Post your Europa Universalis 4 Empire

[Yugoslavs]

@atwix nightmare or relaxing game as Georgia on Very hard, hostile core creation cost in traditions + local nobility + diplomatic defense act = 125% hostile core creation cost.

The most powerful CB in the game is revolution CB, add to that full diplomatic ideas and admin efficiency 3 and you can take entire Iberian peninsula or mainland France in one war.

Bonus pictures

1. Karaman my vassal has accumulated over 6000 debt in little over 25 years of existence.

2. Power of colonial nations and tariffs on Very hard. Spain has over 360.000 ducats in the bank.

 

[Camtheman]

Are you playing it on a cinema screen!?

EUIV screenshots in 4k. That's something, you don't see so often.

TBH I can't reccomend getting a 4k monitor just for EU IV or CK2 since their UI scales very poorly, especially CK2 things are very small and hard to see. Stellaris has a UI scaling function so it's better than other Paradox games in this regard.

Crysis 3 in 4k looks great though =P

 

[Ultima_Ratio]

First campaign I played in 2 years or so, I decided I'll try forming Rome, but then I got a little carried away:

That's world conquest for the Romans, but who did we start as? I certainly didn't expect to get this far as...

Athens! That's us moments before the revolutionaries declared the 2nd coming of the old Roman republic, but I'm a little disappointed with their choice of flag. Power was eventually seized by the house of Julia, and the title of world conqueror was bestowed on Imperator Leon (6/3/4). Borders got a bit messy in Asia because I thought I was in a hurry, but in the end I could've finished well before 1800 if I really wanted to push it. Spread the revolution really is a ridiculously powerful CB, along with all the other benefits from being the revolution target (-100 papal influence as Catholic sucked though, but of course it was well worth the trade-off). Both Ming and Russia from the previous image were fully eaten up in 2 wars, for instance, and Ouchi (why didn't they form Japan?) was fully annexed in just 1.
End statistics:

Humanism probably would've made the end phase significantly less stressful, but I never really guessed I would end up conquering the whole world so I thought religious was more convenient for my immediate goals. What really set me up was that I got a PU over Spain somewhere in the mid 17th century, and they had gotten the Burgundian inheritance before. For most of the 18th century I was really low on manpower and my economy was being strained dangerously bad by mercenaries and the loans I had to take for the revolution, but thankfully I could always take more loans until I finally managed to annex GB and the income from their colonies put me well in the green and gave me an easier time going for the last remaining countries. after 1770s I just started going to war with everyone I could and occupying them to be annexed one at a time and in the end I had something like +0.9 WE/month from call for peace.

Also, something odd happened with that Kazakh: I kept feeding them way over all their limits and they had something like 40-50 unrest in all their provinces, but after a time they simply stopped spawning revolts, even in the newly conquered lands (no recent uprisings). They literally had 0 rebellions in something like 2 whole decades, which of course made my life easier but seemed pretty odd nonetheless. In the end they spawned some noble rebels or whatever, but still 0 separatist revolts.

 

[akaFuel]

Vijayanagar into Bharat run.

Synopsis: Inspired by the recent dev-session and as I haven't played in two months, I decided to give it a go. Early game was surprisingly tough (vs. Gujarat, vs. Bahmanis, vs. Jaunpur). When it became clear that I can dominate the Indian subcontinent, I decided to form Bharat - and set as goal to just get all claims under my banner and develop Bharat into a powerhouse, but without further ambition beyond its borders.
Pretty late I had a look at the achievements-list and saw two quite tempting ones: Silk Road and The Sun never sets... Of I went and just managed to get them around 1815 and 1818. In hindsight, as so often, I was too lazy during mid-game to pwn through and expand heavily and rather built everything possible in India. Thus: points-wise it could have been much better, but I am overall satisfied to have gotten the two achievements.

Subject-list:

• March: Dai Viet
• March: Amago
• March: Persia
• March: Syria
• March: Wu
• Colonial Nation: New Bharat

Achievements:

• The tale of two Families
• Gentle Persuasion
• That's a Silk Road
• The Sun never sets on the Indian Empire
• This Revolution was crushed

Score-Screen

• Due to me developing and investing a lot in India before going on Expansion-course, I ran out of Monarch-points towards the end. Probably because I normally prefer tall-play rather than wide, I was generously developing various provinces in India and later also a fair bit for my Marches.

