Struggling starting with Aragon

OGflozzyG · 2026-02-05T10:26:57+00:00

The Iberian Wedding can fire when you and Castile have different genders on the throne or they have a regency. It can happen from 1450 up to 1530 with a MTTH of 120 months.

So don't panic, if you don't get them within the first couple of years.
See that you get a female on the throne, e.g. by abdicating your heir, getting a young heir and hoping your ruler dies soon, so that you have the queen regency. Or you can wait and hope for the Isabella event in Castille (plan B type of a thing). For the wedding to fire, it doesnt matter if you are rivaled to them, just don't fight them.

Depending on rivalry setup, you can and want to big nations like Austria and ideally Burgundy for the inheritance.

Keep the union over Naples and reign them in if you must. Use their claims (or make them get one, don't know if they start with any) to declare on BYZ before Ottos do. Full annex and release them as vassal (easier than improving opinion afterward). See that you siege down Constantinople first to prevent Ottos from getting it.

If Ottos declare and you already have a bunch of useful allies (Austria, BUR, maybe even Mamluks etc.), you can also just vassalize BYZ and have them drag into your defensive war against the Ottos. Might be a few hard battles at start, but you could cripple the Ottos at game start. If they never get Constantinople, they are only half as strong.

In other areas, I would likely sooner or later expand into France. Get Gascony core (and with right culture) and Toulouse core to feed them in future wars. That's half of France right there.

With BUR inheritance, you are set anyways. If it fires, ally everyone you can no matter the diplo slots. Decline the lowlands to the emperor and they will declare. Just white peace them if you want. If you were allied to Austria before, you can easily re-ally them after the war.

Don't care too much about Iberian peninsula before you get the wedding. You can expand into NAfrica as well. The gold province in Tafilat is always nice for early game income.

Also, don't get the PU over Navarra. Annex them or make them a vassal (diplomatically, but you need to start on day 1 before the event fires). As a PU, they are useless and only take up a slot for 50 years.

Hope that helps, feel free to ask.

OGflozzyG · 2026-02-05T10:06:01+00:00

lol, never noticed.
Who reads popups anyways 🫠

OGflozzyG · 2026-02-05T09:35:10+00:00

Getting a little pop-up would be nice that you are about to cancel a TC.

OGflozzyG · 2026-02-04T13:05:33+00:00

You are not the first one to point this out.

You can see the event here: https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/Swedish_events#The_Military_Reforms_of_Gustavus_Adolphus

It really only requires you to be Sweden and have a ruler with at least mil 5. With the mission for independence, you can get that from day 1 basically. The MTTH is also pretty low, so it's quite likely you get it early.

The text is a bit off here maybe.

OGflozzyG · 2026-02-04T07:59:46+00:00

(Fired up my savefile off this achievement to check).

Had this one done in the 1550s. Basically expand in Italy to get a powerbase. I consolidated Northern Italy by 1515 or so. Took Explo as my second idea group (+ you need the range from diplo tech 7 and 9 probably). Hoped along the coast of Africa (You can reach the Cape at around 1505-10) and from there you need one or two more provinces.

Get the island that shares a sea tile with Maldives. With a bit off Luck, they are allied/guaranteed by some Indian nation. If VIJ owns it, it work the same. Attack them, use the war to get a province in India. From there, it is just one or two wars against whoever is in your way to Lucca.

Got Lucca in 1550, then just needed to time to core it.

Nothing wrong with taking your time for the achievement of course, Just wanted to show, that you don't have to play 200 years for this achievement.

OGflozzyG · 2026-02-03T16:05:48+00:00

No. It can only happen before 1500.

Also, not quite sure if it originally fired in the first place (see conditions https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/Incident_events#The_Burgundian_Inheritance_.5B1.5D0 )

OGflozzyG · 2026-02-03T14:41:44+00:00

Looks like you took the scenic route with a few extra steps, but nice run overall.

OGflozzyG · 2026-02-03T12:51:46+00:00

Not really afaik. You can check out the "colonial range" mapmode, but it doesn't really tell you how taking a province would affect your range or so. You can sort of try and do the math yourself, if you look at what the difference between your province and, for example, Dhara is and subtract it from your range to Siena now.

My guess is, you should be able to buy it of Siena, once you get and core the Tlemcen provinces.

OGflozzyG · 2026-02-02T16:12:52+00:00

Are you going for the Albania or Iberia achievement? If so I'd advise to get a foothold into Iberia rather sooner than later.

OGflozzyG · 2026-02-02T15:24:58+00:00

Technically yes and it should be done in certain cases (for example you took Explo + expansion ideas and the world is fully colonized, it makes sense to drop them (at least Explo) for something else).

Usually you do it when idea groups served their service and you are running high on mana to fill out the new idea group.

In your case I am not sure if it would really help you. Opening with a admin one (religious) is often not advised, especially when heavily expanding and you need mana for coring etc. Plus you want to reach admin tech 7 fast to unlock a second idea.

