actually, it is a somewhat good strategy to pick your rivals depending on the rivals of the nation you wanna be friends with.
So lets say you wanna ally Austria. You check which countries Austria rivaled and pick at least one of those, like France for instance.

 

[makaramus]

ally with austria and england and portugal They will be your ally with joy if you are rivaled france allways.

dont rival aragon this will only bad for you use your other rivallary slot for morocco. you got an event to make your king rule aragon (personal union) at the same time. making them someting like your vassal but less rebellius and not paying any taxes.

later you got a decision unlocking at tech 10 that making you take all lands of aragon and form spain for free without wasting any resources.

and by the way allways have some amount of military power. if ai notice you dont have a decent amount of man on field he will try to take a war with you

 

[kgmi]

I cant really figure out the issue to help you OP, you claim your longest game is 20+/-X years in, so you having 40k is pretty much impossible unless you bumrushed and full annexed Portugal and Aragon (which would explain, coalitions). Same goes for France and "others" (would help if you could elaborate that term) attacking you with 60-80k in 1464 is highly unlikely, unless again, coalition.

If you could post a screenshot would help, so people here can figure out what the problem is. You have to be more specific otherwise.

 

[PhoenixG]

ally with austria and england and portugal They will be your ally with joy if you are rivaled france allways.

dont rival aragon this will only bad for you use your other rivallary slot for morocco. you got an event to make your king rule aragon (personal union) at the same time. making them someting like your vassal but less rebellius and not paying any taxes.

later you got a decision unlocking at tech 10 that making you take all lands of aragon and form spain for free without wasting any resources.

and by the way allways have some amount of military power. if ai notice you dont have a decent amount of man on field he will try to take a war with you

imo as castile allying england is a bad move. you'll guaranteed get in to wars with France and you'll be the first on the chopping block. imo Burgundy and Austria is a better choice.

 

[makaramus]

imo as castile allying england is a bad move. you'll guaranteed get in to wars with France and you'll be the first on the chopping block. imo Burgundy and Austria is a better choice.

as I know english wont call you into war as long as you dont desire any land france holding means that he will fight it alone as offender rembember: England cant call you without some time passed
also he can mark "dont join offansive wars " too
it appears he has all dlcs but last one wich means he can do what I saying

 

[PhoenixG]

iirc marking don't join offensive wars increases the chance that your alliance get broken.

 

[makaramus]

iirc marking don't join offensive wars increases the chance that your alliance get broken.

yea so? if england decide to break his alliance so be it you still got austria and portugal also its still not that easy to be broken

 

[uglyduckling81]

Thanks for the reply's. I went to bed in frustration last night.

I cant really figure out the issue to help you OP, you claim your longest game is 20+/-X years in, so you having 40k is pretty much impossible unless you bumrushed and full annexed Portugal and Aragon (which would explain, coalitions). Same goes for France and "others" (would help if you could elaborate that term) attacking you with 60-80k in 1464 is highly unlikely, unless again, coalition.

If you could post a screenshot would help, so people here can figure out what the problem is. You have to be more specific otherwise.

I took a look and your right it's 30years into the game. So i lasted better than I thought.

You can see the remnants of my army. I lost a stack with about 10-14k and my 30k just got demolished vs that Aragon army.
I also have land up north of France which they have been taking off me with 2x20k stacks. There was another 30k France stack in my north but they have gone back into the fog.
Aragon declared on me with France and Florence. Papal State joined me but got wrecked by Florence. Portugal was my Ally but didn't join.

I'm going to start again with some of the suggestions in this thread.

edit: Oh that save game file is on 1.22.2. All expansions, not all cosmetics. Aside from very latest expansion as I said earlier. No mods - Ironman

 

[makaramus]

rembember: you must make aragon belive its terrible idea to dow you until iberian wedding is fired! if you can do this all else is easy after union with aragon you are alone in region with portugal . france has very little desire for your land unless he think they are free and even if they decide to attack you got huge defensive enterence to protect yourself .
all you need to do is delaying aragon!

 

[PhoenixG]

Looked at your save file and a few things can be improved for the next run. You pretty much lost the war and imo you lost due lacking in diplomacy. Castile start isn't that strong (avg starting dev and crap ruler) and start to get power after the liberia wedding.

1. Ally + Diplo-Vassalize Navarra at start of the game. It's the perfect choke point to defend france.
2. Get more allies. Portugal is nice, but he's also pretty weak. Something like Austria, Burgundy, Hungary. Also check their rivals, since an enemy of an enemy is a good shot for an alliance.
3. Use your estates. Free MP and more free goodies.

 

[Badesumofu]

as I know english wont call you into war as long as you dont desire any land france holding means that he will fight it alone as offender rembember: England cant call you without some time passed
also he can mark "dont join offansive wars " too
it appears he has all dlcs but last one wich means he can do what I saying

No, no, no. Only very rarely if ever should you check 'no offensive wars'. Instead what you want to do is check regularly your allies CBs and vital interest. Anyone they are likely to attack that you don't want to be called against - set them as your friend. AI won't CTA you against your friends. It's quite possible to avoid any unwanted CTAs while still getting full favors.