Achievements

• It felt extremely satisfying and rewarding to get two achievements so close to the end of the campaign. Both of them (Silk Road, Sun never sets...) require a bit of strategic planning. However: contrary to the Wiki I wouldn't rank them hard/very hard.
• The other achievements were unplanned and came as a surprise at the time.

Economy

• Every few years, I'd pause the game and simply build everything possible in India. Every province had a manufactory (apart from the two Gold-mines), which already mid-game yielded me quite a lot of income.
• Background: great-power, separate screenshot further down.

Political mapmode

• Poland managed to have not only Lithuania in PU, but also a) Muscovy, b) Hungary and c) Livonian Order (as vassal). Incredible amounts of troops, but still no match for tiny Brandenburg plowing through them and neither for my own troops.
• Ottomans had approx. 200 points more than me in the end... hmpf. They were toast the last hundred years and when even Armenia or Oman goes to war against them, it speaks volumes about their actual strength.

Diplomatic mapmode

• Although I was allied with France, we never fought together. The distance modifier prevented them from calling me into wars and vice versa made it impossible for me to call them in. The only real use this alliance had was for me shipping troops to France in preparation for my invasion of Great Britain and conquering London.
• Dai Viet was fully conquered by SEA-Powers, but I liberated them and made them my first loyal (cannon-fodder) march.
• Persia was also swallowed up by the Golden Horde, but one quick war was enough to put them back on the map and the Hordes in their place.
• Pretty much similar stories with Wu, Amago and Syria.

Great Powers

• The only really interesting and probably actual powerful Great Powers were France and Brandenburg. Poland, albeit being able to field possibly "millions" sucked. Great Britain's fleet was massive, but one huge engagement was decisive enough to hurt them significantly in sinking 2/3's of their war-fleet.
• Shun was a bit of a tough nut to crack when I went to expand Wu for the Silk-provinces. The Ai fought well and they fielded surprisingly good troops and had decent army compositions.
• The Ottomans... strong early- to mid-game, but then got beaten up over and over again.

Conclusion: It was a good campaign, but not quite as much fun for me as others previously. As mentioned, I normally like to play "tall" rather than going on a conquering-spree, which took away some of the enjoyment for me. But I'd definitely recommend this run to anyone who a) would like to play in India and b) potentially wants to conquer a lot as the avenues for early, mid and late expansion are juicy and with competent navigation could achieve far, far more than I did.

Cheerios and thanks for reading through,


-Fuel-

 

[Badesumofu]

Think this is the strongest start I've ever managed. I've had a diplomat permanently in Commonwealth since 1500 or so and it paid off big time. Quick list of PUs and how I got them:
Provence got a weak claim heir after disinheriting and so I was able to wait out the alliance truce and then claim for them and Lorraine. Both since inherited.
Aragon got my dynasty very early so that was just a matter of time. DoWed for claim when they had no heir for 4 months. Gotta be vigilant. Naples into the bargain. Naples since inherited.
Portugal popped up in succession crisis alerts with an old heir and they stayed without heir and I got the spread. I was ready for it an immediately DoWed for claim. Portugal have both exploration and expansion so I'll keep them around for a while.
Castile answered Portugal's CTA when I invaded so I ate most of their lands and then vassalized them so they could colonize for me. They continue to do that.
Bravaria popped up in the alerts with an old ruler. I married them and shortly after I got the PU immediately and for free. If anyone was able to contest they declined.
Just now, Commonwealth. They came out of elective into absolute with a 70 year old heirless De Valois on the throne. Got the PU about a year later. Gold. Russia contested and we are currently crushing them. Poland took Humanist so I think I'll feed them and feed them and just leave them as a PU. So long as they don't get to more than about 40% of my strength they'll stay loyal. Aragon have been a good attack dog too, so I'll keep them long term as well.

Currently I have a 15 MP King (averaging a bit over 11 for the entire game, that will go up most likely) and things look great. Working on getting more merchants and building a trading economy for a later game push to WC. I'll probably PU feed heavily since they are pretty easy to keep loyal.

 

[ArzhurG]

After nearly 1.8k hours I finally have The Three Mountains.

I could have easily finished earlier but I didn't want to go over 100% overextension and saw that I could still finish on time. I only went over 100% several times in the whole game and those times were by mistake (either forgetting that I was coring provinces already or that the vassal which I was annexing also had overextension).

