What I learned from ryukyu: -Dont split your armies too far -Make small 10 or 20 stacks to kill rebels -Always ally Ming if you are near Ming -Make sure you dont get too powerful to make sure Ming dont rival you
Having succeeded in a Mandate of Heaven Ryukyu-WC I have a few observations to contribute: 1) You are absolutely right concerning absolutism making the game easier. I had to use my Golden Era during the Court and country Disaster to get a +20 max absolutism from "local power crushed" but it was worth it. 2) While Confucianism (which i went for to become Emperor of China) is decent enough for your nation (Tolerance +5 everywhere and -0.5 global unrest on top) i wouldn't recommend it as a WC religion since the religions you harmonized with dont translate to CNs or Client states making it necessary to police them (Client States somewhat counter this with their ideas but it's still a bit flimsy). Given enough time they will harmonize eventually but were talking about 80-100 years since AI starts harmonizing only after reaching 100% harmony. If I wanted to stay in the Eastern religion group I would propably go Shinto for the morale boost) if I had to do it again. 3) Becoming Emperor of China is a double edged sword. On one side you get -20% core costs with the decree and the celestial reform and easier admin score on your rulers saving you a ton of admin (and important to note CCR also reduces core time which admin eff. does not making you stay at high overextension shorter). As a bonus, at 100 mandate (which is easy enough to reach) you get -2.5 global unrest. You do have two significant downsides however: - You must be in the eastern religion group, excluding you from most of the game's best religion (i tried Confucianism, see 2) ) - With the elimination of Legitimacy and the fixed government type your max absolutism goes down. I had the "Court and Country" disaster fire on purpose to increase max absolutism but since you can only get the best outcome at 65 absolutism or more i had to burn my golden age just to satisfy this demand since default i only have 65 (base) + 5 (govt rank) + 5 (religious unity) +5 (great power) -20 (modifier for the disaster) = 60 max absolutism, going up to 65 during a golden age. Since the best resolution of the disaster gives you +20 max absolutism for the rest of the game and you can still conquer while the golden age is going on (i turned it on a month before end and then "Harsher Treatmented" some rebels and after i feel its worth using the golden age at this point. 4) At the end I had way more time than I had imagined. Seing that 1700 I "only" had 12k development (and looking at the map seeing so many places still to conquer) I feared the worst and micromanaged the shit out of everything, leading to me getting the achievement in 1780 (onetag at 1785) Great video and thanks for your well reasoned analysis. Will you try out "MEIOU & Taxes 2.0"?
Interesting stuff On your second point, babysitting vassals and CS's is pretty much par for the course. I did plenty of that in this run. I feel religion would make little difference in this instance because CS's are bad at converting anyways. On your third point, the fact that the have trouble getting over the threshold for the disaster is something I hadn't thought about. There might be some "unconventional" ways of fixing that though. Additionally, there would be some really cool things you could do if you could keep the Empire of China without being a Celestial Empire. I feel it's theoretically possible, but I haven't found a way to make it happen yet. Congrats on your run! Also, I have MEIOU on my short term to-do list. It's fourth in line at this point, and it's something I really want to cover.
You can be Pagan as well as far as know (and I hope this is right, haven't tried to take on Ming yet). I went for Tengri + Humanism. Hindu as syncretic faith and I may switch to Shinto later. You have no unrest and no rebels. It's 1575 and I had no rebels so far. You don't need to increase autonomy, regardless of religion and you can decrease it, when separatism is gone. Your CNs will be Tengri as well. When you feed them with other nations colonies or natives, they just syncretize the religion and they will have no unrest problems. Should work with Client States as well.
Great videos - helps a lot to better understand the game. Made me try France world conquest and realize how monotonous it can get xD So far you have become my favourite EU4/Paradox youtuber, you deserve more subscribers.
Thanx for the inspiration. Just finished my Ryukyu WC which was actually my first WC. What a pain but now that it is done it feels sooo good :-) Your videos sure helped
Great video as always! I have about 1500 hours in EU4 and my one big set back is Mercs I never know when or how to efficiently use mercs, especially with institutions costing so much and the cost mercs being increased dramatically in the latest patch. I find myself always taking Quantity early on (1st or 2nd idea group) so i only need to use mercs in rare situations. I feel this is really inefficient. I would love it if you would cover this is a military guide video. I love your videos. Keep up the good work!
Generally speaking in unit management you have to be flexible and shrink/expand your armies as you need them. Assuming you have one 12 squad army as your whole army at the start. I would say 2-4 mercs. As war goes on and your manpower pool got depleted just build more merc and consolidate regular army. After war you can drop some mercs if you are running deficit and rebuild units. Maybe the good rule of thumb is, if you can afford, build more mercs. Definitely build more if your manpower pool goes too low.
