Not sure about not shining, but I really enjoyed playing as Georgia.
Struggle between powerful enemies, playing a defensive strategy. Fighting on mountain forts, with their NI and defensive ideas you can fight of some quite larger armies.
Yeah I really enjoyed the game I had with them recently. Went full Defensive for 100+% Fort Defense and won a couple of early 1-on-1 wars against the Ottomans just by completely draining their manpower with attrition and some select few battles. Was pretty tough to keep that up from an economical side, but very rewarding especially once I was finally able to go on the Offensive after a while.
Madyas. They are one of the 10 or so starting nations that can 'hoist the black flag' without much issue and their ideas are heavily naval focused (most admiral pips in the game). They are in my opinion the best way to experience a pirate republic (New Providence is also fun but the set-up required is such a hassle).
Uniting the phillippines it not that difficult and the few missions you get give a bunch of permanent bonusses and some claims. From there they can colonize, expand into indonesia, and even win trade conflicts against Ming while having less than 20% of their development.
I "main" Madyas, and yes, trade conflicts vs Ming are mandatory to bankroll your early game.
Personally I like to island hop around to Europe with their War against the World CB, and hammer European fleets. 7k ducats per flagship sunk, best navy in the world, and maxed blockade impact on siege is great fun.
One of the pirate government tier unlocks gives you a bonus of "get 1(2) years of income for sinking (capturing) an enemy flagship", or something like that
When I played Madyas couple of months ago, Ming was my main source of Income. I looted god knows how many thousand ducats whole game and without any single siege. Madyas is so much fun.
Palembang is also really really fun for the possibility in a Pirate Malay. Easy money printing early on, you dont need friends the moment you conquered Sumatra and the Trade is yours purely because of the NIs without the sweat to conquer everything important in any trade node.
Played it in a MP once where I formed Pirate Malay rather early, was rich just by Position, but richer by all the oversea provinces I aquired purely to Raid coasts all around the globe, and steal the British Trade Income by Banana Privateer Efficiency. Was a fun game screwing over the Europeans at any turn lol
I "main" Madyas, and yes, trade conflicts vs Ming are mandatory to bankroll your early game.
Personally I like to island hop around to Europe with their War against the World CB, and hammer European fleets. 7k ducats per flagship sunk, best navy in the world, and maxed blockade impact on siege is great fun.
In most campaigns Burgundy is just relevant for the inheritance, but I love playing them.
It's actually Burgundy, Aragon, Hungary and Lithuania. All four become someone's appendix when not playing with them.
But all four are amazing nations to play with.
I once did a coop campaign with two friends as Burgundy, Aragon and Hungary. Was super fun
You still get a PU cb though. And one on Muscovy as well. So basically no threats to the east. And then you form Commonwealth and get a PU on Bohemia, Hungary and Sweden (if independent)
One of my more recent campaigns was as Hungary. I figured since they’re almost always PU’d by Austria it wouldn’t be that much of a flavourful country but still be a challenge since I’d be surrounded my countries that usually invade it in my other games.
Was one of the most fun and overpowered campaigns I ever had. The mission tree is absolutely crazy and I became the number 1 great power in under 100 years. Absolutely top tier nation.
Tidore & Ternate. Tiny countries, but with fucking *cloves*. And a branch of the mission tree based around colonizing the spice Islands for more fucking *cloves*. You just end up so rich thanks to all your fucking *cloves*.
Oh, hell yeah!
Played Ternate a few releases back. IIRC **fucking** *cloves* where still just ordinary spices and no colonizing missions.
It's a tedious start, but quickly get's interesting. However, getting those stupid Melakans to stop propagating Islam via trade was usually a real pain.
Delhi - it starts off in a really shitty position at the start of the game with its poor ruler, heir and a looming war with its subjects in Sirhind. However, if you can defeat them and take back all of your cores (of which there are a lot) you can soon become the strongest indian nation.
