I'm TornadoWatch. I've played Europa Universalis IV for a long time - Probably about 5,000 hours or so, at this point, most of them in service of playing in or preparing for multiplayer games.

I wrote a guide back in 2016 that was intended to guide the community on best multiplayer practices, and I think it's time for an update - After all, the game's changed significantly since 2016, and there's lots of things that I didn't touch on.

I hope this guide helps you!

"Never was anything great achieved without danger."
- Niccolo Machiavelli

Europa Universalis IV is probably one of the most complicated computer games that exists. Yeah, sure, we could get in a debate about it, but the point stands - This game has a lot going on. Even against the AI, you can have your hands full managing your country, dealing with random events, and optimizing.

Multiplayer, then, is even more difficult. This guide is not aimed at 'co-op' multiplayer, where you and any other human(s) in the game are working towards the same goal: It is aimed at adversarial multiplayer, where you and the other players are in an anarchic world attempting to make your nations succeed, often at the cost of others. I have found that interacting with other people brings a freshness and context to Europa Universalis IV that just isn't like singleplayer; it's an entirely different game. Testing your wits against other people is the greatest of challenges, and there's nothing better than the taste of victory against a rival, or a well-executed plan coming to perfect fruition.

Even if you think you know what you're doing, EU4 Multiplayer will test your limits and expose you to new challenges you've never considered before. Your mechanical prowess will be put to its limit, and you'll be forced to adapt new strategies to overcome obstacles.

As a general theme throughout this guide, we're going to be looking to maximize every advantage we can get, including things you just wouldn't normally think about or even bother with in single-player. This is because small, seemingly insignificant advantages compound over time to turn into large advantages.

The other thing is that I want to communicate the fundamentals to you. Everything in this guide is something I think someone in a multiplayer game should want to know; I won't go into the deeper elements that I could share (For example, how do you trigger the Land Reform debate with Parliament for -10% Development Cost consistently?), but I want to make sure that you know all the things about multiplayer that I didn't when I got started.

Here's what we're going to go over:

• Setup: Getting a Good Game - Where we will talk about what sort of game the author recommends for a good experience.
  
• Mods - Discussing the usefulness of modding for a good multiplayer experience.
  
• Player Behavior and Diplomacy - How should you approach diplomacy?
  
• Narratives - What's a 'narrative'? Why do you need one?
  
• Reputation - A brief note on why chain-backstabs aren't a great idea.
  
• Optimizing the Budget - Or 'maximizing cashflow'.
  
• Development - How should you maximize development?
  
• Buildings - What buildings are good? What buildings aren't? How can we understand what a good investment looks like?
  
• Trade - How can you maximize trade income? How does trade even work?
  
• Advisors, Monarch Points, and Kings - How should you maximize monarch point gains?
  
• Crownland - Or 'please, god, don't give out estate statutory rights'.
  
• Estate Privileges and Management - Which privileges do we want to give? How do we approach privileges?
  
• Formables - What formables are important? How should you go about getting them?
  
• Ideas and Policies - How should you pick ideas?
  
• Technologies and Power Spikes - What techs matter? Why do they matter?
  
• Critical Events - Certain events are vital. Which ones?
  
• Army Composition - How should you prepare your army for war?
  
• Navy Composition - How should you prepare your navy for war?
  
• War: War Strategy - How should you fight wars against other players?
  
• War: Land Tactics - How do you properly fight land battles and take objectives?
  
• War: Naval Tactics - How do you properly fight naval battles?
  
• War: Trucebreaking - When a peace isn't really a peace.
  
• Colonialism and Trade Companies: America - Colonization in America
  
• Colonialism and Trade Companies: Africa - Colonization in Africa
  
• Colonialism and Trade Companies: Asia - Colonization in Asia
  
• Colonialism and Trade Companies: Europe - Colonization in Europe
  
• Running an Opener - Practice doesn't make perfect, but it does help.
  
• Closing Remarks - Anything I forgot to mention.
  
  EU4 can vary a lot based on your exact situation, mod(s) being used, and what patch the game is on. To make sure this patch ages well, I will try to focus on giving you the tools to analyze Europa Universalis IV to make intelligent decisions, regardless of what you're playing. I will, however, give you an example Opener for a few tags to demonstrate these principles in action.

Let's get started.

Getting a good game of EU4 Multiplayer is difficult. Really difficult. Doing it well requires a lot of administrative skill and logistics.

Some of the advice in this guide will probably be applicable to 1444 pickup games, but that's not really the intended audience. Pickup games and small-sized games are just not great - 1444 games end before the 1500s, usually, and are prone to ragequits, excessive alliance-blocking, and other undesirable behavior. Small sized games, even with a dedicated group of friends, can run into different problems that can be summarized as 'the game isn't dynamic'. Without enough players, the diplomatic situation quickly stagnates and becomes predictable, with giant blobs throwing into eachother until the game ends.

It is the author's opinion that the following setup is how a proper multiplayer game should be played:

Firstly, a Game Master is required. The Game Master is someone who drafts rules, selects a mod (if applicable), sets standards for player behavior, and enforces these standards. In a sad twist of fate, it is actually for the best if the Game Master does not even play in the game - This is because a Game Master who is actively playing will be prone to bias (even unconscious bias), will be distracted, and even if they make good decisions, players will have cause to doubt them, which will result in people not having faith in rulings and potentially leading to conflict.

Secondly, an out-of-game platform (such as Discord) is required to coordinate.

A set time for the game on a weekly basis should be chosen, typically from 4-6 hours. Players should be expected to attend sessions, and inform the Game Master if they cannot attend.

The Game Master should select a list of 'slots' that are playable. The purpose of limiting what nations can be played serves a variety of purposes, but the main ones are making sure that all players are adding some kind of value to the match as a whole, and that players have a reasonable chance of success. In addition, most Majors are usually slotted - Otherwise, the game (especially early game) will revolve around dealing with giant AI countries that may arbitrary destroy humans' games.

Of course, the GM is free to decide what sort of game will be played. Some players enjoy 'minor games', where everyone plays small countries. We are going to operate off of the Foix is completely landlocked, a vassal, and generally serves no purpose aside from annoying the French player.

Here is an example of a potential list of slots, just to visualize this concept:

Western Europe:
France:
Burgundy:
England:
Portugal:
Castile:

HRE:
Denmark:
Brandenburg:
Hesse:
Switzerland:
Austria:
Genoa:
Naples:
Venice:

Eastern Europe:
Sweden:
Hungary:
Poland:
Lithuania:
Moscovy:

Middle East:
Ottomans:
Mamluks:
Aq Qoyunlu:
Khorosan:
Uzbek:
Hormuz:
Afghanistan:

Africa:
Morocco:
Tunis:
Ethiopia:
Butua:
Songhai/Mali:
Kongo:

China:
Wu:
Yue:
Qi:
Xi:
Yi:
Shun:
Jianzhou:
Uesugi:

India:
Sirhind:
Bengal:
Mewar:
Vijayanagar:
Bahmanis:

South East Asia:
Taungoo:
Khmer:
Malacca:
Majapahit:

----------------------------------------------------

Once a Game Master is in place, a list of slots designed, and a time selected, players should then sign up for around 5~ picks in different regions. Signing up indicates that the player can attend all sessions, unless otherwise disclosed.

After a period of time, the Game Master will close sign-ups and assign slots. Players who were not slotted can be put on the sideline as reserve or slotted on colonial nations as they form.

Running a group is probably the hardest aspect of multiplayer. It involves coordinating dozens of people and establishing a culture of good faith, trust, and cooperation in an environment where competitive in-game conduct is happening at the same time. It is not something to be taken lightly, and is very stressful. However, this is necessary to achieve a good experience in multiplayer. Players getting a free game without opposition, leaving, or not attending sessions will lessen the quality of the game, as players benefiting from these actions will have an unfair advantage over others.

Vanilla EU4 is certainly an option for multiplayer. However, vanilla is not necessarily designed with multiplayer in mind, and this can lead to issues.

• Idea groups and policies are designed with the mindset that interaction with AI will be important. This is not really the case in multiplayer.
  
• There are typically limited builds, as the clearly defined meta involves getting as much military quality as possible, which means some idea groups just aren't viable.
  
• Certain nations are extremely overpowered and unfun to deal with. For example, England is nearly unbeatable on the water in multiplayer, and the Ottomans are a menace unless coalitioned into the ground extremely early. Nations that take over aspects of the game and lock out counterplay are problematic.

As such, many groups opt to use a mod. The types of mods used are constantly evolving; it could be a total transformation of the game (Like Anbennar), or a lightweight quality of life and balance overhaul. The mod you choose should be to your group's tastes and desired type of game. Mods are also useful for enforcing rules through game mechanics instead of writing them down, decreasing the risk of infractions.

Okay, I'm done telling you how you should get set up to play EU4. Now, let's get to the part where we talk about how you should play the actual multiplayer part.

... Which starts before the game does. In fact, it starts the moment the Game Master posts the roster. We're going to talk about interacting with the other humans in the lobby - Because this is the #1 thing that sets Multiplayer apart. You should be at least talking a little bit with people around you, and anyone else you see as relevant to your interests. Diplomacy is fundamental to Multiplayer EU4 - But before we consider diplomacy, we must understand the impact that human behavior and group culture have when playing this game.

An average EU4 diplomatic negotiation; note the England player not caring about anything and Sweden scrambling for provinces worth 12 development.

As I touched on before, Europa Universalis IV is a complicated game, and it's also a sandbox. That means that while there's a vague goal of 'stay alive', people are going to choose different strategies on how to do this based on their nation, personality, and experience. Some players might not even care and just try to scrape some dopamine out of an early-game war before their country goes down in flames.

In addition, what people do will be shaped by the context of the group around them, or other players. For example, in a 1444 Lobby, grabbing 200 mercenaries and spam wardeccing until you go bankrupt is normal; the lobby is probably going to only last one session, anyway, so might as well squeeze whatever dopamine you can out of it. But in a more formal setting, expectations change - Recklessly destroying your nation for no gain would be frowned upon by the GM and other players, tempering the worst excesses. Similarly, immediately ragequitting after a lost war would also be (usually) frowned upon, meaning that players will have a little bit harder of a time getting huge chunks of free land.

Group culture shifts things on a more subtle macro level, too. Multiplayer gaming has a high level of psychology in it - This is why large multiplayer gaming companies often hire psychologists as a part of their staff, or as consultants. Innovations and strategies that one group considers to be the meta strategy may not spread to another group at all due to a lack of contact, or simply a different opinion on how EU4 "'should"" be played.

What all this means is that your strategy, in turn, must be informed by the context of who you are interacting with and how your group as a whole tends to behave. Is the person you're talking to known to be aggressive? Are they known to be opportunistic? Maybe they're known to be completely untrustworthy? Maybe they're just known to be really, really good at the game?

Shift your strategy and diplomatic approach to tailor who you're speaking to. Don't approach things the way you think they "should" be, but be willing to engage with your peers at their level and perspective, wherever that may be. Being stubborn and inflexible is a weakness, and can get you killed. If you don't have enough information to determine who the person you're speaking to is, ask around. Search for messages from them in the server. See how many hours they have on their Steam profile. Do some opposition research.

