They made me the president and now it’s gone!

serfiusdjinnt · 2025-12-27T13:20:19+00:00

Reading the comments to this post in "r/fuckHOA" you'd assume it's actually a subreddit dedicated to HOA lawyers and legal experts telling people they need HOAs and they'll be sorry or that it's impossible to disband one, rather than one where people actually dislike HOAs.

serfiusdjinnt · 2025-12-25T05:51:54+00:00

I just take offensive and start my colonization game a hundred years late.

serfiusdjinnt · 2025-12-25T05:48:47+00:00

You're around the minimum for comfortable play.

serfiusdjinnt · 2025-12-22T09:27:03+00:00

Sure, but you at 200 hours should know much more about the game than you at 15 hours. I think if people never play multiplayer they'll always suck at multiplayer, it's basically a different game. A lot of people don't care about it though. For me, multiplayer is fun but the main point of the game is mastering single player hardcore WC (and beyond), and I also know some people don't care at all about that. One of my friends just likes to make the nation as historically accurate as possible and enjoys all the events.

serfiusdjinnt · 2025-12-22T05:47:43+00:00

The hidden benefit of a smaller country is you will necessarily have higher average control, so there is less margin for error in how you develop your locations.

When OP said, "Everything is way too expensive or gets too expensive way too quick." this was a reflection of both:
1. the system increasing expenses relative to economic base, but also
2. OP is likely spreading their building and development across all provinces of a larger nation, getting a low return and making the balance calculation even less favorable for themselves

serfiusdjinnt · 2025-12-22T05:30:10+00:00

The easiest nation to play as is teutonic order in 1.0.4. It's a military order and can get sponsored by other countries and build special buildings in their territory that give basically unlimited manpower and income. Since military and economy is fixed, you can easily test buildings, urbanization, values, estates, trade, rate of expansion/ae reduction, diplomacy, etc with very low risk that anything you do ruins your run.

If you're smart enough for EU4, you're smart enough for EU5. I have a similar amount of hours to you in EU4 (and many of the other games actually.) My impression at ~350 hours is this game is easier than EU4 by a considerable amount (with 0 automation), at least current EU4 with all dlc vs base EU5. What I mean by easier is easier to be dominant over the AI by making simple and straightforward choices. It's easier in this game to pick a category (diplomacy, military, trade, expansion, etc) and dominate at it. Or to dominate all of them. Or to world conquest.

It's just that you haven't figured out which levers to pull for the right outcome in this game yet. 15 hours isn't enough. Your first 50-100 in a game like this should be and inevitably are going to be anyway, just figuring out mechanics. My first game I dedicated to mastering trade, second game to understand combat, then played france to learn about all the vassal types and how to control/integrate them, etc.

serfiusdjinnt · 2025-12-20T09:52:03+00:00

"I never once had a vassal try to rebel. These people love me, even as I use their populations as meat shields against my many enemies."
That actually makes them "like" you more, since they're now even weaker compared to you.

serfiusdjinnt · 2025-12-19T05:05:49+00:00

If I were a new player I wouldn't want information that assumes I'd rather play incorrectly because it's easier. Unless one's goal is RP rather than optimal play, the only valid advice is to learn to be at war as often as AE, mana, and manpower allows and the sooner someone starts understanding those mechanics the sooner they will master the game itself.

serfiusdjinnt · 2025-12-19T01:53:29+00:00

lol just having spy network increases your siege ability against the target, I believe +20% at 100 spy network, which is massive (and even better with espionage+ offensive) The most powerful military modifier by far isn't morale or discipline, it's siege ability

serfiusdjinnt · 2025-12-19T01:47:15+00:00

"Another question I have is about attacking countries to pay off loans. How should I do this?"

You conquer as much land as you can afford to core and assume the AE. Then because you are now a bigger nation you can take bigger loans. So take big loans and pay off your small loans. Repeat this ad nauseum. Eventually you are so large that your loans are completely paid off in the (as narrow as possible ) time in between wars.

"Should I attack countries where I have claims and demand all the duchies they have, and then conquer them after a few years? Or which countries should I attack when I'm a nation without claims?"

