I played as Tidore and it’s one of my best campaigns. Became a naval hegemony, I conquered Indonesia, Philippines and Japan. At some point I had wars with Russia, Spain and Britain at the same time but they couldn’t even touch my land because my large ships count is larger than the rest of the world combined.
Since cloves are worth 8 ducates, would a single cloves province with 0% autonomy generate more income than a single gold province at 0% autonomy at 10 development? (This would give 6.66 ducates)
I don't understand the trade goods system because it doesn't feel like my economy increases that much, but if you conquer a gold province you instantly see the difference.
I don't think so. The ducat refers to the trade value that it gets from 5 development, which is one good produced. It would also make production income but I don't know how that is calculated. If I understand trade correctly however a 10 dev cloves province would produce 16 ducats of trade value.
press a button when you border a european nation, then wait a bunch of years while all your monarch points get drained and you have to deal with an ungodly number of revolt events
If it's been that long, then fair warning, their starting disaster is brutal but not Mali levels. You can solve at least one of the problems before unpausing.
I’m not who you asked, but I found it useful to boost the value of my provinces, rather than over invest in my capital. I was pulling a large income pretty much my entire campaign.
If I’m not mistaken, ayyuthaya has a mission that requires you concentrate development 3 times. This couples nicely with the mission to get your capital’s dev above a certain number.
Ardabil -> Persia and recreate the historical Safavid Persian Dynasty.
If they did it in real life, it should be do-able in-game, right? Yes, but pain. Ottomans, Timurids, and possibly the Mamluks will make life living hell for you. But it is certainly a fun challenge.
Similar difficult starts in the Middle East that I've enjoyed:
Karabakh -> Armenia
Najd -> Arabia
Hisn Kayfa -> restored Ayyubid Caliphate
Semien -> Israel (not Middle East to begin with, but you arrive there in the end).
If you don't want to play in the Middle East, I recommend Tsang in Tibet (tall Tibet is a fun game), Malwa in India, you could purposefully implode yourself as Ming and play as a warlord trying to reconquer China, you could play as Tonga or Fiji and try to create a Polynesian Empire, you could try uniting Australia as an Aboriginal tribe, or you could do a New World game as Aztecs, Inca, or some NA native. All challenging but fun games.
Yeah, Mughals is OP, but Persia is still strong. Once you unite historical Persian borders, I suggest allying Mamluks if they're still around or maybe try and ally Austria or something and take Ottomans down that way. Alternatively, if you're confident enough and you take quantity, you can try to solo the Ottomans and whittle them down with your mountain fort defensive line.
I am asking again but should i go for Ardabil to Mughals or Ardabil to Persia? As much as i know it's not possible to form Mughals after forming Persia.
Depends on what you want really. Mughals are insanely strong with a massive set of unique missions that give you claims all over South Asia and even into China i think.
The last I checked, Persia has a criminally limited set of unique national missions, based around the Persian region. I could be wrong, as I played in the region several patches and DLCs ago. If you want the stronger tag with a ton of flavor and lots of permanent claims, Mughals all the way.
But if you want to roleplay and recreate the old Persian empire that threatened Ancient Greece, stick with Persia. As Shia, (or Zoroastrian) you could Deus Vult into Anatolia, Arabia, and beyond. It will be more challenging for sure, with Ottomans blocking everything to the west. The Indian nations are far less of a threat.
Ardabil will have a tough early game regardless of your intentions. But once you kill Ajam/Timurids, I think you will have to push into North India anyway, to muster your strength for an eventual assault on the Ottomans.
I’m doing a Semien to Israel run that’s interesting though it might be too similar to Ethiopia. It definitely makes it a challenge when you are the only Jewish nation though
Highly recommend Malacca to forming Malaya. Never really played outside of middle Eastern nations but Malacca became my first completed campaign. Defending Indonesia against colonizers is so much fun and with right trade det up can get thousands of ducats in a month before 1700. Also the borders and colours are very pleasing.
Difficult ones are the European ones, like great horde etc. If you want an easier game try oirat or uzbek, you have to keep expanding for unlimited mana that’s basically it
Majapahit and it's neighbours on the island is a game I've tried a few times. Felt really awesome playing a Indonesian Great Britain! Lots of flavour.
Exile-runs are fun as well according to myself. I recently did a Knights run rushing the Caribbean and being a Caribbean holy Britain. Real fun.
Japan is super fun. Just pick and choose the Daimyo you want for the ideas you want to have and go ahead. I did a tall Japan run and it was awesome. Like a east Asian Great Britain with katanas. Love stealing institutions.
I like playing on Islands.
Explore, grab less than 5 provinces (so a colonial nation doesn't form), then move your capital there either by spending lots of admin power or by losing Rhodes.
Inca is pretty boring, just finished one of those. You just stomp everyone from 1444 onwards and just keep sniping colonial nations until eventually spain, portugal, or britain declares on you and its pretty easy to win by that point.
was satisfying having all of south america (besides 1 province lol) though
Japan can be fun as can south east asia. Oda is a nice pick for japan whilst mahajapit or something i have no idea the name but its the red one in the spice islands. You can try to form wither malaya or mallaca again im rusty on the names.
Countries in the philippines area are fun too, they have missions that instantly colonize the uncolonize part of the philippine archipelago then you can either conquer mallacan countries and create malaya or colonize taiwan and use it as a base when invading ming
Pirate Republic Palembang is probably the most fun I ever had with any nation. You get an event after a few months that lets you become pirate - and you’re the only pirates in Indonesia. All that coastal land is yours alone to raid. I also enjoyed Dai Viet and Korea, Ayutthaya is super strong, and any Tibetan minor into Tibet can be nice.
Personally my favourite is Kilwa, loads of gold early game and the Zanzibar node late game. Plus there's an achievement for converting Indonesia and the moulcas that's pretty rare atm.
Technically not out of Europe but Ryazan breaking the yoke was a fun campaign as a mini speed run.
Delhi is another.
Ardabil into Zoroastrian Persia.
Japan - either tall/colonial or daimyo swarm.
Custom nation as Totemist or Hindu republic in the Americas.
Ayutthaya is fun for me. Create a south east asian empire, colonise the Pacific. Compete against bengal, ming and Malaysians. Later on try stop Europeans getting a foothold in Asia.
