EU4 1.34 Castile Guide - The MOST OP NATION For BEGINNERS 

What is the next nation that I should do a guide about? Leave a comment here and join The Discord to chat with me: discord.gg/ksDjjUhKHd Check out more nation guides here: ru-vid.com/group/PLsO8A6cTBgguX6W3b2j-9IlbSHn2nR8wO

23:04 omg hawk, the confidence when you said exploration got me

One tip for getting the Navarra vassalization is to only do things to them that they can't do to you, so don't ally or royal marry them. Your first month (literally day 1) should be to improve relations with them, month 2 guarantee them so they take up a diplo slot. This will cause them to try and ally you, and once they're your ally they'll try and royal marry you too, meaning you're 2 months ahead in terms of relations, almost guaranteeing the vassalization. Also, my personal strategy for the first war is to build a spy network on Morocco once you have Navarra vassalized and claim either a province in north Morocco or in the south near your island which allows you to declare on them rather than Granada, which means you can seperate-peace Granada, then take the expel option to force-convert them before taking "convert andalusia" to get the perma-claims on north Morocco, allowing you to take those provinces in the first war cheaply (you could also take some of the coast near your islands in the south, but that's hard to defend). A good thing to keep in mind if you choose to not expel the Moriscos is that manual conversion has a trap event in it, where all the provinces convert back to Sunni and you get a rebellion because of it, I barely ever see these events mentioned. I think it can be avoided if you're at war? But I can't remember the exact conditions. I personally hate the colonial border-gore that results from Portugal colonizing too, but you can easily avoid the issues with the restoration of union mission by just not taking the Navarra mission until you're ready, all that mission does is put a fort in Navarra after all. But during the Portugal war, I take Ceuta and the islands from them just because even that bordergore is annoying to me. If you get lucky during the Portugal war, you can also take the two Gascon provinces from England, allowing you to release Gascony which leads to some easy wars with France later (If you're REALLY lucky and feeling super spicy you can try and release Normady too to basically completely cripple France for the rest of the game) A surprisingly good ally for castile in the REALLY early game is Tlemcen. If you ally them as early as possible then you can have enough favours when the Granadan truce ends to call them in to the war, but don't do it yet, wait until you have occupied all of the Granadan land THEN call them in, their navy will handily destroy the combined Moroccan/Granadan/Tunisian navy along with yours, if Tunis is in the war then you should aim for as long a truce as possible with them (as Tlemcen will share this truce) which means you can lose the alliance and attack them after 5 years without Morocco or Tunis partitioning them as they usually do. Also, a good strategy for fighting the AI's navy in the Granada/Morocco/Tunis war is the cycle strat, put your navy in the southernmost province, next to gibraltar, it takes 1 day to leave or dock there from the sea tile meaning you can easily retreat from any engagement there. Fight navies until you see one of your boats be highlighted in red in the battle, then retreat and repair, the enemy will likely keep their navy out to blocade and therefore not repair meaning you can just slowly chip away at them with what is effectively a fresh navy every couple months. This also allows for some early-game naval tradition farming, which is useful as it increases your trade steering, meaning more money from other trade nodes. Another thing that I barely see mentioned is the holy order mechanic that Iberian cultures have, for instance, it's far better to dev La Mancha to 9 then use the diplo holy order to get it to 10, as it only costs 50 mana and also gives 1 in production to the rest of the provinces in the state too, so you spend less mana on more dev. It can also be useful if you want to convert your north african conquests and you have admin mana to spare as full-coring them then using the religious unity edict and the admin mana holy order is an extra 4.5% missionary strength (2% from being a full core, 1% from the edict and 1.5% from the order). Obviously this is if you need some provinces converted ASAP (like the Tafilalt gold mine, ensuring that province remains as loyal as possible is a high priority). If you want to burn even MORE admin points, you can then de-state the province and re-state it to take a different order (though this does remove the dev from the previous order iirc)

Castile is the first ever nation I played in EU4 years ago, and being relatively stable even for such a complex game I felt like riding a bike that somehow kept going without me falling off for some miraculous reason, I will never forget that feeling, like "I'm not in control of anything, but somehow it's going" 😀

You should consider giving Navarra-as-PU vizcaya and the other province in that state, then basically shoving their claim/core missions. They get a huge chunk of France as claims this way, and as a PU you can feed them all of it with no worries about liberty desire.

Having a pu over navara can be very useful to expand into France without expending admin points. The Bordeaux trade node doesn't really help Castile / Spain, but having a strong PU subject does. PUs can also become empires, meaning that Navarra would have an easy time making a cultural union over all of the territory of France. IIRC, it also has very strong missions. BudgetMonk has a guide on PUs for those interested in the details

I am convinced that Red Hawk just simply likes playing Castille and portrays it as a guide

This is the 7th guide in 1.34 (which is when I came back after not playing for a year) that you've put out right AFTER I finished a run with the country the guide focuses on😭

Didn't you say in your last Castile guide to wait till 1450 to disinherit Enrique so you can get the Isabel event?

