Beginners Country?

[Gaamel]

Other than the Ottomans I always find Sweden to be a good starter nation in any Paradox game. EU 4 included. First of all they have great national ideas. They have room to expand if you choose to. Denmark, Norway, Northern Germany, and the Baltic nations are best. If played right can make the Baltic a Swedish lake. They can if played right form Scandinavia. They are easy to defend if a war in Europe goes badly so long as you maintain a decent navy. Only bad things are that Sweden starts out in a personal union with Denmark so you have to fight a war to break it, and compared to most majors Sweden has low manpower. The manpower problem can be remedied by fighting your wars smartly and having good allies.

Sweden? I guess you haven't played it for quite some time. Denmark was buffed (some more dev), meanwhile the hansa was split and can't support your independance anymore. Novgorod hates you, and Poland is landlocked and can't help you. Your only chances are the teutonics (very reliable), Lithuania (if Poland refuses the PU) and England (~20% of the time). You need to restart many times to make sure you can befriend at the very least England or Lithuania.

Not very beginner-friendly...

 

[Tweakee]

Or focus on going go to Africa/Asia as Portugal historically did instead of going heavy into the new world. Keeping a single CN happy isn't all that difficult, just don't go crazy with the tariffs.

And don't do the stupid thing the AI does: make their colonial nation bigger than their own.

Oh look, Brazil's independent AGAIN.

 

[TimLewis903]

Sweden? I guess you haven't played it for quite some time. Denmark was buffed (some more dev), meanwhile the hansa was split and can't support your independance anymore. Novgorod hates you, and Poland is landlocked and can't help you. Your only chances are the teutonics (very reliable), Lithuania (if Poland refuses the PU) and England (~20% of the time). You need to restart many times to make sure you can befriend at the very least England or Lithuania.

Not very beginner-friendly...

Yeah I haven't played a game as Sweden or Denmark in a while. Didn't know that they buffed Denmark. Does the personal union still end when the king of Denmark dies? If I recall correctly that happens quite a bit.

 

[Sunspawn]

And don't do the stupid thing the AI does: make their colonial nation bigger than their own.

Oh look, Brazil's independent AGAIN.

Admittedly, that was pretty much what happened in history.

 

[Klaasjan]

Portugal is boring, especially with the insane LD of colonies. This is a game about war and so the best choice is Ottoblob.

 

[LouisJ444]

I started playing as the Ottomans.

First I prepared my armies and made an alliance with Crimea (Bad choice I think because of Lithuania and the Golden Horde that will attack them).
Then I invaded Byzantium and conquered Constantinople and Athens.
The rest i vassalized.

Later Crimea called me for a war against Circassia (I think) and georgia.
We won.
A revolt broke out in Constantinople that destroyed a great piece of my army.

I declared war on Albania and I conquered them.
Now I have about 7,000 manpower and I know that is low and many truces has ended so I think I need to prepare for some wars.
Economy was going good but after the revolt its going bad.

 

[kontinos]

If you want to see what it will be like as Friesland, try two countries.
Hesse, to see how it is to be a small country.
Vanice, to see how a rich republic plays through.

 

[Violent AI]

I started playing as the Ottomans.

First I prepared my armies and made an alliance with Crimea (Bad choice I think because of Lithuania and the Golden Horde that will attack them).
Then I invaded Byzantium and conquered Constantinople and Athens.
The rest i vassalized.

Later Crimea called me for a war against Circassia (I think) and georgia.
We won.
A revolt broke out in Constantinople that destroyed a great piece of my army.

I declared war on Albania and I conquered them.
Now I have about 7,000 manpower and I know that is low and many truces has ended so I think I need to prepare for some wars.
Economy was going good but after the revolt its going bad.

Next time, when you take Constantinople, increase its autonomy before enacting the decision to make it capital. The revolt risk will become zero and being capital will make it zero autonomy.

 

[nkibilko]

Other than the Ottomans I always find Sweden to be a good starter nation in any Paradox game. EU 4 included. First of all they have great national ideas. They have room to expand if you choose to. Denmark, Norway, Northern Germany, and the Baltic nations are best. If played right can make the Baltic a Swedish lake. They can if played right form Scandinavia. They are easy to defend if a war in Europe goes badly so long as you maintain a decent navy. Only bad things are that Sweden starts out in a personal union with Denmark so you have to fight a war to break it, and compared to most majors Sweden has low manpower. The manpower problem can be remedied by fighting your wars smartly and having good allies.

The PU situation would probably be a little too much for a totally new player to deal with.

 

[SeekTruthFromFx]

Or focus on going go to Africa/Asia as Portugal historically did instead of going heavy into the new world. Keeping a single CN happy isn't all that difficult, just don't go crazy with the tariffs.

OP doesn't have Common Sense so has no control over tariffs; patch 1.12 removed them from the vanilla game into the DLC. I think this was unintentional, but PDX perhaps don't mind the fact that it's an incentive to buy CS.