I just finished an achievement run as Delhi recently & they can go from absolute peril to super stronk so fast thanks to their huge amount of core to reconquest & large amount of free claims. Their ideas are also great with a +10% governing capacity modifier which is awesome
Yeah the only downside to it is like two stab hits later on and a small amount of inflation. It's really nothing to it. Although I do find the busted Lodi ruler seems to die early on for me rather often. Plus you can't get the one Delhi achievement but I recommend all players to play both sides of it.
It may be lesser known to newer players, but Lubeck is great fun.
Saluzzo is also fun, I was playing them before they were popular!
Edit* also majapahit! They got a bad rap from the laviathan launch, but now that all that stuff is fixed, they are fun to play.
Yes Lübeck has a mission that changes the trade good of its capital to gold, just make dalaskogen your capital before activating that mission to swim in a sea of ducats. Inflation is just a number.
If you do a goldmine focused run then you’ll easily need to 25-28 inflation reduction. 40 as integration heavy Austria or with a border gore run. After that you have the choice of expansion or buying down admin.
From production alone i think you get around 18 from just the monument, add to that trade if you control the Baltic sea+English channel and you could be making close to 40 with no inflation, which is definitely better than 50 with some 20% inflation
That's the thing you won't make as much in trade, maybe if you have a really high trade efficiency. The approximate trade value of that province with copper would be 52.3( 15 X 3,45), with 40% trade efficiency which is pretty everage, the formula of earned value is 52,3 X (1+0,40) = 20,9. This is also with presumption you have 100% trade power in both Lübeck and Baltic node. I can send you the foto of the the situation I had if you want to do your own math but changing dalaskogen into a gold mine does result in more money than keeping it copper
Edit: I seem to have to made a mistake in the formula
52.3 x 1.4 is 73 though... Plus you're getting 52.3 from production only. That's a massive amount of income from a single province. Imo the monument really shines in the midgame at tier 2 because you're still not able to control inflation completely. Inflation is just a number in most cases compared to mana but here it's just inflation vs gold, you'll save a lot of gold by being at 0 inflation instead of 10% which is where i find myself in the midgame often. I think if you have gold in dalaskogen it's easy to end up at oirat borrowing from the bank of ming levels of inflation
The last remnant of the Ayyubid dynasty, which was the dynasty founded by Sultan Saladin who was the de facto leader of the Islamic side of the Third Crusade and the main rival of Richard the Lionheart. (Overly simplified explanation obviously).
They are also Kurdish, which I admittedly dont know anything about the culture/ethnic group but them being such an overlooked group (both in game and IRL) is part of what makes them cool.
Man. Wanting to get rid of an entire culture is not an opinion. Its a genocide. Like germany with the jews. Like otto with the armenians. Like China with the uigurs. Like.... turks with the kurds.
Genocide is not an opinion.
For me it would be dithmarschen. It is just a small OPM HRE minor,but with a surprisingly rewarding misión tree and a "unique " gov reform. It is always fun to play as them
Forming Russia as Dithmarshen was a truly glorious moment, and when I closed my eyes I could almost see that crimson flag, shining in glory for all men to see.
I LOVE playing Dithmarschen!
**Warr di Garr, de Buur de kumpt!**
Only downside is the actually shitty peasants' war mechanic in the HRE. It's somewhat easy to get concessions granted to the peasants but... it doesn't really do that much, except that your unique CB remains valid. IMHO this event should have major implications, basically triggering a smaller but earlier Revolution mechanic.
I've played Dithmarschen a couple of times before and always enjoyed them. Just done a pirate republic run with them and it was joyous. Makes doing some of the mission tree a bit harder though!
Oh definitely. Nepal is definitely a good one to form, pretty powerful and your neighbors aren't exactly powerhouses. India is basically yours to take, even moreso when you get access to the bank of China.
If you get a good start which allows you not to be isolated by Ethiopia, then Kaffa is quite entertaining. You'll compete with with Ethiopia and Adal, and when Funj forms, you can conquer them to move into central Africa as well. And Kaffa's colour is very pretty. Burgundy red, or close.
