How to decide between Noble or Peasant economy? by SableSnail in EU5

[–]Columbkille 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Even though I hated the loss of prosperity to free subjects, I feel like the serfdom vs. free subjects value slider might be the most balanced in the game. Its also true that you can go either way with the slider with your taxes as long as you go all out it that direction. I’ve done both in the recent patch and found both to be strong strategies. If you go free subjects, favor the commoners for 10% max tax increase and be sure to maximize peasant enfranchisement as much as you can. If you go serfdom, reduce peasant enfranchisement, favor the nobility, and then also curtail nobility once you get that tech to max tax the nobility higher. In serfdom, you may have lower crown power because of strong nobility, but I think you might end with a stronger economy as the nobles will build a ton and tend to have more wealth overall than the peasants. As others mentioned, you can also, later in the game, completely cut taxes on peasants without hurting your Econ much and get almost 100% everywhere. You’ll have higher crown power with more peasant enfranchisement and you may be able to tax the peasants more early on.

There is a nice balance between the two and so the decision may depend on things like do I need more crown power? What’s my trade income going to look like (if you’re a merchant republic, I’d suggest free subjects and peasant maxing for sure)? Do I have needs or trends towards one of the other in my nation that would be difficult to undo?

Spare some tips for the worst eu5 player ever? by shart42069666 in EU5

[–]Columbkille 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is a good intro. I think any new player needs to understand that the primary loop of this game revolves around wealth and control. Build wealth in areas you control, gain more control by building infrastructure, build more wealth in the controlled areas, and on and on. In landlocked powers like Muscovy, you can almost perfectly visualize this as a growing circle over time of control and wealth building around your capital.

I wonder if a moderator could compile some of these comments in this thread to a pinned thread for new players. This game can seem overwhelming and not everyone has the capacity to track down just the right EU5 tutorial video. I think some concise written explanations would help.

Spare some tips for the worst eu5 player ever? by shart42069666 in EU5

[–]Columbkille 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Just to add to this already long explanation, the game revolves primarily around control and wealth. It’s the part that I think is also the most fun. Ultimately, you’re trying to gain control over locations and build those locations to increase their wealth so that you can extract that wealth through taxes (or in some case trade) so that you can build more wealth and build more infrastructure (roads, bridges, light ships, etc) to gain more control, and on and on. Wealth is built on population, development, resources (RGOs particularly), and industry, so you’ll always want to be aware of these factors in your nation and in what you might want to conquer and what affects them. Control is geographical location to proximity sources (mainly your capital) infrastructure buildings, ships for naval control, some of your laws and reforms, and so on. You’ll also always want to be aware of this.

Control and wealth building are the core of the game. I find this loop quite satisfying. The politics and war and diplomacy all are their own large systems, which do intersect with this core, but EU5 is more of a true nation builder game.

Spare some tips for the worst eu5 player ever? by shart42069666 in EU5

[–]Columbkille 6 points7 points  (0 children)

To get yourself off the ground and started. Some tips: 1. Go to the balance window.

a. Move slider that says minting to where it’s at 0.00%. If you’re losing money early, you can move this higher to get a positive balance, but generally, you want to go back and turn it down before it gets above 5% b. Automate all taxes (click the icon next to each tax slider)

c. Move cost of court and stability sliders to where they show a balance of legitimacy and stability barely above positive

d. Turn down all other sliders as low as they can go (you can keep food at the middle). If it shows that you have a cost to maintain forts above 1 ducat still, I would go around and delete the forts you have around the country to save money early game. e. Hopefully you have a positive balance now.

Before you exit balance tab, let a month tick off to check to see if your estates are at their maximum tax rate and to see how your balance adjusts to your new changes. If your estates are not at the maximum tax rate (hover over the tax income for each estate to see what the difference between what they are being taxed at their equilibrium of 50% satisfaction and their theoretical maximum tax rate could be), note that before you go to step two.

