Most Fun Nation to Play in Europa Universalis? EU4 Fun Tier List 

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Pretty sure Desmond isn't an Italian minor ;)

i recently played as the teutonic order to get the “baltic crusader” achievement and i was shocked by the lack of flavour. it was pretty easy to avoid the Danzig event, and there’s no missions or events for them, so it was pretty boring to get the achievement

FYI if you form spain with catalan/aragonese culture you keep aragonese missions

I realized i have no life after recognizing almost all the nations shown.

This is a great idea for a video! I only really disagree with the placement of Lithuania, as you can culture convert easily into Ruthenia and get tons of modifiers that last until the end of game between both mission trees. Also the uncommonwealth achievement can be interesting for a shorter playthrough.

Good tier list, I think I totally agree. No barbary coast nations tho, I think Tunis and Maroco are quite fun, but it's been a while since I played them so I can't remember the flavor they had. I guess I'd place them as B or C tier, probably C thinking about it. Nice video, keep it going !

I have no favorite I just do achievenments and then never play the nation again due to the trauma from the run.

It's pretty weird how you didn't include Morocco or Tunis, there are many ways that they can be played which makes them very fun.

Punjab is such a guilty pleasure pick. I desperately wish Sikhism was strong enough for mp but as far as a single-player play through goes the flavour events around the gurus and their buffs, the independence war in the beginning and your rise as Sirhind until you convert to Sikh are super fun. But then by the 1600s I'm bored again and India is already almost conquered. Might as well have just played Mewar n formed Rajputana.

I would have put France in S tier, but i blob like crazy with them, along with Ottomans. These nations are so strong that you can do big meme stuff with them. As France you can Form any nation in europe, a fun one is Russia, by 1530. As Otto you can pick any religion, swap to it and live the meme. Aragon is similar to France but slightly weaker start. Also You can do Castile-->England for PU on France. Then form Spain or GB. Makes England as good as GB for me since its not Endgame and gives PU on France.

Forming Tuscany does not remove republic anymore. I played it for rpg with the Medici, kept a republic but always selected Medicis as rulers. One of my best campaigns. Formed Italy reslly late and had a 4000 development Polishlithuanian Commonwealth as a rival. I played tall so I didn't have a very large army and lost the discipline for Florence ideas so there were like difficult wars every five years till I defeated them (there were coalitions of all germany involved, so it was a hars but reslly fun late game)

"For casual EU4 players" EU4 has casual players?

I really liked your tier list, I think you did an excellent job. A few choices would be different for me but that's just because I value different things in my campaigns. In general I feel that single player will always get boring quickly because even starting as an OPM you nearly always can be #1 on the great powers list within 100 years, maybe 150 years if you had a rough start. So for me the best starts are those that put me in life or death struggles very early in the game. I want a nation that has to fight a superior enemy, but while being disadvantaged still has some agency to actually make plays. So starts like Wallachia, Albania or Byzantium where you fight the Ottomans while being significantly weaker, England 1vs1 against France, their vassal swarm and their allies while you get to enjoy a disaster, Teutonic Order because fighting Poland-Lithuania in 1444 is possible thanks to your forts and amazing traditions, these things require skill but do not depend on restarts and your ability to play the first 5 years will decide your entire campaign. Other fun starts are any nation in Ireland, Japan or Mexico just because it's literally battle royal in those regions. Even though Ireland is too easy if you have a bit of experience it is still fun to see your nation growing so fast and figuring out a way to defeat the English is interesting, especially when your campaign is as cursed as my Offaly campaign where they allied the Scots after winning the 100 years war and took a few provinces in France. For all the above reasons I hate playing in India, the nations are either super strong right from the start or boxed in by powerhouses that are so strong that you actually just cannot fight them early on. Mughals is still fun of course.

I'd say D00 is easily by far the most fun country to play as.