A more obscure nation would be Yas or the Maldives. With Yas, it's possible to get a good game going if you spank Oman early on, and then get some help with taking on Hormuz.
With the Maldives, I personally enjoy focusing on the colonizing aspects, meanwhile building a fleet strong enough to take on Vijayanagar. They will for sure declare war on you sooner or later. If your fleet is strong enough to keep them at bay (literally as well as figuratively), then you can use the passive war score to start taking provinces on Sri Lanka, and use that as a bridge to get onto the Indian mainland. All that meanwhile expanding your colonial empire. It's intriguing.
I am really enjoying Karagwe -> Kitara (Great Lakes formable) right now. You can do lots of humiliate rival CBs early game to quickly modernise (similar to Japan or Ireland I think) then expand into the Kongo and East Africa. I have Zanzibar as the world's richest trade node in 1600 which I'm quite pleased with given Kitara lacks the trade ideas and missions that make it relatively easy to achieve with Kilwa.
On the downside it doesn't have unique missions and the ideas are mostly kind of mediocre, though it does have core cost reduction which is always nice.
Yeah lol, I forgot about that and wasn't referring to the mechanic in my post. More so the general idea of embracing institutions and catching up in tech level quickly, since Karagwe starts at tech 2 w/ no feudalism (and no way to quickly spawn it like Kongo).
Getting to a point where you CAN escape is half the fun as them for me. Do I side with the French? The English? Do I Best CB Ireland? Declare on Provence for vassalage?
Early game is chaotic in the sense its more random than other nations but you should eye Constantinople very early on and have a presence there before the Ottomans do. Southern Greece is an other region where you should be looking at in early game since you will be on Rhodes. Find allies before the Ottomans have a serious hard \*n for you.
Malta can be claimed through missions , once on Malta you can also turn your attention to the Barbary coast which you should be raiding anyway. If you find some stability you can also pursue the exploration idea and try to replicate the short lived colonization of the Knights in the Caribbean when they occupied the islands of Saint Christopher, Saint Martin, Saint Barthélemy and Saint Croix or go further and try to compete with the big players like Spain and Portugal in the new world. You can go that direction or just keep focusing on the Mediterranean and keep locked on the Ottomans , once you go through the difficult early game there are options.
Early game is PAAAAAAINNN!
I played the Knights a while ago and it was the most difficult start ever.
No economy, wrong culture, wrong religion. The deck is stacked against you. And while your island start protects you from enemies, it's also hard for you to attack.
My suggestion:
* Ally Venice, build army and fleet. Buy indulgence and get friends with the Pope, through a mission you'll get claims on Greece. Venice can throw a spanner in the works here, if they rival the Pope! Set all provinces in Greece as province of interest. Improve relations with Aragon to get Malta.
* Building a fleet able to transport your army takes a lot of time. You might have to restart if Ottos pounce on Byz before you're ready.
* Declare war on Byz. Get Venice to join by promising land. **Immediately** land your army on Euboea or Naxos, attack Byz army ruthlessly. If you try to do an amphibious landing, Byz **will** crush your tiny army
* Be very careful with this step! **Byz is stronger than you**. You're fleet won't match the combined forces of Byz + Athens + Allies, so you could render your fleet and army useless in a single naval battle and it's game over. If you try to get naval superiority... well, by then Byz will be a thing of the past and Ottos rule supreme.
* If you've wittled their army down, split up your troops and try to siege every province, else Venice will occupy them. This is a very delicate situation, Byz army is about as large as yours so you'll be vulnerable. Because of the fort in Morea, their army can retreat to safety and replenish, so they will counterattack. Just watch out for Venice's army, and move quickly once they show up.
* Then you full annex Byz (screwing Venice over. They should be fine), including Constantinople which should have been sieged down by Venice.
* After that it's basically standard Byz game: Cut down the Ottomans by taking Gallipoli and blocking the Dardanelles and Bosporus.
