Post your Europa Universalis 4 Empire

[Korsjan Rīkis]

My 97th EUIV run: Aztec -> Aztlan.

The Aztec Empire is one of the tags that I had wanted to try out the most since I started playing EUIV again 3 years ago. It was a long and patient wait until it finally got updated.

Since it's my first time playing in Central America, I had to get used to the Doom mechanics and my first try actually failed. But as can be seen, my 2nd try went much more successfully, it was easy to get 5 subjects and then just drop them to get reforms and then subjugate them again. I only started to expand properly after I had only 1 reform left. After that I just had to wait for the Europeans to arrive. And to my surprise, Portugal and Castille were colonising historically, Castille was colonising the Caribbean, while Portugal was colonising Brazil.

It's also the first New World campaign, where no European ever declared a war on me. It shouldn't be surprising though as my army was almost as big as Castillian army.

After reforming my religion, I started to slowly annex some of my subjects, while keeping the Mayan ones for a long time, mainly because of the lack of government capacity. But after I centralised my country by getting rid of the Tripple Alliance privillege, I had plently of spare government capacity that I could use to kick the Spanish out of Upper Mexico and California, while annex my remaining Nahuatl tributaries.

For the rest of the campaign I focused on kicking out the Europeans from all of America and developed my country.

My vassals: Yokuts, Natchitoches, Haiti, Miskito, Muisca, Cuzco, Mapuche.
My allies: Canada, Brazil.

I'm not even sure how Haiti appeared there, but there it was, a few provinces independent from Spain. France annexed it, but their cores hadn't disappeared, so I made them as a subject.

Huge PLC, they PUed Austria and integrated them.
Spain is a junior partner of Savoy with 100% liberty desire.
Huge Transoxiania stretching from Black Sea to Korea.
Kongo owns Azores and Madeira.
I have no idea why no one colonised Greenland.

 

[123X7]

My African Power as Kongo. Not gonna lie, the final leg was absolutely brutal. Needed to fight Spain & Portugal as their PU for the Maghreb then Revolutionary France for 2 single provinces. My troops were made of paper so I just went into massive debt and recruited about 300k mercs in the end to get enough warscore. I stayed fetishist and Bahmanis stayed my ally through the entire campaign, forming Deccan, and were enough to deter the Europeans from attacking. It went pretty smooth until the end, the Ottos were scary but fell apart once decadence hit. Fun achievement, I recommend it if you haven't tried it. I only expanded in Africa, might be easier if you build up a powerbase in the East Indies or India.

 

[Sukramo]

"May we Maya Maybe Move to Majapahit and rename it Mayaphahit asked the Mayan Man."

Kinda dull, didnt even get attacked by the Euro-brats. Hit a big Portugese Colombia for the reform. Maya is not a fun run as the reform feels goofy in what land you lose. Still, its not exactly hard.

 

[Korsjan Rīkis]

My 98th EUIV run: Korchin.

Korchin seems to be the less popular choice between the 3 Mongol Hordes - Oirat, Mongolia and Korchin. Since I have already played with Oirat -> Yuan -> Mongol Empire 2 years ago, I decided to try out the new mission tree with Korchin. It's also quite far away from the Great Horde, with which I had my 1st Winds of Change run.

While I had no chance to challange Oirats with Mongolia and Ming, I had to grow my powerbase in Manchuria, I started with the conquest of Haixi. After that I attacked the strongest Manchurian tribe, Jianzhou, so I could embrace Feudalism, I left them as an OPM in Furdan, because I didn't have enough resources to capture their fort in Huncun.

After the 1st two hard fought wars, subjugating the rest of Manchuria was very easy. Xibe and Nanai were conquered one after another, but then even a bigger opportunity arose, because Ming attacked Oirat and I was able to take the former lands of Solon and Chahar.

It wasn't long until I could even challange Ming. While their army was much larger, they had zero chance against my superb steppe cavalry. Just after 40 years after the game's start, in 1484, I took both Lioaning and North Hebei areas. From then on I just continued to slowly subdue China, conquer Oirats and restore both Golden Horde and Ilkhanate as brother realms, while in the early 1700s I was able to become a Military Hemegon.

