Castile is no longer beginner friendly?

[Xemawth]

So let me start off by saying my salt levels are high, so I apologize for any bias.

Like the title says, is Castile is no longer a viable nation for beginners?

I really really want to get into this game, and play it the right way. Learn everything, and hope to one day progress to playing multiplayer. My method for doing so was to look up popular guides, and recommended starting nations for new players. Castile came as highly recommended easy starter nation, and Quill18 has an excellent guide. Looked promising, but two successive play-throughs are sitting on fire in the dumpster at the moment.

First play-through I followed Quill18's guide to a T, aside from choosing to play with the DLC active ($5 subscription to all DLC since I want to test them out). I made my way through until it came time to declare war on Granada, but Granada has 3 allies, Morocco (and its 3 vassals), Tunis, and Mzab. Figured I can give it a shot and take them. No. Their combined navy of 64 boats crushed my puny navy, and proceeded to transport a 35k deathstack onto my mainland. gg.

Second play-through, I do addition research and follow the guide to a lesser extent, focusing more on strategies I have seen in more recent let's plays. WELL. This time; they have allied only Tunis, no worries, all seems well. Then, in 1447, before the treaty is up, they ally the Ottomans. Fine... okay, I'll wait strategically for the Ottomans to be in a weak position, and defend my coasts from their landing attempts, since Portugal owns Ceuta and they can't just walk in. 2 years go by, Ottomans in 2 separate wars, now is the time. I bring up the war declaration and PORTUGAL HAS GUARANTEED THE INDEPENDENCE OF GRANADA. WHAT, why??? Why the heck on rice would Portugal, my ally for 7 years, a fellow CATHOLIC nation Guarantee the independence of a former Moorish nation on the Iberian peninsula?? I go back 3 years, list Garnatah as desired territory, and they don't care. Guaranteed again. Now I'm totally screwed because the Ottomans can just walk into my territory as my armies are split fighting Portugal on my opposite side.

Anyone have any suggestions? I realize I need to git gud, but I am about to put this game down and walk away. I don't need to waste this much time trying to learn the basics

 

[iClipse]

Well, you're not supposed to attack into an alliance web that you can't beat that's for sure. However, only Portugal, Tunis and Granada you should be able to beat. First, before declaring war, check some things:
1) Military technology. Are you at the same level or ahead, otherwise it's a no-go.
2) Total troops. As a beginner, don't start wars when your opponents have more troops than you.
3) The war itself, be smart about it. If your plan is to take Granada, while wargoal is important, first make sure it's a war you can win. How to make that war easily doable? Siege Lisbon down first and see if Portugal wants to peace out with White peace. If they don't, siege down all their other mainland provinces too. They'll quickly want to peace out. While sieging down Portugal, you can mostly ignore the other participants. The only thing you want to make sure of is that your entire land isn't sieged. So have a seperate stack scare away the individual enemy sieging stacks and try and slow down all other enemy sieges. Once Portugal is out of the war, you have the vast superiority and should be able to beat the remaining enemies easily. Just make sure you don't attack into mountain terrain.

Alternatively, if you can't win that first war, just don't declare it. You will usually get the Iberian Wedding and Aragon can win that war for you almost on their own.

Alternatively 2, you don't have to fight that first war. Start colonising and only declare later on when you have a vast superiority. Just make sure to never have too few allies so you don't get declared on yourself by France/Aragon. Also, keep Portugal friendly. You'll be able to PU them through your mission tree.

Good luck!

 

[Xemawth]

Well, you're not supposed to attack into an alliance web that you can't beat that's for sure. However, only Portugal, Tunis and Granada you should be able to beat. First, before declaring war, check some things:
1) Military technology. Are you at the same level or ahead, otherwise it's a no-go.
2) Total troops. As a beginner, don't start wars when your opponents have more troops than you.
3) The war itself, be smart about it. If your plan is to take Granada, while wargoal is important, first make sure it's a war you can win. How to make that war easily doable? Siege Lisbon down first and see if Portugal wants to peace out with White peace. If they don't, siege down all their other mainland provinces too. They'll quickly want to peace out. While sieging down Portugal, you can mostly ignore the other participants. The only thing you want to make sure of is that your entire land isn't sieged. So have a seperate stack scare away the individual enemy sieging stacks and try and slow down all other enemy sieges. Once Portugal is out of the war, you have the vast superiority and should be able to beat the remaining enemies easily. Just make sure you don't attack into mountain terrain.

