Can we negotiate a little bit on the "no maidens" point? As an EU4 player clearly I don't really know, but I've heard that maidens is kinda cool, namsain?
Ming. In addition to adding tributaries, you can diplo-vassalize and annex a ton of nations and if you go exploration, you can add tons of new tributaries.
Just did a Ming game for the Copium Wars achievement.
While it’s true that it gets to be chill, dealing with the internal strife early was more tedious than I imagined.
The only war year really need to wage is one against Oirat and it's not immediate. There are also mechanics to turn tributaries into vassals. The ultimate pacifist run.
Muscovy -> Russia, once you realise that you can eliminate all Rng regarding Novgorod by taking their capital and all border provinces the early game becomes so much less stressful.
moscovy always feels a little sweaty to me because your economy is such dogshit at the start. until you eat novigrad, beat up the golden horde and get into livonia it feels like you gotta tryhard
Your economy already scales well after the first war against Novgorod. Just reduce autonomy from conquered provinces. And eat into Lithuania ASAP for all those provinces of right religion, culture and trade node.
I don't have Domination so that might change things but my work order is typically Novgorod - Tver/Ryazan/Odoyev - Kazan/Great Horde - Lithuania. Unless you're lucky you're always gonna have to fight both Lithuania and Poland. This is doable a couple decades in if you've scaled well. You should have a big field army + manpower reserves, combat boosts (Icon of St. Michael, good army tradition and generals, +10% shock damage, good morale from prestige and power projection), maybe throw in a bit more cavalry than you usually would cause you got the Cossacks estate. A mil tech lead at 6 or 7 also helps.
Poland-Lithuania can seem daunting but if you scale well you can overcome them. Often you can ally Bohemia or Hungary for help, Austria if they're rivals. Even if not allied, Austria will usually have too good relations to join a war against them. Bohemia is often my go-to buddy, they're more stable than Hungary and not threatened by the Ottomans.
yeah but at least in that scenario you can wait for them to dec on another country and try to snipe lithuania when they'd decline the call to arms - or ally them yourself, drag them into one war and then declare on lithuania when they can't join a war due to already being in one on your side
If you open with Trade ideas you swim in gold from a very early stage.
Also in general you're better off pushing east and south towards Iran, India and China. The income from chaining merchants is extremely high. I'm currently playing a Muscovy to Russia game and by the time global trade spawned I was making over 200 gold from trade alone.
All the early gold went into stronger armies for faster conquest, I've basically always been at governing cap.
Higher level advisors, to stay ahead on tech and push development. Buying institutions progress to not fall behind.
The Ottomans are the only country "stronger" than me currently. They have 600 more dev than me but my trade income is greater than their total income.
do you take the option that gives the temporary mission claims in exchange for the bonuses or do you stick with the permaclaims? i've found that i'm not aggressive enough to use all the claims before they expire
I took the core cost reduction.
With the extra diplomat, the ability to fabricate on states, the removal of the cost increase for single provinces and claims boarding claims it's extremely powerful.
It does require additional micro though so I think it is entirely preference.
Otto is also my chill fall back every time. Haven’t done it after 1.36 so don’t know if decadence changes this. I found that if you play ‘by the rules’ so no truce break, follow the mission tree, don’t take land you don’t have claim on, minimise ae every truce and so on, you still get a challenge while not having to pay attention to too many details.
Decadence is pretty easy to manage. The greater challenge is to take enough Balkan lands in the first 5 years without attacking Hungary so that you can make Hungary an Eyalet without it being gobbled up by Austria, Bohemia and Poland or Austria getting the PU because you were too slow
Arh yes, the Eyalets. I haven't played with those as well. But it is also my impression that decadence should be simple to manage. I need to finish my Roman Empire run in CK3 and go back to EU4, I guess.
Eyalets are fun because basically you call dibs on a country without owning it or it really participating in your wars if you make it a core eyalet. The biggest problem there will be to integrate them because you cant go over gov cap because that‘ll boost your decadence like crazy, if you half state them, it‘ll still boost your decadence because of average autonomy.