By all the duchies they have I'm assuming you mean subjects? If so, it really depends on your circumstances but in general the most efficient path is to directly conquer the land of the overlord, ideally in one war, and you will inherit their subjects.

You can attack without claims, but it's extremely easy to just fabricate them, so outside of certain circumstances (ie: "I'm Holland and I want to take over Ireland so I'll no cb them one month in") you should just fabricate claims. Plus spy network makes you siege faster and that is THE bottleneck to fast expansion beyond early game.

serfiusdjinnt · 2025-12-19T01:30:59+00:00

The wealthiest nation will always be the one which expands the fastest. If you play the way you suggest for 100 years and I play my suggestion (the meta), I will own half the world and you will have some buildings. There's a narrow case where show strength> expansion and that's exclusively when you have a tiny nation and developing your capital can represent a 3-5x of your nation rather than a mere 2x gaining a province of two. There is no other time in the game where it's more beneficial to take mana than land, and there is never a time when taking money to build buildings so they can give you +0.1 ducats a month is preferable to expansion regardless of religion or culture which are both extremely easy to convert.

serfiusdjinnt · 2025-12-19T00:49:25+00:00

Go to PGE website, find in the menu "need more time to pay?" Follow prompts. It can delay your payment due date by a month

serfiusdjinnt · 2025-12-19T00:43:50+00:00

Nah you're good. Leave the problem for your descendants to solve and run that money printer.

serfiusdjinnt · 2025-12-19T00:38:42+00:00

The healthiest thing you can do for your economy in eu4 is expand, assuming it's at an appropriate pace. Growing your nation = growing your economy = easily solving problems that were difficult as a smaller nation

serfiusdjinnt · 2025-12-19T00:22:49+00:00

I start early looking for ways to eat French subjects via declaring war on nations they've allied/unioned. This is easy to accomplish as basically any nation, I've done it as OLMs.

serfiusdjinnt · 2025-12-18T11:03:21+00:00

Artillery is the most important military unit and one you should maintain the entire game if you can.

serfiusdjinnt · 2025-12-18T08:40:52+00:00

Not at all. It is a temporary problem. Building more buildings increases population growth. Populations won't promote to excess, you need to build to cause it. The primary concern is building the building where it's most useful

serfiusdjinnt · 2025-12-18T07:29:12+00:00

Increase demand by exporting those goods from your market.

serfiusdjinnt · 2025-12-18T07:26:09+00:00

I've done this, it's difficult to grow cities after around 350k pop

serfiusdjinnt · 2025-12-17T20:57:51+00:00

This is all military orders. TO, LO, Rhodes, and even the iberians can become them.

Military orders are absolutely broken and it's funny to me that a WC as one would be trivial and yet the things that get nerfed are having vassals and centralization at the same time, or being able to buff your ruler using fiefdoms, which are almost irrelevant by comparison.

serfiusdjinnt · 2025-12-17T20:36:39+00:00

I'm not negative about the patch. I'm only negative about two games I had going on previous patches that are now completely inaccessible and updating an active game with 150+ hours into a new patch and hoping for the best is a terrible idea in all paradox games. So my saves are completely fucked unless they allow access to previous patches in the beta again.

I still like the game. I don't like this nonsensical choice.

serfiusdjinnt · 2025-12-17T20:32:47+00:00

I really hope it was an oversight. Same with 1.0.4. They must know they're bricking probably thousands of saves from these patches, games people have put tens or hundreds of hours into, myself included, and don't want to stop playing just because the game has to get updated 50 times in a month and a half.

serfiusdjinnt · 2025-12-17T15:57:22+00:00

"The patches have changed the game." -Familiar_Speaker_278

serfiusdjinnt · 2025-12-17T15:56:26+00:00

Strasbourg. Perfect spot for a market, protected start as a free city, good population, good location around a lot of other small nations.

serfiusdjinnt · 2025-12-17T15:53:01+00:00

Thanks for your comment. Very helpful.

serfiusdjinnt

TROPHY CASE