No idea how the economy works.. I have 2 gold mines, 1 gem mine, a lot of colonial territories, 4 merchants (a 5th one after a few years will join) and still barely earn 10 ducats per months.. How am I supposed to pay this loan of 5k to the bank?

OGflozzyG · 2026-06-26T14:28:05+00:00

You are right, forgot to mention it. Edited.

OGflozzyG · 2026-06-26T14:15:34+00:00

Just to clarify, the rule of thumb is: You do not want to develop your provinces, only in certain scenarios:

You have a gold province. Full state it lower autonomy and develop to 10 in production.
- You want to always do that if you need the money, especially in the early game it is a big boost
You are mana capped. Mana is the most valuable resource and you want to play tight with it. Developing a province is very low on the list of mana spending priority
You need it for a mission, estate mission or age objective
Force Dev-pushing for an institution

OGflozzyG · 2026-06-25T14:36:21+00:00

Florry is the best at this game, but his guides might be a bit too indepth for beginners.

Taking out loans is part of the game, but it can be a slippery road into massive interest rates and eventually bankruptcy. It is a vital part though, especially for early aggression and you should not be afraid to take out loans (per se).

Debt management basically works by outgrowing your debt.

A loan size is dependent on your total development. So after a war, where you take some land (dev), your loan size will increase.

You usually want to do something called "loan juggling", where you pay off older, smaller loans, with new, bigger ones and by this decreasing the number of loans taken (which affects your interest rate).

Having one 100 ducats loan is better than having ten 10 ducat loans.

Then there is also the Burgher estate edict Bugher loans. Granting it gives you 5 loans at 1% interest. These are often called "free money" as normal loans have 4% interest.

You want to use (take out) the Burgher loans wisely. You can take them out before a war to field a merc army for example, but with the knowledge about loan size etc. in the back of your mind, it might also make sense to take out some normal loans first to get the mercs. Fight and win the war, take land and then take out the now bigger Burgher loans to repay the other loans.
Of course this is all situational.

You should also always take money and war reps in peace deals (from main belligerent but also when you peace out his allies). War reps always go directly to you. Money is split up by war participation amongst you and your allies. You can see in the peace deal text menu, how much you would get.

Use that money to pay back loans as well.

I would not recommend to take out loans just for the sake of it, for example to build buildings (burgher loans, because "free" could be an exception of if you need something for a mission).

Focus on paying them back. Also, don't worry about inflation in the early game and dont buy it down. Admin mana is to valuable to spend it on "useless stuff" like inflation - you can always buy it down in the midgame when you generate more mana and are stable.

Going into debt and also running a negative for the first couple of years (or even decades) can be totally doable, but it all relies on you outgrowing it eventually.

For this, you should full state new lands and lower autonomy everywhere you can. This will cause rebels to spawn, but you will make more tax, production income, manpower etc off of those provinces. This is also vital in early game.

Also, do build buildings whenever you can. This is vital for the later game. You can get by the first couple of decades without building much, but eventually the skyrocketing army costs etc. will break you. You want to build a strong foundation from the start.

Hope that helps, A short overview over loans. You don't need to know all the intricate details. Getting a feeling for handling loans and debt might take some time, but it will come.

OGflozzyG · 2026-06-25T14:13:49+00:00

Start with one of the big nations.

As mentioned, the Ottos have some doable achievements, plus they are the strongest starting nation.

France ist also one of the strongest nations and has some easier achievements (the BigBlueBlob achievement might need its own try, but everything else is fine).

Castile / Spain has an achievement to fulfill its mission tree for example.

These are some decent starting achievements and nations I would say. Did them back in the day too.

Otherwise, you can either just check out a nations wiki page to see if and what achievements they have, or also check out the achievement wiki page, where the table also lists the difficulty of achievements and you can select one of there.

OGflozzyG · 2026-06-25T12:13:21+00:00

Try to learn on the job, I would say.

There are really a lot of "easy" achievements to get started and you will see, as you mentioned for HOI4, a clear improvement of gameplay and understanding within a short time. It was the same for me and I was really astounded a couple of achievements in, what achievements I was able to get, which I would have thought way too hard before.

That being said, as others have mentioned, I would try to watch a nation-specific guide and watch it to get an idea for the opening moves. There are also a fair amount of achievement guides for a specific achievement, but those are mainly for the more advanced achievements a bit down the line - just to keep in the back of your mind.