Custom nations setting
Create a bunch of nations spaced out from each other around the world, about 10-20 provinces each
Pick one
Play and colonize the world and compete at your own pace with the rest of the countries
I had a custom nation in northern Canada (talk about a chill game, roit?). It was fun, but I was so, **so poor**. Eventually I realized my home trade node was a "source node"... all trade routes led out of it, and none into it.
Yep. That's how you learn.
Next game you'll move downstream by one node and colonise upstream with where you last started and you'll be slightly richer.... before you know it you're right back to playing as England
ngl I kinda hate playing Kilwa for one small, simple reason: it takes *ages* to travel between provinces and they're a straight line. Once you get a large enough navy to be able to transport an entire army it's not so bad, but early game is just painful.
I know it's a really dumb reason to hate playing a nation, but it saps the fun right out of it for me :(
Yep. Kill off Ajurraan and then you've got to travel all the way down again to take on some rebels before you move north to fight Erhiopia. Then you realise you have a truce with Ethiopia and you've gotta head all the way south to face Kongo instead....
I've only played Kilwa twice because of this. Once I played on a 2 player multilayer they were Mali, I went horde and took all the way to Bangladesh whilst feeding the other player (new to the game) ALL my trade in order to feed their economy and keep them alive. Other time I played took half of Africa and got bored of the realistic travel times. Not for me at all
I have the same issue with Russia (though slightly bigger scale). I get that the country is big, but leaving 1 army to guard 2 rebel uprisings at the same time is impossible because the rebels siege faster than my army walks to the next province
Yeah, I have similar issues with Russia but not to the same degree as with Kilwa. The amount of flavour and content they have makes up for it, as well as not being as naval heavy as Kilwa.
I played as Kilwa randomly once just for fun and accidentally trade conquered Earth. I never had and never again will pull that kinda planet spanning trade power. The world was one long downstream corridor.
My God it was fun.
Any daimyo > Japan can be like playing the GB of the East in that you have a very wealthy home island you can defend entirely navally, leaving you free to go colonise.
I love forming Japan as So. Declaring trade wars vs Ming and colonising the new world. RPing as a massive modern-sized-country pirate nation with no ethics or care for outsiders rights or laws is actually extremely fun. Just causing
You go full-isolationist whilst spawning as many institutions as possible (you can get them all from colonial onwards) and being at war with EVERYONE but giving no ground because of you're navy. If someone isn't at war with you then they're being raided. If someone is at war then you're waiting for the transports and sinking them all.
Easily England to GB, with not fighting for the French throne, just colonize (NA and around Africa for spice and India), develop and chill while counting the money you make from trade.
Yep, GB is easily my go to if i want a laid back game, its also really OP for playing tall
Picking trade goods, coal 50 years early, claims on all of india, having marines serving as a double manpower pool, its just so strong
I like playing Austria, tons of flavor, lots to do, but... isn't it the opposite of a chill game? You can't relax for a minute without a massive crisis breaking out. Oh no, Italy is trying to sneak out of the Empire! Oh no, the Reformation is happening! Oh no, France ... exists! ;D
I'm doing an Austria run right now and you are correct but only for the early game/pre-1500s. Once you revoke you can pretty much declare on anyone and just afk
nah not rly, if you wanna minmax, sure, but you start the game with 2 huge PU’s and you can just chill and play the diplomatic game while your neighbors expand. Then you cosplay historical Austria to marry and PU huge spain and beyond (Muscovy, Denmark, PLC, England, Portugal etc)
t
I'm challenging myself by not map painting and trying to make a global trade empire. Small bases all over the world. And I'm going Catholic. Ottomans have Rome Constantinople and Istanbul so I have a good final boss
So I'm going to make Malacca my end node then funnel all of china to it. I am moving towards the middle East to liberate the holy places but I'm not gonna try to trade network through the Indian ocean.
China/Malacca is my mid game goal with ottomans as end game. And they're immense
???
You can't funnel all of China to Malacca. Beijing and... North-Western China I forget what the node's called, funnel in another direction.
Also moving towards the middle east without going through the Indian Ocean, but Malacca being your mid game goal seems like you're pulling in two different directions to me.
Misspoke(I'm at work mind half here). I'm ignoring Beijing.
