Cannot enable Ironman Mode

[CalvinDude]

I cannot enable Ironman Mode. It says that I have mods or have altered EUIV in some way. I have zero mods. I deleted everything I had subscribed to in the workshop before, then I completely uninstalled and reinstalled the game. I then verified the game files and it found no errors. I verified I have the Steam Cloud Sync enabled. Steam was obviously running the entire time and I was online literally listening to a YouTube podcast at the same time I tried to launch the game since it has taken me over 90 minutes doing this garbage troubleshooting. I still couldn't enable Ironman Mode. So I uninstalled AGAIN and deleted all the folders (under Documents/Paradox/EUIV and under the Steamlibrary/Common/EUIV areas) after uninstalling. I reinstalled and it STILL says that it has mods or is altered.

This isn't even bothering to mention that I can't even run the game in fullscreen despite having a RTX 3060 Ti because it claims my graphics card doesn't have shader support. At least I can run it in Windows mode, but still I could have conquered half of Europe just in the amount of time I've spent uninstalling and reinstalling this.

 

[grotaclas]

There are at least four reasons, why you get that message:

1. One of the files in the eu4 installation got corrupted/was changed
2. There are additional files in the eu4 installation folder
3. There are additional files in the eu4 folder in Documents(these can override game files like a mod)
4. a mod is active for some reason(sometimes the launcher automatically activates mods to which you have subscribed)

A few things that you could try if you haven't tried them already:

• delete the files events/SpreadOfCalvinism.txt and events/SpreadOfProtestantism.txt and common/units/iroquis_rifle_scout.txt(not iroquois_rifle_scout.txt) and decisions/Canals.txt from your game installation if they exist (the first two should not exist anymore in 1.30 or newer and the third one should not exist in 1.31.5 or newer and the fourth one should not exist in 1.32 or newer, but sometimes steam doesn't delete them)
• verify the integrity of game files in steam
• clearing the download cache in steam and verify the integrity of game files afterwards
• remove all mods and unsubscribe from them in steam. Remove also mods which should be compatibly with achievements. Also remove custom mods that you didn't install via steam. (You can move them to a completely different folder if you don't want to delete them). If this fixes your problem, you can activate achievement-compatible-mods again one by one to see which one is causing the issue.
• move the folder "Paradox Interactive\Europa Universalis IV" from your Documents folder to some other place. You could also delete it, but then you lose all save games and screenshots which are stored there.
• Do a clean reinstall as described in my guide on reddit about common startup problems with version 1.29
• A few people have reported that uninstalling eu4 and uninstalling steam helped(but I don't think that this does anything more than the previous options)

Does any of this help?

Disclaimer: I'm not working for Paradox. I'm just trying to help people.

 

[CalvinDude]

Thanks. The only step I hadn't already tried was clearing the download cache in Steam, and apparently that was where the problem was. I was able to start a new Ironman mode today.