You know you have too many hours in eu4 when you know all those flags

Being a Chinese person proud of their history, it really pains me to say that, yes, Ming is boring for most players due to limited playstyle, so i really just wish for them to improve the mandate of heaven to be less restrictive, since historically the mandate of heaven was a great thing! i really wish they add a feature where you can select a specific button on teh mandate that could allow you to play differently, like "Cosmopolitan", and "Legalist" and "Isolation". Cosmopolitan being more focused on trade, and tributaries and have things like higher prestige, higher trade steering and effeciency, but not neccessarily limited by expansion, by giving fast mandate increases for expanding your empire and having lots of trade nodes either dirrectly or through vassals and tributaries, and the high mandate giving your different buffs, selecting this would also have debuffs, like higher liberty desires, or lowering how fast devastation decreases. Legalist is the classic blob playstyle, where it is more focused on military expansion, it again gives mandate increases with how many provinces conquered, but since its based on provinces it'll be much faster, and has more bonuses, like infantry combat ability, it'll also allow you to make buildings faster, cus historically more legalist and expanisionist chinese empires like the Qin were great an conscripting men to build stuff. I dunno what the debuffs would be, higher unrest? or lower mandate increase in general Isolation would be the state that Ming is in at start of 1444. isolationist chinese dynasties were more or less cultural powerhouses, so idk, it makes institutions spread faster, higher prestige, more Monarch points, and shorter building times and cheaper buildings and faster mandate generation passively, basically how you play in normal eu4 rn, where you build up tribs and just wait for mandate. This however gives the worst buffs, as you institutions are slower, lower force limits, and worst trade, and it's more expensive for ideas. so the main purpose for Ming players would be to build mandate, get out of isolationism, fight noble rebels, and disloyal subjects, then choose either blob, or trade. It would also be more interesting for countries like Qing, which could choose the more legalist, or cosmopolitan options

I'm actually surprised with Commonwealth. They are pretty powerful but agree that you mostly get stuck in Europe before blobageddon stage of the game and it's end game tag. I'd give it a c+. Since the winged hussars are crazy fun.

First video I see and I immediately see a separate tear for Ming got my sub.

I'd say Bohemia is mostly A tier because by 1520 or so you will have completed all your missions and with your PU over Poland and Hungary you cant be touched. and then there isnt much to do except a WC. Even if you want to paint Europe into Hussite its done so quick it becomes boring.

I missed Venecia in this post, one of the most fun runs Ive ever done, and I learnt a lot about trade, subjects and clientelar states. Also Cebu is an awesome OPM to play. Specially for the tiger of the phillippins achievement, very very fun and I learnt a lot about tech and navy management

Kilwa has to be my personal favourite for campaigns outside Europe .

The one with the eagle you didn’t know is serbia

This video gave me some good inspiration for new campaigns to play! Could you do a hardest nations to start as tier list?

You should get a music on that intro, nice video tho

USA actually has a ton of unique events, permanent modifiers from those events and two unique governments it can get through those events. All from the American Dream DLC. The only issue is that none of them can trigger until like the last fifty years of the game...

Your pronounciations and english is on point man. Really cool. Great video as well

I think you really underrated Lithuania here. They have a great starting position and you have a few options- PLC, obviously, but you can form super Prussia by culture shifting or a west leaning Russia. Personally, I've tested the Russia route and aside from tech disadvantage I have so many more options for expansion. Definitely a good intermediate player choice, especially to experience culture shifts

I m from burma (taungoo in eu4) And i attempted taungu achievement and i got it. I just wanna say, to get the achievement, u dnt need to loan abuse (hey, there were plenty of loans tho) and after u get the achievement u can still play the campaign. My inflation was like 15 and i just bought it down, taungu has core creation cost reduction, so u might have spare admin to buy down inflation (Dnt forget to consolidate ur loans)

Burgundy has always been my favorite, it's a weird underdog between France and hre but it was the first nation I really played after understanding most of the mechanics years ago. It has only gotten more interesting over time.

Ditmarshen is another honorable mention. It's have uniq goverment and uniq CB, also some fun uniq missions with tasty permanent modifiers. And also when u complete ditmarshen missions, u can form some Germany (or/before it, I believe, Prussia, if u culture shift, but not sure).

I would put Oda in S tier. Super fun to play. Constant warfare, constantly having to take tricky wars without getting yourself killed, having to constantly adjust your situation as alliances change, have to deal with the bigger daimyo's, feels like a challenge to where good EU4 skills are rewarded. And once you manage to become japan you can carry over your god idea set as a reward.

The most fun I've ever had with EU is when I was playing as Austria with an intent not to just blob and eat everything around me asap. but to try to stuff HRE with as many tags as possible. That was a very unique and refreshing change, because you have to always plan your expansion so as not to consume OPMs and constantly wage wars for liberation of tags so as not to let them disappear.

Since 1.29 you don't lose mandate from non tributaries, soo qing ming and yuan can just conquer everyone

Kurland has a colonial range idea, challenging a player to do a Baltic coloniser game. Worth a mention.