I like to use 10 to 20 percent mercs in early game to supplement manpower, if my economy can handle it. By late game (1650 and on) I find myself only using mercs for infantry and building cannons from manpower, due to cost. It helps manage the budget because cannons don't generally use manpower (unless something goes wrong and they end up on the font line in battle). After 1600 I don't use cav at all, and I get away from cav ASAP in a weaker economy nation. Let me follow that advice up by saying I am by no means GREAT at this game, but it works for me.
In the second video I posted a diagram (i.imgur.com/fpPFdSW.png) that showed the relationship between money and manpower. Mercs are the best tether between those two resources, and primarily serve as a medium of exchange between the two. Hence, the amount of mercs you should be using is predicated on your manpower situation relative to your money situation. If you're a rich Italian minor with little manpower, you'll want to use lots of mercs. On the other hand, if you're Russia with quantity ideas you can just zergrush your foes with conscripts and you might need any mercs. Ideally, you'll balance mercs vs regular troops enough to where your money and manpower would run out at the same time
Two more additions, in case they were not clear. You should only hire Infantry mercs, there is not difference in who mans the canon but mercs canon cost a bunch more and lastly try not not get stack wiped or consolidate since recruiting troops is more expensive then refilling them.
Your content is top notch. Do you have a patreon, or have you considered it? It might be incentive to devote more time to the content we all crave, and also help pay you for your (fantastic) efforts. Just thoughts. As far as EU4 goes, I would LOVE a rev target vid. I would love a video on client states bc I'm just not all that familiar with them. Also, HRE is always interesting, no matter which HRE power you're playing.... maybe do some strats on HRE nations such as Brandenburg, Bohemia, Milan, or Austria? One more question. I have CK2 but haven't touched it yet. There are SO many awesome looking Paradox games. Which would you suggest I try next?
Hey, really love your videos, especially "An in-depth Guide to"! Can you do in-depth guide Tax and Production (basically, overall economy aka "where ducats come from")? Your explanations are the best so far on youtube.
> *drops phone after seeing his video* > *can't pick it up to watch the video because he'd have to drop it again* > *stuck in an infinite loop of taking the phone, seeing the video and dropping it to the floor again*
A compiler would just ignore the fact that he didn't drop the phone as the phone is already dropped and would proceed to watch the video. It's as if you've got an IF condition that is already completed, it would just keep on going.
I had a harder time doing that than the Ryuku WC tbh. It's easier to dominant the Eastern world one country at a time and snowball from there, then it is to get a foothold in Europe as Byzantium, and then fight all off Europe, usually facing alliances that are stronger than you. The thing that some people don't pay as much attention to is that snowballing is much easier in third-world regions than it is in Europe, usually.
Hi Reman, greetings and thank you for your guides and tipps around Eu4. I really like to watch them and learn more about the game, even after 1000 Hours of playtime. I wanted to ask you if you cold produce a (short) Video about Sucession in general (Especially the math between RM and Rivals) And talk about the Burgundian Sucession in Detail, explaining who can get it and to which chance. Thx and have a nice day. :)
Awesome videos, please keep going! One question: What's your opinion on culture conversions? I just did the Mare Nostrum achievement and the brazillion of different rebel groups were super annoying but the number of cultures I can accept is too limited. Did you do any culture conversions in your Three Mountains game?
Question: How do you place your light ships most efficiently, for a medium or large empire? And no, this was not answered in the trade videos. I don't think they will pay back their cost if you put all of them in one node, and the tooltip you hover over is misleading or outright lying about how much they will earn you.
The more trade power you have in a node, the less impactful each additional increase in trade power becomes. Hence, spamming light ships in a node where you already control 80%+ is almost never a good idea. It's much more efficient to use ships to transfer in nodes where you don't have much power. Ideally, they'll be transferring one hop into a node you have almost entirely locked down. Unfortunately this is the best rule of thumb I can give you, because there are lots of variables to consider. For example, you'd generally want more trade power in richer nodes, but richer nodes also tend to have a greater total trade power meaning you'd need a bigger increase to see the same percent effect. For example, I'd rather control half of a 50 ducat node than half of a 5 ducat node, but if the 50 ducat node has 10000 trade power from other nations and the 5 ducat node has 10 trade power from other nations then it makes much more sense to send ships to the poorer node. When you realize that these numbers are constantly shifting I feel it takes too much effort to figure out the most efficient option. Hence, I usually just park my ships in nodes that seem "good enough". Doing that really makes me wish Paradox would fix the value tooltip on the protect trade mission, as I'd like to trade efficiently but I'm not going to bust out spreadsheets every few minutes. But there is some good news! You probably don't have to learn how to place light ships effectively at all because I'm fairly certain they're inferior economic investments compared to buildings. I've only done a preliminary analysis, but from what I've discovered so far light ships seem to be really bad compared to temples and marketplaces. Doing a full analysis of trade ships vs buildings is a video idea I have on the long-term to-do list.
