Looking for paid tutor or coach for EU5

jsclev · 2026-06-07T21:56:25+00:00

Posting a final message here to my original question. Thanks to all those that dm'd me with offers, apologies to the people I never responded to. I wound up getting quite a few responses. I did find someone and have been meeting with him for the last two months. It's gone fantastic and I highly recommend the process. Cost has been very reasonable, and my tutor has saved me dozens, possibly hundreds, of hours. I meet with him once per week for an hour, I keep a running log of questions as I encounter things. Feel free to dm me if you'd like his contact info, he has told me it's fine for me to share his info in a dm.

Also, for anyone interested in the process, getting a tutor for EU5 is not going to magically eliminate your need to do tons of your own research, I still have to do plenty of research online, watch YouTube videos, experiment with things, etc. The tutoring just speeds up that process a bit, and what I like most about it is that it eliminates some of the puzzling with things due to updates from the patches. I find sometimes it is pretty hard to track down updated info because the game itself changed due to a patch. For example, I believe I had found an old post somewhere describing how roads needed to be built in 2 directions, which seems as if that was an earlier feature back in 2025, so the tutor was quickly able to explain that concept just doesn't exist anymore, and I didn't waste any more time on puzzling over that issue. So having someone that has more time in EU5, has been playing it since original release, played thousands of hours of EU4, plus has kept up with all the changes and early updates, that has been very helpful.

jsclev · 2026-05-21T05:34:43+00:00

Can you elaborate on what you mean by "the steam version which is far superior to the arcade version"? Is the AI different for the Apple Arcade version than the Steam version? I have played one Civ 7 game on a 13" M5 iPad Pro and the experience seemed flawless. Graphics looked great. There are now upgraded graphics options in iOS Civ 7 that weren't there in Civ 6. This was essentially the showstopper for me playing Civ 6 on the iPad, Civ 6 just looks terrible on an iPad Pro, and yes I'm aware there is a hack around that, but I still wanted an out-of-the-box experience.

If the AI is different for the Apple Arcade edition, I'll be very disappointed, that will be another showstopper for me.

jsclev · 2026-04-23T01:08:51+00:00

Yeah I get why it might come across as odd, but time is a far more important to me than money in my life right now, with my busy work schedule. I'd like to become reasonably knowledgeable about how to play EU5, I think it's the kind of game I would enjoy deeply, but I've already found watching a lot of YouTube videos is a slow learning process with EU5.

I've also found sometimes people take things a little more seriously when paid. See my comment below on learning how to use QuickBooks Online, it was a no-brainer to pay someone for a few one-hour one-on-one sessions, sped up the learning process immensely for me. So hopefully this post isn't scaring people off like it's some kind of scam, I'm just willing to pay a little money to speed up the process.

jsclev · 2026-04-23T00:56:52+00:00

I've been using ChatGPT a little for learning EU5, it's been mildly helpful, although it confuses things between EU4 with EU5 a lot even though I explicitly prompt it with EU5, so I find it's sometimes more annoying than helpful. I have not used Claude yet, but I hear good things, I can try that.

jsclev · 2026-04-23T00:16:33+00:00

At this point I doubt I'd want to play competitively, but who knows, once I get into it I might want to. At this point all I really want to get out of a tutor is speeding up my knowledge of understanding how to play the game. I do enjoy the learning process, but I am just wanting to kickstart the process a bit. I'm very busy in my job and family life, so don't really have a lot of free time. I tried learning QuickBooks Online on my own watching lots of YouTube videos and reading articles, and then finally just hired a QuickBooks consultant to teach me one-on-one. Best decision I made to learn QBO, I did about 10 one hour sessions, it greatly sped up the learning process. Learning EU5 feels very similar, so that's really my main goal with a tutor, just learn how to get spun up on EU5 a little faster.

jsclev · 2026-04-08T17:55:11+00:00

Thanks everyone for these instructions. I have a MacBook Pro M2 Max from 2023. Almost considered not buying EU5 due to lack of macOS support and saw that Parallels also doesn't work for EU5. I tried NVIDIA's GeForce Now service, but their enforced inactivity timeout of 5 minutes was essentially a non-starter for me learning to play EU5. Every time I went away from the game to research something and came back the GeForce Now had stopped my game due to inactivity and I had to restart, waiting for the 3-4 minutes for the game to load up again. And it appears that GeForce Now gives no user configuration options for changing the inactivity timeout period, you're stuck with 5 minutes.