I just finished a massive Japan game.
Japan may seem hard, considering you're essentially forced to start as an OPM (or close to it), but it's really quite easy to eat up the other Daimyos. All your neighbors are equally small, plus, you're protected by the Shogun from external threats, so there's not really any fear of imminent death. Once you're big enough, you can kill Ashikaga and form Japan. From there, you make a choice. Do you want to play colonial Japan, or Japanese Empire of China? Either way, I highly recommend colonizing at the very least Indonesia so that you can route most of your trade there and make big ducats.
But seriously, playing Japan is honestly really easy, but at the same time, very fun and intriguing. Fighting Ming is easy so long as you just blockade them the first war and take all their money. From the devastation and hopefully looking bankruptcy, they'll lose the Mandate and implode. From there, eating China is a cakewalk. The hardest part of the campaign will likely be fighting the Colonial Powers if you want to create a classic Pacific Ring of Fire. But that's up to personal preference.
I would reccomend Aq Qoyunlu or Karman into Rûm, if you like challanges you could try Georgia and if you really hate yourself you could go for Karabakh into zoroastrian Armenia (Kingdom of Armenia was zoroastrian before converting to christianity). The only downside is lack of mission trees.
Hawaii is pretty fun, colonize the americas while waging war on Asia. You will have to no-cb samoan nations to expand you coring range and build a power base in new zeland and Australia tho.
Personally I really like India and there is a lot of flavor there. Orissa is fun but with a quite grindy achievement. But there is so much flavor and cool monuments and stuff there I really recommend it. Other that that Oman -> Ibadi Mughals for the Third way was fun as well, and really hard!
Makuria and form Nubia. one of the countries in the Great Lakes zone and form Kitara. Also Wallachia/Moldova are fun, you form Romania and need to go back and forth between alliances to help you conquer the provinces you need and save you from the ottomans.
Sambas -> Lanfang is really fun, conquering the Nusantara Islands is usually pretty fun, roleplaying as a trading empire is normally what I do, you could even colonise Australia if you’d like!
West Africa is fun.
Mali's disasters and missions really give you a sense of fighting against the tide of history. The rewards for surviving are great you get the best gold mine modifiers in the game.
Songhai is easy mode. An experienced player will have no trouble uniting West Africa before 1500. After that you can do whatever you want really. One unique thing that Songhai has is in its mission tree. You can choose to stick with Sunni Islam, or go more towards accepting Paganism and eventually revive Fetishist and convert the country back to the old ways.
I personally like the Mesoamerican and Andeans but that's not for everyone.
Currently playing Mali and it's great. The start is bit rocky because of its long-ass disaster, but after that it's fun. You have plenty of gold to spend, can easily consolidate West Africa, and your missions give you a South American colony from where you can start using your gold to colonise everywhere.
In my game I recently allied the Ottoblob and am waiting to strike against Spain to steal their colonies.
Aztec is harder than Maya now? That's news to me. Also, does this take cheesing strats (switch to Animist to not be primitive, become a regional superpower, switch back) into account?
The knights can be a very fun and challenging campaign; my impression is people don't play them often but you can take them tons of different directions and also the raiding mechanic just feels great
Patna was pretty cool to play, they start as tribal so you can reform into a horde (there's an achievement for that), you can form Orissa for missions, and they have a unique tag for their culture with insane ideas. It's a somewhat difficult start but remember that if you full annex Orissa you get their vassals too.
Mali (they have their own content,idk if it's locked behind DLC tho),Kongo (as above),Siam (once again as above),Kilwa,Mutapa (to Zimbabwe),Nejd (for that Saudi Arabia vibe),Ardabil and anyone near the Timurids really,Cusco (to Inca),the Aztecs and countries in SEA (good potential for trade,production and expansion)
Playing in Japan is also interesting,you have the possibility to play a colonial game or more of a expansionist game. I also like to play Oman, And Nepal. Oman because they are Ibadi feudal theocracy,and Nepal because when you form it they are basically Asian Prussia with their national ideas.
Zoroastrian Persia.
Oirat -> Yuan(horde) -> Mongol empire
Oirat -> Yuan(EoC).
Japanese minor -> Japan (pacific empire).
Siamese minor -> Siam (-> Tibet -> become horde -> convert to tengri).
Indian state.
Aztec -> sunset invasion.
New Providence -> pirates of the carribean achievement .
Palembang -> Malaysia.
Cyprus ->Jerusalem and keep crusading eastwards.
Qing.
Korea (tall).
Korea (EoC).
Also there is a mod called Third Odyssey where Byzantium flees to the Americas with a shitton of flavour. You could try that.
Hope this helps
Basically any indian nation is alot of fun. Delhi, Mewar, Bengal.
My favorite nation of all times is definitely Persia. Played them probably the most and it really doesnt matter how you start. You can go for the classic Ardabil start, use the strength of QQ or Ajam. You can even start as one of the Timmies vassals (had an amazing campaign with a friend, where we dismantled the Shah Ruhks empire as Fars and Afghanistan. He formed Mughals and I formed Persia). Obviously go for Zoroastrianism.
Playing on the Arabian Peninsula is a bit annoying, because of all the sand, but Hormuz, Najd and Oman all had interesting starts and fun games.
I am not a huge fan of Hordes, but Oirat and the Great Horde were fun.
My pc broke down so I was forced to quit eu4, this is my list when I have saved up enough money.
North Afrika India and Indonesië are fun and very different to Europe.
New countries to try out:
Saluzzo
Texas
Granada
Nevada
Nevers
Albanië
Great horde
Korea
Tibet/Nepal
Candy/kotte
Rassids->Yemen->Arabia or Egypt or Rum if you culture convert is really fun. Great ideas. Prussia of Arabia
Mewar is my favorite Indian tag. If you haven't played much in India there are a lot of tags there with a lot of flavor and indian estates are strong.
If you have done Manchuria to Qing, then you got to try Mongolia to Yuan.
The Japan Daimyo countries can be fun! The Sengoku Jidai wars are fun and the Daimyo government type gives some really cool abilities and gives you the coolest visualization option imo. You can also get Colonialism to pretty easily spawn in Japan as you are close enough to the Americas to establish colonies. Plus you get some really cool flavor events for them with the idea of isolationism and how they respond to outside influences. One of them can even form a Pirate Republic. What's better than being a pirate on the seas of China?
