Post your Europa Universalis 4 Empire

[Korsjan Rīkis]

My 102nd EUIV run: Shirvan.

I wanted to do another run in Persia. Since I wanted to finish the run by Friday (today), I didn't want to pick a major nation like Mazandaran -> Eranshahr, especially since I already had Ardabil -> Persia run back in January, so I decided to take Ardabil's rival Shirvan and carve out a pretty compact Empire. I based the borders on the largest extent of Greater Azerbaijan maps that I could find + all of Georgia and Van.

I started with the good old tested strategy of the Middle East by allying the Ottomans to protect me and then attacked my weaker or distracted neighbours. I started with Gazikumukh and Avaria, because they only had Biapas as an ally.

After taking Kakheti from Georgia by threatening them (they were at war with the Ottomans) I was expecting Qara Qoyunlu to become weakened by rebels or attacked by some of its neighbours like it mostly happens, but instead, it was stable and carved up Ajam together with the Timurids. That's something I didn't expect to happen. I had to do it the hard way then. Luckily, the Ottomans joined, but didn't do much, they were mostly just running around from Diyarbakir (at least they occupied it, so I could make demands) and Georgia. It was a hard fought war, but I managed to take 3 provinces from them.

I thought it wouldn't do them much harm, but in a few years the Timurids attacked them and then the Ottomans and Mushasha, so I joined in, too and took another 4 provinces, including Tabriz. Mushasha and the Timurids made them release Armenia, Ajam and Ardalan. All of them were perfect, weak targets to grow my powerbase, including Mazadaran.

By 1500 I was finally able to challange the Timurids. They were attacking the Uzbeks, so a pretty strong target. Not only did we totally smash them, but the Uzbeks even managed to form Bukhara. The Timurids never recovered from this defeat and started to collapse.

Like always, next up were my temporary allies, the Ottomans. I attacked them together with Austria (with Hungary as a PU), while they were at war with Karaman and the Mamluks.

Ardabil -> Persia already had its moment, it was Shirvan's time to shine now.

My vassals: Aq Qoyunlu, iraq, Hormuz, Khorasan, Afghanistan, Khiva, Nogai.
My allies: Morocco (formed by Taflitat).

Lubeck was formed by the Netherlands. I have no idea, why they did that.
I don't think I have seen this huge Kongo.

 

[sillycatwarlord07]

I played as Venice I made Byzantium my vassal. and later Bulgaria as my March. I used Byzantium's reconquest Cbs to kill the Ottomans in three wars. I got Syria and Tripoli as Vassals after a war with Mamluks also I got Isreal from it too. then I formed Italy. I was going to do more but then the game got updated and it said If I played it's not an ironman game anymore.

 

[ZornigerAal]

You can go on Playing by rolling back to an earlier (your) Game-Version. Here is a Guide how to:

How To Roll-back Your Game Version

As of the 1st October, there will be two ways to roll back your game to a previous version. One for versions that are from before our GDPR changes and one for versions that are after. For versions released before the changes: Get a code for the...

forum.paradoxplaza.com

 

[Cry_Havok]

Sometimes fates spin differently. Sometimes instead of going extinct a royal house continues. Sometimes the Holy Roman Empire focuses to the north while accidentally taking control of a large section of northern Italy. And Sometimes a random personal union creates the Pomeranian-Polish Empire. And sometimes the Prussians don't become dominant in Germany because the dominant German house decides that they will stay catholic while most of their subjects are protestant.

Played to a bit into the age of revolutions just to get all my goals met. HRE authority growth really stagnated for a while as after religious peace I had way too many protestants in the north I had to convert through war while fighting centers of reformation. Going humanist though really helped me tank some of the conversion, but it was still a really strong reformation so I had to expand the empire into every random minor I could force to be released (hence things like Belozero, and Latgalia, and Sapmi, and not annexing subjects). I also got a completely random PU over poland, which I then annexed by accident (I really didn't want to and it was a real pain to give out gov cap to state up Poland, plus the fact it took a nation out of the HRE). I also did get a really scary coalition over taking the subjugate Milan event/war, and then they kept getting unruly until I annexed them.)