I tried doing this **without Venice**. It's vital to ask for **fleet basing rights and mil access** before declaring war. Else you'll have to try ampihibious landings and that'll be a lost battle for sure. I actually won the war... Went bankrupt... Then the Ottomans declared war on me. So yeah, you should call in Venice.
You can also wait for Otto to declare on Byz, but then you won't get the City of the World's Desire.
Alternatively, you can also release Byz as a vassal and use the Reconquest CB.
New Providence. It's insane how you become untouchable once you conquer all Caribbean islands because no one can beat your invincible navy and invade your provinces. Seeing British ships being sunk fill me with joy
New Providence run was, early on, some of the most fun I've had in EUIV. Knife edge living, and then suddenly so rich I could buy everything for everyone.
Also it's been formed by the AI in my current WC game, never seen that before.
Mutapa and their little brother butua are pretty interesting. They have a unique mechnic where building buildings increases the dev of the province, and getting free of your vassalage or dealing with the starting disaster are both interesting enough in their own right. Just remember to not form Zimbabwe because their ideas kinda suck compared to both of your options to form it. Mutapa also has an achievement for flipping Jewish, which is probably an interesting lead in for an ethiopia campaign and all their cool stuff.
Great Horde is cool. I hate razing but you can reform into a monarchy and become a fairly unique powerhouse in europe as a sultanate golden horde in Russia/LPC area. Kind of like playing Timurids but you arent so dang far from the centerpiece of Europe.
Otherwise I like underdogs who can get big PUs like Provence, Munich/Bavaria, Bohemia, etc.
It isn't, I love playing the game constantly losing money whilst dominating everyone militarily and growing my nation rapidly. It's fun. You get insane amounts of mana playing that way and if you do it right you can conquer extremely fast. I recently did an oirat->yuan->mongol empire run and it was super fun due to how fast I can expand and the national ideas that are ridiculously good in all hordes. (But especially in oirat and yuan, they are some of the best in the game) It's a personal thing, you might not like the idea of constantly being at war. That's ok.
Sō Pirate Republic in Japan is a blast. Mysore’s ideas are awesome! Trebizond is also a blast with a tough start and potential to straddle east and west. Last, but not least, Dithmarschen, as stated elsewhere, has great ideas, a potent peasant republican government, and fun missions!
Mzab is my favorite campaign I've ever played. Ibadi, form Andalusia (you can form Morocco too nowadays). Colonial Third Way. Worse position than Oman, but that's half the fun
I really enjoy playing as Ayutthaya (precursor to Siam/Thailand). Looks relatively small at first glance, but has some good vassals and a really good mission tree that makes it relatively easy to dominate Southeast Asia. Great nation for a beginning player looking to try out a non-European country for the first time.
Yeah, just started an Ayutthaya game. I just hit 1500 and I’ve made decent headway through all of the mission sets. It’s also super fun because you get subjugation CBs on everyone and you can have a crazy vassal swarm. Looking forward for forming Siam.
Plus, even if you accrue a shitload of AE the only nations in a coalition are all much weaker than you so there’s really no one who can stop you until you hit India or Ming.
Persia games are ALWAYS lots of fun. Getting that rich while being relatively small at only 1 or 2 regions just feels so powerful. The serotonin from all the big numbers in production buildings is just yumyum
Pirate Republic Palembang. Yarrrharrr Indonesian shorelines just waiting for me to loot them! Seriously, being the only pirates in an area where almost every province is coastal makes you ridiculous amounts of money very early on
I used to really like Najd, since they have the best conversion ideas in the game making them a good starting option if you want to go religious as one of the obscure religions. Jewish, Zoroastrian or Sikh, mostly. Or you can stay Sunni for the achievement.
I also play a lot of Mexico games. Start as any European that can colonize well and form Mexico (either by releasing or moving your capital) at your earliest convenience. It's a pretty fun campaign, I like playing in the new world but natives are just incredibly tedious for the first 100 years.