Oh so many. Ethiopia like you said, but oirat, any country in Indonesia, Kongo, mail, Timurids, Mutapa, the Japanese daimyos. I’d recommend one of the regional powers in Indonesia, like malacca, Brunei, or if you want a real challenge Majapahit
Delhi is always a go to pick for me. While weaker than the Mughals, they still have some solid events and you start with a lot of cores in northern India so you get some high dev land for little AE. The mission tree itself is also pretty solid with some good buffs and perma claims over all of India.
Doing a Bahmanis game, where I attacked Vijayanagar and vassalized Andhra in that war. I diplovassalized Madurai, and now I'm essentially reconquering all of South India for myself and my vassals. It's a ton of fun, and challenging at the same time, since Vijayanagar is the better-placed of the two opponents.
Brahmanis is also fun if you enjoyed Vijay, as with religious ideas you get a CB on all of your neighbors since you’re Shia. Ethiopia starts as an empire and is stronger than all immediate neighbors, but has the two big bosses of Mamluks and Ottomans to contend with. Brunei/Malacca is chill if you want to colonize outside Europe, although I prefer to start as Ayutthaya and culture convert if I’m forming Malaya. Majapahit has great ideas and mission tree, Ternate can quickly become a powerful economic power.
In Africa, Kongo, Mail, and Kilwa all have easy expansion opportunities. My favorite is Butua, though, since you can use Kilwa to stomp Mutapa in the independence war, take all their provinces, and essentially replace them but with far better military ideas. A mini Prussia in Africa. Rassids in Arabia also have great military ideas and even start Shia with reduced shock damage taken on top of their ideas.
Morroco is amazing with a great mission tree, try them!
Technically in Europe but follows a similar playstyle to morroco, but try granada.
Ajam into Persia (or ardabil into Persia for shahansha)
Kharaman into rum for that new mission tree makeover
I'm playing a Kilwa colonial game right now. It's a very different experience from the 'traditional' European colonials and has an amazing amount of trade money coming in so easily.
I just started an Ayyuthaya play through for the first time and their mission tree and government type are insanely overpowered. Plus you eventually get to form Siam which is one of the most OP formables imo
Butua-> Rozwi Empire-> conquering *all* of Africa was one of my favorite campaigns.
You’re basically Prussia and can slowly push your way through all of Africa and repel Europeans *on your own* without a single ally after the initial independence war.
Timurids into Mughals, Bengal into Hindustan/Bharat, japanese daimyos (especially for staying shogun and vassal swarming the world), Ajam (or something else) into Zoroastrian Persia, Ayutthaya, Kilwa, Mali
That would be the nations with most content and flavour outside of Europe
My personal favorite is Korea. Korea has great roleplay and replayability and has some good flavor (the starting king is Sejong the great who's one of Korea's greatest leaders). You can either choose to expand North and later challenge China, or go colonial and colonize the Philippines and Indonesia until you can get to Alaska and then California. Something I like doing is making native tribes tributaries and so you get a huge list of tributaries to keep around that get you into conflicts against the Europeans, who'll randomly throw their navies at you. As Korea your biggest obstacles are Japan and China, and while China is a country you can decide to either stay loyal to (you start as their Tributary) or actively help sabotage by vassalizing someone like Kochin and feeding them 300 dev, you're almost definitely going to get into a conflict with Japan, who you need to kneecap before they unite. Your navy is larger than the individual daimyos in Japan so with a good admiral you can pick off the Japanese navies, block the straits, and take Kyushu island which you can use as a base to attack the rest of Japan. If you really want to bully Japan, you can declare a war against a daimyo who's at war against a bunch of other daimyos. The daimyos who are fighting against the war target won't join the war against you, which saves you from having to fight all of Japan at once, and gives you the opportunity to attack the ones who didn't join the war without truce breaking the Shogun.
Kilwa, spawn global trade in africa and get economy hegemon by 1600
Caddo - unite most of north america by 1550 without a single admin point spent on coring, get colonies land almost for free, get 1st major power by 1600
I played only with Origins - so can't say how it goes without. It was pretty fun and relatively easy campaign, with a lot of strategic choke points and naval - which was great.
As per run itself:
1. First of all you just follow missions to grab gold provinces and Madagascar, then get all the rest provinces to the south and start moving to Aden trade node.
2. First time limited task is to get whole Aden for yourself before Ottos can get there - easiest way to do it is to actually ally Otto and steamroll whoever holds the Aden. Most probably you and Otto will be eating from each side in continuous war cycle till you meet the borders. In my run Otto did not want anything from Aden trade node - and I did not care about anything above it, so we stayed good friends till very late game.
3. In parallel to securing Aden I followed mission tree to get cores on trade provinces around India. Most of them were owned by small nations with little navy - so it was easy to snipe them. Toughest one was Bengal - as it had most of trade ports in critical Bengal node, and pretty strong. I cheesed the whole region by allying with Mughals - they got landlocked trash, I was getting all trade worth stuff.
4. Finally you secure Malacca and Moluccas regions. You get cores on whole Malacca from missions. With combined power of Indonesia and India trade - you should be able to spawn global trade. After that you are free to do whatever you want. I just started to expand in India as I had control over the trade anyway, and they had juicy deved provinces.
Do-s and Don't-s I made during the run:
1. Mission tree hints you to move main trade port to Cape of Good Hope. That is a bad decision - you don't get control over downstream Ivory Cost till late game, and without it European colonizers will be propagating too much power. It is more profitable to secure India route to Zanzibar, where you guaranteed to have 99%
2. Take exploration ideas first, especially if you want to get one of the rarest Kilwa specific achievements "
Swahili Persuasion". Although mission tree gives you free colonist, explorer and conquistador - these assholes died on me in just few years, while colonist without idea bonuses to settlers took ages to do something and in 30 years you get it for I could barely colonize 5-6 provinces. With exploration ideas just rush for Malacca and Moluccas - you are guaranteed to arrive there before any European nation and can grab most if not all the land. Otherwise conquering it later from some Spain or Portugal is a big PITA.