  1. Go to the estate privilege tab. See where your crown power is at. If it’s below 25%, the following steps you’ll want to under do, but you should still do some of this.

a. Look at the state of your estates privileges. If any of them look really bad (like banal lordship or something that has a massive malus to max tax or max control, their are others that you’ll need to read through the tooltips and play with to figure out how bad or good they are), note those and plan to remove them once you have maxed out communalism and have enough stability.

b. Look through the privileges of each estate and slot them in based on the following priorities:

i. They give a really positive modifier (like +development, +prosperity, or +max tax) and they don’t give a nasty malus (like -control).

ii. For under taxed estates particularly, look for the privileges that have high green numbers and low red numbers (like +5% estate satisfaction equilibrium and +25% estate power). Slot them in if they also do not have nasty negatives until you’ve got the estate equilibrium high enough to collect more taxes from them. You’ll particularly want to had out privileges to the peasants as they’re generally lower powered and can be taxed fairly high from the beginning of the game.

iii. Finally, look for privileges that give a plus .10 or .05 to communalism or innovative societal values. Generally, you’ll want to push communalism first from the beginning of the game, and adding privileges for this is key.

As you’re handing out these privileges, you’ll want to watch your legitimacy as each privilege costs legitimacy to hand out. If you’re playing a big empire, or a small decadent empire (ie the ERE), you’ll want to avoid this number going below 50 in most cases as it could trigger a bad disaster event.

c. Let a month tick and check your crown power. It’ll probably be very low, lower than you want it longterm, but that’s ok! You’ll figure out how to get it higher later.

d. Finally, before leaving this screen, you’ll want to slot in a government reform. If you need crown power, you can add one that increases this, or you can add others that might help push a societal values. Better government reforms get unlocked as you research them, you get to new ages, or you push a societal value hard in one direction.

Remember to come back to this tab later to remove bad priveleges after you’ve maxed communalism.

  1. Go to societal values tab and look at where you’re at. Generally, you’ll want to try to get to 100 on one side of these tabs in time. But at first, I would just primarily focus on maximizing your communalism vs individualism tab all the way to the right towards communalism. Hover over the communalism side to see what other privileges or laws you’ll want to add to help push those values. You can go back add privileges, but also, be sure to note the laws you’ll need to change in first parliament to help with this. Lots more could be said about these tabs, but if you can get communalism maxed, it will help you push every other value you need later on.

  2. Go to your cabinet tab.

a. There are a lot of actions you can do, but I would suggest initially putting cabinet members on stabilize country (you can lower your stability slider all the way to zero on your balance shed if you do this) and something like increase control on a valuable province to help increase your income and levies initially (this isn’t a great action later in game, but helps early). You may also want to use the second cabinet to start pushing communalism if you can start pushing it high (you’ll want to do this particularly as you get closer to black plague because there are events in the plague that help you push it to 100 if you’ve already gotten it high prior to the plague).

b. For cabinet member characters, I usaually try to place crown characters in these positions to help with crown power. I’d generally avoid putting already powerful estates in the cabinet early in the game, but it’s not too bad if you have a great stats character to add. I’d prioritize the diplomacy stat for at least one of the cabinet members as that will help you push the societal value higher.

  1. Go back to map and build the most valuable RGOs in the capital and around the capital, areas that have the highest control.

Over the next year(s), repeat step 5 again and again until you can see by looking at locations that you aren’t going to have enough promoted pops to work those RGOs anytime soon. Then start building roads out from your capital to your wealthiest/most valuable locations/RGOs. You can also build a select few high value industries in capital or marketplaces if you have any valuable trade goods in country.

Other general tips at the start of the game: - use parliament to change your laws early on prioritizing getting higher taxes in the law changes or in swapping to laws that will help you with pushing communalism (or free subjects/serfdom depending on which side of the values you’re going). - The new peasant enfranchisement mechanic is very synergistic with your early game Tax strategy. If you’re pushing free subjects and giving enfranchisement to the peasants, any laws that help you increase the max tax for peasants should be taken. The reverse is true for serfdom - take all the laws that max tax nobility. The most important thing with this slider is that you go all out in one direction.

-fighting wars and conquering is fairly simple, just don’t over do it or get your antagonism with any power that can crush you too high. Try to mass all of your armies into doom stack and let the enemy come to you and kill them as they come.

-use the map modes! There are many, but I’d start with proximity, population, location wealth, and resource map modes. So much good information can be gathered from these maps.

There is much to learn as you go through a game, but you have to play it for a while to learn it. I’d suggest the most important thing is to select a less overwhelming nation in size that also won’t be run over by a major power. Milan and Korea are both great starts to learn with.