This also means, by the way, that some players will simply be uninterested in diplomacy with you. This is an eventuality that you need to consider as well.

Diplomacy is a tool that can unlock many things in Multiplayer EU4, including:

• Lucrative trade deals.
  
• Non-aggression pacts, allowing you to expand easier.
  
• Alliances, allowing you to support eachothers' wars.
  
• Colonial agreements, allowing you both to mutually profit from the new world with less conflict.
  
• Arranged attacks (colloquially known as ganks), allowing you to destroy enemy nations with less resources expended.

A well-played diplomatic field is going to leave you in a good position, so don't hesitate to reach out to other people and make some deals. Look for areas of common interest between your two countries, even if that's something as simple as 'not dying', and try to come to an understanding with the other player.



Just be careful - No deal should ever be considered fully ironclad, and if a player is looking at a decision where it's your nation versus theirs, many people are going to choose their own country's survival over yours.

... Just, try not to be annoying and spammy to people, that's as bad as not doing any diplomacy at all.

This is a separate section from Diplomacy, but it's related to it.

When you (or someone else) are engaging in diplomacy, the exact truth is not what you should expect. You should always be considering the motivations and biases of whoever you're talking to - Even unconscious ones. The most masterful diplomatic negotiators, however, understand the value of a Narrative.

So, what's a narrative?

A Narrative is a story that explains your actions on a deeper level, justifying it to whoever you're talking to - Whether that's one person, or the lobby as a whole. A good narrative typically has a nugget of truth buried in it somewhere.

For example, let's say you started an aggressive war against Burgundy as France. Aggressive behavior has a way of making people nervous and considering intervention, so you'll probably want to seize control of the narrative quickly. You can tell other players that Burgundy was justifying a claim against you (If there's already a claim, perhaps), and you just wanted to seize the initiative before he ganked you. Or, perhaps, he was scheming with others, and you got evidence of this and moved to attack! Pretty much anything aside from "lol I need his land" is going to be better justification, even if that's -obviously- why you're going in.

Narratives can give people who don't want to fight you plausible deniability, both to themselves and others, for not doing so.

You can also use a narrative to sell a concept or deal to someone. Let's say you're trying to get someone to sell an ally of yours' a piece of land. Telling them outright that you would benefit from your ally isn't a great argument, since that isn't relevant to them. However, pointing out the benefits of the deal on their side ("Don't you need money to fight that war with the Ottomans?") can often be more compelling.

The point I am trying to make here is that perception is reality. As such, make sure your depiction of reality is to your benefit. Don't allow the enemy to get the jump on the narrative and paint you as the 'bad guy' to the lobby, because soon you'll have a coalition down your throat.

This is the last section we'll be talking about diplomacy, and I wanted to call one more important thing to light here - Reputation.

In a multiplayer setting, trust and perception are critical. It's very easy to fall into the trap of backstabbing someone to get the jump on them and gain a huge advantage in the current game; the element of surprise is great.

However, openly, outright backstabbing (both to the player you're backstabbing and the lobby) is actually not a great strategy in group EU4 Multiplayer.

See, if you intend on playing other games with the same group, you will establish a reputation over time as a player. This is going to be a combination of things about you, such as your skill level, preferred nations, playstyle, and level of trustworthiness.

The last factor is probably the most important, because it determines a lot of how people will deal with you. Even if the diplomatic offer you have for someone is excellent and to their interest, it means nothing if you cannot be trusted to work with them. Unreliable players are often best simply killed so they cannot backstab you first.

Thus, a Backstab-centric strategy is often good for a couple of games. However, over time, your reputation will degrade, and you'll find yourself being backstabbed. Those who you betrayed will remember you. People will feel no obligation to honor any commitments made with you or tell you the truth in any circumstance. Enemies with grudges from previous matches will gang up on you. Your game will eventually become unplayable as the lobby ostracizes you - Not because they hate you, but because they simply have no other choice. Getting rid of the rat is often the correct decision.

Consider your reputation and manage it carefully, and always keep in mind what other players are known to do, as well.

Whenever you're thinking of strategy for your country, you should consider risk. Understanding the Risk VS Reward of any choice you make is an important part of establishing your preferred playstyle.

For example - There's a world where, in 1444, you declare war on France as England, roll a 6-shock general from the Champion of the Joust event, and then all of France's generals die, giving you a free war that he has no counterplay to. Needless to say, while this chain of events is possible, it's not plausible.

That's on the extreme end of the spectrum, but start applying the same logic to other situations. What's the likelihood that a given war against a player is going to work out? Who else might intervene? How hard could they fight back? What if I lose? What else could I be doing with my time and resources right now?

Long term VS Short term risk and reward is something to keep in mind, too. Failing to capitalize on an opportunity that could be expensive now, but reap rewards in the long run, could hurt your scaling. At the same time, taking on too much risk in the short term could backfire. Theoretically, running no navy as England and taking on debt to upgrade trade centers while also not upgrading technology to dev more would be very profitable - Up until the point you're murdered for being on mil tech 4 in 1466.

There's a sweet spot between greed and safety that you need to find to succeed, but where that sweet spot is depends on what game you're in and who you are as a player. As a general rule - Look for plays with a minimal risk of backfiring on you. The more steps and various people you have to rely on to make something work, the less good of an idea it is. If you know for a fact that you're going to get crushed in a war unless a certain ally helps you, or a certain ally abandons your enemy, maybe hold off on your war. Wait for someone else to make a mistake, or for your enemy to be busy, and then strike.

Consider the agency of your position. How much control do you have over your situation? Do you only have one play available? How about the enemy? How about your allies? Try to avoid putting your country's fate in the hands of others if you have other choices.

At the same time, sometimes, you just need to make that high-risk play. This is all a matter of judgment and gut instinct - And sometimes, if you find yourself between a rock and a hard place, you need to examine your play up until that point (including nation management) to understand where you went wrong.

Let's talk about that next.

If you are reading this guide, you probably know a little bit about how to manage your country. However, doing it properly is very important in multiplayer, because your resources are limited. There isn't always going to be another piece of land over the horizon to snatch, at least not for free. You need to learn to work with what you have and make the most out of it.

Another thing is that you can't predict what other players are going to do, even if you think your diplomacy is on lock. Even if you have a player isolated with his neighbors not helping him, it's totally possible that someone across the map, out of your reach, will start randomly subsidizing him for hundreds of ducats. All sorts of nonsense can happen at any time, and the best way to prepare for the unexpected is to get what you -can- absolutely, 100% control correct. Nation building is one of these things.

My general philosophy is that we want to maximize gains over time and minimize losses to produce a snowball effect. Even tiny gains add up over time. Simple, right? Let's look at England in 1444, just as a mental exercise.



Looks pretty normal, right? Wait...



We're only making 1.92 ducats in profit. Sure, we're going to develop and expand, but we can make this starting situation -so much better-.

Firstly, the forts are expensive. Really expensive. England is an island, and the continental forts are just going to give people warscore on us if it comes to a war. In fact, England's continental exposure stands to be a huge waste of resources in general; our chances of taking over France aren't great, and even if we do someone may take it from us, or the lobby may coalition us.

So, we decide to give up the Hundred Years War (aside from Calais, which just has the fort deleted), giving the land to France and then letting the month tick to re-analyze the budgetary situation.



... Despite giving up around a hundred development, our profit has improved. How? Because our expenses decreased. The forts weren't worth the land they were defending. And sure, England can made a deal with France to keep Normandy, or whatever, but that's not the point I'm trying to make here - I am trying to show you how important it is to maximize revenue, and how holding on to things worth less than the resources it takes to hold them isn't a good idea.

Anyway, we aren't done yet. The budget is still not ideal. The remaining 3 forts in Montgomery, Wales, and London aren't of much use to us - For the sake of argument, I'll say we can leave the fort in London, just in case we lose a battle to some theoretical landing attempt and need somewhere to spam mercenaries.

Let's look at our army.

We have a lot of cavalry day one, and England has infantry combat in its traditions. Cavalry is roughly 2.5x more expensive to maintain than infantry, and also more expensive to reinforce. Unless we have an explicit benefit to using cavalry, such as fighting an early war where their extra pip is helpful, or we're a cavalry nation, keeping these units around doesn't make sense.

Let's assume we keep an Infantry regiment for 10 years (Cost: .22), and a cavalry regiment for 10 years (Cost: .55), assuming full maintenance -

Infantry cost: 26.4 ducats
Cavalry cost: 66 ducats

3 Infantry Cost: 79.2 ducats
3 Cavalry Cost: 198 ducats

As you can see, the money REALLY adds up fast. The difference between having 3 Infantry or 3 Cavalry for 10 years is the difference between having the money to build a church or not.

Again - If you have a specific use case for cavalry, or are vulnerable early, keep them. Don't do this as a cav nation. However, in our case... We're going to take the savings and build infantry instead.

With ENG's starting cav deleted and replaced with infantry, our budget takes another jump up.



We can still do more, believe it or not. First off, we don't need the London fort to be active unless we're at war, so we mothball it.

In addition, the naval maintenance budget is troubling - Our navy is situational, but we still need one as England, for sure.

We have heavies that cost 0.53 ducats a month. This is a necessary expense. Deleting your navy early game as England is asking to get murdered, and we deleted some forts with the idea we're going to use our navy. In fact, we should probably expand it quickly.



Barques aren't worth a lot of trade power early game and early game trade is low, anyway, so they aren't really worth the maintenance they cost in most circumstances. We can sell these for 20 ducats (Sometimes, even 30 ducats!) to AI's not in our trade node for a straight profit. 0.05x9 maintenance saved = .45 ducats a month, plus gains from selling.



We also have 18 Transports. Now, I don't know about you, but I've never had a situation where I needed this many transports early game. Let's just go with 10. That's enough to ferry troops around in a few trips, and saves us 0.05x8 maintenance a month = .40 ducats a month, plus gains from selling.



Finally, we reduce our Naval Maintenance to zero, for the time being, as we don't really need our navy right now. Obviously, we should keep an eye on continental affairs and activate it quickly if needed, but simply lowering maintenance (since we have a pure combat fleet for the early game, before trade ships become relevant) saves us money on those expensive heavies.



... Oh, yeah, let's also fire off a debate in Parliament. That's giving +0.1 Corruption that we have to pay off.



That brings us up to 10.79 ducats.

Decreasing land maintenance is the other thing you can do. I'm just not emphasizing it because you're going to need your army for early game expansion, and everyone already knows about it - But let's see where it takes us anyway.

(Ignore the 'Vassal' revenue. I released Mann as a vassal to see if it made more money. It didn't. It makes the exact same.)



By reviewing our starting situation, overhauling our army and navy composition, getting rid of unneeded expenses, and adjusting maintenance values, we have brought our day one profit from 1.92 to 14.09 - That's roughly a 700% increase. These expenses will fluctuate a bit as we use our army and navy at war and raise maintenance, but this adds up to hundreds of ducats over the years.

