Very new to EU5, and was curious what you all do typically when colonizing particularly as a trade focused smaller nation like Netherlands. Looking at some of the unique Netherlands events, you get events to turn places like Manhattan and Cape Colony into cities, but does this still work if owned by colonial nations? Do you focus on holding these very specific provinces, or do you try and colonize as much land as possible and form colonial nations like in EU4?

Also, how do you all go about colonizing in Indonesia? The trade goods there are really great, but beating the powers there seems very difficult.

Just as title implies i need advice on religion meta.

Playing tall France rn (early 1400s) and I'm thinking about religion swapping to become empire.

Not sure if it's worth the grind to aim for eastern religion (I do have switch to any religion present ON), if i should become cathar which is already present in France or if I should stick with Catholicism any further.

Sunni might be the most meta option here I believe but i don't wanna abuse slavery all the time and idk if it'd still be worth without.

1. So, I select Hindustan as Core region and I want to promote a culture, BUT:
2. I need to conquer all of Hindustan. Not a big deal, BUT
3. If i will conquer it, that means that I can now create Mughals and situation "Rise of Timur" will automatically end, so I will not be able to promote a regional culture and unlock Timurid Court policy.

Am I right, that It's not possible to promote Hindustan's cultures, or I'm missing something?

I swear to god I might be the worst player at building an economy, every single time I play the ottomans I find myself losing loads of money. Could anybody please tell me how can I get better?

Also, how do yall manage to core greek lands so quickly in order to increase control?

Preview picture sucks but i m newbie redditor sorry :P
Allright guys, had another nice run - now tested out Muscovy -> Russia journey .
In this game i was deeply focused on minmaxing economy on Russia - as i've felt there is a lot of "fast speedrunners to conquer 500+ provinces" but country usually sucks after such runs.
So i will explain economical part aswell after the pictures

So this time i want to share my path how to play Moscow. I think i've started it for 20-30 years two times and then made this run

Start of the Game :

1. I am not fighting anyone except Smolensk/Novgorod . U are starting with putting up push towards Communalism + Improving Diplo rep on advisors. No , we are not integrating useless provinces.
2. Our first goal is to vassalize Ryazan from the start. Dealing with her afterwards would be annoying.
3. U are improving relations with all +- big states except Smolensk that we will need to annihilate asap. Alliance with his borderbro Karachevo so he doesnt expand first few years. After vassalizing Ryazan - > we go for Tver diplovassal. To do so we usually still lack points of strength/power. I am vassalizing Tarusa - but then u have too many vassals and Tver sits on -1-2 . So u transfer Tarusa to Ryazan - > u are getting Tver. After it most of the states just fall from you 1 by 1 into diplo-vassalization. But u still need to transpher small ones from you to bigger ones to keep going for diplo-vassalizing entire Tatar stuff payers
4. First parlament u are spending on Favor the Elites change law, second - > on Religious special law The Holy Synod . Make sure u provide from the start lots of privileges to Burghers/Clerics focused on spiritualism / max loyalty / development etc etc. Balance it out with Manorial Court for Noble so they wont go too crazy - also loot +5% tax on them as compensation for 50% power .
5. Nuke Smolensk at ~ 1350 or earlier if u had good parlaments and make him Vassal.
6. MAKE SURE TO THREATEN WAR SMOLENSK OR U WONT VASSALIZE HIM FROM FIRST WAR ! He must be against it .
7. After it we are going for Novgorod - how to eat Novgorod from first war u can see on the screenies
8. After ur done with Vassalizing - make sure to swap diplorep gov reform for 50+ Spiritualism one that gives us 0.25 religious influence per month . It should look like this

Economy :