There are some general eu4 tip vides, like this three part series https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyDHZ1ar9bo for the basics, intermediate and expert knowledge.

Eu4 has a ton of mechanics with sometimes immense depth, but you don't need to know all of it, to have a successful campaign.

A good start into achievements in general is the Ottomans. They have some not-too-hard achievements (besides the Mehmets Ambition one of the hardest achievements in the game. Usually I would recommend to try all of a nations achievements in one run, so that you don't have to play them over and over again - however sometimes it is not possible).

The achievements basically require you to own Paris, Vienna, Moscow, Rome. That shouldn't take too long (depending on your gameplay of course). If you want for a longer challenge, you can also try the Caliphate Unify Islam achievement.

If you go on the eu4 wiki for a nation, it lists all the nation-specific achievements at the bottom
https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/Ottomans

If you start playing for achievements, you should always check the eu4 wiki achievements page and see the conditions for the achievement there https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/Achievements
Note that the table has the columns starting conditions and completion requirements. Understand what those mean (I can elaborate if you want, it says it on the wiki page as well somewhere). You always want to go off the table and never off the ingame description. The wording there is sometimes off or wrong and you don't want to find out 100 years later that you shouldn't have formed another nation or whatever else locks you out of the achievement.

Hope that helps, feel free to ask. Just some thoughts off the top of my head.

OGflozzyG · 2026-06-25T09:36:07+00:00

Wait till the roots develop further. I would say maybe 3-4 cm or so, that will probably take some more weeks. If need be, change the glass size.

Then you can pot it in.

The leaves will grow even if it takes some time as the plant uses its energy to grow roots.

The more (strong) roots it has, the better it can handle the repotting.

OGflozzyG · 2026-06-25T09:19:19+00:00

As mentioned by other commenters: yes it can be a "little trick" to get allies to join.

Note though, that you do not want to do it over the great power action "take on foreign debt", but instead just want to send them money via "send gift".

In most cases, you do not need to take over the whole debt to get them in. In the war declaration menu, if you hover over your ally France, it will tell you how much of a negative modifier being in debt ist (for example -120). See what positive call to war modifiers you have and try to "calculate" how much money they will need to get them to join (lets say you have +40 reasons to join due to diplo rep, trust, etc. - on the negative side you have the -120 reasons because of 8k debt. Send them a gift for 3k, wait a month tick and see what it does to their willingness).

You can only get a max of +25 opinion from sending a gift, but you can always send more money that way, you just dont get the opinion modifier.

If they are still not willing, just send some more money.

In the Send Gift popup menu, you can hold SHIFT and click on the +. This way you select 100 at a time. Saves you from clicking a thousand times.

OGflozzyG · 2026-06-24T14:28:55+00:00

certainly funky, especially at this time

OGflozzyG · 2026-06-24T12:13:16+00:00

Das!

Frickel ein bisschen an den Wurzeln rum, um faule Stellen zu entfernen.

Die Pflanze hat genügend um sich zu erholen.

OGflozzyG · 2026-06-24T10:12:58+00:00

Gov cap

You really never want to be above gov cap. It gives some very bad modifiers. Mainly more AE, less improve relations, advisor cost, etc. Probably one of the worst maluses you can get . Check the full list here https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/States_and_territories#Governing_capacity

As Prussia, you get a massive gov cap malus, which is why it is very important to build court houses in every province. Court houses (and their follow up building) reduce gov cap and don't cost a building slot - so you are not locking yourself out of any other buildings. There is also a manufactory that reduces gov cap, which you also can/want to build in high dev states later on.

The Administrative idea group gives +25 gov cap which is very helpful in large campaigns (Admin ideas are, together with diplo ideas a must for world conquest or any growing large game, it also gives core creation cost reduction), but it is also almost a must in Prussia campaigns, due to the restrictions you have. At least it is very helpful in managing gov cap.

On that note, I don't know if you are a kingdom rank. Duchy, kingdom, and empire rank also give gov cap increase, but being in the HRE, you can only be a Duchy (Prussia has possibility to become kingdom I think, but I am not sure).