Now - I'd like to note that the takeaway from this on your end shouldn't be "I need to delete my forts, cavalry, and all my ships to save money!" - No. You need to review your nation's situation, determine what may happen, and make sure you have what you need within whatever your personal risk tolerance is. Keep your forts on borders with rivals, and on key chokepoints; use the money saved on unneeded ones to scale and defend what you keep to the last one. Are you going to be in a naval conflict? Spend the money on the navy. But -don't- carry extra weight around that isn't going to help you succeed.

Every ducat counts. Let's discuss how to keep optimizing as we grow.

So, obviously, Development is the most important defining factor for how strong your country is. It determines what access to resources you're going to have, and there are few things more vital for an enterprising state. Let's talk about how to dev properly using an illustrative example.

Development is all about maximizing dev value and choosing the right provinces to develop. Continuing the use of England as our nation, let's assume we have a couple hundred monarch points to spend, after we optimized our budget and got some advisors. We are up to date on tech and don't have any ideas to pump into. We need to develop.

We should look to develop our main trade node first - This will feed directly into our coffers, and increase our trade power so we get more of the trade value we produce.



But where? Well, Centers of Trade are an obvious choice. They already have a modifier for Trade Power, which will yield good gains when we put a marketplace on it.

Gloucester is a Center of Trade. Let's start there.



Hmm. Looks like Gloucester is a Woods, with a 2.00 Naval Supplies trade good. That's not great. Maybe there's better value elsewhere?



York is a farmland, and produces Cloth! That's -10 Development cost, for a swing of 30% development cost -already-.

We can do better, though. Let's make sure our nation is set up for development properly - The Burghers don't like us very much...



Let's sell them titles, assign privileges, and call a diet. You know how to get Estates loyal, probably, if you're reading this - If not, we'll discuss it in another section.



Now we're talking. Make sure that influence is nice and high for that maximum -10%. If it isn't -10%, give more privileges.

While we're here, there's an under-rated privilege we can get...



That's another -15% dev cost from these guys, for a total of -25%. What else can we get?



Hey, why not? Let's give the Clergy this privilege and build a Temple on the province.

While that's happening, let's make sure the state is prepared for development. We're going to put the Development Edict on it, and wait for it to have 100% Prosperity. This will give us another -20% Development cost.



Upgrading the Center of Trade will also give York another -5% Development Cost, which is pretty worth it. Let's do that.

Now, how's the dev cost looking?



-Now- we're talking. Originally, York was 42 points to develop. Now? It's 18.

Don't forget to Expand Infrastructure after a few clicks (At Development 15).



Take the same approach whenever you develop. Typically, 21 Development with expanded infrastructure for inland provinces will be enough for a Temple, Workshop, Manufactory, Regimental Camp, and Barracks. You can develop to 30 later in the game, or when you run out of viable development targets.

Consider expanding Centers of Trade to 3, and don't forget conditional modifiers, such as Events. Idea groups and policies to expand your developing potential may also be appropriate. A well-timed golden age can be great for a development spree, too. Remember to get the best advisors you can (preferably, discounted ones) to maximize your development potential.

We don't need to talk about buildings in great detail, aside from this: Build them. Make sure your country is making enough of a profit to invest. Especially early game, try to avoid unnecessary, costly wars and build yourself up.

I am going to steal a guide from Reddit (Courtesy of this post: https://www.reddit.com/r/eu4/comments/wbzzp8/building_guide/ ), because I mostly agree with it and it communicates everything I would advise. I'd say depending on your situation, manufactories on grain, livestock, and wine are OK, especially if you get them early for those snowballing monetary gains.



I tend to prioritize money, and then military, using diplomacy to cover myself since people probably won't know the exact strength of my nation and I can get away with being greedy - But, as always, adjust your building strategy to your current situation.

Whenever you're going to build something, try to put the potential profits into terms you can understand. A temple for +0.15, or a manufactory for +0.80, is a little vague.

Temple: (0.15x12 months)x50 years = 90 Ducats
Manufactory: (0.80x12 months)x50 years = 480 years, plus Trade Value which will be higher.

I like the "50 year" calculation, because most buildings pay themselves off in that span. For example... Let's say it's a 0.06 ducat temple.

Temple: (0.06x12 months)x50 years = 36 ducats.

Not as good of an investment. Still, may be worth it if you're super safe and running out of things to spend on, or if you need to develop that province.

I think Trade is kind of a black-box for most EU4 players. They don't know how it works, they just put merchants down, steer to the home node, and hope for the best. If you want the meat-and-potatoes of how trade works, check out the Wiki page on it - https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/Trade . Otherwise, I'll try to break it down for you as much as I can.



Trade is split into nodes across the map. We can think of each trade node as a bucket, which is split between the nations that own trade power in the node.

The value of each 'bucket' is generated from what is produced within it, and what it can pull from other nodes upstream.

Basically, Trade Value is generated from provinces that produce Trade Goods. Each 1 Unit of Goods Produced creates 1 item of that Good, which adds the indicated amount of yearly trade good value on a yearly basis.



In this example, London is producing 1.68 Goods of cloth (Primarily coming from the Base Production development of London). London produces Cloth. This means that London is adding 5.04 Trade Value to the English Channel (1.68x3.00, the value of Cloth). 5.04 ducats yearly divided by 12 is 0.42 ducats a month added to the 'bucket' of the English Channel.

Trade value, goods produced, and final trade income are all influenced by modifiers. The details aren't important for this guide; your goal should be to steer trade to a node where you can collect it, and then doing so.

So, why is this important? How do we use this information? A few key points:

• Controlling your trade node is important. If you are not in control of your trade node and you develop Base Production, you are giving money to other people. Sometimes, this is inevitable, but if you can get your trade node controlled, do it. Ships, conquering the land, embargoing - All fine approaches.
  
• Manufactories are VITAL. The amount of gold it generates when the game shows you the money preview isn't accurate - Because it also gives Goods Produced, which you then collect the trade from.
  
• The goods you chose to develop with Production matters, because more valuable goods means more trade value generated.
  
• Taking other people's trade money is very good for you, and very bad for them. Privateers, for example, do not generate as much trade value for you as protecting trade does - But they do devastating things to the trade node, as they take a slice of the gold for themselves which that other person can't have.
  
• Developing your trade node in any way, including manpower and tax, increases your trade power. This is part of why devving your home node is important.

This is the briefest explanation I can give while communicating the most important things. I suggest reading the Wiki article (Again, https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/Trade ) if you want all the details.

We've talked about developing and trade, but you know what's important, too? Having the points to build up your country. Let's look at Monarch Points. Here's all the sources of baseline, monthly monarch point generation for most countries:

Baseline - 3/3/3
Estates - 1/1/1 from Privileges
+50 Power Projection - 1/1/1
Advisors - Up to 5/5/5
Monarch - Up to 6/6/6
Focus - Up to +2 in a category in return for -1 in the others.

This leaves us with a total monarch point generation, monthly, of up to +16 in each category, or +18 in one category and +15 in the other two.

Going by our "think about the 50 year formula" we talked about in the Building section, let's look at monarch point gains over 50 years assuming a few scenarios. For the sake of argument, we'll also say a dev click is 35~ points so you can visualize how much development you could gain for each case:



Now, obviously, this is a big simplification - Dev clicks won't always be 35 points, and you'll need to spend points on other things. However, I think the point stands: If you aren't maximizing your monarch point gains, you are leaving development, scaling, and critical country strength on the table. This needs to be a priority for you, or you're going to fall behind other players and possibly die.

For all countries, maximizing advisors is the most consistent way to increase monarch point income, as well as making sure that you have assigned all the Estate Privileges for monarch points and that you have above 50 Power Projection, whenever possible.

To get good advisors, keep smashing the Estate Diet button like it owes you money. Use the Privilege to auto-complete the diet item, if completing it normally isn't feasible. Hire the advisor and upgrade them, if you can afford. Also, consider idea groups such as Innovative, or anything else that gives advisor cost. If you can get a reduced cost advisor for one category of points but not another, you can use the discounted advisor to keep your point-flow stable as you use National Focus to boost the weaker category.

For Monarchies, disinheriting and abdication are great tools. Be careful when tanking your prestige too much, but generally - If an heir generated is below average stats, you should disinherit them. For me, this is anything lower than a 3/3/3, and even then I'd prefer to reroll that 3/3/3. If your heir has better stats than your King, go ahead and abdicate. The stability loss will be made up for in a matter of years, if your new King's ADM is even a single point higher.

For Republics, re-electing is the obvious way to gain more points. Take frequent elections and keep re-electing a King over and over, even if your RT is low. It's better to fall out of being a Republic than to have less monarch points. The key is to focus on re-electing younger leaders; anyone below 40 is a good choice, older leaders are likely to die before they consolidate enough power to become a 6/6/6.

If you're a Theocracy - Honestly, I don't know enough about Theocracies to comment here. I hear they aren't great at generating heirs and rulers, so you might want to consider reforming out of being a Theocracy.

Finally, whenever you get an event that offers monarch points for money, or prestige, or anything else - I would advise taking the monarch points in most cases. They are a precious, limited resource that should be hoarded as much as possible.

We need to talk about Crownland.



This is an area where there's a lot of room for optimization, and there's -also- a lot of room for things to go wrong for people who don't understand what they're doing. The impact of poorly managed crownland can be subtle, and lead to a ruined nation years down the line without an immediately clear connection as to why.

So, let's talk about our strategy for crownland management: In short, we want to extract all the resources and benefits we can while making sure we don't lose too much in return.

Crownland gives scaling benefits (or maluses) depending on how much of it you have. Selling crownland allows us to get money, with us receiving more money if we have less crownland. EU4 incentivizes us to keep crownland low if we're going to be selling it. Seizing crownland makes Estates less loyal, but is necessary if we want to sell it to them later as well as have an acceptable level of autonomy.

Crownland is gained by either seizing it, developing provinces, or conquering new land. You typically gain Crownland faster by developing and conquering if your crownland is already low. This means that to maximize crownland gain, you should try to send peace deals or develop -immediately- after selling titles, sometimes before seizing. As an example: Seizing from 0--->5 and then developing will result in less crownland as opposed to developing from 0--->5 and then seizing. This is because the gains from conquering and developing are proportional to how much crownland we already possess, while seizing is always a flat 5%.

There are some privileges that prevent the seizing of land from the estate, or that prevent developing from impacting the crownland of the estate. We should keep this in mind.

So, where should crownland -usually- sit? What's the best cycle to do this?

To illustrate, allow me to pull an example from the EU4 Wiki https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/Estates#Crownland



The answer lies in autonomy gain and reduction.



Remember: Low crownland increases autonomy, which is bad, because it means we have less access to resources.

By default, we should assume we'll probably have access to the "At Peace" (-0.1 reduction) and "Kingdom" (-0.025) modifiers, for a total of -0.1025. Prosperity will grant a further -0.05, which you should have in most of your states after a few years. So, we're looking at -0.1025 at peace early, and then -0.1525 after a few years. This will get better throughout the game when we build courthouses, become an Empire, get ideas, etc - But for now, let's assume -0.1525 autonomy reduction is our baseline.