My vassals: Kazakh, Yarkand, Korea, Otomo, Wu, Yue, Shu.
Brother realms: Golden Horde, Ilkhanate.

And many tributaries arround me.

A rarity, Prussia formed by Wolgast.

 

[stevieji]

Wiped out Muscovy quite early, so decided to expand eastwards for a change. This slowed me up a bit, as I had to take exploration and expansion idea groups, rather than something more useful, but did eventually take out the Ottomans, much later than in previous runs, from about 1700 onwards.

Started as Poland, with Bohemia as my early ally, until they made the rather stupid decision to break our alliance. Quickly allied with Austria, who remained Emperor until becoming Germany and disbanding the HRE, which I don't think I've seen before. I helped quite a bit with this, never turning down a call to arms as they ate up their own subjects. This enabled me to take Silesia, which is usually a problem with a strong Emperor, but they stopped me expanding into the Lubeck trade zone by taking all that for themselves.

Took a while to deal with Denmark, which was very strong, without ever forming Scandinavia, but I felt like I was working pretty efficiently, fighting in the north, then south or east. The only time I ever really ran into problems was when invading Persia, c1600. The attrition from dieging their mountain forts is huge, so I had a couple of spells making no progress at all, just waiting for manpower to recover, which is even worse when you get the 'Sjelm are being really awkward' event... manpower recovery -50%. Mind you, this is how I destroyed the Ottomans... noticed they were fighting Persia, and attacked when they had no manpower and an army that was half the size it had been a decade before.

In the late game, my allies were Germany, Netherlands, Tuscany and Spain. Other large alliances were Persia, Deccan, and the steppe peoples, where I would have been on my own. The reason Albania survived is that they were allied with France and several of my own allies.

Final score was less than 20k, which is about as high as I've managed.

 

[Lightbanee]

I do think this is the most cursed map I have ever seen, France was oddly weak and that blob occupying Burgundy is Oldenburg. And every single one of my allies except Delhi abandoned me and became Revolutionary. Too jealous of my glorious might.

Allies: Genoa, Tuscany, Spain, Great Britain, Delhi
Vassal: Novgorod

The Divine Horde

 

[Lightbanee]

Finally got around to finishing my Denmark game, it was pretty fun had the Union formed by 1507 with a big chunk taken out of Poland. Managed to take the entire coast line except for a part in Russia.

Allies: Scotland, Bohemia, Lubeck
PU: Hungary
Vassal: Leinster

 

[lareman]

The last time I opened EUIV was in 2019. Suddenly got the urge and played a campaign as Majapahit -> Malaya in Ironman. Had a lot of fun learning the new mechanics after watching a couple of tutorials. The playthrough was really chill. Took over the islands, banished the muslims, formed Malaya and colonized all of maritime SEA. The colonization was so quick that the Europeans never made it. 5 colonists! Honestly, the game seems easier than previously, because there's so much stuff you can do now to get an edge over the AI.

I think the campaign stops here, as I accomplished my main goal. No need to drag it out, blob out and make my borders ugly.

Also managed to spawn Global Trade!

 

[123X7]

My very tall Riga campaign. I stayed OPM the whole game (apart from when I took provinces in a peace deal & had to wait to transfer them due to overextension). I was aiming for number 1 great power but Ottomans expanded rapidly & never declined, though there's still plenty of time for me to get there. I also have Louisiana, Canada & United States. Making 400 ducats per month with level 5 advisors & have a force limit of 912. This was actually one of my most fun campaigns, keeping the subjects loyal wasn't too much of an issue since I took all ideas/policies to reduce liberty desire & I have more than enough points to dev them up so I might see it out to get number 1 GP & military hegemon which should be doable with colonies.

 

[Korsjan Rīkis]

My 99th EUIV run: Candar.

Candar, usually the first target of the Ottoman Empire, but not this time! To deter the Ottomans from attacking me, I allied with Great Horde and Ajam. I tried to secure an alliance with the Mamluks, too, but I didn't succeed until when I had already grown in size, but hadn't fought with the Ottomans yet.