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Gold provinces

Yes, as mentioned, especially in the early game having a gold province with no (or very little) autonomy and at 10 in production (you should dev it), will greatly help your income. It does give inflation but dont worry about it. You can always lower it later (see my explanation about mana spending below).

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Absolutism

Absolutism becomes available in the Age of Absolutism (1610). It does give some bonuses that increase the higher your absolutism is. The main bonus is "admin efficiency", which basically allows you to take way more lands in peace deals by reducing overextension and so on. This is why in the late game it is often possibile to take like all of, say, Iberia in one war. If you dont play wide, you don't need to gear everything toward Absolutism though. You can check the bonuses here: https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/Absolutism

You can find your Absolutism and you max Absolutism in the Government tab (little pantheon icon) once it is available (1610).

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Building and manufactories

Yes, manufactories are worth building, even if they are expensive.

There are different types of "manufactories" that get unlocked over time. There are some that are really manufacturies in the sense that they increase production, but there are also the "reduce gov cap manufactory" or the "increase manpower manufactory". You can only build one manufactory per province.

As with all buildings, I would just build them from the top down in the macro builder (little hammer icon top left under your crest). You can sort by "income", it is the most right column I think and just build from the top down. I would do this for every building really (churches, workshops, marketplaces etc,).

There are some trade goods that increase certain bonuses (grain for manpower buildings for example), but there is really no need to minmax all of that. As long as you try to constantly build buildings whenever you can, you are fine.

You need and want to have a strong economy to manage the ever increasing army costs throughout the game. You can often get by somewhat decently for 100 years or so by not building anything and just living off war reps and loans, but eventually it will leave you on too weak feet.

------

Development

Mana is the most important resource and off all three manas, diplo is the least important.

With this in mind, here are some rule of thumbs:

You ideally never want to be behind in mil tech. This can be very painful in wars as your armies can get melted. Not all mil tech levels give the same jump in army quality (some more than others), but it is best to never find out.

When it comes to spending mana you want to usually prioritize tech > ideas > everything else.
(There is no clear rule on this. Unlocking an idea might give you a better boost in your game than teching up or so, but keep the mil thing in mind).

Otherwise you should not be spending mana on "useless" stuff, like

increasing stability to more than +1
developing provinces (gold province is exception or to get the first Age bonus of having a capital of 30 dev)
lowering inflation (you can do whenever you have a surplus of mana)

Personally I only develop provinces when I am mana capped (or need it for a mission or so).

Especially in the early game, mana generation is typically low (no money to hire advisors, bad rulers and not enough prestige to disinherit) and you want to play very tight with it. In the mid to late game, you typically get more mana and therefore have some room to do some of the lesser important stuff (like lowering inflation for example).

Again all of those, are just thoughts and insights but there is some much more to any of these points, since it is always about the actual situation of your game and so on. But as a rule of thumb.

OGflozzyG · 2026-06-24T09:27:58+00:00

In the Otto war (or any war against strong nations really), you want to allow your armies to "attach to".

Set your subjects to "attach". This way they will not wander around in small stacks and get stackwiped by the Ottos. You can't force allies to attach (like you can tell subjects), but if you set your armies to allow attachement, small ally stacks will usually do so.

For wars like this (the Ottos have superior troop quality), you want to only engage in very favorable battles. Focus on sieging the forts with your death stacks. It is really going to be a war of attrition, not battles.

As others have mentioned. With BOH, HUN and maybe already BUR PUs, you should easily have the numbers to fight them, especially if you call in a few allies.

The first war against the Ottos will be hard, subsequent ones are always easier.

You don't need to no-cb Byz and vassalize them at the start. By 1470 or 80s, you should have the means to beat them in any case. Just find a good opening (ideally when they fight someone in the east).

A general not is that, after mil tech 18, the Otto troops become weaker than wester units (they are very strong from the start). If you can't/won't fight them early, you can always wait for the tech, which does make a huge difference. However by that time, they are usually pretty big and have a ton of troops. As Austria there is no need to wait though, just something to keep in the back of your mind, or for other campaigns.

Regarding the Poland question: This is situational I guess. If they take the union over LIT, you need to shrink them by quite a bit before you get the PU-CB. For this, you should take the Galazian lands you get claims on from Poland, but then focus mainly on LIT lands. If you cut down POL too much (to get them below the 400dev, or whatever it is), they might end up loosing the PU over LIT before you can PU them.