In 1818 I had an oh shit moment when I got a notification that I had gained spread the revolution CB vs Portugal who I had fully annexed 10 to 20 years before. Rebels managed to break free from my client state Gibraltar. I had destroyed all of the forts before giving the land to Gibraltar so I was able to quickly reconquer the land but then I miss-clicked and gave one of the provinces to a colonial nation. I had to truce break in the end. This was only the second time which I broke a truce. The first time was to get low enough stability to get the revolution disaster to start ticking.

I also managed to get Fanatic Collectivist in 1820. I should have gotten it earlier but idiotically gave one of the required provinces to a vassal who had about 900 dev. I managed to finish the annexation a few months before the end of the game.

I started the game with a no-CB on Madurai to vassalize them and continued expanding from there. I created a backup in 1450 when I got a good heir (5 4 5) and used it twice. It was early enough in the game that I would have been able to get a good heir another time by just restarting but I didn't feel like it. After that I just created backups from time to time in case ironman would break but luckily it didn't so I didn't use them. The only other exploit I used (at least that I can think of) was to exit the game when I got a call to arms which I didn't feel like answering because unlike and event, a diplomatic offer/request from the AI is not saved when the game is saved. If it was sent again I would just repeat until they stopped or I turned off offensive call to arms. They weren't really important wars (I'm pretty sure that my allies didn't loose the war), I just didn't feel like wasting time.

I was careful enough though that only two coalitions were formed against me in the entire game but neither of them were triggered. The first one formed when I took a few too many provinces from the Timurids. I wanted to release Persia as a vassal and didn't feel like having a OPM vassal. According to the UI everything should have been fine but the Ottomans got a negative opinion of me when they desired the provinces which I had just taken combined with the 52 to 54 aggressive expansion. It was about 1530 and I wasn't strong enough to face a coalition with the Ottoman in it so I just allied everybody who would accept and waited it out. Afterwards I actually managed to ally the Ottomans. In the meantime I surrounded them with my march Persia. The second one was formed around 1760 or 1770 while I was at war against Spain. It dissolved quickly afterwards.

I developed 3 institutions, the renaissance, colonialism and the reformation. I didn't manage to get one institution to spawn. A few months before global trade spawned Goa (my main trade node) was the richest one but then Genoa passed it out. I wasn't impressed. I only took the colonialism idea group at the very end in order to be able to core the provinces around the great lakes.

In retrospect I could have gone for a one tag. In the early to mid 1700s I had loads of dip points. I used them to increase my mercantilism and develop provinces. I should have started integrating my huge vassals earlier (but didn't because I didn't want to tank my religious unity) and didn't need to tech up as much as I did. Once I realized it it was too late and I would not have been able to produce enough MP.

I was planning on going Coptic but only got round to it too late. By the time which I got Coptic zealots to spawn I already had 200 to 300 provinces so I quickly gave up. The problem was that before then I hadn't converted any provinces because I didn't want religious zeal in my provinces. This hurt my religious unity but the religious - offensive military policy which gives +20% unity was really useful.

 

[Adadat]

I'm pretty proud of my Byzantine Empire in 1650. Well on my way to forming the Roman Empire if I so wish, but I think these borders are quite pretty, so I think I might just leave it there.

View attachment 242495

Justinian restoration 2.0 gone wild

 

[Feathered serpent]

One of the more fun games I've played, a siberian tribe migrated to California and built an empire from there. Took over Japan as well to direct trade there. Colonialism started in eastern siberia due to this.

Religious map:

Shinto is syncretic. Had Nahuatl at first.

Got the "blood for the sky-god" and pile of gold out of this, think I have never had so many gold provinces.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

The most powerful CB in the game is revolution CB, add to that full diplomatic ideas and admin efficiency 3 and you can take entire Iberian peninsula or mainland France in one war.

It truly is amazing. I don't think I can micro for one tag w/o something like Ottomans under normal circumstances, but with this I could picture it, since you "only" need to get opposing nations down to ~400% war score worth of land before concurrently 1-shotting everything left in the world while paying very little for troop maintenance.

 

[Yugoslavs]

It truly is amazing. I don't think I can micro for one tag w/o something like Ottomans under normal circumstances, but with this I could picture it, since you "only" need to get opposing nations down to ~400% war score worth of land before concurrently 1-shotting everything left in the world while paying very little for troop maintenance.