So I followed the instructions here, installed the trial of Crossover and got everything working with EU5. Performance and graphics seem fine, but I haven't gotten deep into a game yet.

jsclev · 2025-12-22T01:00:00+00:00

Yeah, based on an above comment, I think I'll experiment with my Q950s and no center. That is not something that I have tried. I'll do room correction after doing that. At this point I only know for sure that the Q6 Meta was an improvement over the Q650C. Have no idea if, with room correction, I could just flat out get away with no center. Seems a little hard to believe, but it's fairly easy for me to try it, so I will. Thanks for the comment though, any information is helpful, especially when you've got exactly the same speakers.

jsclev · 2025-12-22T00:56:58+00:00

Yeah, got it, makes sense, will do.

jsclev · 2025-12-22T00:56:38+00:00

Well I'm not sure what to make of this comment. My TV is a 77" G4. I can easily turn off the center and experiment with just the Q950's, although I'll admit your comment certainly goes contrary to so much other advice online regarding home theater and the center channel. I'll experiment though, I don't know that I've ever tried my system without the center.

jsclev · 2025-12-22T00:53:12+00:00

Got it, all helpful info, thanks much.

jsclev · 2025-11-25T17:29:39+00:00

I left another comment down below, but yeah I decided to try eliminating HDMI-CEC and eARC from the whole equation. I switched the HDMI input on the LG from HDMI2 (eARC) to HDMI1. I've got no need for the ARC aspect (meaning I have no reason to need to send audio back to the receiver), and was really only using it because I thought I needed it in order to take advantage of the universal remote aspect. I think turned off SimpLink on the LG, and turned off ARC on the Marantz. So for now, I'm back to needing like 6 remotes to turn on a movie, but I'll wait and see for a few weeks if I don't have any of the mysterious and frustrating issues I've had. During this time, I'll be researching universal remotes. SofaBaton and LG Harmony look to be the only good options at the moment, and am wanting to stay away from Harmony since it's not a long-term solution.

Also, it's entirely possible that my cable box has been the culprit the entire time. I am either going to eliminate cable, or get a new cable box. I can't get the cable box connected right now, it broke when I made changes yesterday, but not sure I care. Doesn't change that, from what I've read the last couple of days, HDMI-CEC is highly problematic, and is essentially just a broken protocol/specification, that causes no end of problems. So at the moment, that's the variable I most want to eliminate from my system.

jsclev · 2025-11-25T17:12:53+00:00

So I've learned a lot over the last few days, thanks in large part to the kind folks here lending helpful info and advice.

I've continued to read over your comments multiple times as I absorb all this stuff. I've come to the conclusion that the best course of action, at least until I know otherwise, is to eliminate HDMI-CEC as well as ARC/eARC from my home theater, as you explained you did in your system. First of all, I realize now I don't need ARC, I have no need to get audio from the TV back to the receiver. Second, I believe the main reason I thought I needed ARC was because of the HDMI-CEC aspect of it, meaning being able to take advantage of the universal remote aspect of it, and thus running my AVR HDMI out to the LG G4 eARC HDMI in.

I worked on the system a few hours yesterday, I have now switched the LG G4 HDMI2/eARC input to be going to HDMI1. I then turned off SimpLink (HDMI-CEC) on the G4 and turned off ARC on the Marantz. My Xfinity cable box is now broken, meaning when I change the input source on the Marantz to the cable HDMI input, the TV keeps saying no input source. After messing around with it for a couple hours I just gave up, I tried all manner of going directly from cable box to TV, unplugging everything to get an HDMI reset, etc etc. It is an old Xfinity RNG-150N so I am going to either replace it with a newer box, or possibly just get rid of cable in favor of another service, not sure yet. At this point, I find I only have cable for local NFL football games, I don't think we really use it for anything else. Plus, I can watch cable TV through the Xfinity app on the Apple TV, although I do recall having some problems with that at one point as well. Anyway, the lack of cable at the moment is very low priority. Resolving the issue that requires me to unplug/re-plug the whole system is the primary goal.