My favourite March ever is Astrakhan. Not only do they have a lovely colour, but the Tatar mission tree is absolutely bonkers insane. The amount of permaclaims is ridicolous, and not only that, you will get Ilkhanate as yet another vassal if you complete their missions. (It's their vassal but will get instantly transferred to you) My second favourite March (vassal) is Novogorod and I think Novogorod would be S tier for multiplayer because of mission tree (and being republic)! All those options for what to do, and the amount of diplomacy you can do... Never played Astrakhan, tried Golden Horde once but that was sooooooooooooo many patches ago and Muscovy and Ottomans did an unholy alliance and roflstomped me, with Poland-Lithuania coming in for seconds so I paused that one. Did a Crimea one but the save got corrupted. So I haven't touched Tatars until I had Astrakhan in a Rev. France WC lol. I almost finished their mission tree, they lacked China and a few provinces in North China in the mission before that, but I took the provinces and needed to finish WC instead of memeing. Palatinate and Thüringia should be TONS of fun due to mission trees! Check em out :D Also fantastic vassals (if playing west of HRE) to have. Ingolstadt and Hesse should be other great choices either for vassals or having SP fun. Franconia, Bavaria and Saxony minors all get cool trees. As well as other German minors. Edit: And can later form Franconia, for instance (with a few new missions I think, focusing on France) Austria is quite boring IMO. Way too strong, not fun. And the gameplay is the same every single time. OH and Dalmatia/Croatia can be quite fun too :) (maybe a bit harder at least if Dalmatia - though they get a bit better ideas I think) Or Two Sicilies with their new tree

Great video!

Florence:tuscany is the best Italian nation just because of their ideas.

I played a really fun Teutonic order game recently, my nation turned into the republic of Danzig, I was able to join the empire, then I formed Prussia with the really cool Prussian Republic, truly becoming an army with a state

have to update your list with horde byzantium with SS tier?

You need to recheck France's mission tree :) I chose to do my first WC recently and doing it while getting Rev. France (not recommended to go rev. lol) was TONS of fun. The mission tree is what makes it, and it doubles well with nearby nations you can vassalize and utilize their trees too. For multiplayer though, I'd surely rate it Ming tier :p Edit: The "vassalize Poland" mission is _very_ weird though. I can't see how anyone would utilize that to an advantage at any time, would normally make no sense to get it once you get to the point where you can. But I got PU over Spain, Milan and some else I forgot I think (Bohemia?), and vassalized Portugal manually. Sorry I can't remember more

Id bump France up u can do so much because of the great mission tree. Also an interesting part of France is that some mission makes you gain what makes the nations u defeat strong. For example professionalism from switzerland or again moral of navies for england. Lets not forget the indian route the polish/russian one and the pus casus belli either.

Years ago when EU4 was released I watched tons and tons of campaigns on YT for this game and I was absolutely into what the community was doing with this game. About 3 years ago I got myself a pc that could actually run the game without problems I got the game and since I've been playing tons of campaigns , but because of that the YT campaigns of this game became too frustrating for me to watch . I know that you like very much your nomadic France of manchu culture and Inti religion, but god damn these things bug me so much. I like the creativeness that this game inspire to people tho, even if it makes me mad sometimes at the abominations they create, and it is interesting to see that many of the nations that I like playing are much liked by others, tho for completely different reasons. I don't think that any of you EU4 players would ever enjoy playing EU4 the way I play it , but I do like to now and then plunge into YT and see what else the EU4 community found about how they can abuse it's mechanics and do some stupid shit and having fun with it edit: PL Commonwealth got a low grade in this video "*sad winged hussar noises*"

I've checked through the comments, no one has corrected you on Smolensk so far. You called Smolensk as Polotsk, but still got their ideas right.

yes. Desmond my favorite Italian tag.

Lithuania actually has a solid mission tree, you get mission to pu Muscovy and Poland, can tag switch to both and finally into Russia.

My TOP 3 are Poland, Russia and Milan. Poland offers a lot of ways to play: you can go for diplomacy and become HRE Emperor, you can go east and replace Russia, you can go Crusading south, you can go North and even Colonize. Russia is great for those days when you just want to Blob and throw manpower at problems untill they cease. Milan is potentially very powerful, it has unique govt. and its starting position is very interesting having to balance between powers much greater than you (France, HRE, Ottomans, Spain). Milan -> Italy is challenging but really fun.

Didn't see any other comments about it, and I know you have gotten a lot of these questions, but where would you rate the hordes near Russion, such as Kazan and Great Horde?

Lithuania is actually pretty decent imo. You can get PUs on Poland and Russia, through the mission tree, then after you form the PLC and switch to the Polish missions, you also get PUs on Hungary and Bohemia too. Seems pretty fun to me.