What this means is that we'll be gaining autonomy at 10% crownland and higher, as long as we're at peace, and we'll be losing autonomy below 10% crownland.

10%+ Crownland: Ideal.
5-9.9% Crownland: OK.
1-4.99% Crownland: Bad.
0% Crownland: Catastrophic.

Typically, you'll be sitting at 5-9.9% crownland most of the time, selling at 10%, then seizing back to 5%. This is completely fine. This basically means you should be seeking to develop (or conquer) (or get through events) 5% worth of crownland every 10 years. This is pretty doable.

High Crownland isn't the worst thing, but it isn't great either (unless you're pursuing absolutism post 1600). If your Crownland is spiking due to lots of developing, you can stop seizing and sell more.

You will also need to reduce autonomy periodically to bring autonomy back to 0%. Don't be afraid of reducing autonomy; if it's in your main culture and religion, you'll only get one type of rebel, and the gains far outweigh the costs.

The only thing I'll also call out is that you should be sure to check your autonomy and reduce it if needed.

Let's review what we've learned with a quick diagram...



One more thing: DO NOT GIVE OUT ESTATE STATUTORY RIGHTS. IT'S USEFUL IN SOME CASES, BUT MOSTLY AS A NICHE THING. BY DEFAULT, CONSIDER IT A TRAP.

Now, let's talk about what privileges you should assign to the estates.

Whenever you go to manage your Estates, it can be a little overwhelming. There's lots of privileges, and it can be easy to get lost.



Here's my opinion on how to manage estates, in terms of what privileges to assign. I'm not going to go over every privilege, but I wanted to call attention to some I found important, whether that's because they're really good or really, really bad. There's basically 3 mandatory ones for all estates (Monarch Points, Advisor Cost, and Land Rights), with one mandatory for Clergy (Religious Culture), the rest you have some options.

Note that I will only cover the 3 Generic main estates (Clergy, Nobility, and Burghers). However, you can use the principles here to manage the other estates, too.

• Monarch Point Privilege (All): Pretty much mandatory. I assign the Diplomatic and Military points day one. Admin (clergy) will come later.
  
• Advisor Cost Privileges (All): Also mandatory, a day-one assign. If you're fortunate enough to have the ADM to stab, do that first.
  
• Estate Land Rights Privileges (Governing Capacity) (All): Important, but not immediately. You live or die by governing capacity later in the game.
  
• Religious Culture (Clergy): Important. Helps with culture converting, religious converting, and money. Get it, but again, not right away.
  
• Monopoly on [X] (All): Situational. Pick a trade good that isn't prevalent in your country, or upcoming conquests; the mercantilism is handy. You generally want to revoke these past the early game, as you lose revenue overall and it takes up a privilege slot.
  
• Assign Advisor Privileges (All): You generally want to pick one of these and use it to get discounted advisors. Burghers control of treasury + trade efficiency agenda is a good combo if you can get it to access the Radical Reforms event. Keep in mind that all the Advisor buttons throughout the estates share a cooldown, that's why we only do one.
  
• Burghers Financial Demand (Burghers): Take it, and mash it before you build. It's good.
  
• Exclusive Trade Rights (Burghers): Take it to develop 2+ trade centers, then revoke it to get your autonomy back.
  
• Development of Temples (Clergy): Good. If you can afford to consistently put Temples down, there's no reason not to take this.
  
• Increased Levies(Nobility): Very good. For land nations, probably a day one take. Just be careful if your nobility already have a ton of land and you're mostly relying on seizing to get crownland to sell, because you can accidentally put yourself in a position where selling crownland is nearly impossible due to the nobility controlling everything.
  
• Supremacy Over the Crown (Nobility): Really, really good. I always take this one for Nobility. The extra Diets can be a nice source of claims, estate loyalty, and monarch points.
  
• Auto-Complete Agenda Privileges (All): I like assigning these to the Nobility and Burghers, because their demands can be unreasonable but give good benefits. For example, gaining power in an upstream node may not be feasible, but you really want that 50% discounted advisor, right?
  
• 10% Influence, 10% Loyalty Privileges with no other bonuses (All): Not really necessary, and kind of a waste of a slot. Just take Supremacy Over the Crown to cover everyone.
  
• Control Over Monetary Policy (Burghers): 5% All Power Cost is death. Avoid at all cost.
  
• Estate Statutory Rights (Nobility) (Event only): This is your ticket to your nation becoming an irrelevant pile of trash, typically. Avoid unless you really know what you're doing.
  
• One-Time Benefit with Cooldown Privilege(s) (All): Burghers Force Draft, for instance. These are pretty OK, but not the most useful. A handy trick with these is assigning the privilege, and then revoking it immediately after using it (So, grant Burghers Force Draft, click the button for ships, revoke). This is a handy way to use extra Loyalty.

So, what's our general approach to the Estates?

Simple. Work with them. The Estates are your friends, as long as you're their friend. Smash the Diet button and pick one that you can either auto-complete, or complete the normal way, then get it done as soon as possible for Supremacy Over the Crown gives you another Diet to complete.

Spiking everyone's influence over 100% is completely fine if they're loyal; you can revoke privileges at 100% loyalty, even if they have 100% influence, you just need to time it on the month tick. Plus, the estate privileges that give bonuses based on estate loyalty and influence actually keep scaling past 100% influence - For example, Clerical Education can give 33% or more Reform Progress growth if the Clergy is above 100% influence.

Completing a Diet agenda, calling a Diet, and then selling crownland is a 25% minimum loyalty spike for an estate of your choice, so this is a great way to revoke a privilege from a 100% influence estate.

Later in the game, you'll want to revoke some of the less critical Privileges to get Absolutism. The Monarch Point, Advisor, Land Rights, and Religious Culture are usually worth it to keep - The rest, you'll probably want the Absolutism more, but it's really a judgment call based on your nation's situation.

Follow these principles, and you and your Estates will be enjoying domestic bliss in no time.

A quick note on Formables - They exist! You should aspire towards one of them if it's a good fit for you and obtainable. Prussia, Spain, Great Britain, or reforming a dead major are all huge power spikes. Sometimes, you may need to shift culture. To do this, it's best to unstate some of your land and then restate it after the swap's taken place.

Here's a list of formables. I suggest taking a look and seeing if there's any in your nation's neighborhood that you may want. https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/Formable_countries

Ideas and Policies are very important in shaping the play style of your country.



I mostly play modded EU4 these days, and the exact contents of idea groups tend to change over time, anyway. So, I'm not going to tell you what idea groups you should and should not take - Instead, we're going to talk about the general strategic approach you should take to ideas.

What makes an idea group good in multiplayer? Typically:

• It saves you monarch points.
  
• It makes you money.
  
• It makes your military stronger.
  
• It improves your ability to develop.
  
• It allows you to colonize.
  
• It has access to good policies that do one of the above.

If an idea group doesn't do one of the above things, it likely isn't a good fit for multiplayer.

I suggest selecting at least your first four ideas before the game begins. For most countries, you'll want to pick a Military Idea group first, followed by something that has a good military policy for it second. Consider your options and pick something that fits your goals.

An underrated strategy is not picking a military idea group first. In EU4, being the defender in a war already puts you at an advantage, as the enemy has to fight on your defensive terrain, which gives them attrition, penalties in battles, and reinforcement speed penalties. In a lot of cases, if you die early game, it's because you got ganked or are fighting someone way beyond your nation's caliber early game and were going to die anyway (10% Infantry Combat and 5% Discipline or whatever isn't saving you as Savoy from France). This means that picking an Administrative or Diplomatic idea group first and using it to scale for a little bit before your second idea group can be a great strategy.

The window where people can attack you and benefit from their military idea group is pretty narrow, since you'll be picking yours up at Tech 7 (Only two techs away from 5). This especially works well with idea groups that save monarch points, such as Innovative. I know I said I wouldn't recommend particular groups, but I love Innovative.

You REALLY shouldn't delay your military idea group beyond group two, however, unless you're England. Looking like an appetizing target isn't a good idea.

Technology is more than a way to gradually advance your country - Getting a good technology can be the difference between winning and losing the entire game, and learning how to distinguish an important technology from a relatively unimportant one is a good skill to have.

When it comes to Technology, there's obviously three types: ADM, DIP, and MIL.

Admin technology is rarely critical, as it usually grants access to new buildings and governing capacity. The one time when it is truly critical, though, is whenever it unlocks an idea group (5, 7, 10, 14, 18, 22, 26, 29). If you're about to take an idea group, ESPECIALLY a military idea group, unlocking the idea group early can give you an edge. Also, if you're above governing capacity, unlocking a tech that gives governing capacity increase can save a good deal of money.

Diplomatic tech -can- be critical, depending on what nation you're playing. If you rely heavily on your navy, you'll need to be ready to upgrade to techs that give ship morale or new ships on a moment's notice. It's worth noting that early game, diplomatic techs 3-6 give basically nothing useful, so you can delay taking these to get a discount and develop some more instead, which gives more up front money. Just wait for others to take them then rake in your 'behind' bonus. You can extend this strategy further if you don't care about your navy, just keep an eye on corruption so you don't start hurting from the Unbalanced Research Penalty (High stability + being ahead in ADM can mitigate one level of it, or -0.10).

Military tech is, obviously, the most critical technology group. Being behind in military technology is often just death. Being behind certain techs can auto-lose a war. Some military techs are good for infantry nations, others for cavalry nations, and others are good no matter what.

Unit Upgrade technologies are self-explanatory. However, some players make the mistake of thinking that techs that don't give upgrades 'don't matter'. On the contrary, shock and fire modifiers are very important. Let's look at what the Western Tech Group modifiers are at tech 3.



0.35 Fire and 0.5 Shock for infantry, and 1 Shock for cavalry. Remember: Fire Phase is first in battle, so fire modifiers are more valuable as casualties sustained in that phase will impact the Shock phase by making units stronger or weaker. Whenever you look at a Tech, think about how the modifiers it gives will impact the currently existing modifiers. Adding .8 shock to Cavalry is a big deal, for instance, as that's an 80% increase in combat effectiveness.

The other thing to keep in mind is Tactics and Morale. These are both important for all units. Keep in mind that flat morale and tactics buffs are more important in the early game than in the later game. An increase of 0.25 tactics when you have 0.5 tactics is a 50% boost; an increase of 0.25 tactics when you have 2.00 tactics is still relevant, but only a 12.5% boost.

Here's a rundown of the techs in vanilla. Keep in mind I'm looking at this from the perspective of a Western nation, because most people play those. The unit upgrade techs may vary for other tech groups.

(Sourced from: https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/Technology )

• Tech 4 - Everyone knows about this one. It's the AI killer. Being behind on Tech 4 is one of those techs that will get you annihilated. The Military Tactics is a HUGE bump.
  
• Tech 5 - Important as well, mostly due to the shock upgrades. Not as important as Tech 4, though.
  
• Tech 6 - Another Tactics tech with infantry fire -and- shock modifiers. Less important if you're CAV based, but because it has tactics it's still vital.
  