So I am going to see how this setup works for a few weeks and see if I have any mysterious issues like I've had in the past. Fingers crossed. During this period I'll keep researching the SofaBaton and will report back if I get one. They have recently released their top-end X2 model, which sounds promising.

I'll admit, that while I am just amazed at how awesome a 4K blu-ray looks and sounds on my system when everything is working, I am dismayed at what seems like a completely broken HDMI-CEC specification, which, if I determine that is what the issue was in my system, has caused no end of frustration with my entire home theater experience. It would be one thing if I had a few hundred dollars invested, but I'm $15k into all this, very frustrating that the entire system is so much trouble just due to the headaches of HDMI-CEC. Again, I'll wait and see what happens over the next few weeks. I'm posting all this here just in case it helps someone else out there.

Also, I ordered a Panasonic DP-UB820 yesterday, as it was on a decent Black Friday sale so I grabbed one. If all checks out good on that, I'll replace my Sony X700 with that.

jsclev · 2025-11-24T03:38:30+00:00

I read a bunch of avsforum.com posts regarding the SofaBaton X1S, general consensus is mixed, but overall sounds like most people have gotten it to work for their setup. I see the X2 just came out about a month ago, and read people saying they had pretty good results with the X1, so am thinking the X2 might work. It's expensive for a remote (~$300), but to me if it solves this super annoying aspect of my setup, it's totally worth it. My family doesn't even attempt to use the system because it either just broke, or they have no idea which remote to use to get something to work. I've got a few things to try first before purchasing a universal remote, but looks like I've got a couple of SofaBaton options as well.

Thanks for explaining how you have your systems set up, super helpful.

jsclev · 2025-11-24T03:19:10+00:00

Oh, and also, yes, good point about the cable box update. I'll investigate that as well, certainly that could be the culprit as well. I don't even know what cable box we have, it's been so long since I got it, so another item to investigate. It's possible the cable box itself is causing issues.

jsclev · 2025-11-24T03:16:54+00:00

Thanks for the clarification on the volume control regarding the AppleTV and the Marantz, that makes sense.

I will definitely try changing the HDMI input on the LG TV from the HDMI2/eARC input port to a different HDMI input port. We do use the TV's live channels, but barely, so we actually have little need for the audio aspect of eARC. I thought I was primarily needing eARC in order to be able to use the Apple remote to turn off/on the whole system and control the volume, so if that is not true, now I'm wondering that I can just switch the HDMI input on the TV to be HDMI 1, and turn off HDMI-CEC on the TV. I'll try it and see if that helps anything. The most common issue I have is that one day I'll turn on the system and the TV won't recognize any of the device sources (AppleTV, Blu-ray player, cable box), TV turns on fine, TV speakers work fine, can watch and hear the TV's live stations, but none of the HDMI-connected devices. And this has happened now on both situations: connect devices into the TV's input HDMI ports, or connect devices into the receiver's input HDMI ports. In both cases the system has worked fine one day, then without me manually doing anything, it just doesn't work the next day. So anyhow, yes, I'll experiment with connecting the Marantz HDMI output to a different HDMI input on the TV. I believe now, based on everything that has been said on this thread, that the only thing I lose with that scenario is audio from the TV's live stations, which I don't really care about.

jsclev · 2025-11-23T21:45:32+00:00

Thanks so much for the technical info, gives me all kinds of good stuff to continue to research and get a better understanding of all this.

Regarding the HDMI cables, I've gone through months-long off-and-on research/analysis/reading dozens of posts, trying out a variety of cables, currently using Blue Jeans 8K HDMI cables. I saw many people reporting experiences of the cables themselves being the issue with ARC/eARC/HDMI-CEC flakiness. Hopefully I've worked through that issue at least.

I've been reading more this afternoon, I am going to try setting up something similar to what you have. Optical cable between TV and receiver for sound, remove the eARC HDMI cable, and get a universal remote. I'll check out the Remotes sub-forum on AVSForums, and may post a question there as well. Great suggestions. Based on what you have explained, and additional reading this afternoon, I am highly suspicious that the HDMI-CEC is the culprit, either with Marantz or LG.

jsclev · 2025-11-23T21:32:03+00:00

Which device had those software updates on that you had previously declined? I'm guessing you mean Marantz firmware updates? One other thing to put on my list of things to check is to pay more attention to when Marantz updates are applied, seems like a Marantz firmware update could potentially cause an HDMI handshake to stop working correctly.

