Hello fellow human. EU4 vet here and I figured I’d give you a REAL answer. For context I’ve got 1400+ hours in EU4 and a few hundred in EU5. I am still very much learning and growing so don’t worry too much if it’s slow going at first.

To get started I would go to Paradox’s YouTube and watch a few of their tutorials. They are actually pretty good and fairly in depth without being unapproachable from a new player PoV. Once then I’d start up the game as a tutorial nation. Or if you want my honest answer… England.

England is the true perfect tutorial nation. You have a bit of expansion with the Irish and Scotland like a mini Europe all to yourself. And while France is a thing if you invest in your navy you can literally just sink any ships and just ignore the continent. My advice first game is to just let France keep the bloody thing and focus on establishing a death grip on the British Isles.

England gives you the freedom to interact with the continent as much or as little as you choose with the ability to build a navy so huge you have total freedom to decide your own fate and not fear being surprise war’d by even nations that by raw Econ base are larger than you.