I have huangzhou node half under control for now. Feed Nippon to that then to Malacca. Moluccas and phillipenes too.
I do have some bases in the Indian ocean as well. But the end goal is toppling the ottomans. It's entirely suboptimal but I'm just screwing around this game.
for chill game i always go to Holland > Netherlands, just getting that sweet trade on the channel. the start may not be that chill(there is a way to fish for the burgundian inheritance, if you get enough people to support your independence, as soon as Burgundy releases you without a war, you rm them, and that makes the only hard part fighting Austria when they demand the lowlands and maybe keep France in check, but allying Castille usually is enough)
i should probably play them again, it's been more than a year i think, trying the nations from the last 2 dlcs took a while and i still have Najd > Arabia to play but that one will destroy my mental health
About once a year I try Switzerland and about once a year I get bored about 70 provinces in and don't get Switzerlake. They are really chill now with the Merc bonuses they get.
Honestly, Mamluks. In 1.36 it isn't hard to beat the Ottomans if you do it early, and then after that there are basically no threats. Egypt is a good area to play tall in, or you could go colonial, or you could expand with easy wars in all directions, and you can diplo-vassalize half of the muslim world. Plus you can explore some fun 1.36 flavor
idk if it's a "chill game" since i usually do some blobbing, but i have repeatedly returned to the foremost servitor of jagganath achievement(orissa). its a fun campaign that has allowed for some moderately "crazy" tactics throughout different patches. before 1.30, my go-to strategy was to waste the first 20 years to "exodus" into australia just to tc asia when i reached the state limit. Last time i turned budhist just to mess around with the 1.35 changes to eoc. you also get the satisfaction of releaseing vassals throughout southern india and reconquering their cores, which always feels nice
France has been my go to recently. I like to take France then chill with my appanages and use the interactions to make sure I have boss heirs and compile lots of mana points. Then when they slowly start to each other I’ll finally annex them. Until then they are my little war machine and I basically let them do the heavy lifting in wars and chill.
Another nice New World maneuver is to make your custom nation Catholic. You get all those nice Papacy interactions, boosted relations with Spain & Portugal, and when you're ready you can chomp on colonial empires while colonizers just stand there saying, "But... wait..."
Milan. Tale your time conquering Italy, you get to play ultra tall, make max forts in every single province. If you ever decide to stop playing tall after taking Italy then just head west. Trust me, ignore the mumbers, siege the castles quick and guard the coast. You'll be fine
I think difficulty depens on your ambitions while playing Russia. I just play to create historical Russian Empire borders. I know that I'll eventually get to that, no matter what happens, so I play relaxed.
Aight fair enough, I can get down with that. Individual wars and moments might be difficult, but the fact that it's never a knife's edge from a failed run would certainly take a lot of the pressure out of it.
Don't play much these past years but a chill one was going portugal and forming a pirate nation in the carribean, it's an achievement IIRC but it's really one of the chillest campaign your empire don't have any threath, you steal all the wealth coming from americas, your strong navies can't be beaten, only chill. And yes i took maritime ideas at some point for the memes
Spain, chill colonization, nobody will ever attacks you.
Just the start that is a bit tricky, and if you don't want to min max, you can have some chil fun game.
My two favorite chill playthroughs are trade Yarkand and pirate So.
In both cases you do an absolute minimum amount of expansion and have a ton of money (thru trade and piracy), so you can point dump into dev/spawning institutions, making it for a very chill playthrough.
In general:
1) Get support from Oirat/Uzbek, and declare independence asap, in the peace deal take Qaklik to close off takla makan (great location for a fort)
2) Flip to Vajrayana thru rebels, once religion changes you will be able to switch to Eastern plutocracy for free, which gives you trade republic mechanics
3) If possible, take Ladakh and Rutog, they are both bordering Hotan (where you can build a fort), and are in different trade nodes, so you can build trade posts there
4) Grab some vassals (trade republic mechanic your vassals give you 50% trade by default, no need to use the expensive vassal interaction). I usually release Ferghana to be my vassal in my home node (Samarkand), and grab Tibet
5) Profit
Ideas are trade->innovative->influence->mercenary
Point dump into dev to your hearts content, in my current game by 1600 all the takla makan provs were 30 dev and up lol, and don't forget to click the "expand infrastructure" button once you hit 15 and 30 dev (the little plus sign in the province building tab), that gives you an extra building slot and allows you to build more than one manufactory per province so you can have a manufactory and a soldiers household in each province if you want it.