HRE Map

Religions+Diploacy

HRE Screen I had stolen Brandenburg's electorate, Mainz got deleted so I gave their electorate to Verona which I created by return core)

Cultures+Map

Subjects (I stole all the random islands east of Peurto Rico and Peurto Rico from Spain in a random war just to have a bit of the New World)

government reforms and ideas (If I felt like playing the last century I would probably do something like Econ+defensive and switch to Parliament right before creating a Vicky3 convesion)

 

[klingonadmiral]

I finally managed to pull through an England campaign

Was it because it was hard? No, England just doesn't really mesh well with my preferences. I like playing land-based empires and having a consolidated territory instead of spread out colonial holdings which require their own garisons and thus divide your strength.

The AI in this game was also highly annoying. Russia nabbed an alliance with the Ottomans that held until the mid 1600s and used it to snake straigh towards India, and the PLC allied Ming which had one of those 1/100 or so games in which they survived to counter the Istanbul-Moscow axis. Oh, and the PLC got a PU on Sweden as well.

At least with Anglophile and An Industrial Revolution done I'll never have to play England serious again.

 

[Lightbanee]

Wanted to play Majaphait again now i've learned a lot more, it went far more smoothly this time having vassalized nearly everyone with the tributary mission leaving only Brunei and Malacca left over to conquer, tried to get largest size as well but Portugal terrorized Africa and Spain took the crown with their late PU on France.

Allies: Bengal
Vassals: Ming, Wu

Britain did have Naval Hegemon but as usual with the AI's inability to do naval invasions they lost it

 

[Lightbanee]

My biggest Hungary campaign so far, I didn't click on the formable I don't like being blinded by white tags lol. I had all three of my PUs annex at the same time, I was integrating the Commonwealth and at 99.4% my ruler died and both Bohemia and Austria were inherited lol.

Allies: France, Spain, Egypt, USA
Personal Unions: Bohemia, Commonwealth, Austria, Naples
Vassals: Brandenburg, Thuringia

Welcome to the United States of North America, I allied the Thirteen Colonies when they broke away from Britain to stop Castille eating them then I checked back saw they had eaten nearly all of the colonies didn't take much longer for them to finish the job

 

[klingonadmiral]

Protestant Theocratic Japan God Tier

Asia has become a bastion of the Protestant faith.

 

[klingonadmiral]

And of course this fun campaign had to be followed by an absolute disaster:

• 128 years of gameplay and 0 cardinals despite Hamburg sitting at the top of the list for over half a century
• no institution spread because of no cardinals, meaning I had to sink tons of dev into pushing Renaissance and Colonialism
• behind in ideas (failed to complete 3rd group before unlocking 4th) and tech because of no institution spread
• inflation through the roof
• European hugbox. Poland chose local noble allied to Burgundy, Lithuania, and me. Lithuania has PUs over Muscovy and Scotland. Burgundy is allied to Poland and Austria
• Ming didn't blow up

 

[enKage]

Some time ago I had all achievements completed, but in the meantime few DLCs came and I have to play again

My run for the weirdest one, Frankfurt

I was thinking about forming Netherlands to get another achievement, but I chose Hannover for PU over England. Westphalen is very meh and Hannoverian ideas are super strong.
Reasonably early HRE disbanded (Palatinat + Mainz + Koeln, the rest alled and Palatine emperor)
Access to holy land aquired by Realeasing Aquileia and 2province minor Croatia from Venetia, so after diplovasalising Aquileia I could diplovassalize Croatia as well and seize Rijeka for me.
Next war with Venezia ended up with taking Crete, so I could fabricate on Mameluks.

Ottomans focused too much on Europe, so Mamluks+ Ajam + minors were extremely hard to defeat, so I dod not even fight for more Syrian land later.

This is one day before forming Jerusalem and moving capital to Bermuda, and a week before declarig on nonCB Portuguese Columbia.
Allied to PLC, Ottomans, Sweden and Castile (Aragon ended up with Sardinia only, so I used favors to return Baleares and some other land) and everlasting ally friend Switzerland
PU over England
Vasslas: Aragon, Austria, Croatia,

Conversion to pagan was painful, as there was only one animist Miskito left, so it took about 40-50 years to occupy the whole South America (I had capital on Brasilian coast, so theydon't reach it too early) I needed only to realease Brandenburg to lower province counter by 10.