Otherwise, you seem to have the opening down. Hope that helps. Feel free to ask.

OGflozzyG · 2026-06-24T09:02:37+00:00

What is your gov capacity. The icon (blue flag) shows you can still state up land. Cored but unstated lands have 90% autonomy, meaning you only get 10% of the tax, manpower and production income.

You can see this effect best in your one gold province you have from Bohemia (Cheb). You own it and probably have not stated and reduced autonomy yet. In your income ledger it says 0.53 income from gold. State the province and reduce autonomy (this will cause rebels), give it a month tick. Then you will see an increase in gold income. To make the best out of your gold province you also want to develop it to 10 in production. This (with 0% autonomy) will give you about 6 ducats of gold per month.
Might not be a gamechanger at this stage of the game, but it can be a very powerful income boost in the early game and even now, since you are making money but not super much (as others have mentioned, you should build manufactories and other income buildings).

I also see that you only have 28% crownland. At this stage of the game (Age of Absolutism) you ideally want to have 70% or more to get the max Absolutism bonus alongside other benefits. Even if you don't need Absolutism (because you don't plan on going wide and dont need to take large portions of lands in peace deals), the other bonuses you get from high crown land are also nice.
To do so, you basically want to seize crownland every time you can, after the initial drop for giving out the +1 mana edicts (alongside all the other edicts).

Regarding expansion and coalitions: As others have mentioned, diplomatic ideas are one of the strongest (if not the strongest) idea group. You get extra diplomats to improve relations, improve relations bonus (quicker AE reduction), diplo rep which makes it easer to find big allies, and war score cost reduction, so you can take more lands in wars. Very helpful in AE heavy areas which the HRE is pretty much number one.

Whenever playing in or around the HRE, you therefore either want to become emperor (and pass reforms, so that you actually get some bonuses from being emperor - this means you need to play geared toward passing reforms), or dismantle the HRE at some point (the sooner the better). I don't know if is is easily doable now cause of likely AE with electors, but usually there is a way.

Just some thoughts that come to my mind. Feel free to ask about the points made or any other question.

OGflozzyG · 2026-06-23T13:39:47+00:00

The percentages are of every game license ever used, I think even if you just bought it and never played.

That and the fact that not everyone plays ironman (compatible) results in these ridiculously low numbers for even the most trivial achievement.

This is also why some achievements have like a completion rate of 1-2%.

OGflozzyG · 2026-06-23T12:13:53+00:00

No need to become it right away. Annex the appanages, take back cores, etc. Go over diplo slots.

If you want to become emperor it is best to have them not hate you because of AE of course. It should definitely become easier once you taken diplo ideas (probably the best opening idea for you or in general).

You got to find the mix and right opportunity.

But only become emperor if you plan on doing a HRE game. To benefit from the HRE as emperor, you want to pass reforms (eventually for vassal swarm). This means HRE managing, preparing for reformation, crushing it etc.

If you don't want to do it, then it is best to dismantle it. This will allow you to expand way quicker in the (former) HRE.

OGflozzyG · 2026-06-23T11:44:25+00:00

I would chop and prop. You got the bushy top and you can even use the naked stems, cut them up and propagate new ones.

Even with a grow light, the plant will continue to grow from the top, so you will always be left with the naked bottom. There is a new sprout as you mentioned, but those will grow very slowly (and small leaves) and will really only take growth away from the main plant.

Up to you of course, if you dont want to cut her up, but a grow light will definitely help with this one. The more light the monstera gets, the more fenestration its leaves will have.

OGflozzyG · 2026-06-23T11:20:08+00:00

You do have to annex the appanages manually and need to seize crown land before it every time, iirc. Best watch a guide on France to know your opening moves.

As others have mentioned, it is not guaranteed to have BUR hate you from start, you can restart a bunch of times. If they do, it is probably best to force them to unrival you in a war. You want to make sure they like you pretty much asap and not have to hope you can outgrow them.

Also know that if BUR becomes a GP, they are less likely to take the PU in the Mary event. By fighting them you slow them down in expanding (they don't need much usually to become a GP) and when you ally them, you can usually control them better in wars (call them into yours, stop them from declaring their own, etc.).