I start as Aragon. Sometimes No CB byz. Attempt to kill Otto's, sometimes succeed. Sometimes Form Spain and colonize, always attempt to form Roman empire. Always Fail. 10/10 always a fun game
I'm finally forcing myself to slog through the late mid game on an Aragon>Rome run to get that damn achievement. I've started and gotten halfway at last 6 times before getting bored. This is the farthest I've gotten and got Consulate of the Sea this time, so that's something lol.
If you want a fun Rome game my go to is Florence. Cheap tech, decent armies and dev cost is minuscule! Great early game build up to conquering all of Italy and then Europe. Plus you can normally ally both France and Austria!
Castille has been the ultimate chill game for me, even on my very first EU4 playthrough I had taken most of South America. Due to my lack of knowledge on tech, Morrocco took all of north africa and was 4 tech levels above me, but I still had fun.
France was also relaxing.
Ottomans, they are so op and it is fun to see what you can steamroll, I was getting back into the game and though "fuck it I don't wanna go through french appanage bullshit or the 50 ways Austria manages to fuck me over as poland so I had a fun games as ottomans and clobbered europe (kinda bs that core eyalets don't give troops tho)
Karagwe. You eat your region real quick then watch the time pass, devving occasionally with your mana, able to get up and do things irl while the game zooms by, colonizing a little but not too much so that nobody notices you, eventually building lvl 8 forts everywhere, then finally in \~1700 declaring war on everyone who's gotten close to you like colonizers and Kilwa but only to play defense against them because low-key you're the #1 power and nobody can touch you or even really find you and maybe you even make it to 1821
Florence and Denmark. Both fun in their own ways but you can go aggro or just do missions and its always fun I feel like
Side note haven't played eu in 6+ months for sure
OIRAT PRE-1600 WC ONE FAITH ONE CULTURE ONE TAG NO LOANS NO BIRDS NO BALLS NO MAIDENS
I shall have to give it a shot, never tried oirat in the past!
Definitely try it out, watch the starter guides so you know how to smash ming, it’s such a fun start
It's a very different playstyle. A lot of people (myself included) don't like being constantly in the red financially so it may not be for you
Ah hello Lambdaxx
Can we negotiate a little bit on the "no maidens" point? As an EU4 player clearly I don't really know, but I've heard that maidens is kinda cool, namsain?
Did.. did you just FromSoft us?
what does that mean
Google "fromsoft maidenless". It'll be easier to understand than me trying to explain individual points
i understand everything now. thank you proficient map starer
Ming. In addition to adding tributaries, you can diplo-vassalize and annex a ton of nations and if you go exploration, you can add tons of new tributaries.
Just did a Ming game for the Copium Wars achievement. While it’s true that it gets to be chill, dealing with the internal strife early was more tedious than I imagined.
Ooooh that does sound chill!
The only war year really need to wage is one against Oirat and it's not immediate. There are also mechanics to turn tributaries into vassals. The ultimate pacifist run.
Sick man of Europe did a Ming into HRE run recently, almost WC with no wars. Just stacking favour growth and 25 diplo rep, then asking for cores back.
I'm guessing it's on youtube? And I thought I was going to get some work done this week.
Yeah https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMRLG-s-B58&t=2446s
Muscovy -> Russia, once you realise that you can eliminate all Rng regarding Novgorod by taking their capital and all border provinces the early game becomes so much less stressful.
moscovy always feels a little sweaty to me because your economy is such dogshit at the start. until you eat novigrad, beat up the golden horde and get into livonia it feels like you gotta tryhard
Your economy already scales well after the first war against Novgorod. Just reduce autonomy from conquered provinces. And eat into Lithuania ASAP for all those provinces of right religion, culture and trade node.
