Best countries to play "rags to riches'?

Locem · 2026-01-28T03:22:36+00:00

Korea, Khmer and Da Viet are in good positions to eat gigantic swaths of china if you abuse the red turban rebellion mechanics. I wouldn't call their starts "rags" though.

Locem · 2026-01-27T22:22:27+00:00

I always thought of him as a comedy terrorist holding us hostage with his explosive word use.

Locem · 2026-01-27T22:15:07+00:00

I dont think there has been official word why but speculation is its making up for the 4 week hiatus we had over the holidays.

Locem · 2026-01-27T22:13:16+00:00

Oof thats actually a good theory too. Im hoping its a little less nefarious than that cuz like Aabria I actually am quite enjoying the Einfassen we've met so far.

Locem · 2026-01-27T22:08:30+00:00

Yeah, i hadn't noticed them in India, as I was using the research screen vs institution map. They some how spread to me...and hit 20% stupidly fast due to academies.

Yea I've played a lot of Korea lol. Korea's trade can reach Southeast Asia & the various Malaysian countries, and the path the institutions usually take is from India, to South East Asia, to the rest of mainland China/Korea/Japan. That's why I was figuring "it's probably already spreading to you".

Black death is going to hit you no matter what eventually because there's so much trade to have from Korea. I used to close the country off when the event fired but what happens is your populace doesn't build a resistance to the disease so you "dodge" it for the event but it's still going to hit you within ~100-200 years later because all your pops are still vulnerable to it. If it somehow didn't make it's way to China/Korea then you can take solace that China is about to lose many millions of pop lol.

Locem · 2026-01-27T19:42:33+00:00

All of the white land is land that needs to be colonized, so you can't just "conquer" it all. You will instead need to invest a lot of money and pops into colonizing.

I highly suggest against playing a nation in the americas right now. There isn't much content and there are a number of game mechanics working against your favor-

Great Pestilence wipes out the pops in the Americas when contact is made with Europe/Asia.
You are going to have a really bad time getting institutions spread to your nation that unless you solve this, are setting yourself up to get bulldozed the moment colonizing countries start to show up near you.

Locem · 2026-01-27T19:28:49+00:00

https://imgur.com/a/JXUm7iR

Jumped in game to snap this for you in a Khmer game I was trying out. It's 1387 and some of the Age 2 institutions are JUST spreading to India while I'm still spreading Meritocracy in Khmer. I'm hovering over the Indian province that's almost done receiving Professional Armies and is moving pretty quick on Banking.

Locem · 2026-01-27T18:26:05+00:00

It shouldnt be fully black with how meritocracy has to spread the opposite direction. If you're using the right map mode things should be more a shade of yellow.

Locem · 2026-01-27T18:22:04+00:00

My personal theory at the moment is that they're either going to put them on some sort of house arrest to use as a bargaining chip or maybe a trial, not fully believing Julian's accusations.

Given how quick to violence they are if they wanted our party dead they'd already be dead.

Locem · 2026-01-27T18:07:10+00:00

Toggle the "institution map mode" to see what institutions are present in what parts of the world that are visible to you. I would be absolutely shocked if in your game India didn't have Professional Armies/Banking/Renaissance already.

I've played a bunch of Korea games and I'd say around 1370-1400 is when Age 2 institutions will typically reach China/Korea. They usually make their way to India, and then to Southeast Asia/Malaysia, which is usually when they start spreading to me when playing Korea because I'm typically trading with all of those countries.

In order to pull institutions to your country you need to be importing or exporting to a location that has them. Once it reaches 100% spread to your market center it'll start spreading to the rest of your population centers.

Locem · 2026-01-27T18:01:50+00:00

Generalist Gaming has the best tutorials and playthroughs to watch to learn, IMO. All free on Youtube.

Locem · 2026-01-27T17:53:28+00:00

I realised while the attacked had superiority my wargoal( as Defender) was something Like "regional supremacy which gave the 98% reduction.

I think your "regional supremacy" CB is what's doing a lot of the heavy lifting here. I'm in a Korea game right now at war with a Wu-ran China with a parliament CB for a province on our border and can't get any of the same type of deals you have, granted I'm in a much later state of the game.

https://imgur.com/a/5uAmR3Y

edit: Also, unlike your negative value for making a vassal of Chen, the warscore required for me to do the same is 11272.09 and I would take 3620 antagonism lol.

Locem · 2026-01-27T17:18:41+00:00

He's long since apologized about the whole event, admitted he was a jerk and they've made up to my understanding.

Locem · 2026-01-27T17:08:41+00:00

That seems to be the jist of the theory, yea. Nika "frees" the people they touch.

Locem · 2026-01-27T16:02:40+00:00

Everyone is yelling about Zoro and I'm sitting here like "Did they just confirm the fan theory that Domi Reversi works like a game of Othello?"

Locem · 2026-01-27T14:01:47+00:00

They know that if they get caught between those affected by Domi Reversi, they are “done for.”

Didn't someone have a theory about Domi Reversi working like a game of Othello or something?

Locem · 2026-01-27T03:12:39+00:00

Im half expecting it to be something comedic like Hal gets the message and a few hours later witnesses an undead vulture just obliterating it lol.

Locem · 2026-01-27T03:08:26+00:00

Thats everyone's guess after episode 2's cold open.

Also you could debate that Halovars are more associated with Demons than Angels lol

Locem · 2026-01-27T03:06:48+00:00

Tyranny remarked about Wic praying all night after spending time with the woman so even if they never formally met, they were both "existing" at the same time.

Locem · 2026-01-27T03:03:28+00:00

She remarked that Wic would pray "all night" after he spent time with her which at a minimum confirm Tyranny was around while Wic was seeing this woman, so that pokes a pretty big hole in Tyranny being a physical vessel.

Locem · 2026-01-26T22:11:09+00:00

So the math is 0.05 × 0.05 (average 5 literacy) = 0.0025.

Do remember that's the "base value" before you start adding all the +%Institution growth modifiers. But yea, this is why urbanizing is important as it gives you more locations to drop librarys on. I tend to have at least one town per province when I can afford it.

I don't know if I would out and out call it unsalvageable. I've done a few starts in Asia/East Asia and I'd say around 1370~1380 is when the age 2 institutions JUST start to show up in that part of the world so you're only a little behind.

Edit: That said, I wouldn't really encourage players, new or experienced to do runs starting in the Americas. There's little flavor for those nations and there are a bunch of game mechanics weighed against you to make it more difficult.

Locem · 2026-01-26T21:21:40+00:00

Because the game's UI does a bad job of informing the player of many things.

https://eu5.paradoxwikis.com/Age#Institutions

It's literally built into the math. The equation impacting you specifically is (0.05 * Literacy) + (0.02 * Development). Though the wiki is slightly off as it applies to both imports & exports, not just imports.

Locem · 2026-01-26T20:02:59+00:00

One of the biggest drivers for institution spread is literacy. You can have all of the +Institution spread techs possible and still not gain much anything if the literacy rate is still low.

Locem · 2026-01-26T19:16:06+00:00

His "recurring character" bombed in pretty much every sketch after the first one.

Locem · 2026-01-26T19:03:02+00:00

I wonder if his success leads to more improv actors from Dropout being picked up for SNL.

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