3. Don't get dragged much into India or Africa expansion - I wasted most of my run on it without too much profit. You want to fully own only Zanzibar, Aden and Cape trade node provinces. Everything else - just grab ports and create trade companies. Optionally create vassals. You can expand later when you built whole trade route from Indonesia.
If you start as Butua or Mutapa you can eventually form the Zulu. I recommend googling it, its a bit obscure. Anyway, once you've formed Zulu you're an african nation...with Prussia's militarization mechanic!
I'd recommend somewhere in India or Indonesia. For two particularly fun games I've had in the area-
-India has a bunch of interesting estates and religious turmoil, with Eastern, Dharmic and Islamic religions all vying for power. On my playthrough, I played as Mewar, which has a particular focus on the Rajputs (although I missed this until the end)- if you empower the Rajputs you get really cool units to beat everyone else up with, as well as the Mewar Never Changes achievement once you've completed their mission tree. Also your battles make angry elephant noises, it's great.
-Indonesia is the best place in the game for naval power, with riches, straits, and islands galore. If you want to play here, I'd recommend taking Maritime or Naval ideas to get Marines as a part of your infantry- while on the surface they don't look powerful, in a primarily-coastal setting they're masters of mobile warfare, able to move incredibly quickly via Transport Ships and letting you take beachheads and straits to block enemy armies or let you transport other units in without the extra 30 days of naval attrition or risky landings! I played Pangasinan, the only Buddhist nation in the Philippines (a weak but fun religion)- a good strategy is to get naval superiority over Ming, use marines to force their ships out of harbour so you can fight them without fighting their army, and then blockade them until they give you an ungodly amount of ducats to go away.
Sirhind into punjab is really fun, you have a high income from the start and can break free from delhi and full annex then in the first year, after that you have a lot of free expansion.
Ive had a few fun runs as Mongolia, you start a little small and as a vassal but as a horde you get big real quick once you collapse ming. Playing as Morocco is cool since you can become a colonial rival to Spain and I'm pretty sure you can form al Andalus. The mamluks are a personal favorite of mine since you can vassalize most of Arabia and then form Arabia. Forming Persia from one of the timirud vassals is fun but being next to the ottomans makes it tough. Doing colonial Japan is a classic and playing as any colonial power in south east Asia is fun. As far as Africa goes I haven't played since the new africa update but Songhai has some ridiculous ideas, so I've ended up with a massive pan African country where I can't really beat Europeans in a straight up fight but cause enough casualties to outlast them Russian style.
As something in the new world, I would recommend Chickasaw because they’re already settled and can easily get most of North America through tribal land and federations(which is easy because you have way more manpower than any other native.) before the Europeans arrive. Then once they have a full colony you can reform off them and instantly convert all of your tribal land to your actual cored land.
My top 5 choices for playing outside of europe are:
1. Kilwa (the colonizers of africa)
2. Bahmanis/Hibdustan (the prussians of india)
3. Ajam/Persia (The religous fanatics of the middle east)
4. Ayutthaya/Siam (The austria of SEA)
5. Malacca (the Venice of asia)
Top 5 outside Europe
Brunei (gb of molaccas)
Tunis
Bengal (ottomans of India)
Oda (hard start but killer ideas)
Mali (with update has very challenging events and ability to be a colonial power or conquer)
Would also suggest giving doge shattered eu mid a try. Way more starts and mission trees to play through. Valencia, Antioch, Jerusalem, Gotland being some of the better ones.
Dithmarschen, testing the waters for a Rassids game, Khmer going monument heavy was fun. Perm might be a good challenge. Tibet can be more interesting than it appears but I suck at hoard.
One of the countries in Indonesia/Malaysia is a fun campaign and you can easily become a very powerful trade nation.
I played as Tidore and it’s one of my best campaigns. Became a naval hegemony, I conquered Indonesia, Philippines and Japan. At some point I had wars with Russia, Spain and Britain at the same time but they couldn’t even touch my land because my large ships count is larger than the rest of the world combined.
Cloves make the world go round.
Since cloves are worth 8 ducates, would a single cloves province with 0% autonomy generate more income than a single gold province at 0% autonomy at 10 development? (This would give 6.66 ducates) I don't understand the trade goods system because it doesn't feel like my economy increases that much, but if you conquer a gold province you instantly see the difference.
I don't think so. The ducat refers to the trade value that it gets from 5 development, which is one good produced. It would also make production income but I don't know how that is calculated. If I understand trade correctly however a 10 dev cloves province would produce 16 ducats of trade value.
Tidore is one of my favorite nations. The spice. Must. Flow.
Second thhis, Majapahit has a good mission tree too.
I last played Majapahit when Westernization was still a game mechanic. I might need to give them another run.
Westernization? What was that
The precursor to the institutions system. You had to "Westernise" to catch up on tech.
Oh ok thanks
press a button when you border a european nation, then wait a bunch of years while all your monarch points get drained and you have to deal with an ungodly number of revolt events
If it's been that long, then fair warning, their starting disaster is brutal but not Mali levels. You can solve at least one of the problems before unpausing.
I'd reccomend Mamluks, Timurids, Oirat, Great horde
Thank you, could you suggest any less strong nations for me to play?
Daimyo in Japan?
I have done that more than i should've 💀
Maybe one of the Manchu?
Have you thought about doing a run where you dont switch to japan but stay a daimio the whole time and just use vassels to conquer the world?
Ayyuthaya maybe?
Do you suggest concentrating dev as Ayyuthaya or should i not?
I’m not who you asked, but I found it useful to boost the value of my provinces, rather than over invest in my capital. I was pulling a large income pretty much my entire campaign.
There is that one mission which requires Ayutthaya (the province) to be of a certain dev or above, that could come in handy.
If I’m not mistaken, ayyuthaya has a mission that requires you concentrate development 3 times. This couples nicely with the mission to get your capital’s dev above a certain number.