The worst part of Incan mission tree was 80 army tradition, finally I got it fighting consecutive wars against Castille, Venezia, PLC.

Finish screenies
French USA + achievements completed

Europe with some unusual blobs (Sweden was so nice to return charter a province and then return Norwagian cores for favors xD) And Karaman survived longer than Ottomans (technically Ottomas still exist in Circassia).

The most very proper Russia

4 more chievemnts left (Mehmet ambition, Dutch forts, hungarian black army, Hisn Kayfa force limit)

 

[klingonadmiral]

Meissner Porcelain

Once again, the stupid Pope failed to give me any cardinals (I stole 2 from Bohemia, but they were removed through events >.>), so instead I flipped to Reformed, a religion I hadn't given a shot for quite a while. This game the reformation began in the mid 1530s, which might've been the latest Protestant Reformation I've ever witness. This (and me clinging on to Catholicism for too long and even despawning a Reformed CoR) meant that the Protestant faiths were rather weak, further excarbated by Great Britain chosing to remain Catholic. The Ottomans also had a rather horrible game, losing their Albania war due to refusing a French enforced peace, while France got wrecked by Great Britain surrendering Maine. Austria on the other hand had a mostly great game, getting the Hungarian PU by event and PUing Bohemia a bit later. Which unfortunately gave them claims on Silesia which ended my alliance with them. Spain also ate rocks since they failed to keep Aragon loyal, making them win an independence war with Great Britains help.

All this meant that the Protestant League was laughably weak and easily crushed by the Emperor. Which meant that I was downgraded to Duchy again and lost my elector status. I also never really got a chance to enforce my PU on the Commonwealth, they are what keeps me alive against Austria and her allies.

So instead I finished up my conquest of northern Germany and left the HRE, upgrading back to a kingdom and, after the conquest of Denmark, to an empire. From there it was time to go to Asia. I picked Exploration as my fifth idea group, and luckily still got a province in South Africa to serve as a repair station for my fleets travelling between Asia and Europe. Then I beelined straight for Sulawesi since those were the only uncolonised provinces that can spawn Chinaware. Unfortunately Aragon got to Manado first, but luckily it spawned Fish. I also colonized Taytay so that I could vassalize Maynilla, giving me control over the single Chinaware province in the Philippines. Since Imperialism had not come around yet, I then spent a bit of time strengthening my position in the Moluccas.

The first China war was against Wu, Shu, and Japan, and god was it annoying. Saxony's military is just not up to snuff, even with me deliberately saving the Conquer Brandenburg mission for the endgame. Wu was somewhat manageable, but Japan had all their troops on the mainland and they were just wrecking my armies. I had to evacuate mainland China, occupy Taiwan to give my armies a space where they could regain their strength, and then navaly invaded Japan to get them out of the war. After that I was able to win. From there it was simply expansion into China and Korea (even though I forgor about Tsushima and thus had to fight with Korea twice). My second war against Shun coincided with them losing a separate war against Transoxiana, which made them pop out Bhutan in Taozhou. I seperate warred them, by Shu got to them first and vassalized them, throwing me into a rather unexpected war against Wu. Finally only Ayutthaya was left, and since I had taken th Unrestricted Coring age ability I could just peace them out for the Chinaware province and nothing else, which would cost me 14 warscore. After rushing for their capital they were willing to make peace, bringing the campaign to an end.

 

[Sukramo]

Dont do this, its not worth it. I mean the start and managing coalitions was fun, actually culture shifiting wasent hard, just unstating.

But becoming Pagan....ugh. Ugh. Funnily I tried spawnning them in north Mexico but they refused to move. So I conquered liek all of Mexico. Then they finally even moved to the Canaries, Mallorca and the Balkans.

Only 6 achivments left.

 

[Franconian]

Dont do this, its not worth it. I mean the start and managing coalitions was fun, actually culture shifiting wasent hard, just unstating.

But becoming Pagan....ugh. Ugh. Funnily I tried spawnning them in north Mexico but they refused to move. So I conquered liek all of Mexico. Then they finally even moved to the Canaries, Mallorca and the Balkans.