All Castile has to do to avoid being CTA against France is to set France as a friend. The problem is if France attacks England.

As a newbie playing Castile I'd ally France while also making sure to avoid CTAs from them that you don't want. Kill Grenada when you can. Eat Portugal (no one cares about Portugal). Get Iberian Wedding. Form Spain. Take Exploration first or second. Work on Colonizing your way around the African coast and once you can reach it, the New World as well. Make sure to boost trust with France who will provide you a buffer with all the other Europeans. Make your CNs, make Trade Companies in Africa. Get rich. Get a high force limit from OP 0 autonomy floor in trade company provinces. Then later on you can turn your attention back towards Europe if you like.

 

[uglyduckling81]

Well I got conquered again.
Thought I was doing well but then got greedy (tried to take the last couple province off Aragon) and England put me in my place. Ended up unconditional surrender to Aragon. The stupid thing was Aragon immediately after being announced a major power became my junior partner. Castille Unconditional surrender -> Aragon Major power -> Aragon Lesser partner to nation that just surrender to them?? I'm not sure why that event popped but I decided that's too gamey and am starting again.
I went the France is my ally route. They were treatied to UK though so I couldn't ask them to join me.
Was a lot more fun that game though. Smashed up Morocco+Tunis, Conquered Granada and half of Aragon (actually took every one of their provinces in the first war but settled on half their main land for peace).
I'll try some more of the suggestions in here.

3. Use your estates. Free MP and more free goodies.

Hadn't even looked at estates. I'll use them next game. What happens when their loyalty goes low though?

Aragon start the game with me as RIval which means they hate me. Isn't that a problem for the unification?

 

[Badesumofu]

that just surrender to them?? I'm not sure why that event popped but I decided that's too gamey and am starting again.

That event will happen more often than not. It's called the Iberian Wedding. It's nothing to do with your surrendering to them (though I believe it does require Aragon and Castile to be at peace). I would advise you to pursue peaceful relations with Aragon when you play Castile because you will likely get their land for free anyway. Any time that these two nations have respectively male and female rulers (or either having a regency) before some date that escapes my mind just now, there is a good chance each month that you get the event.

I would not be attacking England for their continental holdings unless you want France to hate you. No one cares if you kill Portugal. They start allied to England but if you jump them while England are being smashed by France then you can crush them fairly easily. Ideally you want England to dishonor their alliance with Portugal. At that point Portugal will find it very hard to get allies of their own, especially if you are already allied to France and Aragon.

Obviously starting rivalries will modify all this and you won't always be able to do everything I've outlined. You could just restart until both France and Aragon start friendly, though.

 

[PhoenixG]

Hadn't even looked at estates. I'll use them next game. What happens when their loyalty goes low though?

Aragon start the game with me as RIval which means they hate me. Isn't that a problem for the unification?

clergy: less tax and stab up cost more
burghers: less trade money and dev cost more
nobels: units more expensive and slower manpower recover.
How much it depends on the influence.

More information can be read here

Rivalery doesn't block the iberia wedding. Only thing that matters is the same dynasty, one country has male and other female, not at war with each other and before 1530

 

[True_Heir_of_Rome]

Allying France is one way to go as Spain, at least until the wedding and your Colonies take off. They might call you into wars, so you can either participate and gain experience at warfare with little risk, or just sit back and let them get wrecked which will suit your purposes.

Once you get the wedding and form Spain(Admin tech 10) you should look into making Portugal your vassal. Between the two of you the America will get filled in quickly. It's hard to force, but if you can get two Colonial Nations to spawn in each region it will work out very well for you, especially if you can get each one to ten provinces.

 

[uglyduckling81]

Doing much better this time thanks to all the helpful tips.
Got Aragon as lesser ally (cant remember the actual name of it) and I have about half of Portugals land. I got them to 100% war score but it needed more to vassal so I just took half their land. It says it will take 77% to vassal now so after this truce is over ill vassal them.
Own Granada.
Navarra became a lesser ally very early when Aragon declared on them which also gave me the Aragon capital.
I'm not sure if I should be trying to take Morocco. They are ally with Tunis and were a bit dangerous when I was down there getting war score for the Granada acquisition. Just managed to get enough points before my army was worn out.
You guys weren't wrong about the terrible leadership for Castille though. All 0 for stats. Been waiting for the bugger to die or his 20 years to run out so I can get rid of him. The heir has some good stats.
I'm really starting to enjoy the game now I'm not completely overwhelmed with everything this game has to offer. Still a poor understanding of lots of mechanics but at least it's manageable now.
I would put this game into the HOI3 level of difficulty to learn. They really should do some work on improving the tutorials. They barely scratch the surface. Youtube tutorials is the only thing that got me off the ground at all.

 

[PhoenixG]

You can increase the chance for a ruler/heir to die to make him a general and send him in combat.

About taking north africa land. I would only take a few province (central of trade province/rich one) since their land has +50% coring cost. Early game it will cost an arm and a leg to core those province, resulting in lagging behind in admin tech.