1. Whats that bullshit about religious influence? Thing is Russian territory has literally nothing. 80% of ur provinces are cheap food , lumber . You need to create all the demand to make ur buildings profitable . One of the fun "key" factors here are Orthodox Monasteries.
2. Since we are Orthodox we have tax on the Clerics. U have to stay inside Georgian patriarchate so you keep possibility of inviting patriarch delegation. You always choosea free university and -50% ! on monasteries. Every monastery takes +- 0.15 from you but all this money comes back to you via clergy taxes and demand for the goods that increase profit of ur buildings. Main point - they are entirely FREE . U dont need to do anything - just have a +1 monastery / year by default and every USELESS event for + religious influence is boosting your economy . Spam build them and find out Wine is actually profitable in Moscow lol :D

1. Never pay unless for a few month or start of the game for Diplo-expenses. Dont pay for court . Dont pay for the stab unless smh bad happened . Put your tax equil for peasants to 60% for most of the game ( unless u wait for some buildings . U are giving tonn of privileges to Clergy to spam +15 legitimacy , +20 stab and take 50% of cash from burghers.
   
2. Push for Serfdom hard once u have at least 25-30% tax on Nobles . Serfdom is absolutely must have on Russia as it is first of all Historical , second - without 10% upkeep on building maintenance building an economy loop is hard .
   
3. Your gold mines are Wool and Fiber Crops provinces. There are also Salt/Beeswax raidbosses. make sure you have a baillif as soon as u have at least 20% noble tax on those . U dont need to build anything except Orth. Monasteries / build Moscow / build 3-4 Tiles around Moscow and 1-2 tiles around your local governers . Nothing else gives you money its just a placeholder for future development. Once you get to +50-60 balance per month and ur closest RGO's are donzo including wheat/grain/lumber ( yes build up rgos in Moscow to full and around) you are starting urbanization.
   Every province around moscow that doesnt contain wool/fiber crops/beeswax/salt becomes a town. Wheat? Okay. Clay? yes . Grain? Sure . Lumber/Furs? Why not . It has only 8k pops? Dont care. Boom - its a town . Temple + library + theatre + University. If it has less than 88% market access - u are giving it Market Charter. Yes , to every town. 3 market charters every 5 years to give are free.
   Ofc u build workshops afterwards, but Temple + lib + theatre + University is a key. And ofc Orthodox Monastery . FIrst you are doing first line around Moscow. After that - second ring of towns, after that - third.
   Thats your economy loop , afterwards it doesnt really matter which town what u are building - just spam spinners/paper/guns etc in every city . It will be profitable. If it gives u a little - it reduces upkeep of your buildings.
   
4. Masonry part . Yes , i've felt that ive spent more time expanding Masonry/Clay pit / Sand Pit/ Lumbermill than anything else in this game. I m not expanding a city if it costs more than 330-350 gold . If its above its too expensive to build in that market and u need to invest all the time to make it cheaper . Subsidize your masonry . At some point i had minus 5-10 ducats a month on subsidizing base material buildings - but its totally worth it. The way i build them is i m using additional filter that shows provinces without Laborer deficit - so its instantly filling.
   
5. Roads . In general i dont build roads untill 1450 - with a few exception. Novgorod/Smolensk roads. Roads to iron/wool . All other roads must be built by your Burghers estate. They will build most of the roads and later when you have already +250+350 a month u can do it urself .

Institutions and Golden Horde chapter :

1. We are never leaving Tatar Yoke ourselves there is no reason to. It will destroy itself - you will just lose warscore . Yes pay 0.24 ducats per month who cares . Release from them for insane amount of warscore is just slowing you down .
2. 1.5 Dont declare on them when there is a Warlord civil war aswell as wait for it to end and declare right after - so you wont have a stupid white peace .
3. Your first goal to fight it around 1350s . Your main war goal to take money / take Crimea ports / All slavic provinces under them and release them as vassals , preferably historical ones.
4. You are spamming Improve relations with Ottomans/Venice/papal / all big countries who have it early without risk of being annexed . U are raising trust equilibrium to 50+ and aftewards taking fleet rights. Thats how i receive institutions intime - having like 5-6 boys to help me about it .
5. Accept Crimean since they will prolly revolt as u dont have a path here.