Besides getting strong allies, I needed to grow my power base. So I fabricated claims on Theodoro and Constantinople. The Ottomans attacked Dulkadir first, while I attacked Byzantium. I knew that the Ottomans would attack them, too, so my goal was to get as much territory as I could and with their help besiege Constantinople itself. The strategy was even more successful than I thought! I managed to annex Theodoro and all of Byzantium, while getting Athens as a vassal in the result. I managed to put my units eveywhere, before the Ottomans did.

Next up was Georgia and Trebizond. Georgia (it had conquered Circassia) was being invaded by Crimea, so I used the opportunity to launch my own war. I managed to take all their coastal territory + Imereti and annex Trebizond.

After a while, when the Ottomans attacked Albania and Venice, I finally tried my luck and declared my own war on the Ottomans with my allies - Great Horde, Ajam and Mamluks. It was a great success, where I managed to connect my territories (besides Peloponnese) and take Rum and Ankara areas.

Now I had to kick out Venice and Genoa from Aegean and Black Sea. I started with the latter. It was a hard fought war, because they were allied with Aragon and they had naval superiority, but I still succeded.

This is the story how Candar rose to become the dominant Anatolian power. Later on I I fought many wars with Venice, the Ottomans and later on my former ally Mamluks. My goal and borders were inspired by the Kingdom of Pontus.

My vassals: Serbia, Astrakhan, Shirvan, Hisn Kayfa, Iraq, Syria, Egypt.
My allies: France.

 

[Lightbanee]

My glorious Empire of Shimazu, I picked them as the starter due to their Production Efficiency modifier I managed to colonize out ahead of the colonizers except for Spain that managed to grab a few provinces ended up in a war against them as they tried to attack the Phillipines after fighting of many naval invasions from Spain and Portugal I was able to take all of the colonies and unify my control. Secured alliances with Ayythutaya and Brunei early. I also worked on getting vassalizations on the OPMs and even managed to get one on Blambagan

Allies: Vijayanagar, Shun, Ottomans, Brunei

I haven't got a clue what happened here it's the biggest France i've ever seen. One moment I saw Brandenburg was on the way to forming Germany had most things then they were simply dead and France had eaten them and had Berg vassalized.

 

[Lightbanee]

I started with Vijayanagar and was able to end up vassalizing half of India and half of Indonesia through conquest and diplomacy giving me a nice vassal meat wall, Transoxiana became a real problem they kept growing and growing until they became Gurkani and forced me to go into wars with them when I took more things that I wanted it meant that I wasn't quite able to finish conquering Indonesia due to all the *pain* it caused. But it's the biggest Indian i've built so far.

Allies: Ayutthaya, Jin, Korea, Ottomans

You don't see Austria getting the Poland missions done very often, they then also got a Muscovy PU leading to this monster i've seen only once before

 

[123X7]

Finished up my Zoro-Austrians run with a very casual world conquest, not sure if there's enough time for a one faith which I don't have yet. Standard Austria run, lesiurely revoke (1560-ish), finished all Austrian missions (I thought I already had that achivement but I guess not) then flipped Persian. Fyi for anyone doing this, you only need An Asha Emprie & A New Eranshahr (I was worried about not having a Persian ruler but that mission subtree doesn't matter). Persia are a fun tag, lots of flavour, lots of interesting estate interactions, so I'll definitely do a 'proper' Persia run at some point. WCs don't have to be painful, this was pretty straight forward & I was speed 4 or 5 most of the time toward the end, actually finished a little earlier but was waiting on integrating a few PUs/vassals. I had GB, Spain, Portugal & Russia at various points. I only used the Spread Dynasty peace option once though (against Russia). Portugal & GB were luck, Spain through mission. Austria are definitely not overpowered. Scandinavia was the last tag to fall.