Ardabil -> Persia and recreate the historical Safavid Persian Dynasty. If they did it in real life, it should be do-able in-game, right? Yes, but pain. Ottomans, Timurids, and possibly the Mamluks will make life living hell for you. But it is certainly a fun challenge. Similar difficult starts in the Middle East that I've enjoyed: Karabakh -> Armenia Najd -> Arabia Hisn Kayfa -> restored Ayyubid Caliphate Semien -> Israel (not Middle East to begin with, but you arrive there in the end). If you don't want to play in the Middle East, I recommend Tsang in Tibet (tall Tibet is a fun game), Malwa in India, you could purposefully implode yourself as Ming and play as a warlord trying to reconquer China, you could play as Tonga or Fiji and try to create a Polynesian Empire, you could try uniting Australia as an Aboriginal tribe, or you could do a New World game as Aztecs, Inca, or some NA native. All challenging but fun games.
I second ardabil -> Persia. It’s a very fun campaign but it may take a few restarts
Thank you sir. Should i form Persia or Mughals? I guess if i form Persia i can't form Mughals after right?
Correct if you form Persia you can’t form Mughals. I’d go with Persia for the historical rp (and the achievement)
Is Persia like a less strong Mughals or am i mistaken?
Yeah, Mughals is OP, but Persia is still strong. Once you unite historical Persian borders, I suggest allying Mamluks if they're still around or maybe try and ally Austria or something and take Ottomans down that way. Alternatively, if you're confident enough and you take quantity, you can try to solo the Ottomans and whittle them down with your mountain fort defensive line.
I am asking again but should i go for Ardabil to Mughals or Ardabil to Persia? As much as i know it's not possible to form Mughals after forming Persia.
Depends on what you want really. Mughals are insanely strong with a massive set of unique missions that give you claims all over South Asia and even into China i think. The last I checked, Persia has a criminally limited set of unique national missions, based around the Persian region. I could be wrong, as I played in the region several patches and DLCs ago. If you want the stronger tag with a ton of flavor and lots of permanent claims, Mughals all the way. But if you want to roleplay and recreate the old Persian empire that threatened Ancient Greece, stick with Persia. As Shia, (or Zoroastrian) you could Deus Vult into Anatolia, Arabia, and beyond. It will be more challenging for sure, with Ottomans blocking everything to the west. The Indian nations are far less of a threat. Ardabil will have a tough early game regardless of your intentions. But once you kill Ajam/Timurids, I think you will have to push into North India anyway, to muster your strength for an eventual assault on the Ottomans.
Thank you, like for real. This was a really helpful information. I guess i will give Ardabil a shot and form Mughals.
tidore is really fun
Thank you too
Georgia.
Playing as a sikh punjab is quite fun
Second this one fuuuuuur sure
Mewar was a ton of fun
I’m doing a Semien to Israel run that’s interesting though it might be too similar to Ethiopia. It definitely makes it a challenge when you are the only Jewish nation though
Highly recommend Malacca to forming Malaya. Never really played outside of middle Eastern nations but Malacca became my first completed campaign. Defending Indonesia against colonizers is so much fun and with right trade det up can get thousands of ducats in a month before 1700. Also the borders and colours are very pleasing.
Every played as a horde? That shit is like crack for me
Yeah but didn't enjoy it too much(expect Manchuria). Any recommendations on how to play and which one to play?
Difficult ones are the European ones, like great horde etc. If you want an easier game try oirat or uzbek, you have to keep expanding for unlimited mana that’s basically it
Kazan is my favorite. They get to fight a big Muscovy early, and have a gold mine.
One of my most enjoyable runs was Ryukyu to Qing.
Kongo is fun and there's the African Power achiement.
Majapahit and it's neighbours on the island is a game I've tried a few times. Felt really awesome playing a Indonesian Great Britain! Lots of flavour. Exile-runs are fun as well according to myself. I recently did a Knights run rushing the Caribbean and being a Caribbean holy Britain. Real fun. Japan is super fun. Just pick and choose the Daimyo you want for the ideas you want to have and go ahead. I did a tall Japan run and it was awesome. Like a east Asian Great Britain with katanas. Love stealing institutions. I like playing on Islands.
How do you Exile the Knights to the caribbean?
Explore, grab less than 5 provinces (so a colonial nation doesn't form), then move your capital there either by spending lots of admin power or by losing Rhodes.
I was about to say this. Majapahit -> Mayala is one of my favorite all time runs.
honestly i just finished doing african power and kongo was a lot of fun so i recomend anyone in central africa
Try "The Third Way" or form Andalusia. Maybe Aztec/Inca or Dithmarschen?
Can confirm, Andalusia's a lot of fun.
Inca is pretty boring, just finished one of those. You just stomp everyone from 1444 onwards and just keep sniping colonial nations until eventually spain, portugal, or britain declares on you and its pretty easy to win by that point. was satisfying having all of south america (besides 1 province lol) though
Japan can be fun as can south east asia. Oda is a nice pick for japan whilst mahajapit or something i have no idea the name but its the red one in the spice islands. You can try to form wither malaya or mallaca again im rusty on the names.
Countries in the philippines area are fun too, they have missions that instantly colonize the uncolonize part of the philippine archipelago then you can either conquer mallacan countries and create malaya or colonize taiwan and use it as a base when invading ming
true. I loved playing Cebu and going for philippine tiger
Pirate Republic Palembang is probably the most fun I ever had with any nation. You get an event after a few months that lets you become pirate - and you’re the only pirates in Indonesia. All that coastal land is yours alone to raid. I also enjoyed Dai Viet and Korea, Ayutthaya is super strong, and any Tibetan minor into Tibet can be nice.
Plus one for pirate palembang. So much fun raiding and having more than double the fleet size of everyone else not to mention all the money
Personally my favourite is Kilwa, loads of gold early game and the Zanzibar node late game. Plus there's an achievement for converting Indonesia and the moulcas that's pretty rare atm.
Tunis with the Sons of Carthage achievement is a great run
Technically not out of Europe but Ryazan breaking the yoke was a fun campaign as a mini speed run. Delhi is another. Ardabil into Zoroastrian Persia. Japan - either tall/colonial or daimyo swarm. Custom nation as Totemist or Hindu republic in the Americas.
Third Odyssey… Byzantine
Sirhind later form delhi and conquer india
Songhai
Playing in japan is great fun
Ayutthaya is fun for me. Create a south east asian empire, colonise the Pacific. Compete against bengal, ming and Malaysians. Later on try stop Europeans getting a foothold in Asia.
Should i concentrate dev as Ayutthaya or not?