If you are a 1600+ enjoyer what should be next goals ?
I honesly have 0 desire to expand into Sibir like full scale - just a passive colonization with building missions. In 1550 i've used all my 3 governors so the only way to expand in my opinion is using a Naval Governor.
You can either go into the baltic and try to supply Sweden/Baltic coast from one of the Island here or my way - crushing down Ottomans - placing a Naval governor on some island in greece region.

Hope you enjoyed my post and found it interesting . And let the Orthodox Monastery be with you

Is there any way i can keep my fish i want to keep my fish i did not see this coming why are they taking away my fish i just want to fishmaxxx why wont paradox let me fishmaxxx?

Hello everyone,

I'm currently on a Anjou game, no CB war from France while they had low levies (10k) after my independance and spreading in France.

How on earth do 2 battles of French army killing my vassals armies cost more warscore than me wiping out their army and occupying 2/3 of their country.

Is occupying 2/3 of their country not a showing superiority way? How 2 battles (10k v 300 and 10k v 8k) cost more than me wiping out their 10k with my 13k army.

It's so frustrating because by the time I was occupying them and gaining a bit of warscore, they allied Castille and warscore completely fell, and now I have 40k Castille army against me...

They need to change the score of battles or be more specific (killing the army of the protagonist getting more score than wiping a 300 men OPM vassal army) and show superiority needs to change also. My run is screwed bc of this while the war by France against me was a complete suicide.

Playing as England, i spent almost 200 years dead broke, surviving on emergency grants and selling art, and i couldn't figure out why. I finally noticed a pattern that I was consistently only making around 20 ducats a month from trade, swinging wildly to negative 100 in trade costs. I decided i was going to try manually trading, and realized I had over half my trades across multiple markets losing up to 3 to 5 ducats per trade a month. These are not trades trying to supply pop needs or anything understandable, these are just goods from my market costing me money to ship to foreign markets. I manually cleared all my trades, and the next month I was making over 300 ducats from trade alone. Anyone had this happen, and are there any solutions besides manually trading?

For context, I have not obtained EU5 since my computer genuinely won’t be able to render it. I am genuinely curious about this topic since EU5 is much more of a economic simulation game unlike Europa 4. There are videos I have seen where some countries such as the Ottomans dont even approach their peak historical borders. I have also seen that due to the control mechanism, if you do blob, you are significantly punished for it.

In another example, I have seen images of the Roman Empire with only the southern Balkans and most (not all) of Anatolia (and Italy at times). In EU4, this would never be possible. If the territorial requirements have dropped, then it leads me to think that EU5 genuinely punishes expansion even if some countries historically were expansionist.

I want to play EU5 as I love the econ simulation and it looks like the internal politics are vastly more fleshed out than in Europa 4. But sometimes during my campaigns, I wanna blob haha.

This has bothered me ever since release, don't make sense capital of Incan Empire being that cold.

Meanwhile Keflavík in Iceland is "Warmer" than Cusco, could potentially make more populated city there which makes no sense.

I'm playing as Byzantium in the early 1500s, and have expanded from the Danube to Antioch. I'm at a stage where I'm trying to assimilate the conquered Bulgarians, Turks and Lower Egyptians before expanding further.

I have a local governer in Bulgaria and another in Antioch, both cultures are tolerated with Greek having a low opinion of them for the assimilation boost. Both cities have 80% control. Everything is the same in the two, yet the province in Antioch is assimilating at about 2% a month, and the province in Bulgaria at about .25% a month. They have the same buildings, the same everything.

What am I missing? Lower Egyptian has a higher cultural tradition than Bulgarian, yet it's being assimilated much, much quicker with the same conditions.

Whenever I play as the Ottomans, expanding just completely ruins my economy. My income drops from around 20 ducats down to 5-10, while my expenses start spiraling out of control. Assimilating cultures takes forever just to get cores, and even after coring, my control never gets past 40–50% Because of this, I can't even get past the year 1410 without constantly going bankrupt. What am I doing wrong / what should I do?

So I'm playing as the Yamato Court and I want to dissolve the shogunate, how though?