• Tech 7 - Tactics tech. Gotta have it. Also unlocks cannons, but they're mostly a utility thing until later (good for sieges).
  
• Tech 8 - THE cavalry tech. Cavalry receiving .8 shock is horrifying. Don't fight hordes or other cavalry nations on this tech, or you'll get slaughtered.
  
• Tech 9 - Tactics upgrade and infantry.
  
• Tech 10 - Cannon upgrade, cav upgrade. Not really a big deal for most countries. If you're cavalry, get it.
  
• Tech 11 - Cavalry fire, infantry shock. Not a bad tech, but not as critical as the others.
  
• Tech 12 - Tactics and Infantry. Notably, a big infantry upgrade. This is when infantry start using guns, so you'll definitely notice if you don't have this tech and the other guy does.
  
• Tech 13 - Artillery Fire and Shock, plus a new cannon unit. This is when Cannons start being very important to have a full backline of.
  
• Tech 14 - New cavalry unit, new fort, and infantry fire. Quite good for blowing up enemy forts that haven't been upgraded yet.
  
• Tech 15 - New infantry unit, tactics, morale. Important. About on the level of tech 12.
  
• Tech 16 - Artillery fire and shock, plus a new cannon unit. If you aren't extensively using cannons by this tech, you'll lose every fight. Honestly, the real cutoff is 13, so this is vital.
  
• Tech 17 - Cavalry Shock +1. If cav nations are involved in a war, this is big for them. Otherwise? Pretty much totally useless.
  
• Tech 18 - Cavalry and Cannon upgrade.
  
• Tech 19 - Infantry and Fort upgrade, plus tactics. Important.
  
• Tech 20 - Infantry Fire and Cannon upgrade. This is when Fire Damage begins to really take off.
  
• Tech 21 - Infantry Shock and Tactics.
  
• Tech 22 - New cannon, artillery shock, cavalry fire, artillery fire. Fire damage is completely dominant at this tech going forward.
  
• Tech 23 - Cav and Infantry upgrade, tactics, cavalry shock +1. Again, another cav tech.
  
• Tech 24 - Fort upgrade and tactics.
  
• Tech 25 - Artillery Fire and a bit of shock, plus a cannon unit upgrade. Cannons continue to outpace infantry and cavalry, doing the most damage on the battlefield.
  
• Tech 26 - Morale, infantry and cavalry upgrade.
  
• Tech 27 - Infantry fire upgrade. Minor.
  
• Tech 28 - Infantry and Cavalry upgrade. .5 Infantry shock upgrade.
  
• Tech 29 - Cannon unit upgrade.
  
• Tech 30 - Infantry unit upgrade, tactics, morale. Important.
  
• Tech 31 - Infantry Fire +1, Cavalry Shock +1. Technically a 'Cav Tech', but this is pretty much when infantry is better than cav in most cases due to the fire phase obliterating cavalry before they get to participate in the Shock phase.
  
• Tech 32 - Artillery Fire, a mild amount of artillery shock, tactics.

The conclusion that we can reach here - Most military techs are important. Some are more important than others. There's about 3 techs that aren't as important if cavalry nations aren't involved. In general, preparing to tech up ahead of time is pretty much never a bad idea.

Tech is one way to power spike and gain an advantage. The other one is Critical Events, which we'll talk about now.

So, technologies are important to getting power spikes. Critical Events, though, are maybe more important. They're rare, and most of them can only happen once a game. Knowing what these couple of key events are will help give you an advantage.

Firstly, most important tags have flavor events. Some of these are not too important, but others can give access to discounted advisors, claims, and powerful modifiers. England's historical events are probably the strongest ones ( https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/English_events ) followed by Russia's ( https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/Russian_events ). Everything from discounted advisors, innovativeness, and even strong rulers are included. Take a quick moment to review your slot's events and see if there's anything you want to aim for in your playthrough.

In addition, most tags have a focus tree. Again, some of these don't matter, others are very important. If there's a temporary military modifier somewhere in your tree, consider saving it for a rainy day - Such as a tough war.

Critical events, though, are the biggest ones.

The first one is "Radical Reforms" ( https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/Mercantilism_events#Radical_Reforms ). This event gives you a choice between 5% Mercantilism or ADM/DIP power. To trigger it, you need a Master of Mint (ADM Inflation Reduction advisor), a Trader (DIP Trade Efficiency Advisor), and less than 100 Mercantilism. It will fire in roughly 120 Months, so just be ready for it. To get the maximum benefit from this event, pick the event to "fire" both of them - But sack them yourself first, then rehire them once you click the event option. This will give 200 ADM and 200 DIP, which is great.

The next one is "Military Reform". ( https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/Military_reform_events ). This event will give you Military Power, Diplomatic power, or a combination of both, in addition to your choice of an army, navy, or combination buff. To trigger it, your ruler must have a Diplomatic and Military skill of at least 5. Much like Radical Reforms, it will fire in roughly 120 months, but the time to happen can be reduced by employing an Army Reformer or Naval Reformer (Army/Navy morale advisors), and reduced further by increasing the skill of those advisors to 3. To get the best use out of this, be ready for war with your neighbors when you have a ruler that has Mil and Dip skills of 5 - Just don't think that the morale bonus will make the impossible winnable.

Finally, there's the 'Great Men' events, or advisor events. ( https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/Advisor_events ) These will give your choice of +50 Prestige or +1 Stability, along with a benefit associated with that advisor. Firstly, the Prestige is great to cap yourself before going into a war, since Prestige is morale. Secondly, some of the benefits given by these events are very powerful. To trigger these events, you'll need an Advisor with +3 skill employed. Yes, this means you'll probably want to avoid certain advisors until you're ready to trigger the event, unfortunately, because each event only triggers once for each advisor type. These events fire in about 300 months - Notably, they fire slower if you -don't- have innovative ideas, and fire quicker if you do.

• Commandant (Discipline Advisor) - 10% Discipline for 6 years. This modifier is absolutely disgusting.
  
• Grand Captain (Land Maintenance Advisor) - 20% Land Morale for 6 years. Not as good as the Discipline one, but still crazy. Notably, the Morale advisor does NOT trigger a morale event - He gives military tech cost.
  
• Natural Scientist (Production Efficiency Advisor) - 10% Administrative Tech cost. Not bad, if you're a little behind and can squeeze 120~ administrative points of value out of it by teching up twice.
  
• Naval Reformer (Naval Morale Advisor) - 10% Diplomatic Tech cost. Can be used to save points, or get an important Diplomatic tech ahead of time. High mean time to happen on the event makes it hard to use consistently, though.
  
• Army Reformer (Army Morale Advisor) - 10% Military Tech cost. Can be used to save points, or get an important Military tech ahead of time. High mean time to happen on the event makes it hard to use consistently, though.

Various other events, related to Idea Groups or just random events, can fire off. It isn't a bad idea to review the Idea Group Events page for the idea group(s) you have on the wiki; a quick morale or damage event can make a difference in a close war.

Military Composition deserves a brief note.



Your nation is usually either a 'cav nation' or an infantry nation.

Cavalry nations use lots of expensive but powerful cavalry in their stacks that power-spike at certain technologies to devastating effects. Poland and Hordes are two examples of cavalry nations, but anyone with a cavalry combat bonus in their ideas could opt for a cavalry centric build.

Infantry nations are most nations, which use cheaper infantry that are generally more consistently strong, with less noticeable power-spikes.

Both types of nations use cannons, obviously.

Typically, you should have army stacks of Combat Width + 2 (For any units that quickly get shattered and break due to bad rolls). This means you need to check the current combat width and adjust your stacks accordingly. If you're an infantry nation, just use infantry; if you're a cavalry nation, use as much cavalry as your ratio will allow.



In regard to cannons: You don't need them the moment they're unlocked. This is because cannons give their half their stats to the units in front of them, and early-game cannons don't have good stats while also being expensive. Cannons become OK at tech 10, and become mandatory at tech 13, with 16 being the final nail in the coffin.

I suggest having a "vanguard" stack with 1.5x frontline units in it (Infantry and Cavalry), exceeding combat width, where your cannons and best general will also be placed. This is because cannons will end up on the front line fairly quickly if the infantry take heavy damage and run away. As the game goes on, you'll want to have more than one Vanguard stack to man other fronts, begin other battles to intercept reinforcements while a current one is ongoing ("Cutting"), or serve as the main Vanguard if the current stack dies or can't fight.

We'll talk more about war strategy and tactics later.

Navy composition is tricky. How many ships is enough?



First, the type of ship you'll be building depends on where you are on the map, and what your nation is good at.

'Inland seas' (Such as the Meditarranean, the areas around Malacca, and the Baltic) give a +100% Bonus to galleys. This means building galleys in these areas is good. It's worth noting that galleys also have a +50% Bonus to combat on -ALL- coastlines, so they are viable outside of inland seas while being cheap, too.

Outside of inland sea, heavy ships are an option, especially if your country or idea groups give modifiers to them.

Naval battles use Engagement Width, which is the navy version of land Combat Width. The difference is that combat width scales up to the highest combat width for both sides, while naval engagement width can be different for both sides. So, if one nation has 40 Combat Width on land and the other has 38, the combat width of the battle will be 40. Navally, if one side has higher Engagement Width, they will simply be able to put more ships into the battle.



Naval Engagement width can be modified by a variety of factors.



Galleys use 1 Combat Width, Heavies use 3 Combat Width.

... Oh, yeah, also, fighting on a coast gives -20% Combat Width, because reasons.



Now that no one's confused - What does this all mean?

What this means, in short, is that you need to have a different number of ships in a battle according to what the combat width is. A good generic formula for calculating width is:

Current Width * (-20% Coastal Width modifier + positive modifiers).

A typical combat stack, then, should have at least 25 width of ships (To compensate for any dead ships), then it should be added on to over time as width increases and you get better Maneuver admirals. No matter if you prioritize galleys or heavies, you're going to need some galleys - This is because combat width can be a non-multiple of 3, and you can't fit 2 width worth of heavies into a battle.

When it comes to Flagship, it's easy. Get a Flagship with the Cannon bonus, Engagement Width bonus, and Fleet Morale bonus. Make it a heavy. A Galley flagship is too frail, and it being sank isn't good.

War - What is it good for?

Well. Expanding our territories, gaining access to new trade, getting more manpower, taking out enemies before they kill us-- Lots of things, actually.

But here's the thing about war in multiplayer: It's hard and it's dangerous. It's also one of the more skill expressive areas in EU4, although it's still mostly based on how you build and manage your nation before-hand.

My personal philosophy is that you shouldn't go to war unless you have an advantage. Fair wars in multiplayer are a coin-toss, and losing that coin-toss can have consequences. That's why I suggest having allies, but not so many allies that people are going to say you're a dirty ganker.

Regardless, let's talk about war.


You should be on a partial war footing at all times, because you don't always get to choose when the war happens.

• Your border forts should be at full maintenance.
  
• Your armies should be drilling, or at partial maintenance, depending on your game state and how large you are.
  