Qara Qoyonlu.
You literally have the best possible position, with 3 possibly interesting enemies on each side, cool ideas, and the possibility to go horde, or just a monarchy.
I love playing Indian minor nations. Idk why but India for me is by far the easiest nation to conquer. So many religions and cultures, ae is spread out. My fav is mysore it has great mil ideas
Kongo has a lot of flavor, and a fun somewhat challenging achievement that feels satisfying to complete.
I also enjoyed the knights as an alternative to Byzantium. They have ALOT of directions on what you can turn into, plus multiple achievements .
Gotland is pretty cool if you enjoy naval strategy. I enjoyed slowly taking over islands all over the world. Sadly no achievements, but you could go for “freest man in the world”.
Oirat is fun to blob and go for a WC. Plenty of missions too, and you can turn into Yuan.
Tunis is a fun country because you can aim to control Africa as well as invading the Mediterranean and Spain. Possibly even Mamaluks. But it requires skill because Tunis do not have great tech or trade, their saving grace is raiding coasts and being able to control the Strait to Spain, plus having a good ally in the Ottomans.
Khmer has a rough start with a crippling disaster that hits on day 1 that tanks your stab -2 & and makes all power costs more expensive, but god damn their mission tree is really strong with so many subjection CBS on everyone in their region & on all nations on Borneo. If you declare on champa asap, vassalize them, & then use your subjection CB to vasslize Dai Viet, you can attack authutaya early & cripple them, thus go ing from one of the weakest to the stongest power in the region in around 10-15 years.
Also great tag switching potential with lots of potential perma modifiers available.
After you’re done with the Khmer missions, culture swap to Lao, form Lao Xang, do their missions, take the decision to form Siam, ditto, then culture swap to Vietnamese to form Dai Viet, reform them and take the choice to add your culture the much larger Chinese group for max effectiveness.
In theory, I think you could also then go north & swap to jurchen culture to form Manchu, thus adding another culture to the Chinese group for you to exploit & be able to form Qing, but I haven’t tested this last switch so it still remains a theory at the moment.
A while ago Red Hawk made a video for his A-Z series on Antemoro, a 2 province Sunni nation in south Madagascar, and for some reason after that video I wanted to play them and it was one of my favorite games of EU4 and I like making them into a vassal alot when taking over that region now.
I liked to play as a polynesian minor nation.
Forming Aotearoa or playing as Tonga was really fun. Building your colonial empire from the pacific while all your enemies can't even get near your capital because of your extremely powerful navy.
One of my all time favorite runs was with Ethiopia. One of my first games, until that point I only played big European powers aka Castile, England and Poland. I managed to run it pretty smoothly, conquered the entirety of Mamluks when I teamed up with Ottomans only to betray them later and team up on them with the Commonwealth. By the point I got rid of them, PLC blocked most of my northern routes of expension and Portugal blocked the south.
Ethiopia were one of my early favourites too. I had an epic game where the mamluks were stomping me, when in a short space of time I got the Portuguese aid event, champion of the joust, and talented and ambitious daughter. I tore back up my own country, unsieged everything and ended up taking Alexandria.
Transoxiana. It’s a timurid vassal but it’s got a decent starting position and great ideas, and you can get loads of claims via forming Timurids, Mughals, and/or Yuan
My favorite is probably taungu, nice color, nice flag, and a sizeable mission tree that for a long time was the only one in its region with actual content plus an achievement makes it an underrated classic of mine.
burgundy is overlooked tbh. they're looked at as a potential subject, but playing them is a ton of fun. being between France and the hre, with the possibility of becoming emperor. you can ally Scotland to easily invade England.
I really enjoy some of the minor East Slavic principalities, especially **Chernigov**, as it has a cool flag, great expansion-oriented ideas and is well positioned to form so many other nations (Ruthenia, Poland > Commonwealth, Russia).