 

[Wenla]

Finished up my Zoro-Austrians run with a very casual world conquest, not sure if there's enough time for a one faith which I don't have yet. Standard Austria run, lesiurely revoke (1560-ish), finished all Austrian missions (I thought I already had that achivement but I guess not) then flipped Persian. Fyi for anyone doing this, you only need An Asha Emprie & A New Eranshahr (I was worried about not having a Persian ruler but that mission subtree doesn't matter). Persia are a fun tag, lots of flavour, lots of interesting estate interactions, so I'll definitely do a 'proper' Persia run at some point. WCs don't have to be painful, this was pretty straight forward & I was speed 4 or 5 most of the time toward the end, actually finished a little earlier but was waiting on integrating a few PUs/vassals. I had GB, Spain, Portugal & Russia at various points. I only used the Spread Dynasty peace option once though (against Russia). Portugal & GB were luck, Spain through mission. Austria are definitely not overpowered. Scandinavia was the last tag to fall.

View attachment 1205240

There must be some bureaucratics when ruling this empire...

 

[Korsjan Rīkis]

My 100th EUIV run: Brandenburg -> Prussia - Germany.

I reserved something special for my 100th run and what could be more special than Brandenburg -> Prussia - Germany? The other contender was Jianzhou - Later Jin - Qing, but I will save them for another day.

I already received the purchase of Neumark in November. I made alliances with Austria and Poland. The former so I wouldn't get any unlawful territories.

I started my expansion by annexing Stettin and taking 2 provinces from Wolgast. I couldn't annex them, because of AE. Now I had a coast and access to the Teutonic held Prussia. As usual Poland got dragged into Swedish Independence War, but took a few Teutonic provinces. To not lose such a strong ally, I made the remainder of the Teutonic Order as my vassal and eventually got their former provinces from Poland with favours.

Before becoming Protestant and forming Prussia, I also annexed Magdeburg and took Silesia from Bohemia and of course took over Franconia for my PUs. Now my eyes were set on unifying Germany, a long journey ahead. I started with subduing Lower Saxony, Westphalia and then finally Southern Germany, Passau being the last country to be annexed before forming Germany in 1702. It mainly took so long, because of limited governing capacity, it took a while to get enough government reform points to centralise states and finish all the reforms.

Either way, the 18th century was very intense with almost non-stop wars to shape Europe the way I desired. Just a few years later I already attacked Austria-Hungary to take Austria proper, while Bohemia was my PU, which I randomly got. Luckily, I inherited it around the same time. After dealing with Austria-Hungary, it was the time to finish off Poland and conquer the Low Countries from France, while at the same time prepare to form a colonial empire, first by chartering a company and then by conquest.

My vassals: Scotland, Norway, Denmark, Normandy, Savoy, Tuscany, Venice, Hungary, Bulgaria, Kyiv.


And since this run has such a special number that I never thought that I would reach, here's a map and list of all the tags I have played with:

Spoiler

View attachment Campaigns.png

001. Majapahit -> Majapahit Empire
002. Byzantium -> Roman Empire
003. Khmer
004. Muscovy -> Russia
005. Zia -> Pueblo
006. Cyprus -> Jerusalem
007. Castile -> Spain
008. Afghanistan -> Mughals
009. Songhai
010. Venice
011. Ethiopia -> Aksum
012. Bohemia
013. Vijayanagar
014. Holland -> Netherlands
015. Onondaga -> Iroquois
016. Savoy -> Sardinia-Piedmont -> Italy
017. Ayutthaya -> Siam
018. Mali
019. Tunis
020. Munich -> Bavaria
021. Kilwa
022. Navajo
023. Bengal
024. France
025. Dai Viet -> Dai Nam
026. Aceh
027. Hungary
028. Tokugawa
029. Ashikaga
030. Granada -> Andalusia
031. Mutapa -> Zimbabwe
032. The Papal States -> Kingdom of God
033. Oirat -> Yuan -> Mongol Empire
034. Gujarat
035. Taungu
036. Wagadugu -> Mossi
037. Timurids
038. Ghorka -> Nepal
039. Sunda
040. Luristan
041. Albania
042. Timbuktu
043. Multan -> Punjab
044. Sagir Yogir
045. Sweden
046. Adal
047. Poland -> Commonwealth
048. Milan
049. Caddo
050. Teutonic Order
051. Kongo
052. Wurttemberg -> Swabia
053. Morocco
054. Malwa
055. Gotland
056. Friesland
057. Ajuuraan
058. Pegu -> Ramannadesa
059. Orissa
060. Wallachia -> Romania
061. Nivkh
062. Ottomans
063. Korea
064. Aragon
065. Scotland
066. Malacca -> Malaya
067. Novgorod
068. Delhi
069. Mombasa
070. Florence -> Tuscany
071. Ming
072. Ojibwe
073. Osage
074. Ternate
075. Denmark -> Kalmar Union
076. Oda -> Japan -> Empire of Japan
077. Epirus -> Latin Empire
078. Benin
079. Aq Qoyunlu
080. Rassids
081. Karabakh -> Armenia -> Great Armenia
082. Champa
083. Najd
084. Riga
085. Berg
086. Ardabil -> Persia
087. Ulm
088. Maravi
089. Tripura
090. Great Horde -> Golden Horde -> Ulug Ulus
091. Austria -> Austria-Hungary
092. Cuzco -> Inca
093. Oman -> Zanzibar
094. Hisn Kayfa -> Ayyubids
095. Lithuania
096. Tiwi
097. Aztec - Aztlan
098. Korchin
099. Candar
100. Brandenburg -> Prussia -> Germany