Only 6 achivments left.

View attachment 1238307

Good job, it is probably one of the most tedious and non-sensical ones.

 

[Korsjan Rīkis]

My 103rd EUIV run: Pattani.

While I initially planned to have a run in Italy, I decided to go with the East Indies because of all the spice discussions surrounding EUV. I decided to try a country I hadn’t considered playing before - Pattani.

I started my run by conquering Kedah. While I was doing this, the other two Malayan minors became tributaries of Malacca, making the upcoming wars much harder than the conquest of Kedah.

Instead of attacking Kelantan first, I attacked Malacca directly to take Perak and release Johor as my vassal. Just before peacing out, I attacked and conquered Kelantan.

I used the same strategy to conquer Pahang, the only downside was that Malacca annexed my ally Pasai. But I corrected it in the next war with Malacca and took it from them, gaining a land border with Aceh, which was my next target.

By 1504, I had finally dealt with my main rival, Malacca. From then on, I was on the path to becoming the dominant power of the East Indies. The only remaining challenges were the other regional powers and Ayutthaya.

I also briefly became a Pirate State, but later on switched back to Eastern Plutocracy and by early 1700s I was able to become an Economical Hegemon.

My vassals: Pegu, Johor, Jambi, Demak Kutai, Ternate, Cebu, Tondo.
My tributaries: Taungu, Khmer, Dai Viet, Pagarruyung, Blambangan, Lanfang.

That's the largest Switzerland I have ever seen.
Norway dominates Scandinavia.
Russia became a junior partner of PLC, it helped it to expand, but later, for some reason (rebels, I guess), it managed to break free again before getting integrated.

 

[enKage]

Mehmet Ambition, no cheesy tactics with religion swaps and escaping to Persian Bay

1455 secured Beyliks and 6 provinces for Mamluks conquest., in Europe only Albania diplovassalised and Serbia conquered.. Then in Europe only 1 war against Hungary to abandon rheir vassals so i can diplovassalise them.
The Knights moved to Malta, so I took them all, allowing me to diplovassalise Corsica and 1 province left Provance.

1466 or so secured alliances with all electors except Saxony though securing alliance with Mainz was a nightmare, I even had to subsidise, then Humilate Austria and easy dismantle.
As a result basically nearly everything in HRE needed except some OPMs and Austria were diplovassalised as well, including 4 former electors.

Eaely Iberian Wedding and nasty alliance blocks: Portugal + Castille/Aragon + England and Venice + England + Castille/Argaon + Naples.

Haevier wars started circa 1469 - Provance reconqest - taken all cores + releas Gascony from Foix land, so easy to diplovassalise.
Arouund this moment first minor coalition breaking war, maybe 1 year long (white peace declaration on OPM Papal State)

Later Dalmatian reconquest on Venice when England would not join and diplovassalising all released minors (and there were a lot of them) and Invasion on Hungary (of course allied to Caastille) to cancel some Castillian alliances.

Strong warring started after truce passed, around 1480 or so. Slightly before conquest of Wien for warscore reduction, I also had warscore reduction from Cairo active till 1490 (not eyalet-ing) and 1 tier Malta and Mecca..

Simultanous war on France, Castille, Portugal and England, as well as Swiss reconquest on Milan and Savoy. Ended up with massive land gains and huge coalitions. BTW taking all Portugal except Lisbon in one war was funny . I took some Spain, most of France as well, England only to cancel alliance with Austria and Castille.
Final wars were to start after truces, so had to be started 1493-1495. I skipped the opportunity to attack Brittany (with Burgundy integrated after Inheritance) and they join 2nd coalition, this time huge one, white peace after attacking OPM Moldavia.

Later also 1 more coalition war (again white peace after OPM)

While waiting for truces, first trucebrake, to finish off France (total 3 wars against France - Provance reconquest, Gascony reconquest, final war).
When truces ended, daclaration on Castille, in the meantime finishing Italians.

Final push:
daclaration on England
Trucebrak on Brittany as they were in former coalition (and Castille a new ally of them, so I could take some more provinces from them). 25+ provinces taken in 1 war from England and similar from Brittany to secure achievement..

