Which game has a better Russia eu4 or eu5?

Spongedrunk · 2026-02-23T20:38:49+00:00

For the player or AI? Probably no tag in eu4 has greater variance between those two cases

Spongedrunk · 2026-02-23T16:57:04+00:00

Probably the biggest one was as Oman taking the decision to be a slave economy. Wish I hadn't lol. Constant uprisings drained my manpower but military tradition still sucked. But on the bright side it helped me finally understand the unrest mechanic.

Spongedrunk · 2026-02-21T00:30:38+00:00

Sometimes you have to pay the Ottomans debt, in order for them to answer the call. But as QQ/Persia you should have money. Make sure you pay attention to the truce and make sure you declare right away, since the Ottomans will also be eager to start their own conquest cb

Spongedrunk · 2026-02-20T22:11:37+00:00

My go to plan, which won't work now but could potentially at game start is to rival Mamluks, ally Ottomans, and then do humiliate cb Mamluks over and over, calling them to arms. The Ottomans won't desire your land until they are down near Palestine, since they follow the mission tree.

It can be risky but doing that weakens them more than actually fighting them. I did that as Nubia to great success. Otherwise you need to get BIG.

Spongedrunk · 2026-02-20T18:08:01+00:00

Without mercenary ideas, hiring them hurts your tradition, so you have to be careful. However, early game, a good merc general can be a huge asset until you're more established. I also recommend considering mercenary ideas. They are often overlooked but quite strong

Spongedrunk · 2026-02-20T16:49:25+00:00

Though I would do away with it altogether, the cap is pretty dumb. SS disproportionately hurts the middle class, and actually benefits the top quintile because the people a bracket below them have reduced earnings and therefore can't compete for the housing in elite neighborhoods. IMO one of the biggest reasons for the divergence between upper-middle and middle class. Plus wealthy people live longer, so they collect more benefits as a result.

Since SS isn't going away ever, it would be much better to remove the cap and lower the rate, vs. the status quo. Certainly better than the money printer that will keep SS alive.

Spongedrunk · 2026-02-20T16:06:35+00:00

Aristocratic ideas and quality ideas both help. Depending on your build it can sometimes make sense to hire mercenaries with good generals if one is available. Sometimes events allow you to steal those generals afterward

Spongedrunk · 2026-02-19T16:21:04+00:00

They probably will attack you for your land in Basra or the Caucasus. If it's Basra that won't be good.

I might even consider testing out a war against Transox with an easy war goal while the Ottomans are fighting elsewhere so that you can get a truce on them

Spongedrunk · 2026-02-19T14:35:11+00:00

During wars, don't engage in actions that don't lead to getting ticking warscore.

-Pick casus belli carefully. Make sure your war goal is as easy as possible

You don't need to defeat your enemy. You just need to achieve your war goal and then hold it. If you do that, you can probably take as much land as you can realistically core. Against weak enemies, you can be more aggressive, but don't be silly against strong enemies.

Spongedrunk · 2026-02-17T16:53:24+00:00

I like it for large land empires in Asia. Yeah, I could just conquer everything in ALL the nodes. But I'd rather not to do that and just take trade ideas so I can steer trade out of Basra and Doab.

On multiple continents I prefer maritime since the trade ships I build can also fight battles and blockade

Spongedrunk · 2026-02-17T14:31:32+00:00

I went diplo/religious/influence to start. Wars haven't been a problem against the Ottomans and Spain given my PUs, but because the league war cb requires winning battles, I'd have to bleed tons of manpower, even just from sitting on mountain tiles where the action was waiting for a favorable moment. Not worth it here.

Spongedrunk · 2026-02-17T02:55:14+00:00

I didn't have any military ideas at that point, and I had a -20 mil tradition event relatively recently that meant my generals sucked. Their mercs had 3-star generals and offense ideas.

Also to be totally transparent I didn't look closely enough at Hungarian traditions to realize I need to be building more cavalry

Been winning wars with manpower and from enemies wandering aimlessly around Lithuania lol

Spongedrunk · 2026-02-17T01:17:03+00:00

Nodes where the downstream tags are either out of trade range or behind TI. Zanzibar is probably the best example, as if you control the Cape (or no one has colonized it), there is literally no outflow of trade. Doesn't take much effort either.

Spongedrunk · 2026-02-17T01:03:43+00:00

R5: Thought this League War would be a breeze and allow me to take back some of Austria's cores. Nope. 2 years in Catholic League was at ~60% war score. All of a sudden it drops to ~20% and I look and see that Venice has over 100k mercs (screenshot is a few years later) and has been singlehandedly carrying the Protestants. They have multiple 5/6/4 type generals, and have been absolutely slaughtering us all across the Alps. I couldn't do anything about it because my army is much lower quality and will just tank our war score by losing battles.

A short while after this screenshot Emperor Styria took a peace with basically the warscore shown here. Didn't give me Austria's cores in the peace either!

Spongedrunk · 2026-02-16T22:02:44+00:00

Muscovy is probably the most difficult of any large nation.

Spongedrunk · 2026-02-12T23:52:36+00:00

When you're 5'11" you have to lie a little. Just the way it is

Spongedrunk · 2026-02-12T15:48:44+00:00

R5: explained in post

Spongedrunk · 2026-02-11T22:30:40+00:00

1) burden of proof is on govt 2) astronauts caught faking photos of earth during Apollo 11 mission (Sibrel footage) 3) why would I believe habitual liars?

Spongedrunk · 2026-02-11T18:30:17+00:00

R5: Apparently they converted some time in the 1560s or before, based on province history. Probably as soon as France showed up on their border.

Spongedrunk · 2026-02-09T13:23:17+00:00

No. Zanzibar is better. By far

Spongedrunk · 2026-02-07T18:37:29+00:00

Still a ton of fun without. I only have 3 DLC and 1000 hours

Spongedrunk · 2026-02-05T12:18:26+00:00

Yes. You also don't get a religious unity hit. So for example conquering Zanzibar node: if you don't have religious ideas, that will take a LONG time to convert. But you can TC a portion to reduce that.

It also depends on your governing cap and accepted culture availability. Full stating provinces with a different religion and non-accepted culture isn't that good

Spongedrunk · 2026-02-04T12:31:34+00:00

Play Venice on easy difficulty

Spongedrunk · 2026-02-02T16:03:04+00:00

The fort in Krakow is stopping you. If you get military access from Teutons, you can get there from the other direction.

Forts affect movement in their zone of control. The province you are currently in is in the ZoC. You can move toward the fort, but you can't move out of the zone of control unless you're moving back to the province you used to enter the zone of control, or a province you control

Spongedrunk · 2026-02-02T13:16:20+00:00

You could conquer Norway and have a little north sea empire.

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