The biggest meme in this video is your chrome tabs/bookmarks

Playing England and 1vs1 fighting France at the start while going through war of the Roses is actually really a nailbiter now even on normal difficulty. It's so intense and so much fun, the fact that I won the last time because I dropped 12k onto Narbonne, barraged it with the navy and assaulted while the French were sieging back Paris and the rest of northern France just to carpet the south and barely scrape together the warscore to get the PU... it took me two hours and 3 tries until I fought a literally picture perfect war to make it work and it felt like a real achievement. For a similar feeling of achievement in EU4 I usually play campaigns that last 2 weeks. Afterwards the game got boring fast though, stealing Norways PUs and cleaning up Britain was more of an afterthought and from that point onwards I was simply unstoppable, so it will probably end up another campaign I'm not going to finish because it's not that much fun to finish the GB mission tree and develop everything to 25 dev or whatever.

7:34 ok i got a little hurt there because i belive poland (and polish-lithuanian commonwealth) have one of if not the most unique gameplay in eu4, not only their they have one and only kind of government in eu4 but they also get free claims on everything and everyone around them realizing which gonna take decades, they also get interesting events and CAN get good(ish) trade node early which is baltic sea trade node and later lubeck. that might be subjective (because i am polish and i kinda know history so it might just be more interesting for me) but still poland (and polish-lithuanian commonwealth) shouldn't be lower then B tier :/

What is your problem with Teutonic Order? I played them many times, and I got 2K hours in EU4. But then again, my ancestors are from Königsberg. TO to Prussia is more challenging than Brandenburg and also they have an achievement to convert Russia to catholic, instead of becoming protestant and forming Prussia. Also having to defend against PLC, DK and RUS all the time and expending into the HRE is quite challenging. It's actually a lot of fun. In my last TO campaign Poland did not stand a chance.

As Novgorod you do need to test it and and try a few times. One of the easier ways to get going fast is doing the trade war with Russia or if you get lucky you can get a Lithuania alliance then wait for favors or promise of land. The issue with Novgorod is that they need to buff merchant republic's, it's terrible after early/mid game. I haven't played it since emperor I don't think they changed it though. But to get the achievement you can get it earlyish before English channel or Sevilla node gets too strong. I got it by conquering all of central Asia and normal Russian stuff. Then built a workshop and manufactury literally everywhere even in non state lands. Then used a light ship mega stack to privateer. English node then slightly got it. Also if you form Russia England gets an event to get a decent amount of trade powder that you can't get rid of in the white sea.

spain gets the aragonese mission tree if formed with aragonese or catalan culture, you have to culture switch to castillian in order to get the castillian version

I love how w33haa is playing dota while Habibi is taking

Most of the FUN nations I've played are custom nations where I start with one province and then roleplay in my head... usually an ancient nation that no longer exists in the game... I did: Sparta, Vikings, Khazar Empire (Jewish), I'm playing as the Hun now (Attila's Capital near Poland/Hungary), Tibetan Warrior Monks, Golden Horde Mongols starting around Samarkand, USA starting in Manhattan, Inca (with free colonist so I can quickly spread around South America before the Europeans get there), Babylon where I turned Syria into a HUGE March

Ming used to be pretty fun for me back when you could form the Mughals as Ming. Then they made changes to formable nations and added Ming as an endgame tag and that just killed it for me.

The double headed eagle flag is Serbia, the other one i don't know

I think the Balkans, Anatolia and the Levant could use an update. Especially Greece and Rum. And ottomans need new missions. It would also be nice if you go revolutionary as ottomans that you change into Turkey.

I like playing Manipur and Ardabil. Those are my two favourite starts.

Nepal was the Prussia of India for a long time. This changed with the big India patch and DLC. That is why it still has that reputation.

Important thing to note: you do NOT get the Spanish mission tree when you form Spain as Aragon

The Commonwealth can be incredibly rich with the Baltic sea trade, and polish ideas are really strong for cavarely armies. I believe, for me, poland-commonwealth is a really fun nation to play especially since u have much to do. You fight russia ottomans and you are in a really good position going for emperorship and with the Elective monarchy you are the master of PUs.

I made 3 Campains with my hometown Ulm, is a great challenge to survive but with a good diplomacy you can become e huge nation, ground Swabia and the SRI emperor :-P

The "Don't know" 15:33 is Maldives, I'm pretty sure :) Also Malay is much more fun when starting as Palembang and being pirates :D

Norway is probably my favorite single player. You get the HRE, with a supercharged navy and free exploration. Use all that to rush the Caribbean and steer trade all the way to Lubeck, while chewing on Denmark and Sweden for hardly any ae.