• Your navies should be in a port with a fort. Not necessarily at full maintenance, but you don't want someone cog-dropping you, shoving your navy out of port, and murdering it.
  
• You should take glances at the border and try to scout out your neighbors with ships, if you can. If you see their maintenance raise, them fabricate claims on you, breaking alliance, etc, then you should know something is coming and prepare accordingly.
  
• Monitor the diplomatic situation. If your neighbors are at peace, you're in danger because they could come for you.

Assuming we're preparing for a war of our own, first, we need to understand how we're going to win it.


Going to war isn't something you should do on a whim or take lightly. For one, other players will not necessarily look upon aggression kindly. Someone who is aggressive brings attention on themselves. As such, it's better to wait until the region you're in is already at war, then jump in to grab something before the fighting dies down. This means not all the attention will be on you, and the enemy may even peace you out to make you go away while they deal with their main threat.

Obviously, isolated, weaker targets are good targets. Whenever an enemy is split away from their allies, it means they're on their own against you. Bearing down on Kongo as Castile means that pretty much no one would be able to come help, even if they wanted to.

Finally, prime targets for expansion include your trade node, or trade that flows into your node. This will be the best profit margin land that you benefit the most from, so be sure to prioritize it.

If you cannot get a good angle on someone on the same continent as you, consider looking overseas. If there's weak nations across the ocean, you can go for a PvP war against them while your neighbors are busy.


Timing is everything when it comes to war. First, as mentioned, you want to make sure you hit someone who's busy, if possible.

However, beyond that, timing your technology, ideas, and national power spike will help you a lot. Try to get an idea of when your country is strongest - Did you just unlock a special unit? Are you able to tech up ahead of time on a critical military technology that helps you? Did you get a good advisor event, or military reforms? These are all good reasons to push the offensive.

At the same time, consider your potential enemy's technology and options. Lurching yourself into the Ottomans at Tech 6, or Poland at Tech 8, is unlikely to end well due to the significant strength of those nations at those particular tech levels.


What's the wargoal? This is going to depend on whether you have a navy or not, and whether or not the enemy has overseas provinces. If your enemy has an overseas province and you have a better navy, try to get a claim on it; this will mean you'll get ticking warscore and will be in an ideal position to stab-hit them out. Be cautious about this if you -don't- have a strong naval advantage, though, because it can easily go the wrong way.

Otherwise, I suggest picking a fort on the border. One of your opening moves should be assaulting this fort.

Be careful about picking wargoals aside from conquest. Imperialism is attractive because it gives warscore cost reduction, but the wargoal being the enemy's capital means anything less than a total victory is going to turn into a slog really, really fast. Show Superiority can also swing against you if you lose too many battles. Conquest, and variant wargoals of Conquest, give you the most flexibility and best odds, usually.


Building a ton of mercenaries and slamming into the enemy is not always the best strategy to win a war. If possible, you should consider ways to take good trades with the enemy and starve them out, then push with an advantage to win the war with more resources on hand at the end.

Here's a few ideas:

• Do you have the wargoal? The enemy is probably going to want it back. Have them come to you and fight them on the fort you took, especially if it's a defensive fort. If you're defending to begin with, all the better.
  
• Is your enemy overseas or on an island? There's no reason to rush to land warfare. Get a navy and blockade them with it. Pirate them. Frustrate and lock down their options to resist you by slowly draining their treasury and plaguing their country with devastation in a sustained, low-intensity conflict that costs you nothing, with the benefit of not leaving you option to attack by opportunistic neighbors, since you aren't expending manpower. This works even better if you dip into their territory briefly and provoke them to hire mercenaries and then draw back without taking enough losses to go into stability hit range. This works really well against Iberia or the Berbers, if you're in a war on the other side, or as a naval power like Japan or Great Britain. If your terms aren't completely ruinous to the enemy, this approach is often demoralizing enough to win you the war without a big expense of effort. Nobody wants to be blockaded and pirated for 10 years.
  
• Is your enemy weak, drained, or did they just lose a battle? Push the advantage. Right after a battle, assault forts and take them.

War comes with ambiguity for both sides, and a lot of stress. People are prone to making bad decisions under stress, which is why keeping your wits about you and knowing what the purpose of your war is and when it's time to stop is important.

If you're a secondary participant in a war and you get an offer to separately peace out, you should seriously consider it. For one, the war-leader's gain is not necessarily your gain, and if there's a way you can walk away from the conflict without them coming for you later, it's something to look at. Plus, there's no reason you can't come back for more later if the war drags on long enough.

Sometimes, you can still have a relationship with someone after you attack them if it isn't for a core part of their country. Someone is probably going to be more forgiving over a colonial possession than if you take Paris from them. Consider the viability of future diplomacy with a war target, and try to avoid bruising the enemy's ego. Spite is going to make them continue fighting you and doing everything they can to damage you; resigned indifference or depression are more what we're looking for here, not rage.

Finally, if things are difficult for you to close out and you're taking huge losses, or have reason to expect someone else may join in, don't be afraid to stability hit. You can stab-hit when your warscore is above 50% for roughly half of the warscore amount. The peace screen will show a Dove whenever your enemy will take a stability hit. Don't overextend your resources and end up losing because you got greedy.

Congratulations, you're at war. Millions are going to die from your actions, and if you're lucky, you might get a nice slice of land out of it!

Here's how you win.


Try to have a Morale or Discipline advisor. Land Forcelimit is also viable if you're using mercenaries, as this will decrease the amount of money you lose from being over forcelimit.


Having a good general is essential. Roll until you get something that isn't horrible. Early game, higher shock values are good. Later in the game, fire values are good. Maneuver is useful at all times for avoiding crossing penalties. You don't need every general to have good siege, but you need at least one general to have good siege.

Did your general get a useless trait after a battle? Consider rolling to find a new, fresh one, and try to get a better trait on him.


Buy mercenaries. Go over force limit, but not so much that you go bankrupt. Whatever you need to do to win the war, do it - This isn't the time to be squeamish about loans. If your enemy is any good, they'll be thinking the same way. Don't lose the war because you're cheap.


Bind the Simple Terrain mapmode to your hotkeys, and look at it often. Get familiar with the terrain. Find out where the rivers are. Don't attack mountains like an idiot unless you have to.

Maybe don't attack Navarra if you're France here - Go to the hills on the eastern side, instead!


Standing on a fort to siege it isn't ideal. You want to either siege it and force the enemy to come to you for a fight, then assault and take it, or assault it to force them to come to you or lose it. Early game, you can enable sieges on coasts by naval bombarding. Later on, you'll want to use cannons.


Once the walls are breached, you can assault.


As the tooltip indicates, only a certain number of men each day are going to be able to make an assault. Also, these men are going to take horrible casualties, because there's a massive dice-penalty applied to them assaulting the fort. Regardless, this is a better option than taking multiple battles on the fort with a -1 penalty.

Keep in mind that only infantry can assault. This means forts are a good counter to cavalry nations.


Once the assault begins, your work isn't done. Remember, only 10,000 men can assault a day, and we need them to be as strong as possible. You should be hitting the Consolidate Regiments button with Shift held down like it owes you money - This will reinforce the regiments that are assaulting the fort with more men, keeping the assault strength strong and resulting in fewer casualties.

After the assault is done, refill the garrison using the Army Professionalism ability if you can. This will make sure that the enemy doesn't simply assault the fort and take it back as you replenish casualties and any lost morale.


Are you defending a province from an enemy? Scorch it, slowing their movement. Defending the enemy's province you took? Scorch it. Scorch earth early. Scorch earth often. Don't let those peasants get away with surviving.


Use Forced March. It's available at ADM Tech 15. Mobility is vital. You can save on mil power and morale gain by using it to move faster, then pressing M to deactivate it right before you arrive in a province, or when the month ticks.


Whenever battles are ongoing, all units lose morale. This includes units not currently fighting on the front-lines. As such, do not pile units into the battle that are not needed to fight - Put them in when they're needed. Excessively overstacking can make you lose due to morale loss.


Due to the need to not overstack battles, reinforcements need to gradually trickle in. This gives rise to a tactic known as cutting, which you should know how to do.

In this example, there's an ongoing battle in Rethel. Burgundy has a +2 advantage here due to the fort, woods, and a river, so it's not going great for France to begin with. France notices that a 30k Infantry stack without a leader, meant to be used for reinforcement only, is on its way to join the battle from an unprotected route that France can access - Likely due to nerves or a mistake on Burgundy's part.



Thinking quickly, France activates Force March on a reserve army hidden behind his lines, rapidly moving to intercept.



Caught off guard and without a way to quickly reinforce the battles with cannons, Burgundy's leaderless army is torn to shreds by France's complete infantry and cannon stack, getting stackwiped off the map while doing almost no damage to France's troops.



Deprived of critical reinforcements, Burgundy cannot win the battle and clumsily throws in another stack to salvage the situation. The main Burgundian force breaks and runs as the reinforcements arrive, which is slaughtered just like the previous stack was.




With 60,000 troops wiped off the field in the span of a few months, Burgundy is now in a dangerous situation. The victorious French bombard the walls of Rethel and assault it as the battered Burgundian army flees, capturing the wargoal.



Disheartened and questioning the competence of their ally, it isn't long before Burgundy's friends are sending overtures of peace to the victorious French. Burgundy is doomed.


If you have allies, colonial nations, or anyone else aside from you in the war - Make sure everyone is on the same page. If you're going to retreat, tell everyone to do so at the same time so no one is getting left behind taking huge losses. Make the strategy clear so everyone acts on it. Keep morale up, and remind everyone of what they have to gain if you win - And what they have to lose if you don't.


Whenever you have a big victory in a war, that's the time to push the enemy's allies to walk away. Charm and cajole them. Send peace offers with some ducats to entice them into abandoning their ally. Convince them that it's a lost cause anyway, and they might as well work with you. If you're lucky, they may just be demoralized and already considering what you're offering them before you even offered it.

Next... Let's talk about naval tactics.

Navy is ultimately a zero-sum game. In land wars, you'll often get the chance to fight more than one battle - But navally? It's often just a couple of battles, and that's it.


Pre-war, you'll want to be scouting the coastline for the enemy's navy. Try to see where their navy is and how many ships they have; ideally, you should be matching and exceeding their forces to guarantee superiority.

Ensure you have the proper naval range by negotiating naval access agreements, if necessary; naval attrition is lethal.

In the best of all worlds, you're able to block in the enemy's fleet into port, forcing them to fight you while you blockade them. However, be careful. Without maritime ideas, the fact that they'll be repairing and you won't be after every battle can be enough to kill you. Keep an eye on your ship durability and morale.


Navally, your main goal should be blockading the enemy. Individual blockades debuff provinces, add war exhaustion, and increase devastation; in the long-run, for a country with a lot of coast, this can add up to be a serious problem.

Further: If you can manage a 100% blockade on a country, they will get a crippling -75% trade power. Following this up with privateers can kill an economy completely.


This takes some micro, but if you have naval superiority (and frankly, even if you don't) - cart some transports around and just occupy every island in sight.