Ideas - diplomatic, later quantity..
Massive war cost reduction - Cairo active till 1490, the rest active till the end: Wien, full Malta, full Mecca., diploideas. I did not seize Granada for admin efficiency.

Summary: 2 trucebraeks, 3 coalitions breaking wars whitepeaced after few monts, ended up with only 7 loans or so with only some Sardinian, Mamluk and Syrian rebels wandering. I was lacking 1 province to invade Morrocco, but not a problem as massive land gains from Brttany and England were enough.

And finally, I have again all achievements completed

 

[Syrus]

Inti Inca


Felt like playing Inca again - first time I played them was actually the second run of EU4 I played. Once again it turned out outrageously lucky, having had weak Portugal and Castile in both runs and therefore barely any pressure from the colonizers.
Loved playing with the new mechanics for the Incas, the government they get is very powerful and getting the Sunset Colonies through the missions, the sheer power of owning the Americas and the speed with which one can expand even as a native, as well as seeing how much missionary strength and true faith tolerance the nation gets got me an idea for another run which I followed up on right after finishing this one...

May have been the most powerful nation I ever created in EU4, definitely the biggest army I ever had. Could have formed the Roman Empire in the end, but doing so would have moved my capital, so I left it at this.


Aztec-Culture Mayan Maya

With the Inca run done I felt it was finally time to properly tackle two of the big achievements, World Conquest and One Faith. While I had already gotten them back in the days when you could just keep playing past 1821 by bugging out the endscreen, I wanted to finally do it properly. Not to mention, there is some nice trickery which allows you to merge both the Aztec mission tree and the Maya one, creating one hell of an abomination! Fairly certain you could also throw in the Incan one as well, though I imagine it would require first forming Inca, then forming Maya and finally Adopting Aztec Traditions - which is just a bit too much for my liking.

My first attempt was as Huastec, and I got the achievement for forming Maya, but I felt like it was going too slow for my liking. After a few attempts with Cocomes and Yokotan, I finally had a run that was going to my liking as Cocomes.

The setup required passing two Mayan reforms, forming Maya, completely annexing the Aztecs, flipping Aztec culture, flipping Nahuatl, adopting Aztec traditions, and flipping back to Mayan.
By 1467 I was done with that part and in 1491 I finished the final reform. From there on out I focussed on pushing into Inti land before reforming off of Castile's Cuban colony and throwing out Portugal out of South America. American Frontiers greatly helped in securing most of Southern America in one click. Starting at around 1550 I focussed on pushing into North America and quickly expanded there again by using frontiers, while colonizing Polynesia westward. By 1600 I controlled South America and the vast majority of North America, as well as most of Polynesia and the Philippines. I was able to ally a very powerful Austria-Hungary and by 1630 grabbed the necessary European provinces for Sunset Colonies from France. At no point did a colonizer declare war on me - reforming quickly and having a large army deterred them enough before I could get an ally. An unfortunate event was that the large Portugal (owning almost the whole Maghreb) fell under a PU of GB, with full control over their islands. Vijayanagar conquered all of India by 1670 and Austria-Hungary owned most of the Balkans and half of France without my involvement. Russia never formed, with most of Muscovy being eaten by the PLC and the Ottomans, and Castile and Aragon never united though, still a bit of an unfortunate position for my world conquest desire.
Once Sunset Colonies became a thing, I started to push into Asia, cutting out chunks from a weak Japan to feed to my colony So, carving apart a big Xibe to release Manchu and establishing colonies in Ming China. The absolutely worst enemies in this region were the Oirats, who always troubled me, having large swaths of land without forts and a big army, prolonging every war with them annoyingly, though a big Transoxiana also had the tendency to ally anyone I wanted to fight.
The colonies also posed a problem, as they were weak when setup, started without truces towards the nations I cut them out of and, as it works with colonial nations in the new worlds, one can dow them directly if you are on the same continent without involving the overlord. Constantly having to enforce peace only works so far until some bigger nation - usually GB - starts a war on one of them, causing me to be in half a dozen wars all over the world most of the time. Though it also came with the advantage of, often times, reducing truce timers or circumventing alliances.
From 1670 on the real conquests started, pushing into southern Africa (with Sakalava, Ajuuran, Makua, Lunda as colonies), setting up colonies (Greece, Trebizond and Syria) in land carved out of the crumbling Ottomans, while constantly having to tell everyone to keep their hands of my little subjects - especially Ayutthaya and Sunda were major offenders.