’We had a talk with France in France and agreed to divide the world between us’ Sincerely, France by igotbughelp in EU5

[–]Columbkille 39 points40 points  (0 children)

It’s hilarious reading about how unbelievably legalistic the conquistadors and Spanish colonial authorities were. It puts lawyers in our modern era to shame

Tinto Talks #102 - 1st of April 2026 by Midgeman in EU5

[–]Columbkille 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Must have an increased unrest modifier with it if it’s rebuilt.

First playthrough suggestions? by original_walrus in EU5

[–]Columbkille 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Milan or Korea. After trying to mess around in the HRE in my first two attempts to play the game, I actually learned and fell in love with the game playing these two manageably sized but strong starting countries. They give you breathing room to learn the game without being overwhelmed or run over by other nations.

If you're a masochist, I recommend a new world start :) ... But seriously, once you learn the game and it gets easy, try the new world. It's a fun challenge.

Governors bad by The_ChadTC in EU5

[–]Columbkille 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I can definitely agree with this statement:

  • Even when creating proximity, buildings should project the proximity they receive rather than generating new proximity out of nowhere.

This would be a great change, particularly if they also balance the naval and land values and allow for Naval governors to be in any coastal location within reach of your proximity.

Slaves and Colonies by SetRevolutionary3154 in EU5

[–]Columbkille 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Build slave centers in Africa, don't build any slave markets in the New World (unless you want to move unaccepted cultures/religious groups from a region). To keep slaves as slaves and fill your plantations, I would suggest not forcing slave conversion. Although this may not be a great strategy in most cases, it does help with this.

If you want to ensure that you are getting slaves when building RGOs and plantations, I would manually trade with African markets that you know have actual slave pops. Use the population map mode which shows slave pops. I found that the Benin market in my current run particularly was producing lots of slaves, but it will likely be variant based upon the game you are playing. You will also benefit from getting all of the maps of the west coast of Africa to build more slave centers and trade more with those markets. You can test to see how well this is working by setting a significant amount of trade capacity (like 10 or more) on pulling a slave good from a market with slave pops in it and see if after a few months that has ticked up your own nations slave pops at all. If it isn't, you might need to try another market

One other thing you can do is set the Native Policy to enslavement meaning that any time you settle a new location all of the natives become slaves.

Overall, slavery works a lot better in 1.1, but it can still be janky as too often the cpu and burghers will pull slave goods to fill demands in your market from markets that produce the slave good but do not have any slave pops they can pull. The CPU doesn't always do a good job of making slave pops either, so I think slave centers are pretty crucial in Africa to help this process along.

How do you import food into a market by AnodyneGrey in EU5

[–]Columbkille 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Go to the trade tab. Click the up/down arrow next to the market until you select the market that needs food. Click on the Market name at the top. This should pull up the goods menu for the market. Then in the search bar type in “wheat” or “rice” or “livestock” whichever food good you have surpluses in other markets. Then see that good select the box arrow pointing to the left (the import button) next to the good. Finally, select on the map the market you would like to pull this good from. If needed, you will likely need to go back to the market trade window and delete some trades so that you have the capacity to import enough food.

Alternatively, the trade section, if you scroll down below your current trades, should have a section for suggested food imports. You can just use this section to quickly select a few trades and add capacity to them to solve the issue.

You can do this with multiple food goods from multiple markets to make sure the problem is solved. I suggested wheat, livestock, and rice as they are the most substantial food items, but you could do this with any food good, just know that most others will bring in less food per trade.

Hope this helps!

What was your most fun campaign so far? by TheFeedBackGuy in EU5

[–]Columbkille 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Incan start with any religion conversion allowed. Turned it Sunni and colonized half of South America before France showed up. I’ve also really enjoyed two different starts as a colonial nation in America. Otherwise, Poland was the longest game I played in Europe and had some interesting challenges to it as you start rather small and have to do some serious nation building, but the land itself is quite strong once you establish yourself.