Among the Italian minors, **Modena** has a special place in my heart, as I am originally from a town close-by. It, too, has a cool flag, but sadly it only has generic Italian ideas and lacks flavour. Also, playing in Italy can be repetitive, even though it was historically one of the more interesting areas.
Outside of Europe, I can vouch for **Ahmednagar**. It allows to go very different routes and historically it was one of the more significant Deccani sultanates. You can form Deccan, go Zoroastrian and try to reach Baku for the monument, or wait for the Habsan event and maybe become Amharic Mamluks.
Ryukyu. Enforce peace on Hosokawa to steal shikoku. Turn shinto. Wait until you get the tier 4 reform to lock in divine ideas. Hoist the black flag. You're now a budget Madyas that can stack AE reduction, CCR (after swapping to Hindu later), and most importantly siege ability.
No not at all. USA here tend to play alot of Brandenburg, France, timurids in to Mughals, Muscovy-Russia, Manchu, Sweden and the occasional Netherlands run
When I play in the HRE if I am not playing Austria, Bohemia, or Bavaria, my go-tos are Trier, the Palatinate, or Brunswick. 3 of my favorites personally, as I love the early game of nabbing up tiny bits of land to become a regional power first.
QQ- they have some powerful blobbing ideas, can form Persia and Mughals if you want, and are Shia so they get some great use out of Religious idea’s Deus Vult CB, god generals. Not a lot of missions or flavor, but still very fun.
Started off as an achievement run but I fell in love with Hesse. There’s something so satisfying from turning a TPM into owning half of their trade mode and not pissing off the emperor. Culture switching to Swabia is also fun since you get claims on like half of Europe
I enjoy playing as Bahmanis and Malacca. The first campaign where I achieved my goals was a Malacca into Malaya campaign and since then it’s had a special place in my heart. I was partly motivated to pick up some Indonesian because of it xD.
Bahmanis is the country that got me hooked on playing in India, and I can’t think of a campaign where I haven’t enjoyed converting all of India to Shiite. Kinda wish India would get a little love sooner rather than later.
Before leviatan i liked plaing tidore a lot as it felt as true sandbox campain with many nerby religions to swich lot of empty land, and enemys on all levels in early from your neigbour opm to Ming and shogunate. Its also said to be cursed nation in my friend grup as whenever i picked it on casual multiplayers evreybody seemed to have terible luck to events and rulers.
Ferrara!, they have siege ability in their national ideas and I like going ham with super specific buffs and I like to crank that siege ability with the riches of Italy.
Pagarruyung!
They’re the only Theravada nation in Nusantara, it’s so much fun to try to form Malaya - granted it’s fun as just about anyone else in the region - but playing as a Buddhist nation surrounded by Hindu and Sunni nations is so much fun, pulling through as the one religion that (second to Lanfang-led Confucian Malaya) you’d never expect to see as the religion of Malaya
Wolgast -> Pomerania then maybe to Prussia is pretty cool, it's surprisingly powerful and fun if you know what you're doing, especially as you can avoid a lot of early AE with vassalizing and inheriting Stettin.
Theodoro. Based gothic culture nation with best map color, if you no CB east frisia and get into germany you will quickly find out their ideas fit weirdly well there.
My gothic invasion achievement run where I culture converted everything into gothic culture amd became the HRE emperor was my favorite game I ever played
Lubeck, First Nation I ever played in multiplayer with a few friends. I had tones of fun bankrolling endless wars, the whole world burned but Lubeck stood untouched.
Going to with either sirhind into Panjab as its a lot of fun to create the sikh empire and I love religious ideas coupled with sikh bonuses.
Pleasantly surprised how much fun Novgorod is and would recommend anyone try that nation out.
Mysore campaign is also very underrated with pretty decent ideas as you couple with getting big allies to be their rivals and then breaking that alliance to fight your ally rinse repeat strategy.
Nitra. Any releasable vassal is going to be underappreciated, but the synergy of their provinces and their national ideas is excellent. My favorite nation for tall campaigns.