Do one with less known or less obvious countries for new players like Karaman, Ternate, Madyas, Butua, Khorasan, Carib...

How about Incas? doing that right now and having pretty fun :)

A tactic for getting the union with France as England is alliance with Aragon and Burgundy, and take the war option and manually call to arms with promise of territory(if they are rivaled) and just not give anything. In my experience the French went for Aragon . I kept The alliance with burgundy and they went with the French and I got stupidly strong sooo quickly. Only negative is the war of the roses when I had either a 1/2/0 or a 1/0/0 I believe. Had a GB boner for a while after that when I realized how strong they an be if you are lucky.

Thnaks! :D

Can you do an update to this video with 1.32 Origins the way you did an update to the Formable's list ??

I see you’ve got Daniel as a shortcut

It's a good list but I gotta disagree with India in general (not vijanagar it's very annoying) cause Delhi and jaunpaur are fun in my opinion but I wish you included Bengal or orrisa which you can just conquer the trade nodes and roll in money :D Edit: Bahmanis too

To get Spanish mission trees as Aragon you have to culture shift to Castilian. To be fair the Aragon missions are far better for what most people do with Aragon which is Form Rome.

Lol, I hadn't any problems as Ming, only a few rebel, that I crushed with my giant army

Aq is super fan too... Shame it isn't on the list

Aragon doesn't get Spanish Missions if they don't culture shift away from Aragonese or Catalan first

Curious on how you would rate the Aztecs? The Aztec campaign was on of the most enjoyable I ever played.

You give Germany an A, but what nations do you consider good choices to form Germany? It's probably easiest with Prussia, but that's kind of a downgrade unless you want to just blob as much as possible late game. Bavaria might be the best choice, since it is very easy to stack development cost reduction and play tall in trans-Alpine southern Germany. Also, unlike most of the other German stem duchies, Bavaria's mission tree is entirely based around conquest and personal unions within North and South Germany, instead of expanding into France like Franconia, Italy like Swabia, or Poland like Saxony.

They should really make a baltic dlc, so many important nations that were just forgotten

Bohemia has access to gold mines and their new mission tree grants pu over poland lithuania hungary and austria so if you know what you are doing bohemia is actually GOD tier you dont need trade to have fun you can exploit gold mines you can fight ottomans and steal their money you can fight russia and steal their money and you can expand into lubeck later in the game which is one of the richest trade nodes so they definitely deserve being S tier in this guide

Interesting rating... I've enjoyed - so far - the Byzantium and especially the mission Restoring the Pentarchy and as such ending the schism of Christianity...then yet again I'm Greek Orthodox by heritage...

I personally loved my danish run. It was fun restoring danelaw to england. But I agree that it just eventually becomes linear and boring

Bahmanis->Deccan is really strong, with Deccani ideas and shia(alongside the ability to convert provinces using your trade node for being sunni), and later own forming Hindustan for their missions (but keeping Deccani ideas) --- solid B tier for me

I'm relieved to know that Bohemia isn't actually that OP. Many of my friends told me so, but even with Emperor missions I was struggling to get money in the 1650s, despite having annexed Poland and expanded a bit in HRE. Should have went Trade I guess but holy shit, their military is quite trashy despite Hussite bonuses.

I didn’t get Spanish missions playing with Aragon and forming Spain diplomatically. Are you sure this is updated?

I want to play Ming now

What about Oirat/Yuan? I am thinking of starting that run since I've never played in the region.

Where can I join a new big multiplayer round?

I have 1700+ hours in game and even for me tag switching is daunting ;)

what is the best nation to form mughals (because you said that timmurids arent the best one)

Because as Aragon you can form Spain France Italy with so many cultures available as well as joining HRE, Aragon goes straight to the top. No doubts.

I whant a lithuania update. They should get and otion to become a kingdom because they almost did.

I thought Aragon doesn't get the Spanish mission tree.

Ottomans are boring? They have the most options at the start, you're in a position to do anything you want, can go Orthodox, Catholic, Coptic, Shia, can play in the HRE, can colonize if you're a weirdo, can rush to India etc

agree in the most part. Hopefully you could add more nation for the list

Sikh is a real good religion in the game the big hassle I Found with it was converting so many provinces, and that you cant get it for like the 1st hundred years of your play through.

Where do you put Venice?

please update list for 1.34 because of lions of the north and commonwealth update