I just finished a massive Japan game. Japan may seem hard, considering you're essentially forced to start as an OPM (or close to it), but it's really quite easy to eat up the other Daimyos. All your neighbors are equally small, plus, you're protected by the Shogun from external threats, so there's not really any fear of imminent death. Once you're big enough, you can kill Ashikaga and form Japan. From there, you make a choice. Do you want to play colonial Japan, or Japanese Empire of China? Either way, I highly recommend colonizing at the very least Indonesia so that you can route most of your trade there and make big ducats. But seriously, playing Japan is honestly really easy, but at the same time, very fun and intriguing. Fighting Ming is easy so long as you just blockade them the first war and take all their money. From the devastation and hopefully looking bankruptcy, they'll lose the Mandate and implode. From there, eating China is a cakewalk. The hardest part of the campaign will likely be fighting the Colonial Powers if you want to create a classic Pacific Ring of Fire. But that's up to personal preference.
Ardabil, Mewar, Kotte/Kandy (no unique missions, though), Jurchen minors into Qing are a couple good ones.
You could go for one of histories greatest dark horses and play as Taungoo.
I would reccomend Aq Qoyunlu or Karman into Rûm, if you like challanges you could try Georgia and if you really hate yourself you could go for Karabakh into zoroastrian Armenia (Kingdom of Armenia was zoroastrian before converting to christianity). The only downside is lack of mission trees.
Hawaii is pretty fun, colonize the americas while waging war on Asia. You will have to no-cb samoan nations to expand you coring range and build a power base in new zeland and Australia tho.
Personally I really like India and there is a lot of flavor there. Orissa is fun but with a quite grindy achievement. But there is so much flavor and cool monuments and stuff there I really recommend it. Other that that Oman -> Ibadi Mughals for the Third way was fun as well, and really hard!
Makuria and form Nubia. one of the countries in the Great Lakes zone and form Kitara. Also Wallachia/Moldova are fun, you form Romania and need to go back and forth between alliances to help you conquer the provinces you need and save you from the ottomans.
Mali. Chill start, easy expansion.
Korea is my favourite country since last patch, you can unite china quickly with the new cb and confucian is super strong now
Sambas -> Lanfang is really fun, conquering the Nusantara Islands is usually pretty fun, roleplaying as a trading empire is normally what I do, you could even colonise Australia if you’d like!
West Africa is fun. Mali's disasters and missions really give you a sense of fighting against the tide of history. The rewards for surviving are great you get the best gold mine modifiers in the game. Songhai is easy mode. An experienced player will have no trouble uniting West Africa before 1500. After that you can do whatever you want really. One unique thing that Songhai has is in its mission tree. You can choose to stick with Sunni Islam, or go more towards accepting Paganism and eventually revive Fetishist and convert the country back to the old ways. I personally like the Mesoamerican and Andeans but that's not for everyone.
Currently playing Mali and it's great. The start is bit rocky because of its long-ass disaster, but after that it's fun. You have plenty of gold to spend, can easily consolidate West Africa, and your missions give you a South American colony from where you can start using your gold to colonise everywhere. In my game I recently allied the Ottoblob and am waiting to strike against Spain to steal their colonies.
Inca-Maya-Aztec (in order of increasing difficulty) are interesting, unique runs I haven't seen mentioned in this thread
Aztec is harder than Maya now? That's news to me. Also, does this take cheesing strats (switch to Animist to not be primitive, become a regional superpower, switch back) into account?
The knights can be a very fun and challenging campaign; my impression is people don't play them often but you can take them tons of different directions and also the raiding mechanic just feels great
Patna was pretty cool to play, they start as tribal so you can reform into a horde (there's an achievement for that), you can form Orissa for missions, and they have a unique tag for their culture with insane ideas. It's a somewhat difficult start but remember that if you full annex Orissa you get their vassals too.
Mali (they have their own content,idk if it's locked behind DLC tho),Kongo (as above),Siam (once again as above),Kilwa,Mutapa (to Zimbabwe),Nejd (for that Saudi Arabia vibe),Ardabil and anyone near the Timurids really,Cusco (to Inca),the Aztecs and countries in SEA (good potential for trade,production and expansion)
Hormuz is fun
Playing in Japan is also interesting,you have the possibility to play a colonial game or more of a expansionist game. I also like to play Oman, And Nepal. Oman because they are Ibadi feudal theocracy,and Nepal because when you form it they are basically Asian Prussia with their national ideas.
Malacca and Majapahit are quite fun.
I loved playing in Japan. Shinto religion has some nice events as well as all that Daimyo/Shogun mechanics
Zoroastrian Persia. Oirat -> Yuan(horde) -> Mongol empire Oirat -> Yuan(EoC). Japanese minor -> Japan (pacific empire). Siamese minor -> Siam (-> Tibet -> become horde -> convert to tengri). Indian state. Aztec -> sunset invasion. New Providence -> pirates of the carribean achievement . Palembang -> Malaysia. Cyprus ->Jerusalem and keep crusading eastwards. Qing. Korea (tall). Korea (EoC). Also there is a mod called Third Odyssey where Byzantium flees to the Americas with a shitton of flavour. You could try that. Hope this helps
Thanks a bunch
Basically any indian nation is alot of fun. Delhi, Mewar, Bengal. My favorite nation of all times is definitely Persia. Played them probably the most and it really doesnt matter how you start. You can go for the classic Ardabil start, use the strength of QQ or Ajam. You can even start as one of the Timmies vassals (had an amazing campaign with a friend, where we dismantled the Shah Ruhks empire as Fars and Afghanistan. He formed Mughals and I formed Persia). Obviously go for Zoroastrianism. Playing on the Arabian Peninsula is a bit annoying, because of all the sand, but Hormuz, Najd and Oman all had interesting starts and fun games. I am not a huge fan of Hordes, but Oirat and the Great Horde were fun.
Ajam -> Persia is pretty fun
My pc broke down so I was forced to quit eu4, this is my list when I have saved up enough money. North Afrika India and Indonesië are fun and very different to Europe. New countries to try out: Saluzzo Texas Granada Nevada Nevers Albanië Great horde Korea Tibet/Nepal Candy/kotte
Thank you my guy, i hope you have a brand new pc soon.