Why? Simply put - Low risk, medium reward. Occupying islands is just as bad for your enemy as occupying their main territory. It gives you warscore. It increases their war exhaustion and reduces the resources they have access to. Why wouldn't you do this? No one is going to bother fighting for their islands unless there's literally nothing else going on in the war - And if you have naval superiority, they won't even be able to. If you need further convincing, just add up the total development of their islands and compare it to their overall dev. You'll be surprised by how high it is, in some cases (For example: Italians that own Sicily + Sardinia + Corsica + Malta will probably have 100 of vulnerable island dev).

If there's a strait to the island, you should land, breach, and assault it to block off reinforcements before occupying the rest. See the section on land combat for more info on how to do that.


Naval battles are pretty straightforward. Make sure you have combat width, get a good admiral, and ram your ships into the other guy.

• If you're heavies, try to avoid inland seas.
  
• If you're primarily galleys, try to get inland sea battles.

Generally, you'll want to have more than one combat width stack. There's a little finesse and skill expression to this, though, and this is called ship cycling.

See, unlike land battles, sinking the enemy's ships completely matters a lot. Ships take durability damage in battles, but there's a certain number of days they need to spend in combat before they retreat.

See where I'm going with this?

Here's what you can do.

• Have at least two combat stacks ready.
  
• Engage the enemy.
  
• Let the battle go on for a few days.
  
• Check when you're eligible to retreat.
  
• Begin moving your second fleet towards the province.
  
• Right before the second fleet arrives, disengage your first fleet and let the second fleet engage their fleet alone.

If you've done this right - You will 'lose' the first battle due to retreating, but you won't lose anything except for warscore. Your second, fresh fleet will engage the enemy's weakened ships and basically have a guaranteed, free win as they begin sinking their weakened vessels. You can continue cycling with more stacks, as needed.

To counter this strategy being used against you: Just retreat before their fleet arrives, if you see them coming.

You can only take so much land in an individual war. If you're past the point where there's a lot of AI on the map and you managed to get a relatively clean victory against your opponent, consider a trucebreak if the ruleset allows it.

To prepare for a trucebreak, take as many forts as you can in the peace deal, release a vassal (or two vassals!), and then attack again immediately.

Doing a Trucebreak war competently can allow you to gain 200% Warscore for the effort of one, and completely kill a player out of the game. This is especially effective if your opponent had to go bankrupt.

Debasing your currency is viable...

... In very certain situations.

Corruption is bad. It increases monarch point costs and increases autonomy, meaning you can invest less efficiently and get less out of your country.

In short, debasing currency gives you money as if your average local autonomy was at 0%, no matter what. So, if your country is on fire and you have 50% Autonomy, debase to your heart's content. It'll be cheaper to pay back then what you got out of it.

However, here's a better idea - Try to avoid getting extremely high autonomy to begin with, as this likely means you're about to die. If you don't have very high autonomy, don't debase. It's honestly usually better to just bankrupt. A couple of extra months of money probably won't make a difference if you're going to go bankrupt, and it'll make recovery so much harder.

The other situation where debasing is viable is when you have a quick way to pay it down. For example, being at +3 Stability and ahead of time in diplomatic and administrative technology after spending a lot of points? Sure, you can take a quick debase for some money, but I'd probably suggest having some other -corruption modifier.

Muslim nations can use Legalism to pay down corruption fast for quick debases, as well.

Going into bankruptcy is not something to be taken lightly, but it's a tool for recovering from a very, very bad war. There is a right way and a wrong way to declare bankruptcy.

First, what does bankruptcy ACTUALLY do? Well...





Pain. So, so much pain - But if we're looking at thousands of debt and no way out, we have no choice.

Here's when you bankrupt:

• You just got done fighting a war.
  
• You have truces or alliances with your neighbors, or they're busy.
  
• There's so much debt that it won't be repaid in a reasonable timeframe, or you're spiraling.

Keep in mind that if you don't have a lot of debt, just a lot of loans, you can take new loans to pay off the old loans, consolidating your debt and reducing the inflation increase from renewing the old, small loans.

Sometimes, if you're already losing a war, you can just go ahead and bankrupt and make your opponent siege you down a bit, costing them more resources. Your army's probably dead anyway, right? This situation obviously isn't ideal.

Anyway, preparing for bankruptcy:

• Having high stability (Preferably, +3) is pretty helpful. Otherwise, you're going to crater to -3 and get coated in a thin sheet of rebels that you can't fight off with your morale penalty.
  
• Spend ALL your monarch points. Tech up, get ideas, then dev.
  
• If you have any manpower, go ahead and hire troops up to forcelimit
  
• Consider taking loans to upgrade trade centers to 3 (The money doesn't mean anything, anyway, since you're about to bankrupt, and the trade centers will be downgraded. A level 3 TC going to Level 2 is going to save some money later, and it's not like there's much else you can spend it on.)
  
• If possible, get a Sell ---> Seize cycle set up, so you have some cash to avoid loans during the 5 years of bankruptcy.
  
• Spend any other cash you can scrape out of the loans on things that won't go away, which there are very few of.
  
• Do NOT tell other players you're going bankrupt.
  
• Hit the button.
  
• Sell ---> Seize, deal with rebels, survive.

You'll need to survive the next five years of agony, but if you come out on the other side, your nation should be good to go.

One important thing about bankruptcy is that you need to be decisive with it. Don't sit there with an unbearable loan burden; just get it over with.

For the purposes of this section, we're going to define colonialism as "any activity that involves you expanding away from your country's main power base on the home continent".

Colonialism is a play style that can unlock heavy benefits for your nation, offering access to a nearly limitless amount of land to scale into. Sadly, most players, aside from those on England and Iberia, do not use colonialism - And I'd argue even most players of those slots fail to use the colonial game to its utmost.

This is somewhat Paradox's fault, due to the requirement (for most nations) of having to unlock a colonist via exploration ideas or expansion, two idea groups that don't offer many benefits -aside- from colonizing. Exploration is notoriously lightweight aside from allowing exploration, which isn't that amazing when others can just steal maps and then colonize faster if they take Expansion.

However, it's also due to a lack of imagination on the part of players. A lot of people simply don't have any desire for overseas expansion, and it's understandable. Expanding your domain into other continents, away from your power base at home, carries risks. But remember - Development is development, and if people are going to allow you to carve out a colonial Empire of any kind away from home... Well, why leave it on the table, right?

I wanted to use this section to call out some great places to try to grab if you're interested in colonizing. This is mostly going to be applicable to people using mods that grant some kind of colonist for most people, but it'll also be good food for thought for people playing England and Iberia in vanilla.


Similar to other sections in this guide, the strategy for colonization is as follows: Maximize profits, minimize risk and cost.

When people think of 'colonizers', the first thing that comes to mind is the New World. We'll be talking about how to approach New World colonization, as it is indeed one of the most lucrative types - But colonizing the rest of the world is a viable and underrated strategy. Contesting primary colonizers (England and Iberia) is important to avoid them scaling into monstrosities later on, and when done collectively as a lobby leads to healthier, more balanced games.

There's lots of islands, enclaves, and spots around the world where an enterprising nation can stake a claim at minimal risk to themselves. Carving out a real overseas realm can take a lot of work, but there's value to be found in individual islands, limited mainland presence that won't provoke a meaningful response from players, and being in a position to take advantage of collapsing overseas realms.

Finally, don't be fooled into thinking that just because you can't get the trade to your home node that colonizing is useless. You can collect Overseas for a tidy profit in a lot of situations, make deals with players to manage your colonial trade, etc... And even if you can't do these things, overseas land is useful for its own sake due to base income and being a place to put military buildings down on.


Let's go over what everyone knows about first - The New World.

Generally speaking, this is the domain of 'primary colonizers', aka England and Iberia. They'll seek to monopolize this part of the world, and depending on the amount of competition they have they may manage it. However, a grasp on a colonial Empire, especially early game, is not as tight as it may appear. By colonizing critical regions and contesting colonizers, you can put the squeeze on rivals and fatten your own purse... And getting a cut of colonial money sometimes doesn't involve setting foot in the New World at all.



Starting with North America, the trade from this region is going to go in one of two directions: Europe, towards Bordeaux and the English Channel, or towards the Polynesian Triangle and Asia. This means that it's completely viable for Japan or Malaya to pursue colonization of Mexico and California, and even parts of Canada, as it flows towards California.




The main nations with something to gain here are Sweden, Japan, Malaya, England, and France. Effectively, England ends up being the main power to head for gains in this region and usually ends up bullying others out.

I suggest that anyone trying to go for this region stay out of England's way. England doesn't have much better to do aside from push you around if you go into their natural claims in the 13 Colonies and Canada, but a deal for you to colonize something smaller such as Louisiana is possible, and if you colony-hop around the Americas to California, chances are you'll escape the notice of most colonizers.


The Caribbean is the heart of the New World. It stands at a critical pass between Mexico, South America, and the majority of North America. Assuming they play their cards right, whoever is in control of the Caribbean controls a LOT of the New World's trade flow.

The reason the Caribbean is so interesting is because it is a set of islands, which means control of them is dictated by the use of a navy. This is going to be a common theme throughout this section of the guide - Navy and Army are two different resource pools, and you don't always need to commit them in the same place. Even if a heated war back in Continental Europe is taking place, assuming you have naval superiority (or are at least able to contest), you can protect your overseas holdings.

Further, you don't need a commanding share of the provincial trade power in the Caribbean to have an impact, especially if you control a downstream node (Like Bordeaux). Due to the way trade flow works, if you simply pull trade back (Say, as France), you'll take a wildly disproportionate amount of money out. If Spain has to transport income from Mexico through the Caribbean, and you're pulling even 15% out? That's a considerable cut.

If you're looking to be even more of a nuisance, pirating the Caribbean is a great way to be roach. No, I'm not kidding - Get some Trade Ships, make sure you have some naval power to back it up, and pirate all day. Spain's mad at you? Make him pay you. He wants to declare war? Go ask England for coverage. You get declared war on? No big deal, just give up the Caribbean colonies and move on. Are they really going to turn this into an invasion of your homeland? Not likely.

Finally, you can also gain from not forming a colonial nation in the Caribbean in some circumstances. You can just grab a set of four islands, state it, and treat it like a part of the metropolitan homeland by developing it and putting buildings on it once everything else is developed back at home.

Keep an eye on the Caribbean and fight for a stake in it, if at all feasible. There's definitely gains to be had here, even if you don't totally monopolize it.


There isn't much to say about South America - Around half of it flows to the Caribbean, which is part of what makes that such a valuable place. South America is typically Castile and Portugal's stomping grounds, where they will build colonial nations to reap massive wealth with.

However... Unlike England's typical stronghold of North America, where the Thirteen Colonies either flow directly into them or into the North Sea, which might as well be an English lake, the proceeds of the good parts of Brazil and around half of Argentina have to go to the Ivory Coast to make it back to Iberia.


This presents a critical and under-exploited weakness in Iberia's colonial gameplan. (Cont.)