Reman's Paradox I also find building manufactures (plantations, trade houses, etc.) very good in mid to late game, as you get the production value and the node becomes richer which may bring in a lot of money if you have a large control over it. However the are quite pricey and are not as good for cheap goods like grain.
Can you do a general fort positioning guide please? Even though your zone of control video is very good when I try to plan my fort placement I still don't quite know how I should place them properly.
*EU3 nostalgia intensifies* Closest I ever got to wc was in eu3 when I played Timurids, formed Mughals and had nearly conquered all of Asia when the save got corrupted... It was only like 1680 too ;-;
I see you have lots of 40ish stacks in the late game, what's your ideal army comp? I usually go for 15,6,9 for 30 stacks but I'm not sure if that is good or whatnot
I'm currently playing a coptic game with the ottomans. I got 4 bonuses, but no missionaries for that. Did they remove the missionaries one gets for holy sites? Or did i misunderstand you? On Euiv wiki there's nothing about it...
Hi, you do amazing videos! I have question: Did you ever do a world conquest with brandenburg? I struggle in the first 200 years to become powerfull enouth to fight wars on my own..(often the ennemies have to many allies) Then I become pretty powerfull, but it seems to late to do a world conquest (became an Empire in 1710). Any tips? Thanks in advance.
A big part of the point of these videos is that it is almost never too late to conquer the world. As long as you are the most powerful nation in the world and there's a century left, you have a chance. Whether or not you'll be able to depends on your skill, and maybe a bit of luck.
I have 2 other questions for religious strats since as a Catholic you gain papal influence by converting provinces , In a WC is it better for you to abuse the diplo rep and mercantlisim or the stab increase aka most monarch point worth of things per papal influence 2.As a confucian nation is it better for you to conquer one province of a religion harmonize it and then go on to take out the whole group or is it better to do the same strat but on to two or more religious groups so you spread the AE
For a Catholic WC, the real standout feature is an on-demand supply of stability. The other bonuses are nice, but free stab means you can truce break pretty much whenever you want. Both strategies are viable. Spreading out AE is easier but slower, whereas concentrating on one religious group + truce juggling is riskier but faster.
Question: is the game easier with the expansions, or without? I've heard that Art of War and Common Sense are necessary, but I don't know what they mean by that.
They've added a fair amount of the expansion features to the base game, for instance development. So the gap is smaller than before, but there are still a lot of very powerful regional mechanics added with DLCs. One example is Timurids with Dharma.
Since the Philippines (especially Manilla) is controlled by a nation right now (1.24.1) it's hard to get going. What would you advise to do since you can't really beat all the nations in the Philippines in the beginning because you are so weak compared to all the nations there.
In my runs with any country the overextension really slows me down because of nasty events and separatism. Is there a way to deal with this? Because I can't conquer India and crush revolts in Africa at the same time.
I think he meant the fact that you have queens that will be generated upon a royal marriage. this will prevent a regency upon the death of a heirless monarch.
I never understood the PU mechanic in eu4. I can only get them when they are scripted or as Austria who has a ton of dip rep. How do PUs form and how they can be encouraged to form?
I don't really understand them completely either. I have heard of people inheriting or PUing other countries just by having a royal marriage or same dynasty, yet when I was playing Castille I claimed the Argonese throne and their king died with no heir yet I got no PU (also, plz don't make fun of me for doing that, I hadn't understood the Iberian wedding yet).
the easiest way to PU a country is his ruler (that is of your dynasty) dying without an heir. If that happens, you immediately have the target country under a PU though another country can contest that PU and declare a succession war. If that other country wins the succession war he gets the PU, not you. (why do they declare a succession war if they don't have the same dynasty as the target country? I don't know). Another way is his ruler (that is of your dynasty) has no heir. In that case, you can claim the throne of the target country and declare a war with the Restoration of Union CB. If you have around 65% war score, you may PU the country with a special option in the peace screen. That's all I know
Thanks. Is there any way to increase chances of my dynasty spreading through royal marriages or is it pure luck? Cause when I played as Austria it seemed like Habsburgs had spread everywhere.