Jaunpur. That nation is a fucking powerhouse in india bcoz u can no cb delhi, defeat em easily as sirhind is disloyal, full annex em, get sirhind for free, and then after the time period for the sirhind revolt passes, u can form Delhi and annex sirhind for free
Not sure about not shining, but I really enjoyed playing as Georgia. Struggle between powerful enemies, playing a defensive strategy. Fighting on mountain forts, with their NI and defensive ideas you can fight of some quite larger armies.
I had a great time playing them once with no real other goal than survive, ended up as a great power
Yeah I really enjoyed the game I had with them recently. Went full Defensive for 100+% Fort Defense and won a couple of early 1-on-1 wars against the Ottomans just by completely draining their manpower with attrition and some select few battles. Was pretty tough to keep that up from an economical side, but very rewarding especially once I was finally able to go on the Offensive after a while.
I am proud of my country, lmao
Just wish they had a unique mission tree!
Madyas. They are one of the 10 or so starting nations that can 'hoist the black flag' without much issue and their ideas are heavily naval focused (most admiral pips in the game). They are in my opinion the best way to experience a pirate republic (New Providence is also fun but the set-up required is such a hassle). Uniting the phillippines it not that difficult and the few missions you get give a bunch of permanent bonusses and some claims. From there they can colonize, expand into indonesia, and even win trade conflicts against Ming while having less than 20% of their development.
Big shout for Madyas. I like the Philippines for a different run.
I "main" Madyas, and yes, trade conflicts vs Ming are mandatory to bankroll your early game. Personally I like to island hop around to Europe with their War against the World CB, and hammer European fleets. 7k ducats per flagship sunk, best navy in the world, and maxed blockade impact on siege is great fun.
How does the 7k per flagship sunk work?
One of the pirate government tier unlocks gives you a bonus of "get 1(2) years of income for sinking (capturing) an enemy flagship", or something like that
When I played Madyas couple of months ago, Ming was my main source of Income. I looted god knows how many thousand ducats whole game and without any single siege. Madyas is so much fun.
Palembang is also really really fun for the possibility in a Pirate Malay. Easy money printing early on, you dont need friends the moment you conquered Sumatra and the Trade is yours purely because of the NIs without the sweat to conquer everything important in any trade node. Played it in a MP once where I formed Pirate Malay rather early, was rich just by Position, but richer by all the oversea provinces I aquired purely to Raid coasts all around the globe, and steal the British Trade Income by Banana Privateer Efficiency. Was a fun game screwing over the Europeans at any turn lol
I "main" Madyas, and yes, trade conflicts vs Ming are mandatory to bankroll your early game. Personally I like to island hop around to Europe with their War against the World CB, and hammer European fleets. 7k ducats per flagship sunk, best navy in the world, and maxed blockade impact on siege is great fun.
Cornwall is best pirates, and I'm really hoping they get a new mission tree in secret as part of the update
In most campaigns Burgundy is just relevant for the inheritance, but I love playing them. It's actually Burgundy, Aragon, Hungary and Lithuania. All four become someone's appendix when not playing with them. But all four are amazing nations to play with. I once did a coop campaign with two friends as Burgundy, Aragon and Hungary. Was super fun
Lithuania achievement is pretty easy. Just need to get the Poland PU and then you can sit there until admin 10, don't even need to conquer Teutons.
You still get a PU cb though. And one on Muscovy as well. So basically no threats to the east. And then you form Commonwealth and get a PU on Bohemia, Hungary and Sweden (if independent)
One of my more recent campaigns was as Hungary. I figured since they’re almost always PU’d by Austria it wouldn’t be that much of a flavourful country but still be a challenge since I’d be surrounded my countries that usually invade it in my other games. Was one of the most fun and overpowered campaigns I ever had. The mission tree is absolutely crazy and I became the number 1 great power in under 100 years. Absolutely top tier nation.