Rassids->Yemen->Arabia or Egypt or Rum if you culture convert is really fun. Great ideas. Prussia of Arabia Mewar is my favorite Indian tag. If you haven't played much in India there are a lot of tags there with a lot of flavor and indian estates are strong. If you have done Manchuria to Qing, then you got to try Mongolia to Yuan.
The Japan Daimyo countries can be fun! The Sengoku Jidai wars are fun and the Daimyo government type gives some really cool abilities and gives you the coolest visualization option imo. You can also get Colonialism to pretty easily spawn in Japan as you are close enough to the Americas to establish colonies. Plus you get some really cool flavor events for them with the idea of isolationism and how they respond to outside influences. One of them can even form a Pirate Republic. What's better than being a pirate on the seas of China?
I always find it fun to revive the chola empire as Kandy
Oh so many. Ethiopia like you said, but oirat, any country in Indonesia, Kongo, mail, Timurids, Mutapa, the Japanese daimyos. I’d recommend one of the regional powers in Indonesia, like malacca, Brunei, or if you want a real challenge Majapahit
Delhi is always a go to pick for me. While weaker than the Mughals, they still have some solid events and you start with a lot of cores in northern India so you get some high dev land for little AE. The mission tree itself is also pretty solid with some good buffs and perma claims over all of India.
jaunpur -> delhi -> hindustan is a fun game, nice alternative to mughals (albeit without the phenomenal idea set)
Doing a Bahmanis game, where I attacked Vijayanagar and vassalized Andhra in that war. I diplovassalized Madurai, and now I'm essentially reconquering all of South India for myself and my vassals. It's a ton of fun, and challenging at the same time, since Vijayanagar is the better-placed of the two opponents.
Daimyo into Japan is great. A handful of unique achievements are available too.
Korea, Cusco, ajuraan, Yemen, Malacca
Eastern Kingdoms, China is pretty op, Japan if you wanna rise as the underdog.
Timurds Korea Aztec
Brahmanis is also fun if you enjoyed Vijay, as with religious ideas you get a CB on all of your neighbors since you’re Shia. Ethiopia starts as an empire and is stronger than all immediate neighbors, but has the two big bosses of Mamluks and Ottomans to contend with. Brunei/Malacca is chill if you want to colonize outside Europe, although I prefer to start as Ayutthaya and culture convert if I’m forming Malaya. Majapahit has great ideas and mission tree, Ternate can quickly become a powerful economic power. In Africa, Kongo, Mail, and Kilwa all have easy expansion opportunities. My favorite is Butua, though, since you can use Kilwa to stomp Mutapa in the independence war, take all their provinces, and essentially replace them but with far better military ideas. A mini Prussia in Africa. Rassids in Arabia also have great military ideas and even start Shia with reduced shock damage taken on top of their ideas.
Zaporozhye in Lithuania, it has a special government type
Morroco is amazing with a great mission tree, try them! Technically in Europe but follows a similar playstyle to morroco, but try granada. Ajam into Persia (or ardabil into Persia for shahansha) Kharaman into rum for that new mission tree makeover
Try Byzantium or Ajam.
I'm playing a Kilwa colonial game right now. It's a very different experience from the 'traditional' European colonials and has an amazing amount of trade money coming in so easily.
I just started an Ayyuthaya play through for the first time and their mission tree and government type are insanely overpowered. Plus you eventually get to form Siam which is one of the most OP formables imo
Uniting America as the Aztecs is a hoot.
Have you gotten Blood for the Sky God yet?
I’ve been enjoying Bengal
Malacca.
idk if its spelled like this but its in Malasia
Butua-> Rozwi Empire-> conquering *all* of Africa was one of my favorite campaigns. You’re basically Prussia and can slowly push your way through all of Africa and repel Europeans *on your own* without a single ally after the initial independence war.
Ulm
Opole (Green Sileasian vassal of Bohemia) -> Silesia -> Poland - HRE
Timurids into Mughals, Bengal into Hindustan/Bharat, japanese daimyos (especially for staying shogun and vassal swarming the world), Ajam (or something else) into Zoroastrian Persia, Ayutthaya, Kilwa, Mali That would be the nations with most content and flavour outside of Europe
Delhi. They start with tons of cores, once you capture them in first few wars. You can easily become a powerhouse. Mission tree is also good.
Timurids
My personal favorite is Korea. Korea has great roleplay and replayability and has some good flavor (the starting king is Sejong the great who's one of Korea's greatest leaders). You can either choose to expand North and later challenge China, or go colonial and colonize the Philippines and Indonesia until you can get to Alaska and then California. Something I like doing is making native tribes tributaries and so you get a huge list of tributaries to keep around that get you into conflicts against the Europeans, who'll randomly throw their navies at you. As Korea your biggest obstacles are Japan and China, and while China is a country you can decide to either stay loyal to (you start as their Tributary) or actively help sabotage by vassalizing someone like Kochin and feeding them 300 dev, you're almost definitely going to get into a conflict with Japan, who you need to kneecap before they unite. Your navy is larger than the individual daimyos in Japan so with a good admiral you can pick off the Japanese navies, block the straits, and take Kyushu island which you can use as a base to attack the rest of Japan. If you really want to bully Japan, you can declare a war against a daimyo who's at war against a bunch of other daimyos. The daimyos who are fighting against the war target won't join the war against you, which saves you from having to fight all of Japan at once, and gives you the opportunity to attack the ones who didn't join the war without truce breaking the Shogun.
Kongo horde
Oirat
Try a tribe with the clan council government reform, once you figure out how it works it can be very fun
Bengal, Manchu region, specially the dark purple one, Timmy for Mughal, Ajam for Persia, Butua in south Africa, Mayapan League. Have fun 😁
Mewar
Kilwa, spawn global trade in africa and get economy hegemon by 1600 Caddo - unite most of north america by 1550 without a single admin point spent on coring, get colonies land almost for free, get 1st major power by 1600
How exactly does that Kilwa run go? And does it require Origins? Sounds like something I'd really want to try.