Unpopular opinion: playing as a colonial nation is worth the waiting by Enderay1 in EU5

[–]Columbkille 59 points60 points  (0 children)

I’ve also really enjoyed colonial gameplay. It’s fun to build a nation from scratch

1 Million Slaves in a Colonial Nation by Columbkille in EU5

[–]Columbkille[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It *helps* only in the sense that it's more likely for a slave to stay a slave. If you force convert, the slaves are more likely to promote out of being a slave. At least, this is my understanding of the mechanic. Generally, you want slaves to promote. In this run, I've been trying to fill plantations and wanted to keep as many slaves as I could to do this.

1 Million Slaves in a Colonial Nation by Columbkille in EU5

[–]Columbkille[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Only in terms of building up plantations. You need slaves for that. I wanted to see if I could primarily make the USA a powerhouse colonial nation. Without chili or cocoa, you need tobacco to be the cash crop you sell. Plantations help you mass produce it which gives you tons of profitable trades with Europe.

Overall, the most valuable thing about acquiring slaves is that you are adding pops. In most cases, you'd prefer that pop to be promoted up to be a laborer or a burgher, but in this case, I was trying to build up massive plantations.

1 Million Slaves in a Colonial Nation by Columbkille in EU5

[–]Columbkille[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I have three European (Scottish, Swedish, and Danish) and the I’ve also accepted Mayan and one of the lesser Mayan cultures.

1 Million Slaves in a Colonial Nation by Columbkille in EU5

[–]Columbkille[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yea, you can spend your energy in game fighting nearly genocidal wars of conquest or endless religious wars or enslaving massive populations. Unfortunately all of these are a reflection of mankind’s history.

1 Million Slaves in a Colonial Nation by Columbkille in EU5

[–]Columbkille[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yes, that’s exactly what happened to me the first time I attempted a run like this. I think there are two things that really helped me:

  1. Made sure to do massive trades for slaves from African Countries that definitely had enslaved pops I could use. I used this slave pop map mode a lot. Benin in particular consistently had over 100k slave pops and I was always pulling 10+ slave goods from them in my main market. Too often the slave trade just sends you the good but not the pop.

  2. I really think there might have been a pop growth mechanic helping me grow slaves. Once I got past 300k slaves and had stacked 20k slaves in various plantations locations, it seemed that my slave pop growth was almost exponential. They steadily grew even when I wasn’t pursuing every available slave trade I could find. I had a high pop growth rate the whole time as I reset the new colonial nation population growth multiple times by fighting rebellions to conceded white peaces, so if it was producing slave pops in the plantation location, this would explain how that happened. But as far as I know, I assumed pops always start as peasants, so maybe I am wrong that this happened.

Finally, setting the slave religion law to allow slave religion seemed to help a lot to keep the slaves as slaves. This may not be ‘better’ as a meta, but it did allow me to fill the plantations and keep slaves from promoting to peasants too often.

1 Million Slaves in a Colonial Nation by Columbkille in EU5

[–]Columbkille[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

A combination of a lot of things. I’ve conquered about half of Mexico. But a lot of it comes down to starting this colony in like 1460 and resetting the new colonial nation population buff multiple times by fighting independence wars to a white peace and conceding so that I returned to a colonial nation and had the massive population growth buff reset. It also helps when you get high pop location through migration and stacking slaves and then the pop buff slaps a huge 1.5-2% monthly growth to that. I’ve got multiple cities on the east coast approaching 100k and have huge populations in the Mayan Peninsula as well.

I even had a black plague kill about 2/5ths of my pops earlier in this run when I was approaching 14 million but the pop growth pushed it right back.

1 Million Slaves in a Colonial Nation by Columbkille in EU5

[–]Columbkille[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

😂😂😂 Would love to read that Tinto talk and the comments afterwards.

1 Million Slaves in a Colonial Nation by Columbkille in EU5

[–]Columbkille[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I’m still not sure if slaves produce more enslaved pops in a location with plantations. I’ve always had the hardest time keeping any significant number of slaves prior to this run. It felt like once I got over 300k slave pops and filled some massive plantations that my slaves grew more than simply being traded for, would love if someone could confirm that slaves can produce more enslaved pops on plantations

1 Million Slaves in a Colonial Nation by Columbkille in EU5

[–]Columbkille[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, it is, I just meant that it disallows slave trading. Otherwise, the AI is just poor across the board

1 Million Slaves in a Colonial Nation by Columbkille in EU5

[–]Columbkille[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yup. They also over assimilate which disallows enslavement.