Hardest nation to play as in Europe?

[RobRoy3]

I think French vassals and Muscovian vassals are hardest.

Yeah, Yaroslavl being the worst, IMHO. I suppose if you get lucky and can stay alive long enough and time an independence war to coincide with your lucky overlord being on the ropes, you might have a chance.

Not saying nations like Silesia, Theodoro, Trebizond and Albania are easy. But you do have a few options in those cases.

 

[oblio-]

Independent starts are generally easy because they can just declare wars on anyone. Especially if they're not landlocked so they don't have to obtain military access from potentially unwilling neighbors.

You just DOW a vulnerable target in a safer place and start over from there with a 20-year delay.

 

[Aries666]

What about Aq Qoyunlu, land locked and if the Ottomans take "safeguard eastern anatolia" you are as good as dead and if they dont QQ or the Mams are likely to come after you.

 

[Freudia]

Not saying nations like Silesia, Theodoro,

With Silesia, all you have to do is get a claim on Hungary, then siege that province down in a war against them. Once you get that province, you just ask to be turned into a march and then bide your time.

As Theodoro, you take all the alliances you can get (Trebizond, Circassia, Georgia), ally Byzantium, then roll face against Genoa and you're golden unless Crimea ganks you. It's a quick restart if they do though.

 

[Aries666]

Independent starts are generally easy because they can just declare wars on anyone. Especially if they're not landlocked so they don't have to obtain military access from potentially unwilling neighbors.

You just DOW a vulnerable target in a safer place and start over from there with a 20-year delay.

This is fair enough I guess, but if you decide not to stand and fight you may as well just start as Urbino.

 

[Clownie]

As Theodoro, you take all the alliances you can get (Trebizond, Circassia, Georgia), ally Byzantium, then roll face against Genoa and you're golden unless Crimea ganks you. It's a quick restart if they do though.

In my Theodoro game, I beat Crimea when they attacked me, due to aforementioned alliances. Crimea really isn't that strong.

I'd say Yaroslavl is the hardest in Europe and also in the game at large. I recently posted a thread asking for input on it, and it got zero responses. Guess people don't even play Yaroslavl. Its only competition is Albania and Perm, but Albania is at least independent and has weak neighbours it can annex, and Perm at the very least borders Kazan and unclaimed Siberia. Yaroslavl? Well, you're a vassal of Muscovy, and you only border Muscovy and Tver. If you somehow manage to win your independence before Tver is gone, you can annex them and border Novgorod. So what's the problem, you may ask? Well, with states like Liège, you can at least DoW Serbia or somesuch and run away. Yaroslavl has no such saving grace — you can't get access through Muscovy. You have to tear your way through them from the inside, and may only declare yourself successful on top of its bloody, beaten corpse.

Why, you may ask, do I consider Yaroslavl and Perm way worse off than French minors? Easy: you can't get anyone to support your independence against Muscovy (except Lithuania, which gets PU'd more than 90% of the time). You're on your own, whereas if you play Foix, you can dogpile France with any combination of Castile and Austria and Burgundy and Aragon on your side.

edit: all of that said, Yaroslavl is possible, and very satisfying as well when you succeed. Their ideas are pretty bad, but I suggest defensive + offensive + innovative to make the best out of them. Float 75 tradition and get top-tier generals for the rest of the game.

 

[oblio-]

I'd say Yaroslavl is the hardest in Europe and also in the game at large.

I doubt anything with only a 20% tech penalty is truly hard. I haven't played much since 1.8 came out, but I'm pretty sure that there are tougher starts somewhere in the lower tech groups - they're just so obscure only 1 player in 10000 ever tried them.

 

[yerm]

Granada is pretty difficult. I've tried it a few times with little success.

Granada is a pretty standard migration start. You go to east Africa or India and allow your cores to get taken. I wouldn't put them as in even the same ballpark as a vassal.

 

[PiriReis]

Albania, Granada, East Frisia.

 

[Clownie]

I doubt anything with only a 20% tech penalty is truly hard. I haven't played much since 1.8 came out, but I'm pretty sure that there are tougher starts somewhere in the lower tech groups - they're just so obscure only 1 player in 10000 ever tried them.

Thing is, the tech penalty isn't that big of a deal, especially in 1.8, where westernising is reasonably easy. Sure, you're shit out of luck if you get invaded prior to westernising as an American native, but I've done fairly well as Haida and Venad, for instance. Yaroslavl's initial diplomatic situation is just that bad — you have to beat Muscovy to the point where they'll let you get a 22% warscore peace, without allies, and even then you're still an OPM with no options for expansion other than Tver (unless that got PU'd or conquered by Muscovy).