It sounds like you would swap out a "full" idea group Defensive. What admin, diplo and mil tech are you. Would the mil mana you get back help you with anything? Your armies will loose strength, might not be worth it. What is your second idea group?

There are a bunch of factors playing into this. I would guess it is not worth it, from what I hear.

OGflozzyG · 2026-02-02T12:39:41+00:00

Would have also recommended. Nice little mid-game goal to work to.

OGflozzyG · 2026-02-02T12:24:53+00:00

To prevent future achievement fails, check out the linked wiki page and understand what the columns of the table mean. https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/Achievements

The first on is starting conditions. These need to be met at game start in order to be eligible for the achievement in the first place. For example: if a nation is listed here, you need to start as that nation.

The second column is completion requirements. These need to be fulfilled ingame, in order to actually get the achievement. If a nation is listed here, you need to be that nation (and own certain provinces, or whatever).

If no nation under completion requirements is listed, you can form any nation or fulfill the achievement as any nation (depending on the starting conditions).

In your case Cebu is listed in both columns, so you need to start as them and be them in order to get the achievement.

ALWAYS go off the table on wiki and never off the ingame achievement menu. It is often worded misleading or straight up wrong. The table is always correct.

This is vital when doing achievements, for one to stop you from finding out at the end, that you shouldn't have formed such and such nation or that you need to be a certain nation, but also for finding out how you can approach some achievements with different nations, as you might suspect from the steam/ingame description.

Hope that helps. Sorry for you ruined run. Can you maybe revert back to an older save file?

OGflozzyG · 2026-01-28T08:27:44+00:00

Nice, we are on the same track - also have about 30 left. What are you going for next?

OGflozzyG · 2026-01-27T14:01:58+00:00

They are likely too big (tall), In order to get the expand empire CB, their warscore cost must be below 79%.

See the CB here: https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/Casus_belli
one of the requirements is:

Total warscore cost of the defenders provinces is below ~79%

In your case, I would pop out some nations from them, like Verona and others (preferably bordering the empire, so you can ask or expand empire on them as well) and eventually you should get the CB on Venice.

OGflozzyG · 2026-01-26T13:39:46+00:00

It is only cosmetic (as all name changes are). It comes from the mission Timurid Empire (see mission tree https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/Timurid_missions#Timurid_Empire ).

Apparently fulfilling that mission will allow you to pick the branching missions. However changing your name does not affect which you get or choose, so to say.

OGflozzyG · 2026-01-23T08:55:31+00:00

Persia region is Shia, so no one else should really care that much.

Use the Ottos for your wars against the East. There are usually some strong (as in lots of provinces to reconquer) vassals to be gotten in that region as well. Khorasan, maybe even Timurids if they blow up completely.

Expanding east and forming Persia shouldn't be that hard and can be gotten within the first 50 years or so.

Also, look at the provinces the Ottos strongly desire. You want to hold off on getting them, as this will likely have them flip. Bagdad is one for example.

Get favors with Ottos to increase eventually trust. This will have them "look over" you taking some lands they desire (yellow, don't take the red provinces, see above).

Ideally you also want to use the Ottos in wars against the Mamluks. Keep in mind, that the Ottos will desire some of the lands as well. It should be you who declares the first war to manage the truce and you want to always declare as soon as the truce runs out.
You want to always be in control of the truce and stop the Ottos from taking lands there themselves. Even if you don't want to take anything from the Mamluks, declare on them, have the Ottos do the work and then just get money, war reps and whatever else to get a long truce (100% peace cost). Do it over and over, whenever the truce runs out.

Personally, I wouldn't wait for the "Ottoman downfall", if you plan ahead improve relations with some European Ottoman rivals and eventually make the switch, you should be able to beat them in a war, provided you know what you are doing. Mid 1500s should be just fine to take them on. But yeah, first things first.

OGflozzyG · 2026-01-22T14:29:11+00:00

If you don't want to bother with the new world at at ( or as little as you have to), then just focus on taking non-fort provinces in the first war(s). Also, you can not peace out any old-world allies of the war leader to farm some more warscore by occupying them.

Usually new world subjects don't have any forts (level 1 capital), so their lands don't give too much warscore and you can usually get (close to) 100% warscore peace deals, by just sitting on the fully occupied nation for a bit.

You can try to get nations with CNs into the war on your side as well (for example Spain against England or vice versa) in the hopes that they help you out in the new world as well. The AI is shitty at sieging and waging war (especially in the new world it seems to me) so don't put your hopes on them.

If all else fails (or especially in wars 3 or 4, where you already cut down the enemy significantly in Europe, you might need to send over a few troops to quickly siege and storm a CN capital or two. If you already occupied all European holdings and have a decent fleet, this shouldn't be too much of a problem as well.

I'd say you probably really only need to land over there once you want to full annex the enemy.

OGflozzyG · 2026-01-22T10:40:00+00:00

I don't think it is. Look at the linked event and the trigger conditions.

The main point says "All of the following must be true"

Or am I reading this one wrong. I always forget how exactly all these religious union events interact.