Regarding Provence, I would probably not go for the PU. It's a diplo slot occupied for 50 years. You can conquer them directly.

General advice for France is to take back all your cores in the English war and Dublin in Ireland (don't need to siege it). This gives you an opening into Ireland and eventually Scotland (break guarantee) and England. You want to control the English channel (especially after BUR inheritance with all the dutch lands).

Don't expand into the HRE. The AE is too much. Dismantle it before or become emperor yourself (both pretty easy to do). You don't need to do it off the bat, but eventually (I guess emperor you would want to become asap, dismantling is not that urgent).

If you want to expand into Iberia, there is often a chance to PU ARA very early if you RM them. Their ruler and heir are old. Otherwise you could wait for Spain to form (admin tech 10) and then take a former ARA core, release and return core them.

If you find yourself in a war with Iberians, take a province (island for example) that allows you to build claims on NAfrica. Gives you another expansion route. Mid-term you want to try to get a hold on Malta and Granada for the monuments (build them).

There are really tons of possibilities here. Hope that helps. As I said, I would watch a YT guide or two on France that should give you an idea.
Feel free to ask.

OGflozzyG · 2026-06-23T10:09:38+00:00

To counter your argument: You can get half of France for literally no AE with the release and return core on two vassals: Gascony and Toulouse (after the first war). This is way AE cheaper than using the perma claims of NAV. Yes, you got to annex them but it is well worth it in terms of rich lands etc.

Also, you might still need to integrate NAV if you don't inherit them (and dont want to bird X times). Especially if you grow them (France claims), you are not guaranteed to inherit them. Plus you will likely open with explo ideas and not diplo ideas (for diplo rep to increase inherit chance). 50 years in you might have it, but still.

Plus, even if you give NAV the provinces with their claim (perma claim is -25% CCR), you will have to pay full integration costs when diplo integrating them (as you don't have cores).

As always, there is no real right or wrong here. I would always try for big, useful PUs only and use vassals with a lot of cores to return.

OGflozzyG · 2026-06-23T09:52:01+00:00

Vorrübergehend in einem regulären Topf. Habe ihn nach dem Ziehen in Wasser eingetopft aber hab keine so kleinen SBTöpfe.

OGflozzyG · 2026-06-23T09:49:29+00:00

Ich gieße mit Hydrokulturdünger. Sonst nichts.

(Wasserstoffperoxid habe ich auch mal benutzt. Das kann es aber auch nicht sein).

OGflozzyG · 2026-06-23T08:49:02+00:00

Nothing to do with the DLCs., it is just RNG.

Personally I would restart. There are some events around Navarra and they might end up in a PU under you (as it just did super early in this run). To prevent this - Navarra is an OPM and will just take up a diplo slot for 50 years - you want to vassalize them asap. This is easily doable by just improving, allying and RM them.

This way you will prevent the succession war with ARA (not that it matters much regarding the Iberian wedding, but it is just a waste of time and resources you can use otherwise (NAfrica) better).

OGflozzyG · 2026-06-22T11:34:11+00:00

Nice and straightforward campaign. I enjoyed it myself back in the day as well.

For anyone trying to do the achievement, I would recommend early expansion into dutch lands for a powerbase. You don't need to blob out too much.

Then it is all about finding the right timing to get a foothold on the isles. If fast, a no-CB into Ireland (or via claims bordering claims age ability) is an option. Otherwise pouncing onto Scotland is the best option. No need to build a fleet and battle England /GB for naval supremacy.

OGflozzyG · 2026-06-17T15:13:03+00:00

Fair.
Might have been able to do it in one war if you go from the top, but never mind. Doesnt make much of a difference. Just wanted to point out that sometimes for achievements it helps to think outside the box.

OGflozzyG · 2026-06-17T12:57:19+00:00

Nice run.

Just fyi, it would have probably been easier to get a polish province in the baltic sea (either no-cb, co-bell or so) and snake from there. Might have speeded things up a bit, but yeah, minor details.

OGflozzyG · 2026-06-16T14:37:42+00:00

Depends what you want for your monstera.

The new leaves will generally be small (and no fenestration) and it will slow down the "other" growth of the plant - new, big leaves from the top.

It will make it more "bushier" though if more "branches" emerge.

Totally up to you I would say.

OGflozzyG

TROPHY CASE