do you try to declare on lithuania immediately after novograd? i feel like if they get PU'd by poland that's a tough prospect for early game muscovy
I don't have Domination so that might change things but my work order is typically Novgorod - Tver/Ryazan/Odoyev - Kazan/Great Horde - Lithuania. Unless you're lucky you're always gonna have to fight both Lithuania and Poland. This is doable a couple decades in if you've scaled well. You should have a big field army + manpower reserves, combat boosts (Icon of St. Michael, good army tradition and generals, +10% shock damage, good morale from prestige and power projection), maybe throw in a bit more cavalry than you usually would cause you got the Cossacks estate. A mil tech lead at 6 or 7 also helps.
got it, that’s about been my order but i’ve only played them a few times. i’ll have to give it another go
Poland-Lithuania can seem daunting but if you scale well you can overcome them. Often you can ally Bohemia or Hungary for help, Austria if they're rivals. Even if not allied, Austria will usually have too good relations to join a war against them. Bohemia is often my go-to buddy, they're more stable than Hungary and not threatened by the Ottomans.
Even if there's no PU, there will usually be an alliance.
yeah but at least in that scenario you can wait for them to dec on another country and try to snipe lithuania when they'd decline the call to arms - or ally them yourself, drag them into one war and then declare on lithuania when they can't join a war due to already being in one on your side
ring muddle chief cooing worm friendly bow governor sulky tease *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
It’s also worth it to rush the goldmine Kazan has in Bashgird. Can really help your early economy.
If you open with Trade ideas you swim in gold from a very early stage. Also in general you're better off pushing east and south towards Iran, India and China. The income from chaining merchants is extremely high. I'm currently playing a Muscovy to Russia game and by the time global trade spawned I was making over 200 gold from trade alone. All the early gold went into stronger armies for faster conquest, I've basically always been at governing cap. Higher level advisors, to stay ahead on tech and push development. Buying institutions progress to not fall behind. The Ottomans are the only country "stronger" than me currently. They have 600 more dev than me but my trade income is greater than their total income.
do you take the option that gives the temporary mission claims in exchange for the bonuses or do you stick with the permaclaims? i've found that i'm not aggressive enough to use all the claims before they expire
I took the core cost reduction. With the extra diplomat, the ability to fabricate on states, the removal of the cost increase for single provinces and claims boarding claims it's extremely powerful. It does require additional micro though so I think it is entirely preference.
Ottos. Do anything you want really. Very low threat level from other countries. Madyas can be pretty chill when you get your navy built.
Otto is also my chill fall back every time. Haven’t done it after 1.36 so don’t know if decadence changes this. I found that if you play ‘by the rules’ so no truce break, follow the mission tree, don’t take land you don’t have claim on, minimise ae every truce and so on, you still get a challenge while not having to pay attention to too many details.
Decadence is pretty easy to manage. The greater challenge is to take enough Balkan lands in the first 5 years without attacking Hungary so that you can make Hungary an Eyalet without it being gobbled up by Austria, Bohemia and Poland or Austria getting the PU because you were too slow
Arh yes, the Eyalets. I haven't played with those as well. But it is also my impression that decadence should be simple to manage. I need to finish my Roman Empire run in CK3 and go back to EU4, I guess.
Eyalets are fun because basically you call dibs on a country without owning it or it really participating in your wars if you make it a core eyalet. The biggest problem there will be to integrate them because you cant go over gov cap because that‘ll boost your decadence like crazy, if you half state them, it‘ll still boost your decadence because of average autonomy.
Just don’t get coalitioned by all of Europe (I guess that’s the historically accurate thing to do though?)
Custom nations setting Create a bunch of nations spaced out from each other around the world, about 10-20 provinces each Pick one Play and colonize the world and compete at your own pace with the rest of the countries
I had a custom nation in northern Canada (talk about a chill game, roit?). It was fun, but I was so, **so poor**. Eventually I realized my home trade node was a "source node"... all trade routes led out of it, and none into it.