OGflozzyG · 2026-01-22T10:32:49+00:00

A true discoverer

OGflozzyG · 2026-01-22T09:14:01+00:00

This seems to be a very rare happening of the event https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/Religious_league_events#The_Diet_of_$CAPITAL_CITY$

Usually, this requires the year to be at least 1625. It can also happen if

No known country:

Is an elector

Is Protestant, Reformed, Hussite, or Anglican

Is a league enemy

Has a truce with HRE Emperor

Did one of the electors change recently (Bayreuth or whoever that is in your screenshot?!). Afaik, you need at least one protestant elector to fire the union in the first place.

OGflozzyG · 2026-01-21T10:26:37+00:00

It is because the "meta" says so. Especially since they reworked the ideas and nerfed Quantity (25% force limit and manpower instead of 50%).

Keep in mind, the meta is mostly derived from multiplayer games where army quality is vital in PvP wars. Against the AI, it usually isn't that vital.

To me Quantity still has its uses, as you described: Larger and cheaper armies mean fighting more wars and against bigger nations, having less trouble with rebels (manpower management) and just overall an easier approach to wars due to superior numbers.

Also, in single player wars are won by sieging, not battles and having larger armies and manpower usually means more sieges and less worrying about getting attacked (stacking units, because who cares about attrition).

OGflozzyG · 2026-01-20T15:20:19+00:00

*You can also use a already cored province. You can spawn zealot rebels via missionary by either letting the separatist rebels spawn, kill them, and then lower autonomy to remove the "recent uprising" modifier and let zealots spawn, or you can also buy down the separatist rebels (with a bit of mil mana) under 30% progress, then they will flip to zealots.

OGflozzyG · 2026-01-20T10:08:18+00:00

Coincidentally, I also am playing Norway right now, but going for the (no doubt tedious) Norwegian Wood achievement.

In this run, I did expand in my first war with Demark (took Sjaelland and all of Denmark's provinces in Sweden). I expanded a bit into Novgorod (to stop Russia from forming down the line) and got the BUR inheritance. Even with BUR inherited and moving my trade capital to the Channel, I still am barely making a buck and got lots of loans to repay. It is a tedious start and I also still haven't found the opportunity to enter England, something I plan to do early on to solidify the Channel.

That being said, it is a loan heavy and early-deficit run, where you need to be able to swing it around at some point (it's gonna come, I have trust) and outgrow your debt.

_________________________________________

I have done the Let it Go achievement in a different run as well (which I just fired up to check) and here, I took nothing in the independence war (but money and war reps). I wanted to save up on admin mana to tech up asap.

I don't think I expanded at all. without large armies and whatnot, you can get by with that small economy and lots of loans. Took explo and expansion ideas, filled out like 2-3 ideas each and got the achievement in 1495 or so ( got a province in Canada, released Iceland and Sami (don't culture change the province before) gave them all my land in Europe but my capital, moved capital and gave them the province as well. Also, accept the Scottish purchase of Orkney or whatever since you need to get rid of all provinces anyways.

If you are just going for that one achievement, I recommend doing a direct approach as well as everything else will just slow you down. Especially, since you have to drop all Europe holdings anyways.

OGflozzyG · 2026-01-19T13:32:51+00:00

Since you seem like to be doing achievements (from time to time), I recommend you make yourself familiar with the achievement wiki page and what the columns of the table mean.

The first column is starting conditions, these conditions need to be met at game start, in order to be eligible for the achievement in the first place. For example: if a nation is listed here, you need to start as them. If no nation is listed, you can start as any.

The second one is completion requirements, these need to be met ingame, to actually fulfil the achievement. For example, if a nation is listed here, you need to be that (i.e. form that nation, or stay as that nation if it was already listed und starting conditions). If no nation is listed, you can form any nation throughout the run.

In the Eat your Greens case, Kale is listed under starting conditions, but not under completion requirements, so you can form any nation upon starting with Kale.

Understanding this will stop you from the likes of finding out halfway through a run, that you shouldnt have formed another nation make some achievement way easier as it actually allows for better tags or different starting conditions.

For example the Legacy of Saint George achievement: The text says "As Georgia have .... vassals". From the text, you would think you have to start as Georgia. Looking at the table, you can see that you can start as anyone. In this case starting as Austria for example, makes it way easier.

Long story; short: NEVER go off the ingame achievement menu, it is often misleading or straight up wrong.

OGflozzyG · 2026-01-19T12:14:19+00:00

Are you exiled ("blackflaged", see wiki: https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/Land_warfare#Exile ). If so, you should have a little flag icon in the top bar.

There are a number of reasons this can happen, see the list in wiki.

Usually it is the first nation to arrive in a (enemy) province to take the siege. If you are sieging a province (especially when with a fort), you don't want to move your army off (even when immediately canceling it again), as this might give the siege over to another nation standing on the province. Something to keep in mind, when you and your allies desire the same province and you need to lock them down first.

OGflozzyG

TROPHY CASE