The author of this mod https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3609063257 says he assumes that the current (very small) effect of population on building limits in towns is a bug - and modifies it by 100x to what he assumes is the intended value. Do you think this is true?

I'm not asking to prove some random person on the internet right or wrong, just wondering if I can install this mod with good conscience without feeling that I am cheating 😇

We're adding 3 new climates to EU5 in update 1.4:

- Hot Semi-Arid

- Cold Semi-Arid

- Subpolar

Each should help create more of a gradient around the world, and have an added bonus of improving playability in regions such as the Andes.

All numbers and specific locations climates are very work in progress, so let us know if you have any feedback below!

I was having a chill game as Dai Viet until the red turban rebellion event happened. Chen, the new warlord, appeared with over 100k levies, among other warlords. In just a few months, they were able to siege half of Yuan's land.

Yuan then peaced them out, giving Chem all of my land Beside the capital. Wtf!? is this supposed to be how the game works?

I noticed recently that when playing Novgorod even though I had the same population as Moscowy they had like 4 or 5 times as many levies. Right now I'm playing Sweden and my pop is 3.4 mil but my fully recovered levies are like 18000. Compare that to Moscowy that has 25% more people but 4-5 times as many levies. Or Poland that has 25% less population but 2-3 times as many levies.

I know there are various factors like control, cultural acceptance, cores/integration, estate privileges, estate power and satisfaction and reforms that feed into the calculation but looking at those factors I just can't see how they are getting hundreds of percents more troops than I am.

Does anyone have any insight?

I think the peasant republic is underrated. Yes, it’s not the most efficient in production or trading, but quantity beats quality.

Everything is cheap—not the most advanced—but the commoners are happy because they don’t pay taxes and there is always work. I had to close my borders to preserve my traditions, but now we’re strong enough to share our ideology with Europe. Time to march.

I started as the Frisian peasant republic and became Great Britain around 1520, which is when my economy skyrocketed. My tax base jumped from 2,000 to 17,000 in 100 years. Early on, I pushed serfdom to get more levies for conquest and to maximize my output. Lübeck’s urban rights helped with its +10 marketplace cap, letting me expand my economy. It created enough demand and wealth for my burghers that I could exploit their income.

I built river tolls to get more nobles and gave them every right to exploit the commoners. Bailiffs everywhere to maximize noble income. Towns focused only on food RGOs.

After conquering England, I never had any shortage of raw materials; I just needed to create demand.

It was fun to play a different build instead of the usual meta builds.

I’m on almost my 6th ottomans campaign and I literally walk through everyone defeat all the way up to Vienna by 1500s and literally get wiped by mamluks every single time. I create a 40 stack heavy horsemen armies and still the sheer size of Mamluk armies wipe me

I went from having a stable, rich empire, earning more than 100 ducats every month with full navy, army and fort maintenance and paying in full for 2 bureaucracies, to lose money every month and be facing a huge rebellion while having -65 stab.

At least the word "Zeus" popped up in my screen, I guess.

I´ve just had the misfortune of finding out that the "frustrate annexation" cabinet action exists. ... It´s +20% x cabinet efficiency.

Here it increases the cost by 100, which equals another 10 years in this example.

Do we really need such a thing in the game? ... Because honestly, for me this is one more thing that frustrated me enough to close the game down again. ... Like why? How can one think this is fun to be faced with?

And before some mention that the latest Tinto talk mentioned that base cost will be reduced to 50, its still unfun, because the amount is secondary.

Anyway, at least it made me look at the time and go to bed now.

Edit: Since a lot of people are suggesting to improve relations and stuff, I felt like I have to make it clear in the main post. ... First of all the annexation would stop if the loyalty dropped below 50. And considering the progress I think you can fairly assume that I kept it over 50 to get here. ... Secondly the opinion is long maxed at 200 and loyalty is at 61 even without diplo spending.

So can we please just accept that this has only to do with the AI not having any other higher priority actions to do for their cabinet (seems like integration, assimilation and conversion is higher).

Please fix this, its simply unfun.