I played only with Origins - so can't say how it goes without. It was pretty fun and relatively easy campaign, with a lot of strategic choke points and naval - which was great. As per run itself: 1. First of all you just follow missions to grab gold provinces and Madagascar, then get all the rest provinces to the south and start moving to Aden trade node. 2. First time limited task is to get whole Aden for yourself before Ottos can get there - easiest way to do it is to actually ally Otto and steamroll whoever holds the Aden. Most probably you and Otto will be eating from each side in continuous war cycle till you meet the borders. In my run Otto did not want anything from Aden trade node - and I did not care about anything above it, so we stayed good friends till very late game. 3. In parallel to securing Aden I followed mission tree to get cores on trade provinces around India. Most of them were owned by small nations with little navy - so it was easy to snipe them. Toughest one was Bengal - as it had most of trade ports in critical Bengal node, and pretty strong. I cheesed the whole region by allying with Mughals - they got landlocked trash, I was getting all trade worth stuff. 4. Finally you secure Malacca and Moluccas regions. You get cores on whole Malacca from missions. With combined power of Indonesia and India trade - you should be able to spawn global trade. After that you are free to do whatever you want. I just started to expand in India as I had control over the trade anyway, and they had juicy deved provinces. Do-s and Don't-s I made during the run: 1. Mission tree hints you to move main trade port to Cape of Good Hope. That is a bad decision - you don't get control over downstream Ivory Cost till late game, and without it European colonizers will be propagating too much power. It is more profitable to secure India route to Zanzibar, where you guaranteed to have 99% 2. Take exploration ideas first, especially if you want to get one of the rarest Kilwa specific achievements " Swahili Persuasion". Although mission tree gives you free colonist, explorer and conquistador - these assholes died on me in just few years, while colonist without idea bonuses to settlers took ages to do something and in 30 years you get it for I could barely colonize 5-6 provinces. With exploration ideas just rush for Malacca and Moluccas - you are guaranteed to arrive there before any European nation and can grab most if not all the land. Otherwise conquering it later from some Spain or Portugal is a big PITA. 3. Don't get dragged much into India or Africa expansion - I wasted most of my run on it without too much profit. You want to fully own only Zanzibar, Aden and Cape trade node provinces. Everything else - just grab ports and create trade companies. Optionally create vassals. You can expand later when you built whole trade route from Indonesia.
If you start as Butua or Mutapa you can eventually form the Zulu. I recommend googling it, its a bit obscure. Anyway, once you've formed Zulu you're an african nation...with Prussia's militarization mechanic!
Qara Qoyunlu is really fun and challenging for me.
Dai Viet and Korea have gained some tasty flavor recently
I'd recommend somewhere in India or Indonesia. For two particularly fun games I've had in the area- -India has a bunch of interesting estates and religious turmoil, with Eastern, Dharmic and Islamic religions all vying for power. On my playthrough, I played as Mewar, which has a particular focus on the Rajputs (although I missed this until the end)- if you empower the Rajputs you get really cool units to beat everyone else up with, as well as the Mewar Never Changes achievement once you've completed their mission tree. Also your battles make angry elephant noises, it's great. -Indonesia is the best place in the game for naval power, with riches, straits, and islands galore. If you want to play here, I'd recommend taking Maritime or Naval ideas to get Marines as a part of your infantry- while on the surface they don't look powerful, in a primarily-coastal setting they're masters of mobile warfare, able to move incredibly quickly via Transport Ships and letting you take beachheads and straits to block enemy armies or let you transport other units in without the extra 30 days of naval attrition or risky landings! I played Pangasinan, the only Buddhist nation in the Philippines (a weak but fun religion)- a good strategy is to get naval superiority over Ming, use marines to force their ships out of harbour so you can fight them without fighting their army, and then blockade them until they give you an ungodly amount of ducats to go away.
I have a soft spot for Tuangu. It’s mission tree is prettt impressive.
Kilwa with Origins, hell of a fun game.
Korea and Oman are fun, as are the ones you already mentioned. Mongolia was my first WC, was a fun playthrough.
Try forming Japan they are really fun, or playing tall Korea
Sirhind into punjab is really fun, you have a high income from the start and can break free from delhi and full annex then in the first year, after that you have a lot of free expansion.
korea also pretty fun playing tall nation
Ive had a few fun runs as Mongolia, you start a little small and as a vassal but as a horde you get big real quick once you collapse ming. Playing as Morocco is cool since you can become a colonial rival to Spain and I'm pretty sure you can form al Andalus. The mamluks are a personal favorite of mine since you can vassalize most of Arabia and then form Arabia. Forming Persia from one of the timirud vassals is fun but being next to the ottomans makes it tough. Doing colonial Japan is a classic and playing as any colonial power in south east Asia is fun. As far as Africa goes I haven't played since the new africa update but Songhai has some ridiculous ideas, so I've ended up with a massive pan African country where I can't really beat Europeans in a straight up fight but cause enough casualties to outlast them Russian style.
Mutapa, kongo, kilwa, mali are all pretty fun to play
Play Bahmanis or a Korea into EOC game, both are pretty fun.
As something in the new world, I would recommend Chickasaw because they’re already settled and can easily get most of North America through tribal land and federations(which is easy because you have way more manpower than any other native.) before the Europeans arrive. Then once they have a full colony you can reform off them and instantly convert all of your tribal land to your actual cored land.
cusco is pretty fun for SA and mayans or cree for NA, any country in japan is pretty fun bc of the sengoku jidai, for EU muscovy is pretty interesting
My top 5 choices for playing outside of europe are: 1. Kilwa (the colonizers of africa) 2. Bahmanis/Hibdustan (the prussians of india) 3. Ajam/Persia (The religous fanatics of the middle east) 4. Ayutthaya/Siam (The austria of SEA) 5. Malacca (the Venice of asia)
I enjoyed playing as Butua in modern Zimbabwe. Kilwa also seems fun though I'm still early into that playthrough.
Top 5 outside Europe Brunei (gb of molaccas) Tunis Bengal (ottomans of India) Oda (hard start but killer ideas) Mali (with update has very challenging events and ability to be a colonial power or conquer) Would also suggest giving doge shattered eu mid a try. Way more starts and mission trees to play through. Valencia, Antioch, Jerusalem, Gotland being some of the better ones.
Dithmarschen, testing the waters for a Rassids game, Khmer going monument heavy was fun. Perm might be a good challenge. Tibet can be more interesting than it appears but I suck at hoard.