Still, the snowballing went fast from there on out and in the final years only Austria-Hungary, Bharat, the PLC, Persia, Transoxiana, GB and Scandinavia remained, with the former two requiring some truce breaking to get rid of quickly. By 1761 the World Conquest was already finished with all provinces cored and distributed to colonies!
For a moment before I was done with it, I feared that a One Faith may not be possible as many of the colonies were not converting their land, especially since I forgot to make sure to focus on releasing nations which would pick Religious ideas - but after subsidizing them all with 50-100 ducats a month and spamming Great Temples everywhere, even the ones which picked Humanist ideas did their duty. By 1776 only 3 provinces were left to be converted, two being converted very slowly by the colonies and one building a rampart, sadly. Thus the One Faith was achieved 5 years later in 1781!

While a bit stressful, at times, and a long run of playing mostly at speed 2 during the last century and a half, I'm very happy to finally have done this in a proper way and with one of my favorite nations. It was a nice way to celebrate hitting 5'000 h in the game during the run! (though a lot of those hours were just idling time...)

---

The Aztec-Maya mission tree, stitched together from several screenshots:

 

[enKage]

I continued my Mehmet Ambition for WC, it has been a long time since my last One Faith (Araon few patches ago).

I did not rush the best date, as integrating eyalets takes so much time

True one tag, one faith WC

I would only like to post, how does the side effect of eyalet integration look like

(Up to 86 development, basically most provinces between 70-80 dev)

timeline on YT

 

[Korsjan Rīkis]

My 104th EUIV run: Georgia.

I had wanted to play with Georgia since the King of Kings Immersion Pack came out, but decided to go with Karabakh-> Armenia first and leave Georgia for later. More than a year has passed, so it was the right time to try out the other Christian country of Caucasus - Georgia.

While Georgia has a much better starting situation than Karabakh, it's still dangerously close to the Ottomans. Lest they decide to attack your ally (to-be-vassal) Trebizond and drag you in an unwinnable war or attack Theodoro and just snatch it from you infront of your eyes. Luckily, neither scenario came to be, the Ottomans got dragged into a long war with Albania and Venice, while Crimea decided to annex Theodoro itself.

In the mean time, I used to the situation to attack Shirvan, while its ally Ajam was at war with Qara Qoyunlu. I took all but one province. After that I didn't seek to expand for around 10 years, while I got rid of the upcoming disaster, integrated my starting vassal, then diplovassalised Trebizond through my mission tree and got a strong ally that could protect me - Muscovy. The campaign turned out easier than I expected.

After consilidating my power, I was able to attack Qara Qoyunlu, it wasn't long until Ajam and the Timurids joined the fun and declared war on it. I was able to take all of their Armenian provinces and Hisn Kayfa. I wasn't able to attack Aq Qoyunlu, because it was allied to the Ottomans, but to my surprise, Muscovy attacked the Great Horde, which was allied to Aq Qoyunlu, so I occupied them and Muscovy in the peace treaty gave all their territory to me. I didn't expect that to happen.

Now that I had grown in size, Mamluks finally agreed to an alliance. I noticed that their army size is twice as the Ottomans'. I couldn't believe that by 1489 I would have already defeated the Ottomans, while I didn't take much land myself (only Canik), it was an important victory over the country that could end my campaign any time.

After that many more wars with the Ottomans, Persia and my former allies - the Mamluks and Russia followed. I PUed the latter with my mission tree. And yes, it had already subjugated Central Asia and reached the Pacific, when I did it.

My vassals: Crimea, Byzantium, Karaman, Soran, Luristan, Khorasan (all of them are Orthodox).
Junior Partners: Russia.
My allies: Syria.

Hindustan was formed by Deccan.

 

[Mismangaement]

Another great Austria start, byz is allied to stop ottos from taking Constantiople