Is also worth mentioning that if you vassalize granada you can get ceuta for free (by asking to retunr core from portugal via favors) and getting a trade center in it

Would love a revised Provence guide. It seems like under 1.34 France is always hostile towards you and ends the alliance within a couple of months, this changes the opening by quite a bit.

TheRedHawk please make a guide for Austria in the new 1.34 update Continue with the good work :D

Great to see an update for Castile, Iberian games are so much fun to play. Thanks for the video.

"So, Exploration Ideas is your first idea." Simply takes Expansion Ideas

Time for your yearly Castile guide Yes dear

What DLCs are you using? You have some options that i dont have (i have no dlcs)

If your going to focus on beginner guides, I'd love to see an updated one for Ming. Great video for content but it does go a bit fast for a beginner (I have 7600+ hours in and I still found it fast). Going to send the video to my brother who keeps saying he should play, I'll just chat with him while he's playing to fill in the details.

Ty for this guide, I did ask for a lovely little beginner guide!

Disown Enrique before granting Patronage of the Arts; you'll get an extra 10 prestige by doing it in that order. Otherwise, a great guide!

I've put a Habsburg on Castille as Austria without giving up low countries with other requirements the same.

I think that junior partners can actually get exploration ideas now. I remember hearing something about it in the 1.34 patch notes or something and it DID happen in my game as Castile. Can someone confirm this?

I'd love to see a Granada guide

I would also suggest taking Labourd or Bordeaux from England to release Gascony. They have plenty of cores you can reconquest from France, permanently crippling them for the rest of the game.

Do I need a DLC to slacken recruitment standards?? I cant find it anywhere

Although I can't keep up with this new damn AI that is far better of a player than I am.

This is so fast! I'm watching at .75 speed and still constantly pausing or dragging back

Just finished my "golden" achievement run, lot of fun, got lucky with a pu overa very chunky commonwealth, but it was strange seeing all of the GP list being non european (i basically had all of europe) if i was more aggressive mid game couldve probably finally got wc, but ah well

Brand new player here. I wish you didn't just breeze over the war against granada, since on my end it was not very simple at all. I easily took control of all their territory, but that only got me 21% war score. It looks like I will now either have to march my army into Africa to attack Granada's allies or wait several years until they surrender, the only problem is I am now running low on money and the Castile Civil war event is about to start...

If you disinherit the heir then take patronage of the arts you get more prestige

Finally glad to see a new guide on this nation

Hawk I think a really fun series would be an achievement hunter series. There are so many achievements for the this game that I think you could get a lot of interesting videos from it.

My first playthrough ever was Castile back in 2015, managed to PU Bohemia and Russiaa. Ah, good times man, good times indeed..

Also if England holds Labourd and Navarra is your subject and they have a core there, make England return Labourd to Navarra since it's just a free province that othevise goes to France

Right of the start (I am commenting this is the few first minutes), I never married with Portugal as castile, as my logic was that I will PU them in the war after I conquer Granada and PU aragon (Having a royal marriage and declaring takes your stability and cancelling a royal marriage hurts your overall prestige and stuff)

You should pick patronize of the arts AFTER you deshinirited Enrique, so your hit on prestige is less strong

This is just a hunch but I think for first colony Cape Verde is technically the better choice since it and Arguin share a sea zone so thus the extra distance to Arguin is just extra distance required to get into the actual sea zone thus slightly reducing your colonial range. Unless it changes any important values like if you can reach some of the trade centers in the Carribean or Ivory coast with the third idea of exploration though it doesnt matter and just comes down to personal preference. I like Cape Verde more since it's an island which Arguin technically shares but I like the clean islandness of Cape Verde more.

Good video keep op the good work😂❤

Castile was the First Nation I played. Good old memories

a provence guide focused on how to get the king renee achievement would be really nice

Had Portugal immediately guarantee the independence of Grenada in 2 back to back games. I restarted both times. But hey, I got Navarra both times....woo..

I am very new at this game and I just need some clarification about the trade advisor and how it works. When the cursor is on the trade advisor it says: "...allocating the right number of merchants to where the most suitable trade routes exists." I had been watching youtube videos about trade. So, am I to understand with this trade advisor that I do not need to do any work myself in sorting out the trade? That I do not need to figure out what to do with the merchants whether to collect trade or where to send them becasue the trade advisor is handling all apsects?

how do you make the map look like that / what mod do you use for the visuals

Great video!

I dont have naval traditions or an option to slacken in my military menu. Which dlc is required for those options

I don't have the same quest as he does, what DLC do they come from?

For a beginner guide it isn't very friendly. Everything moves too quickly and the reason for doing things is never explained.

You skipped a step. How do I select the naval doctrine? I can’t find it in the military tab.

What’s a decent priced labtop that can handle this game? My current labtop can only play EU3

I get stuck in a loop because if I build my army up my economy gets screwed and if I don’t my partners will break away

Oh yea, I love when Morocco occupies Ceuta, makes it real easy.

I allied with the Pope before following the Portugal guide. Then I got dragged into his completely hopeless war with France.