Absolutely, in the end i had 2 million force limit and easily 1,5 million troops, and i didn't even take quantity or offensive. Actually i went for WC with Georgia, my plan was to feed Russia entire horde lands in order to make them stronger against Ottos and later to PU them, we shared dynasty almost from the very beginning, but their kings never died heirless, they had 50 year old king living without heir for 15 years in early 1600's but he still managed to produce one in his 60's, and i was too weak at that moment to claim throne.

When it comes to world conquest and one faith in 1.19 patch the biggest obstacle are vassals with religious ideas, they do convert but they got into so much debt, because, unless they are on scutage they never buy down their war exhaustion, which then triggers rebellions which then leads to more debt. For instance, in my Nepal game i had Ming as vassal, they had 1000 development and no liberty desire, because i have paid their debt of 10.000 ducats.

Paying off debt is now only way to keep your vassals in check, especially in early game, but it brings new dangers, if you want them to have debt you have to let them fight in your wars and that leads to war exhaustion (AI now likes to carpet siege and your vassal is their top priority) and everything that follows.

One faith on very hard (islam, catholic, orthodox excluded), even as coptic (by that i mean starting as coptic nation, even Ethiopia), let alone any non abrahamic religion is absolute pain.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

One faith as anything w/o new world presence is an absolute pain. You can do it but even Sunni would be annoying because of how CNs get hung up. Doing it as non-Abrahamic sounds like torture. Capped on 3 missionaries (2 if pagan, 4 if Buddhist and you hate yourself), weaker strength, much fewer provinces converted at start...and still the CN issue. Relying on subject conversion in any context is a nightmare, it's part of the reason why currently the eastern religions are so trash, especially Shinto which is arguably worse than animist. Rev government doesn't help much here since you'll need the land sooner to convert it in time. Even then, some of these religions are impossible in principle unless using subjects or a "piss off the Dhimmi at the end" move.

 

[Yugoslavs]

In new world if you are not converting it yourself you have to finish conquering it by 1760's at least. For Hindu i would go with Sunda, they at least have +2 missonary strength in national ideas and extra religious unity. For Buddhist the best candidate is Lan Xang, they have +2 tolerance of true faith and +1 missionary strength in traditions + -10 aggressive expansion in ideas. Only way to offset low diplo rep as Buddhist is to no cb someone in zanzibar trade node and take it to get trading in ivory as soon as possible. @atwix have considered Jewish one faith with Ajuuraan, but it would not be easy in 1.19, as for 1.20 it is going to be even worse since they have announced reduced number of states from technology, which now sounds as complete disaster.

 

[schondetta]

Vijayanagar into Bharat run.

Synopsis: Inspired by the recent dev-session and as I haven't played in two months, I decided to give it a go. Early game was surprisingly tough (vs. Gujarat, vs. Bahmanis, vs. Jaunpur). When it became clear that I can dominate the Indian subcontinent, I decided to form Bharat - and set as goal to just get all claims under my banner and develop Bharat into a powerhouse, but without further ambition beyond its borders.
Pretty late I had a look at the achievements-list and saw two quite tempting ones: Silk Road and The Sun never sets... Of I went and just managed to get them around 1815 and 1818. In hindsight, as so often, I was too lazy during mid-game to pwn through and expand heavily and rather built everything possible in India. Thus: points-wise it could have been much better, but I am overall satisfied to have gotten the two achievements.

Subject-list:

• March: Dai Viet
• March: Amago
• March: Persia
• March: Syria
• March: Wu
• Colonial Nation: New Bharat

Achievements:

• The tale of two Families
• Gentle Persuasion
• That's a Silk Road
• The Sun never sets on the Indian Empire
• This Revolution was crushed

Score-Screen

• Due to me developing and investing a lot in India before going on Expansion-course, I ran out of Monarch-points towards the end. Probably because I normally prefer tall-play rather than wide, I was generously developing various provinces in India and later also a fair bit for my Marches.

Achievements

• It felt extremely satisfying and rewarding to get two achievements so close to the end of the campaign. Both of them (Silk Road, Sun never sets...) require a bit of strategic planning. However: contrary to the Wiki I wouldn't rank them hard/very hard.
• The other achievements were unplanned and came as a surprise at the time.

Economy

• Every few years, I'd pause the game and simply build everything possible in India. Every province had a manufactory (apart from the two Gold-mines), which already mid-game yielded me quite a lot of income.
• Background: great-power, separate screenshot further down.