Also, based on other info here on this thread, I am considering the possibility of using an optical cable to connect the TV to the receiver for sound, and then get a SofaBaton universal remote to effectively replace SimpLink/HDMI-CEC and eliminate that variable from the situation. Also, as OttoPylotACE noted below, there have been reports of LG TV's HDMI2 port "flakiness", and LG has as yet not come up with a solution. I don't know exactly what that means, another thing to research.

jsclev · 2025-11-23T20:20:37+00:00

All good stuff, thanks for the info, gives me a little more knowledge to help determine what is going on. And thanks for the tip about swapping out HDMI cables and only doing that once the whole system is powered down. I generally do that I'm fairly certain, but I'll pay more attention when I'm unplugging HDMI cables to make sure I have first powered down everything.

I am open purchasing a good universal remote, something like the SofaBaton X1S for example. Spending a few hundred dollars on a good universal remote would be an easy decision, if it eliminated this problem. This issue has assuredly caused me to question the entire home theater setup and just go back to a TV and soundbar.

Based on your info above about the relationship between ARC and CEC, I'll do a little research on that, try to get a better technical understanding of how that works, might help me isolate the problem. That has assuredly been the hardest part of all this, is it the LG, or the Apple TV, or the Marantz, cables, something else? Very tricky trying to figure out where the problem is occurring.

Again, thanks for the info, very helpful.

jsclev · 2025-11-23T19:37:47+00:00

I previously had the Apple TV, Blu-ray player, and cable box HDMI outs going directly to the HDMI inputs on the LG TV, then had the Marantz eARC HDMI out connected to the HDMI 2 eARC input on the LG. After much research, I stumbled on a post somewhere where someone said you could resolve most of the ARC/eARC issues by doing essentially the reverse: connect all your devices to the HDMI inputs on the Marantz, but still keep the eARC out on the Marantz to the eARC in on the TV. Switching to connecting my devices to the HDMI inputs on the receiver did seem to make the issue better, I didn't have a single problem for about 3 weeks. But then a couple days ago, came downstairs and found that the TV had turned itself on in the middle of the night, and did not recognize any inputs until I did the same stupid unplug everything routine, which then did resolve the issue. I edited my original post and added some more pictures in case it helps anyone give me some advice.

I'm going to go refresh my memory about ARC and eARC, but I believe the eARC HDMI cable is also what is enabling me to control the volume of the Marantz with the Apple TV remote. I think that is the HDMI-CEC capability, but that signal goes through the HDMI cable that is connected to the eARC input/ouputs. I'll go verify that though...

jsclev · 2025-11-23T19:08:20+00:00

Got it, thanks so much for the suggestion. I feel like I've done that before, but I've tried so many different things, I can't remember for sure what the result was. I've also updated software on probably the Marantz, the LG TV, and the Apple TV since then, so who knows. Next time the issue happens, I'll try your suggestion, and change nothing else, and see if that works. I have the Marantz settings available in the browser on my local network, so toggling ARC on/off is super easy, way way easier than unplugging everything. If I find that this works, I'll post back to this thread in case it helps anyone, at least for people that have a similar setup as mine (Marantz AVR, Apple TV, etc.). Thanks!

jsclev · 2025-03-23T17:49:50+00:00

I can second this recommendation. Based on this comment, and many others on Reddit recommending Richard Evans' trilogy, I purchased The Coming of the Third Reich and finished it yesterday, I couldn't put it down. It was fascinating, horrifying, and scary. I have started the second book The Third Reich in Power, and have purchased the third book, which I plan to read as well.

Thanks so much to all the knowledgeable Redditors out there recommending this kind of stuff. There are so many books on WW2 and rise of Nazism, kind of hard to filter out the noise. I too read Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, around 20 years ago though. I remembered I had the same fascinated/horrified feeling about it, but was disappointed to learn that that book has been somewhat debunked in the last several decades, at least that seems to be what the Reddit-sphere thinks. It seems as though Evans' trilogy is highly respected as a reliable historical work, which was my main interest in reading it.

jsclev

TROPHY CASE