 

[Lightbanee]

This was a quite fun and tactically challenging game where every I needed to kill allied each other so I needed to find the exactly right place to hit to break all the chains apart. I tried to form the Mongol Empire but ended up a few provinces short didn't realize you needed more then just Beijing so I just stopped there and by the time I realized I needed more Delhi had already eaten most of China and I was not able to get back in. And also my early ally was Poland and they went complete beast mode so no chance of me getting those 4 provinces either.

Allies: Poland, Qara Qolonyu, Mamluks, Gujarat

Starting as Kazan

I will likely try it again but this time as Mongolia I believe

 

[Lightbanee]

Second attempt went way more smoothly especially with some favorable AI as Muscovy lost the war against Kazan and died preserving all that land for me to take without too much trouble later on.

Started as Oirat, real pain point was colonizing all of the provinces since only Russia gets the frontier expansion so it has to be all done manually.

Allies: Jaunpur, Gujarat, Arabia, Hungary

I do think Europe was even more cursed time around. Huge Burgundy which ended up being the Catholic HRE emperor and won the war as well then 1 province off forming Lombardy decided no we won't take the city we need and lets lose half our land and resurrect France who was almost dead. But then went on with Milan to completely murder everyone. Aragon started out being a PU to France

Australia expanded after getting independence and conquered part of Ayythutya

This was the last major accomplishment for me to take since I realized I hadn't done a real Mongol campaign before now all the biggest EU4 challenges are completed i'm hoping that EU5 turns up soon enough

 

[lareman]

Hungary-Austria on hard Ironman with crispy clean borders and a Byzantine vassal. Take that, von Habsburgs!

Didn't do any of the PU missions to not make things too easy, as Hungary is already quite powerful at the start. Rivaled with Poland/Commonwealth from 1444, but never had to fight them. I played fairly tall with Infra -> Aristo ideas, which was a very enjoyable combo for devving and the Hungarian cav.

 

[Clown]

Here's your average Dutch empire:

I wonder where global trade will spawn....

As the name of the Save suggests, I started as Dithmarschen for that sweet, sweet +20% Goods Produced and 5% Admin Efficiency. I gave away all the provinces I had to conquer for the missions and kept only the Lowlands+Granada.

What I learned from this game is that the New World is overrated as heck. Not even 10% of the trade value in the english channel come from the new world. Next time I won't even bother with the Americas. The real money is in spices and silk, not tobacco and fur.

For the longest time I was allied to a very strong England. I also vassalized Trier and usurped their electorate, which is why I am a King-Elector. Afterwards I broke the vassalization. I do have a genevan vassal, though, for RP reasons (birthplace of calvinism and all that).

 

[Lightbanee]

Started as one of the Maori tribes for a mostly chill game, managed to get to a pretty large size

No Allies