I get requests for a PU explanation a lot. It's on my medium term to-do list. I think it'll make for a good video because there's tons of weird tiny little details and oddball strats you can use. Until then, some basic tips are to spam royal marriages to countries with old rulers, take diplo ideas so you can freely break RM's, and understand that it's all a game of chance so you'll want to cast your net wide.
If you go through with a PU video, I suggest drawing on some information from these sources imgur.com/a/Yet9C forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/guide-to-royal-marriages-personal-unions-and-claim-throne.788829/ Both carry the same information, one is in image form. Maybe also include information about starting PU opportunities and specific PU related events ( Austria: has opportunity to get PU over Bohemia, Hungary, and Burgundy. Castille: Aragon & Naples. France [and maybe other nations] over Provence. Any nation over Serbia [I think they start with a 63 or so year old Despot and no heir, PU'd them in my Aragon game]) and Burgundian inheritance. Just some suggestions, but keep at whatever your working on, your videos are great!
I'd suggest you do the Mega-England strat in a Nation Spotlight. Basicallt, the strat is that you ally Austria and Burgundy, and marry them. Castile or Aragon are good choices as well, but marrying Burgundy is the most important. Exceed your relations limit by allying electors. When the Surrender of Maine event fires, call everyone in against France and PU them in the war. Support loyalists in France to reduce liberty desire and keep a diplomat there at all times. Annex some Irish minors and Brittany. By the time you're done with this, you should be able to become Emperor. Make sure you still have a royal marriage with Burgundy. If you can PU Castile before this, do it. Anyway, break your alliance with Burgundy and steamroll them. Occupy everything they have and keep them at 100% warscore until the Burgundian Inheritance fires. Since you have France in a PU and since you are the Emperor, you are very likely to receive the Burgundian lands. Half of the lands always goes to France anyways. The Royal Marriage with Burgundy increases your chance of receiving the Low Countries. If you can PU Castile you are almost guaranteed to get the Inheritance, since Castile has a chance of this as well. Voila! You now control England, the Low Countries and France before 1500!
well the positive is that you get alot of missionaries for holding holy sites (like Jerusalem and mekka) in retrospect to a lot of other religions (where the extra missionaries are actually limited) this makes a lot easier.
yeah true that is indeed a disadvantage. catholic and sunni (that one im not quite sure) are likely easier. but the fact that you have 7 missionaries makes thing a lot easier.
When it comes to 1700+ in a WC and you're going to start conquering Europe, are there are techniques so you don't end up with a massive coalition spanning the whole continent that takes ages to burn through?
A coalition can be countered with a few tricks: Trucetimers: only a nation that could declare war can join a coalition. if they have a truce (either from your last war or from "threaten war" or "break alliance" they cant join. That way you can attack their non troce-blocked friends giving them an even longer truce during which the first truce runs out and you can attack them. Alliances: If you have an open relations slot you can ally a country in europe and kill them last after you could defeat all others combined. Also a coalition won't spawn afaik if they would be too weak compared to you. that way you can avoid getting one after having broken europe during the "cleanup"
Europe never got close to a coalition in this run because I had -45% AE from ideas, tons of BRoT bonuses, and Admin Eff. In other runs European coalitions might be a problem. If that's the case, there's two tips: 1. Learn how to truce juggle 2. Kill Europe last. It starts with tons of tiny little tags all over the place that make truce juggling quite difficult. Many of them die off over time, and having resources from the rest of the world will make conquest much easier.
republics suck no rms, pus, also i have a tendency of getting amazing leaders late in the game i keep getting good leaders and monarchy's have good events and rights of man almost mitigate regencies. absolutism is one of my most favorite mechanics in eu4 it rewards lowering autonomy and dumping mil points into things which means in the late game not taking too many military idea groups is a great thing and even focusing mil until you get max absolutism is important. you need to get absolutism as high as possible as FAST as possible which means doing everything you can to get it.
With a republic you can raise that absolutism really quick from all your excess monarch points with a 6/6/6 leader but with a non empire republic absolutism has a very low maximum. In my Prussia game I actually switched to a republic though (didn't have DLC for Prussian government back then) after integrate my Muscovy PU junior. Noble and Dutch republics can have royal marriages (and even get PUs I've heard) right? I like absolutism but the update made the state limit much more restricting for large blob powers. I'm also kind of new to EU4 (been playing for maybe 4 months now) and have been loving it, the new patch is good. And about good leaders late game, my Prussian Monarchs were garbage, my French queens (which I had more of than kings I think) were pretty good, and my Ottoman emporers (without dlc for otto gov or disinherit, which are absurdly strong together and even better now with absolutism) were good so I mostly agree with you. It can also just get annoying dealing with electing and leaders dying 15 years into their reign. Nice name and prof. pic.
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