Political mapmode

• Poland managed to have not only Lithuania in PU, but also a) Muscovy, b) Hungary and c) Livonian Order (as vassal). Incredible amounts of troops, but still no match for tiny Brandenburg plowing through them and neither for my own troops.
• Ottomans had approx. 200 points more than me in the end... hmpf. They were toast the last hundred years and when even Armenia or Oman goes to war against them, it speaks volumes about their actual strength.

Diplomatic mapmode

• Although I was allied with France, we never fought together. The distance modifier prevented them from calling me into wars and vice versa made it impossible for me to call them in. The only real use this alliance had was for me shipping troops to France in preparation for my invasion of Great Britain and conquering London.
• Dai Viet was fully conquered by SEA-Powers, but I liberated them and made them my first loyal (cannon-fodder) march.
• Persia was also swallowed up by the Golden Horde, but one quick war was enough to put them back on the map and the Hordes in their place.
• Pretty much similar stories with Wu, Amago and Syria.

Great Powers

• The only really interesting and probably actual powerful Great Powers were France and Brandenburg. Poland, albeit being able to field possibly "millions" sucked. Great Britain's fleet was massive, but one huge engagement was decisive enough to hurt them significantly in sinking 2/3's of their war-fleet.
• Shun was a bit of a tough nut to crack when I went to expand Wu for the Silk-provinces. The Ai fought well and they fielded surprisingly good troops and had decent army compositions.
• The Ottomans... strong early- to mid-game, but then got beaten up over and over again.

Conclusion: It was a good campaign, but not quite as much fun for me as others previously. As mentioned, I normally like to play "tall" rather than going on a conquering-spree, which took away some of the enjoyment for me. But I'd definitely recommend this run to anyone who a) would like to play in India and b) potentially wants to conquer a lot as the avenues for early, mid and late expansion are juicy and with competent navigation could achieve far, far more than I did.

Cheerios and thanks for reading through,


-Fuel-

May I ask what mod you have that makes your shields rustic and awesome looking?

 

[Badesumofu]

The only other exploit I used (at least that I can think of) was to exit the game when I got a call to arms which I didn't feel like answering because unlike and event, a diplomatic offer/request from the AI is not saved when the game is saved. If it was sent again I would just repeat until they stopped or I turned off offensive call to arms. They weren't really important wars (I'm pretty sure that my allies didn't loose the war), I just didn't feel like wasting time.

Good way to dodge most unwanted offensive CTA is to keep an eye on which nations your ally has vital interest and/or claims on. Go into diplo feedback and set those nations as friendly. They now won't call you into wars against those nations and it doesn't affect trust or favors unlike unchecking offensive wars.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Good way to dodge most unwanted offensive CTA is to keep an eye on which nations your ally has vital interest and/or claims on. Go into diplo feedback and set those nations as friendly. They now won't call you into wars against those nations and it doesn't affect trust or favors unlike unchecking offensive wars.

Alternatively if it's a small nation they set as vital interest you can do cheeseball stuff like honor CTA --> carpet target for 100% war contribution and milk 20-40 favor with a France or Spain for basically nothing, so only make INCONVENIENT potential call-ins friendly .

You get these favors even if you don't transfer occupation of the province .

 

[Ameron]

Alternatively if it's a small nation they set as vital interest you can do cheeseball stuff like honor CTA --> carpet target for 100% war contribution and milk 20-40 favor with a France or Spain for basically nothing, so only make INCONVENIENT potential call-ins friendly .

You get these favors even if you don't transfer occupation of the province .

Well, I wouldn't call it "cheeseball stuff"... I'm more comfortable with "standard strategy not to wait 80 years to be able to call to arms France"

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Well, I wouldn't call it "cheeseball stuff"... I'm more comfortable with "standard strategy not to wait 80 years to be able to call to arms France"

I consider cheeseball stuff to be a compliment to the tactic. It's a completely legitimate move within the rules, in contrast with something that bypasses the rules outright.

 

[Mrlorne]

Having finished my Denmark run after about 3 months finally:

World:

Diplomacy:

(Moscovy und Brandenburg have been warned, thus yellow colour)

HRE:

Religion:

Statsistics:

 

[Ultima_Ratio]

Each year over 1,5 million enemy combatants were killed??? Is there a person left in the world?

 

[Battlecane]

Wait there is a statistics ledger? I didn't know. Where can I find it?