Alternatively, if you can't win that first war, just don't declare it. You will usually get the Iberian Wedding and Aragon can win that war for you almost on their own.

Alternatively 2, you don't have to fight that first war. Start colonising and only declare later on when you have a vast superiority. Just make sure to never have too few allies so you don't get declared on yourself by France/Aragon. Also, keep Portugal friendly. You'll be able to PU them through your mission tree.

Good luck!

Thank you very much for taking the time to reply! I really appreciate the helpful feedback, and will take this to heart!

 

[Kielke]

It is both a beautiful and frustrating thing of EU4 that no two games are identical and almost no event occurs in the exact same way. It does make it difficult to learn to a point where you feel comfortable. The biggest lessons in EU4 are to make your own country as stable and strong as possible allowing you to jump at the right moment. I've personally found starting with small countries helped me learn the foundations of how to best navigate the economy, stability, technology and institution mechanics.

A small to medium small HRE member will help develop your ability to develop alliance networks and look at rivals/ enemies of possible allies for any conflicts and set your own rivals and marriages to get a really strong ally to effectively be your protector until you can grow enough to feel safe on your own merits.

Tidore or Ternate in the Spice islands/ Malaya really helped me learn economics, trade, and colonization. Those two are rather isolated from the massive Asian powerhouses and can often grow with little conflict ( Besides the early conflict that is almost required between the two recommended starting countires). Also they will help learn how to force spawn institutions wisely by increasing the dev on your provinces when you want to spawn the institution locally after it started on the other side of the world.

Last recommendation take with a grain of salt I have not tried to recreate it but my first fairly good game and one where I survived and played all the way to the end was Savoy. I still view them (based on that one game) a great nation to be opportunistic, get strong allies(Spain, England, or both.) As with strong allies often at war with France let you pick away at France bit by bit. Once the alliances are developed try to always start the war so you can always make sure you get to grow with each war, and this limits the growth of Spain/ England into France. The other good item is when countries start becoming huge half the wars those two start they can win on their own with little help. So you can join wars and only fight if you wish to.

 

[Warren]

I was in exactly the same situation as you -- Castile had been suggested as a good "noob" country, but my first 5 games did NOT go well! I was too eager to declare war, and usually got busted up pretty badly.
Try the Ottomans instead. I found a very good tutorial by Lord Forwind on YouTube, and it helped me immensely. You can focus on warfare, and you'll learn a lot.
I'm now playing as Portugal, to learn about Exploration and Colonization. It's going fine so far, but feels awfully slow....

 

[jamal bakr]

Castile hits hard out of the gate, but has low manpower and the civil war disaster can sap quite a bit. Your first few wars you have to be careful you don't piss away your dudes on attrition and attacking mountain forts.... like be careful with Fez, 2-3 bad battles there can clear out your manpower for a decade.

You don't have to stomp all the allies of granada... you should be able to occupy it fully, then just defend the homeland and white peace out their allies. the ocean tile that seperates iberia and africa isn't considered an inland sea, so if they want to get their galley's wrekt they can attack you there.

 

[ancapailldorcha]

I did my first run with Castile. The civil war event did catch me off guard but I still think it is the best starting nation as you are out of the way of the French, the British and the Ottomans, can conquer Morocco easily enough and colonise. There's also the Iberian wedding which is crucial for forming Spain.

 

[Mannock]

I'm not a very experienced player either but I have found Castille and France to be the easiest nations to play so far. However, even when I'm playing with easy nations I do tend to have to start over 3-5 times (within the first 50 years of the game) cause the beginning of the game is always the trickiest (in my opinion). So don't feel bad about having to start over a few times, it's completely normal.

When you get over that first hurdle, it tends to get much easier.