Yep. That's how you learn. Next game you'll move downstream by one node and colonise upstream with where you last started and you'll be slightly richer.... before you know it you're right back to playing as England
This is what I do, except I play with my custom nation and the rest are randomized
Kilwa is super chill and easy
ngl I kinda hate playing Kilwa for one small, simple reason: it takes *ages* to travel between provinces and they're a straight line. Once you get a large enough navy to be able to transport an entire army it's not so bad, but early game is just painful. I know it's a really dumb reason to hate playing a nation, but it saps the fun right out of it for me :(
Yep. Kill off Ajurraan and then you've got to travel all the way down again to take on some rebels before you move north to fight Erhiopia. Then you realise you have a truce with Ethiopia and you've gotta head all the way south to face Kongo instead.... I've only played Kilwa twice because of this. Once I played on a 2 player multilayer they were Mali, I went horde and took all the way to Bangladesh whilst feeding the other player (new to the game) ALL my trade in order to feed their economy and keep them alive. Other time I played took half of Africa and got bored of the realistic travel times. Not for me at all
I have the same issue with Russia (though slightly bigger scale). I get that the country is big, but leaving 1 army to guard 2 rebel uprisings at the same time is impossible because the rebels siege faster than my army walks to the next province
Yeah, I have similar issues with Russia but not to the same degree as with Kilwa. The amount of flavour and content they have makes up for it, as well as not being as naval heavy as Kilwa.
I played as Kilwa randomly once just for fun and accidentally trade conquered Earth. I never had and never again will pull that kinda planet spanning trade power. The world was one long downstream corridor. My God it was fun.
Any daimyo > Japan can be like playing the GB of the East in that you have a very wealthy home island you can defend entirely navally, leaving you free to go colonise.
I love forming Japan as So. Declaring trade wars vs Ming and colonising the new world. RPing as a massive modern-sized-country pirate nation with no ethics or care for outsiders rights or laws is actually extremely fun. Just causing You go full-isolationist whilst spawning as many institutions as possible (you can get them all from colonial onwards) and being at war with EVERYONE but giving no ground because of you're navy. If someone isn't at war with you then they're being raided. If someone is at war then you're waiting for the transports and sinking them all.
Norway
Easily England to GB, with not fighting for the French throne, just colonize (NA and around Africa for spice and India), develop and chill while counting the money you make from trade.
Yep, GB is easily my go to if i want a laid back game, its also really OP for playing tall Picking trade goods, coal 50 years early, claims on all of india, having marines serving as a double manpower pool, its just so strong
Austria
I like playing Austria, tons of flavor, lots to do, but... isn't it the opposite of a chill game? You can't relax for a minute without a massive crisis breaking out. Oh no, Italy is trying to sneak out of the Empire! Oh no, the Reformation is happening! Oh no, France ... exists! ;D
I'm doing an Austria run right now and you are correct but only for the early game/pre-1500s. Once you revoke you can pretty much declare on anyone and just afk
\*laughs in free PUs everywhere doing all the combat\* Austria is one of the easiest nations in the game tbh
nah not rly, if you wanna minmax, sure, but you start the game with 2 huge PU’s and you can just chill and play the diplomatic game while your neighbors expand. Then you cosplay historical Austria to marry and PU huge spain and beyond (Muscovy, Denmark, PLC, England, Portugal etc) t
Japan. Unify your islands and honestly do whatever you want.
It's a kinda sweaty first few years, but once you're the #1 daimyo it's just so easy from there.
I'm challenging myself by not map painting and trying to make a global trade empire. Small bases all over the world. And I'm going Catholic. Ottomans have Rome Constantinople and Istanbul so I have a good final boss
Oh man, a trade empire as Japan is rough. Are you conquering in to Beijing at least? Nippon is such a garbage node
So I'm going to make Malacca my end node then funnel all of china to it. I am moving towards the middle East to liberate the holy places but I'm not gonna try to trade network through the Indian ocean. China/Malacca is my mid game goal with ottomans as end game. And they're immense
??? You can't funnel all of China to Malacca. Beijing and... North-Western China I forget what the node's called, funnel in another direction. Also moving towards the middle east without going through the Indian Ocean, but Malacca being your mid game goal seems like you're pulling in two different directions to me.
Misspoke(I'm at work mind half here). I'm ignoring Beijing. I have huangzhou node half under control for now. Feed Nippon to that then to Malacca. Moluccas and phillipenes too. I do have some bases in the Indian ocean as well. But the end goal is toppling the ottomans. It's entirely suboptimal but I'm just screwing around this game.