If you colonize or conquer centers of trade in the Ivory Coast, you can usually capture a portion of Iberia's colonial trade for yourself. Similarly, if you own a downstream node from the Ivory Coast, such as the English Channel, you can send a Merchant down which will give you some pull based on your home trade power. There really isn't much to lose by sending a colonist or two down to grab the trade centers, at the very least.

That wraps up my commentary on the New World. Now, let's get to the interesting part - The rest of the world.


Whenever you're conquering in these regions, you'll have a choice: Trade Companies or States?

Both are good, depending on your goals. If you want to extract manpower and force-limit from the provinces, stating them will probably be better, at the cost of more governing capacity and less trade pulling. If you want money, Trade Companies are generally better. You should also hand at least one province to a trade company no matter what to buy trade company upgrades - For example, the one giving +5 FL is really good.

Another thing to consider is if you can stack Minimum Autonomy in Territories (for example, from Expansion ideas or being Economic Hegemon), Trade Companies will generally be better due to the savings on governing cost along with getting higher than usual benefit. In fact, because the Trade Company buildings are designed to be useful at very high autonomy levels, modifiers that reduce Minimum Autonomy in Territories will make them even better.

If you have enough provinces to have a >51% share of the provincial trade in a trade company region, handing the trade company the centers of trade and a few other provinces can give you a merchant, which is great.


Depending on your slotting, mod, and diplomatic situation, Africa presents some interesting opportunities.

Technically, Africa is one continent. However, there's multiple locations where inhabited areas are split by wasteland, terra incognita, uncolonized land, or narrow corridors that are a nuisance to get through when defended. As such, in most games, it behaves a lot like an island. This means carving out a slice of Africa for yourself can be a great strategy.

Unlike the New World, though, this land isn't going to be -entirely- free. Players are often slotted in Africa in larger games. On the flip side: Most of the lobby's really good players will usually want to play in Europe, and the countries in Africa are often not that strong, especially later in the game.

Going overseas to kill someone in this region can pay off, but it can also backfire. Whenever there's a big European war raging, it can be worth it to ask yourself if you want to get involved...

... Or if it's time to board those transports and head to Africa. Let's review the best opportunities.


North Africa is the domain of the berbers, who will instantly come into conflict with Spain and the Italians over raiding them, as well as being a natural expansion path. A human Morocco will usually want to form Al-Andalus, which isn't conductive to Spain's survival.

Usually, Castile and Portugal will maul the Berbers to death and take their land. If you're playing an Italian, consider offering assistance in return for Tunisian land if you have nothing better to do. France can also look to get involved for a slice of the pie and can then defend it against the Spanish by the threat of a direct invasion. Otherwise, interfering too much in this region is going to expose you to Spain, who will usually want to consolidate.


West Africa is typically the next stop of Spain after they handle the Berbers, but not always. Sometimes, a strong Songhai can emerge here. West Africa can either serve as a colonial stomping ground, or a stopgap to prevent further intrusion into Africa by the Mediterranean Europeans. There's several gold-mines near Mali along with surprisingly devvable land (Savanna is only +15%), and the trade goods are excellent. Keep an eye on this region and consider making a move if the players here seem weak and you think you can take advantage.


Kongo is where the African opportunities start to get interesting. Kongo is connected to West Africa by a monsoon-prone (and thusly high attrition) couple of low-development jungle tile provinces, meaning invading it from that direction against any opposition is nothing short of complete agony. If a Kongo player is slotted here, they'll be playing a country with pretty weak ideas and units, especially as the game goes on. Kongo also possesses lots of excellent Grassland with only a minimal development cost penalty. If you can get control of Congo and fort it up, it can be a nice overseas possession that can be defended from your rivals pretty easily, assuming you have a decent relationship with whoever is to the East on the continent.


East Africa is an interesting region. Mutapa and Kilwa are chock full of gold mines, and are also heavily coastal. They usually don't have a strong navy, so blockading any players in this region into submission is a very achievable task. One of the most attractive and lowest cost investments in this region, though, is Madagascar - Which has a little over a hundred development in 1444, and good trade goods. If you can grab Madagascar, Malagasy culture is easily accepted. Then, you religiously convert it and put down buildings to your taste after stating it (or trade-companying it, your choice). Some Regimental Camps on this island and the land itself can easily propel you by 40 Force Limit or more... And the nice thing is, you only need some boats to defend it.

As a special note: Ile Bourbon and Mauritius, off the coast of Madagascar to the East, is a well-kept secret. Both of these provinces have 11 Development and no natives, meaning that colonizing them will give you 22 development of accepted culture. Now that's value, especially when combined with Madagascar! Who doesn't want 150 development in a nicely centralized location?


Finally, we come to South Africa, the most "natural" colonial area. Gold can spawn here, and Cape is 15 development. Grabbing this region is a fine option as a continental European power, or if you're planning an invasion of Africa at large, it's a good staging area. Notably, South Africa is a chokepoint for trade coming from Asia, so expect anyone else following an imperialistic strategy to have their eyes on it. Controlling Madagascar and South Africa makes for a formidable power basis in this region.


The rest of Africa (such as Ethiopia) is a little too close to major powers, such as the Ottomans and Mamluks, to be a viable target for overseas adventurism, most of the time. Still, always be looking for opportunities.

Next up: Asia!

Finally, we come to Asia, perhaps the most lucrative of all colonial prospects. Unlike America and Africa, domestic competition here is going to be fierce. Asian countries are usually pretty strong and capable of resisting you, and will often band together to do so if you look too threatening. However, a colonizer with a keen eye for weakpoints can set up a base of operations in Asia, regardless of what the locals want.



Let's start by talking about India.


India, depending on your lobby, is going to be in one of two states: Unified and impenetrable, or perpetually on fire for two hundred years. Frankly, there's little in-between, and it's up to how the area is slotted by the host and how the players there behave.

Much like in real life, success in India is contingent upon the region being in a state of conflict. The most natural entry point is through Ceylon, where you can stage an invasion force to begin pushing into Southern India. This is usually a British move, but it can be viable for other Europeans in the right circumstance, especially working together. The gains to be had in India are tremendous; the trade is valuable and the land is very devvable.

Next, Southeast Asia.


Unlike India, this place is typically going to be united under one or two tags. The trade isn't very easy to make use of, unless you're already conquered India. Finally, there's nowhere to establish a foothold and the terrain is nightmarish and filled with high-attrition jungles and monsoons. Unless you're looking for an experience much like America and France had in Vietnam in the 1960s, I suggest steering clear of this place.


The Spice Islands, Australia, Philippines, and Indonesia stand uncontested as the best land you can get in Asia. Rich in development, possessing incredible trade value, devvable land, and completely defendable with a navy that will be more than funded by holding it in the first place, these islands should be the apex goal of anyone looking to have an overseas colonial Empire. The main obstacle is, of course, any players in the region. However, if they aren't given a lot of time to consolidate, they're usually vulnerable to a rush in the early 1500s, especially if you bring a friend. There's more than enough land here to split between two or three countries.

If Britain gets their hands on this place and knows what they're doing, they'll be basically impossible to beat navally for the rest of the game.


You're a psychopath if you try to grab China, because everyone else in mainland Asia is going to want it too. It's an OK next step if you have the spice islands, but it's just too hot in general. Grabbing Taiwan is alright.


Finally, we come to Japan. Japan is underrated as a colonial conquest. It's on the other side of the planet from Europe, so it takes a lot of effort to even get over here in the first place; Japan probably won't be expecting you, and other Europeans are rarely going to go through the effort to intervene or take land for themselves. Japan is a lot like Great Britain - It's an island nation with a good navy and devvable land. The downside is that Japan is going to fight really hard, and it's easy for an island invasion to go horribly wrong. Still, this is a high-reward play, if you can pull it off. I suggest invading Hokkaido (The northern island), assaulting any fort on the strait, and punching your way in with mercenaries that you can recruit on the island.

Bet you weren't expecting this section.

Normally, conquering overseas possessions is the domain of Europeans - However, there's no reason you can't flip the script on them as an Asian country, such as Malaya or Japan. Europe is typically very divided, but also filled with strong countries, meaning that landing on the mainland is rarely a good idea. However, a few opportunities should stick out that are worth considering.


The first and most obvious is the British Isles. England's position is the envy of the entire globe, possessing a strong domestic heartland in an amazing trade-node that can be developed. However, not all Englands are created equal, and sometimes even a good England player can make a mistake and overextend. A full invasion of the Isles is usually a costly, lategame endeavor, and you should probably trucebreak England to finish it off if you win a war against it. Conquering the Isles and taking England's place is pretty much a guaranteed game-winning move.


Next, Scandinavia. People don't think of Scandinavia as being an island, but it kind of is. Your only neighbor is to the East. Secure that, and you're good to go.


The Mediterranean Islands, consisting of Sicily, Crete, the Baleares, and Corsica/Sardinia, can be a nice basket of development when taken as a group. Wait for their owners to be busy, then snipe it out from under them.

So, you've read this guide (congratulations! it's a long read), and now you want to apply the knowledge you've learned. How?

Simple: Do an Opener test on a country of your choice.

What's an Opener? Why do we do an Opener test?

An Opener is the set of moves you'll do at the start of the game to set your country up. Openers are very important because they set your tempo for the rest of the game, and establish compounding advantages that can last for the rest of the match. An Opener test is a simulation of this, done in a single-player test under a set of assumptions.

For example: Let's say we're testing France's opener. Here's our assumptions:

• England will sell me his land in France for 200 Gold
  
• I won't be going to war with Burgundy, Castile, or the HRE aggressively for the first 50 years.
  
• I will ally the Pope.
  
• I will take Economic Ideas and Quality Ideas

By using console commands, you can set up the rough 'test environment' you want to play in to see how your nation performs under the set conditions - For example, by having England give you the land in the war and developing France, white-peacing any random wars that are declared on you (aside from coalitions, which are a sign you did something wrong).

The purpose of testing your opener is to get a reasonable, accurate picture of what your match's first few years will probably be like. Consider recording your results and running multiple tests.

If you have excessively bad RNG (For example, getting a 0/0/0 King and Heir after your king dies day one, or multiple bad events), you can console command out of it to bring the sample back to a reasonable mean. This also goes for getting TOO good of a playthrough (Are you really going to have a 6/6/6 on the throne immediately...?). Just be careful not to interfere too much, or you'll ruin the sample's validity.

Another thing is that openers cannot account for player behavior, and you shouldn't consider data that involves beating up on AI to be valid. Feel free to prepare for a war against Burgundy as France, but executing the war and taking the AI's land doesn't mean anything, as a human is going to be far harder to defeat.

You can take Opener Testing pretty far to find the most optimal strategies. I suggest doing at LEAST one test so you aren't going in completely blind, especially if you're playing a major or a country that needs to do lots of wars to consolidate itself. The maximum I'd consider doing an opener is until 1500; anything past that point is hard to predict, and you're better off having a rough plan in your head and improvising.

I hope this guide is handy to someone. I know it's a LOT, but I encourage you to use it as a handbook and read the sections you need.

If you think I missed something, please comment below.

Thanks for reading!