Roman Empire guide pls

Hello, i do not have the option to remove my Heirs and i dont start with the same heirs as you i only have Juan II and Enrique. I do not have the queen

So no more waiting after 1450 for Isabel event?

Will you do new guides in 1.35 for France, Moscovy and Castille? Seems they are going to be rebuild

How do you do all this stuff without going bankrupt? I have tried this multiple times and I always drown in loans that I can’t get out from.

Now??? Now that I'm mid campaing?

A nice long guide :)

I followed the guide from start and now i am in debt for 12 loans of 141 each... granada was not giving up so had to conquer tunez to get all granada

I would like to see a guide for the best beginner nation in India.

"Exploration ideas" 🤫

I was able vassalize Navarra most of time on my restarts before Aragon does. "I was trying to RM Burgundy" Just a fyi.

It is far better being ally with Aragón that doing It with Portugal. If Aragón rival you then then PU It is harder to hold because they were former rival Also if you wait after getting Granada an event will pop up with a desicion to hire Torquemada and convert all to for free, after you can activate the mision and get a free stab

excuse me did I just see you use your mouse to drag the map around?? wtf how do u do that? I've been using my arrow keys for 3000 hours

Do I need any DLC to say use company's or develop states?

i can't do like 33% of any of this because i don't have dlc :(

I wish there was a part two to this one

Please make a no dlc guide for Castile.

Which mods are your using for you graphics?

well don't know how you doing it, but im not able to get warscore for granada, im always getting morocco and tunis as granada allies, and army of 26k is not enough even with 17k army of portugal

Beloozero guide when? :)

Seeing the provinces of Granada become part of a trade company instead of cores is so cursed

Anyone an Idea if you play Aragon and PU castille how you can get Granada for the Alhambra monument? i am now already Sardinia piedmont going towards italy but still want that province :/

What mods are you using? good video btw

Tried to be sneaky with the part titles huh hawk?

Is it fine that I am losing money after the granda war

592 day siege for one Granada province, that’s with blockade and blasting a breach 🙃

Some tips for anyone following this guide: don’t take the advisor cost reduction estates privilege until after the civil war and cobeligerate Morocco in war against Granada for some easy North African land.

21:43 I wish I knew it before yesterday. Of the slmost 1000 hours i have in the game (I spent over a 100 hours in restarts for various campaigns just to PU burgundy). I was always wondering why burgundy chooses some hre minor (that they have royal marriage with) or the emperor/France (both of which they're rivaled to) ove ne, even though I have 100 trust and 200 relations.

If I haven't had the Iberian Wedding by 1478 and all heirs and rulers are male, should I just invade Aragon?

Do you need all the DLC? Last time I played Castile, my nation collapsed at the beginning and I lost. It really killed my drive to even learn EU4

what mod are you using for the map

Sadly this guide doesn't work if you dont have some dlcs which looking at the prices of the respective dlcs makes this not really suitable for beginners

why my advisors are different?

Did anyone else notice that he didn't state the Granada provinces?

I don't think this guide works really well for 1.35 ottomans patch. I tried following along with starting moves but the Infantes of Aragon rebellions start pretty early in my game for some reason with huge pretender rebel stacks in 1445 september

i dont get why these games insist in using the name Hispania as a nation when it never existed as such it was a roman province, nothing more than that. it should be Iberia not Hispania

What about a 1.34 guide for Poland? 👀

tfw you make country guides for the same country like three times in two years tfw game mechanics ostensibly change enough that its totally warranted

Why dont you dev la mancha for renaissance to 30 İt would make more sense in every way Giving you early gold income and sparing monarch points because you dont need to dev la mancha and your capital

Top comment is by a bot and all responses are by bots lmaoo

Why you don't delete forts?

PLEASE DO SCOTLAND!

i’m so lucky i didn’t even have to fight the civil war

Can spmeone count how many times he mentioned Granada?

what if portugal Gurantee Granada? been my case in 3 try outs

It's a great video so far, but you move around the map with your cursor so quickly that it's difficult for a newbie to follow you. When you start talking about building a navy, for instance, the viewer never sees where you are clicking to actually go to the Naval Units tab, so I'm sitting here for the last ten minutes constantly rewinding that part to try to see where that tab is. I had to move on to another tutorial. Sorry.

Hawk, you can form USA with 1.34

Actually at this point this game can go f*ck itself i have tried following guides and buying some DLCs but its never enough. I can never follow the guides because there is always 100 things missing. Im done and i wouldnt recommend the game unless u got plenty of money and time to spend before being able to MAYBE enjoy the game...

man i come back after i failed while trying this guide (bankruptcy) and keep checking the money on your game it is still in minus in 1462 which means you renewed and maybe took more loans after 18 years from the first indebted to burgers. i think one of the most annoying thing when you begin playing this game is fucking money. a big country like castille can create a land unit with its 2-3 months of income which is fucking insane. I am not a newbie about strategy games but new on eu4 so i try to make my best but while trying to survive and catch up with the other big nations money is always a problem. this my 2 campaign which goes bankrupt after colonialism and it is fkn annoying. it would be much nicer if you would talk about your economy while doing other stuff in this video cause that's only thing i wonder