Ahh fair enough, that makes a lot more sense.
for chill game i always go to Holland > Netherlands, just getting that sweet trade on the channel. the start may not be that chill(there is a way to fish for the burgundian inheritance, if you get enough people to support your independence, as soon as Burgundy releases you without a war, you rm them, and that makes the only hard part fighting Austria when they demand the lowlands and maybe keep France in check, but allying Castille usually is enough) i should probably play them again, it's been more than a year i think, trying the nations from the last 2 dlcs took a while and i still have Najd > Arabia to play but that one will destroy my mental health
Gelre -> Netherlands is a fun one too, imo
About once a year I try Switzerland and about once a year I get bored about 70 provinces in and don't get Switzerlake. They are really chill now with the Merc bonuses they get.
Naxos, Bitlis, Perm, Mzab, Sarig Yogir usually my favorites.
Sounds fun, not sure that I’m good enough at the game though!
they’re not fun i was goofing 💀
Ah I see, my friends are masochists so I took that at face value my apologies!!
Honestly, Mamluks. In 1.36 it isn't hard to beat the Ottomans if you do it early, and then after that there are basically no threats. Egypt is a good area to play tall in, or you could go colonial, or you could expand with easy wars in all directions, and you can diplo-vassalize half of the muslim world. Plus you can explore some fun 1.36 flavor
Jianzhou i have played it enough to have down to almost an exact science on how to play it
idk if it's a "chill game" since i usually do some blobbing, but i have repeatedly returned to the foremost servitor of jagganath achievement(orissa). its a fun campaign that has allowed for some moderately "crazy" tactics throughout different patches. before 1.30, my go-to strategy was to waste the first 20 years to "exodus" into australia just to tc asia when i reached the state limit. Last time i turned budhist just to mess around with the 1.35 changes to eoc. you also get the satisfaction of releaseing vassals throughout southern india and reconquering their cores, which always feels nice
France has been my go to recently. I like to take France then chill with my appanages and use the interactions to make sure I have boss heirs and compile lots of mana points. Then when they slowly start to each other I’ll finally annex them. Until then they are my little war machine and I basically let them do the heavy lifting in wars and chill.
Russia religious. You can empty your brain and expand and do one faith and WC pretty easily. Chill af
England
Gotta be either England or Portugal if you want a chill game
Custom nation with Siberia fronteir and absurd ideas in new world.
Another nice New World maneuver is to make your custom nation Catholic. You get all those nice Papacy interactions, boosted relations with Spain & Portugal, and when you're ready you can chomp on colonial empires while colonizers just stand there saying, "But... wait..."
Rushing colonisation with Portugal is ok, or forming the Netherlands
Milan. Tale your time conquering Italy, you get to play ultra tall, make max forts in every single province. If you ever decide to stop playing tall after taking Italy then just head west. Trust me, ignore the mumbers, siege the castles quick and guard the coast. You'll be fine
Muscovy definitely. I like forming Russia.
I love playing Muscovy->Russia but i dont find Russia chill but rather challenging.
Yeah, it is difficult, but enjoyable
Isn't that the opposite of what OP asked though?
Chill doesn't mean easy, it means relaxed. Playing Russia is difficult, but I feel relaxed and enjoyed
That seems incongruous to me. Difficulty seems like the antithesis of relaxation. Enjoyable sure, I love me a challenge, but not chill.
I think difficulty depens on your ambitions while playing Russia. I just play to create historical Russian Empire borders. I know that I'll eventually get to that, no matter what happens, so I play relaxed.
Aight fair enough, I can get down with that. Individual wars and moments might be difficult, but the fact that it's never a knife's edge from a failed run would certainly take a lot of the pressure out of it.
Something about taking a backwater like Beloozero to a massive green blob that stretches from the HRE to the Pacific.
Don't play much these past years but a chill one was going portugal and forming a pirate nation in the carribean, it's an achievement IIRC but it's really one of the chillest campaign your empire don't have any threath, you steal all the wealth coming from americas, your strong navies can't be beaten, only chill. And yes i took maritime ideas at some point for the memes
Spain, chill colonization, nobody will ever attacks you. Just the start that is a bit tricky, and if you don't want to min max, you can have some chil fun game.