Another thing about tech penalty is that everyone around you has the same penalty. I personally find playing in Europe to be harder than playing anywhere else. Unless I pick France or Muscovy or somesuch, which, y'know, I don't.

 

[wergy]

Albania, by far! Some French minor like Foix are very hard as well. Cyprus could be you another choice

 

[RobRoy3]

Albania, by far! Some French minor like Foix are very hard as well. Cyprus could be you another choice

FOI, like most starting vassals especially of Russian, is in the running. But ALB, while hardly easy, has options, some of which have been outlined in this thread. And CYP has a great many options - it's actually quite a fun game.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

This is fair enough I guess, but if you decide not to stand and fight you may as well just start as Urbino.

Don't forget that you don't actually have to "run away". Even if you're Theodoro with conquests of Genoa's provinces there, conquering and converting Ireland --> conquer England following strats similar to "luck of the Irish" gives you full benefit of all that land and an end node to collect trade. You can leave your capitol right where it starts, and even expand from there also if the moment is right. Being independent remains a large advantage regardless.

I'd say Yaroslavl is the hardest in Europe and also in the game at large. I recently posted a thread asking for input on it, and it got zero responses. Guess people don't even play Yaroslavl. Its only competition is Albania and Perm

In 1.7 and before, Ashanti was the hardest independent start, but that's gone now. Even so, Yaroslav is easier than nations like Jangladesh, which is also a vassal (of Delhi), starts with a trash ruler and is quite likely to get ganksplatted by the Timurids with limited options. Especially now that Muscovy gets screwed over by league wars, lucky Poland, and mass dogpiles in a decent % of games, Yaroslav can just sit there storing money with 0 maintenance and declaring independence --> concede whenever Muscovy attempts an annex, try to get support for independence, then when Muscovy gets in a bad war declare independence hire troops --> take land *and* independence --> feed release Novgorod as vassal --> truce break and feed it more. Yaroslav is more of a "sit there storing money until the right moment and hope you get lucky with that moment being early" type of nation. I'm not sure that's truly difficult.

French minor vassals have a similar issue, except that France fails less often.

Thing is, the tech penalty isn't that big of a deal, especially in 1.8, where westernising is reasonably easy. Sure, you're shit out of luck if you get invaded prior to westernising as an American native

 

[Rudolph]

How is East Frisia? Haven't had a chance to play a game as them yet myself.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

How is East Frisia? Haven't had a chance to play a game as them yet myself.

You join the empire and play like any other OPM there. Not even a top 20 difficulty candidate.

 

[yerm]

You join the empire and play like any other OPM there. Not even a top 20 difficulty candidate.

You also start on an estuary. I'm not sure how it even comes up. Even the AI sometimes grows to 5+ territories as them.

 

[ChildeR]

If you disregard vassals, then Albania, Navarra, Theodoro are IMO the most difficult, though not necessarily in that order. Trebizond might be top 3 but it's easier than Theodoro, so not number one. Haven't played vassal starts enough to know how they'd rank.

 

[Denkt]

Yeah, Yaroslavl being the worst, IMHO. I suppose if you get lucky and can stay alive long enough and time an independence war to coincide with your lucky overlord being on the ropes, you might have a chance.

Not saying nations like Silesia, Theodoro, Trebizond and Albania are easy. But you do have a few options in those cases.

I played as Yaroslavl.
You just have to secure support from Lithuainia and hope they dont get PUed by Poland.
Build up a large force, maybe 50% over FL and dow Muscovy then they get into a war which they will very likley do, then you should hold the advantage.
I got a second war with them thanks to making Tver a vassal who had dowed a weak Muscovy not to say that Novogrod did the same.
They are a two province minor now and while I have like 5 provinces an 3 vassals and an alliance with Lithuania, I think that game is pretty much in the bag.

I can also tell that I got over 10% inflation however inflation is not that bad.
Better to be strong and have alot of inflation then being weak and inflation free.

 

[GabbyDieJaeger]

Albania, by far! Some French minor like Foix are very hard as well. Cyprus could be you another choice

Cyprus isn't that hard. I'm playing a game with them at the moment and I was able to get Aragon as an ally, and together me, Mamlukes, and them gave Venice quite a beating when they came calling. I took Dalmatia, moved capital, added to empire, and now it looks like a pretty standard HRE game from here on.

 

[Autoclave]

How is Moldavia compared to all these countries?