Countries to duo with

[jfinley12]

Hello Everyone,
I recently talked my wife into playing multiplayer with me she had never played at all. Well she is hooked and loving the game which is awesome!
Our first game was Spain me France her. We are looking to start a new one now that she has some experience what are two good countries to play as where I can lend her support if needed but still let her do her own thing?
Our first game ended when she lost a coalition war I tried to save her but man there were so many enemies. That war started because she invaded burgundy without a reason and then took a ton of territory lesson learned. Now she wants to play a new game should we do France and Spain again or is there a better duo thanks for any suggestions.

 

[GurenGaaze]

Interesting
been trying to convince my gf the same. She played it once but never again
Poland/Muscovy is a great "stable" choice just as France/Spain is.
Could also do Ottoman as its rather easy with access to a navy game as well, with you as support close by (Russia, Timurids or something)

 

[ArtFart]

Me and my mate did a Brandenburg/Poland run and that was pretty fun. Also England/Burgundy is cool too!

 

[Big Bad France]

I like Brandenburg/Muscovy. Russia and Prussia is fun to say, and Poland is a natural enemy for both, so you can help each other while not being in each other's way.

 

[grandadmiralbob]

When I show people how to play, I pick neighbors. Then as I ween them off of my teet, I give them smaller and further nations to play as. When we complete an Aceh/Ireland campaign, you have graduated from the GAB academy of EUIV.

 

[jfinley12]

Interesting
been trying to convince my gf the same. She played it once but never again
Poland/Muscovy is a great "stable" choice just as France/Spain is.
Could also do Ottoman as its rather easy with access to a navy game as well, with you as support close by (Russia, Timurids or something)

she has started her own single player game i think she has logged like 30 hours in two weeks which is awesome.

 

[jfinley12]

we might do something with the ottomans as her so she can have it a little easier honestly our first game was much more successful then I thought it would be. if she wanted to do spain france again where I am france that might work too.

 

[LazySiege]

To give you another region, i could imagine Vijayanagar and Ayutthaya or Khmer (is more fun but a bit harder) are a good starting point.
You can support each other, but both have a lot space (one expand in india, the other into china).

Another good pair could be Kongo for her and Mali for you (Mali is hard if you dont know how).

And what could be fun too, esp. after your first game is Marocco and Tunis.

 

[Workiwork]

with a bit more (or a lot more) experience a mate and I do play along different trade nodes to not intefere with each other too much. also we do only help each other in the big wars. its more a 2 player SP game ^^ the last game was russia and italy. i took the west and stole iberian colonies. he took the way through persia to india and china.

 

[Nwaij]

If you can wait till sep 13, they kinda advertised Sweden/Poland in the DDs.

 

[Nostalgium]

France/Poland is a pretty good combo - tag-team the Empire. But as @Nwaij says, the next expansion will have more nations specifically designed for coop play, like Teutonic/Livonian Order, Sweden/Poland, etc.

Alternatively, I quite like Ottomans/Timurids for getting new playes used to standing on their own feet. Ottomans are "too big to fail", but if they manage - especially against the Mamluks - you're close enough, and big enough, to help as the Timurids/Mughals without it slowing you down much, once you get the ball rolling. You're also expanding in opposite directions once you've got a common border in Persia, so either's ambition won't get in the way of what the other is doing.

 

[Siddy00]

Here's a couple a friend and I considered some time ago

France and England
Austria and the Papal State
Genoa and Venice

(The first and third seem somewhat contradictory, you'd have to ignore (certain) missions or "lend" provinces to complete them.)

 

[Banedon Runestar]

Muscovy/Sweden
Muscovy/Poland
Muscovy/Brandenburg
Poland/Lithuania (Don’t take the PU)
Castile/Portugal
Castile/France
Castile/Austria
England/Portugal
Ottomans/France
Ottomans/Morocco

If you’re looking outside Europe, it gets more interesting since the pairings become more “you pick anyone in this region, I’ll be in the next one over”.

I just suggest NOT giving them Mali, Majapahit, Delhi, or Timurids as the starts can be difficult even for veteran players and newbies will drown.

 

[jfinley12]

We ended up going Poland Ottomans. So far so good but we have lost a couple of wars she tried to go solo on a war and i couldn't saver her. Then I made the mistake of joining Austria in an alliance to many lost causes against France.
RTight now we are building up our for limit /manpower to eliminate Hungary,

 

[Sete]

Portugal, England.

 

[Mauer]

Portugal/Aragon and split Castile between yourselves.

 

[cuendillar]

Switzerland/Milan is a nice option too. They start side-by-side but both missions, culture and trade nodes all are in completely different directions so it's easy to not step on each other's toes until Germany/Italy are formed respectively. You also have natural mutual enemies in Savoy and Austria.

 

[Banedon Runestar]

Portugal/Aragon and split Castile between yourselves.

The only downside is that if the Aragon player wants to form Spain, the Portuguese player will now be in the way if they took any Castilian land in the war.

 

[Putuna]

For a 1st game I always reccomend Spain and Portugal as there trade node is shared so both players working together is great and helpful. It's basically like a Coop which happened historically so a lot of there missions gel with each other.

Since you have already played neighbors though, I would branch out and try to pick two countries with non interacting mission trees. Or at the very least countries with mission trees with little interaction. So something like Spain/Brandenburg, Moscow/England, or if you want a more coop style game Netherlands/England.

Now if your comfortable fighting each other a little bit a fun match that I would often play was France and Austria. Both countries will come to blows fairly often but they both have separate areas meaning the wars are often minor consecessions or not nation ruining.

 

[Nostalgium]

... which happened historically...

Weeeell...

I agree with the other rationale for playing Portugal/Spain, though.