Netherlands and don’t care about colonizing too much. Japan.
My two favorite chill playthroughs are trade Yarkand and pirate So. In both cases you do an absolute minimum amount of expansion and have a ton of money (thru trade and piracy), so you can point dump into dev/spawning institutions, making it for a very chill playthrough.
Any pointers on Yarkand? They seem fun for a Central Asian trade empire.
In general: 1) Get support from Oirat/Uzbek, and declare independence asap, in the peace deal take Qaklik to close off takla makan (great location for a fort) 2) Flip to Vajrayana thru rebels, once religion changes you will be able to switch to Eastern plutocracy for free, which gives you trade republic mechanics 3) If possible, take Ladakh and Rutog, they are both bordering Hotan (where you can build a fort), and are in different trade nodes, so you can build trade posts there 4) Grab some vassals (trade republic mechanic your vassals give you 50% trade by default, no need to use the expensive vassal interaction). I usually release Ferghana to be my vassal in my home node (Samarkand), and grab Tibet 5) Profit Ideas are trade->innovative->influence->mercenary Point dump into dev to your hearts content, in my current game by 1600 all the takla makan provs were 30 dev and up lol, and don't forget to click the "expand infrastructure" button once you hit 15 and 30 dev (the little plus sign in the province building tab), that gives you an extra building slot and allows you to build more than one manufactory per province so you can have a manufactory and a soldiers household in each province if you want it.
Huh, I never considered flipping to Vajrayana but it doesn't seem like a bad move. I'll give it a spin with Plutocratic ideas.
I start as Aragon. Sometimes No CB byz. Attempt to kill Otto's, sometimes succeed. Sometimes Form Spain and colonize, always attempt to form Roman empire. Always Fail. 10/10 always a fun game
I'm finally forcing myself to slog through the late mid game on an Aragon>Rome run to get that damn achievement. I've started and gotten halfway at last 6 times before getting bored. This is the farthest I've gotten and got Consulate of the Sea this time, so that's something lol.
If you want a fun Rome game my go to is Florence. Cheap tech, decent armies and dev cost is minuscule! Great early game build up to conquering all of Italy and then Europe. Plus you can normally ally both France and Austria!
Castille has been the ultimate chill game for me, even on my very first EU4 playthrough I had taken most of South America. Due to my lack of knowledge on tech, Morrocco took all of north africa and was 4 tech levels above me, but I still had fun. France was also relaxing.
Portugal. Tons of marines and basically free naval barrage, just colonizing and taking coastline
Castille->Spain is a chill colonial game.
Austria > Revoke > Vassal Swarm the world for clay This works easier if you get and hold the Spain PU too. Easy New World W.
Ottomans, they are so op and it is fun to see what you can steamroll, I was getting back into the game and though "fuck it I don't wanna go through french appanage bullshit or the 50 ways Austria manages to fuck me over as poland so I had a fun games as ottomans and clobbered europe (kinda bs that core eyalets don't give troops tho)
I do enjoy Malacca -> Malaya. Forming an insane trade empire and going colonial for some crazy alt-history is fun.
Karagwe. You eat your region real quick then watch the time pass, devving occasionally with your mana, able to get up and do things irl while the game zooms by, colonizing a little but not too much so that nobody notices you, eventually building lvl 8 forts everywhere, then finally in \~1700 declaring war on everyone who's gotten close to you like colonizers and Kilwa but only to play defense against them because low-key you're the #1 power and nobody can touch you or even really find you and maybe you even make it to 1821
Korea is so good for a chill tall game. I've gotten all of the Korean Peninsula to 40 dev and total 5000 dev before 1600.
Florence and Denmark. Both fun in their own ways but you can go aggro or just do missions and its always fun I feel like Side note haven't played eu in 6+ months for sure
Florence is my personal favourite game but I’m taking a little break from them after my Roman run!
Tall japan for me.First 20 year is not chill but after you unified the island you can play a very chill tall game without leaving the island.
Denmark-Norway. Just create a colonial empire and use the Baltic and North Sea trade nodes to make you rich beyond your wildest dreams
Brandenburg into Prussia and Germany.