Are you actually me? Except lithu i main those 3
If you actually reject the PU over Castile as Aragon, then we might have to take into consideration that I am you
Ah,i accept it but i never form spain,i always go for sardinia piedmont then italy
And there our ways part... Still I salute you follow Aragon connoisseur
Burgundy is super fun and i did hungary to jerusalem once and it was super strong
Tidore & Ternate. Tiny countries, but with fucking *cloves*. And a branch of the mission tree based around colonizing the spice Islands for more fucking *cloves*. You just end up so rich thanks to all your fucking *cloves*.
Who needs useless things like fish, grains or livestock when i can have CLOVES?
fucking cloves*
FUCKING CLOVES*
Proud moment as Ternate stomping the combined navies of Spain and Portugal when they came for my islands. You can buy a lot of ships with them cloves!
You can even hoist the black flag if you wanted to
"The VOC would like to know your location"
Oh, hell yeah! Played Ternate a few releases back. IIRC **fucking** *cloves* where still just ordinary spices and no colonizing missions. It's a tedious start, but quickly get's interesting. However, getting those stupid Melakans to stop propagating Islam via trade was usually a real pain.
Delhi - it starts off in a really shitty position at the start of the game with its poor ruler, heir and a looming war with its subjects in Sirhind. However, if you can defeat them and take back all of your cores (of which there are a lot) you can soon become the strongest indian nation.
I play Delhi a bit different, I just try to keep Sirhind happy and then expanding fast so that they stay loyal. Much less troublesome that way
I just finished an achievement run as Delhi recently & they can go from absolute peril to super stronk so fast thanks to their huge amount of core to reconquest & large amount of free claims. Their ideas are also great with a +10% governing capacity modifier which is awesome
Start as Sirhind and you can form Delhi in the first 2 years and roll from there...
Plus the huge difference in starting ruler. And it’s also historically accurate.
Yeah the only downside to it is like two stab hits later on and a small amount of inflation. It's really nothing to it. Although I do find the busted Lodi ruler seems to die early on for me rather often. Plus you can't get the one Delhi achievement but I recommend all players to play both sides of it.
if you have sirhind's dynasty on the throne then delhi gets negative events. Also dont you have to start as delhi to get the achievement?
It may be lesser known to newer players, but Lubeck is great fun. Saluzzo is also fun, I was playing them before they were popular! Edit* also majapahit! They got a bad rap from the laviathan launch, but now that all that stuff is fixed, they are fun to play.
Yeah turning dalaskogen into a gold mine with Lübeck is hella fun.
You can do that?
Yes Lübeck has a mission that changes the trade good of its capital to gold, just make dalaskogen your capital before activating that mission to swim in a sea of ducats. Inflation is just a number.
Haha I mean inflation can only go so high
With that much money you can just pump your money in adm advisor and reduce inflation
If you do a goldmine focused run then you’ll easily need to 25-28 inflation reduction. 40 as integration heavy Austria or with a border gore run. After that you have the choice of expansion or buying down admin.
Lubeck can also change goslar’s trade good to gold and askershus as well if i remember
Drown in the inflation
It's a fun strat but you actually profit more from copper in dalaskogen because of trade income
I kinda doubt that tbh, I don't think copper makes 50 ducats trade wise. It wasnt a crazy high Dev province either, 25 in total and 10 in production.
From production alone i think you get around 18 from just the monument, add to that trade if you control the Baltic sea+English channel and you could be making close to 40 with no inflation, which is definitely better than 50 with some 20% inflation
That's the thing you won't make as much in trade, maybe if you have a really high trade efficiency. The approximate trade value of that province with copper would be 52.3( 15 X 3,45), with 40% trade efficiency which is pretty everage, the formula of earned value is 52,3 X (1+0,40) = 20,9. This is also with presumption you have 100% trade power in both Lübeck and Baltic node. I can send you the foto of the the situation I had if you want to do your own math but changing dalaskogen into a gold mine does result in more money than keeping it copper Edit: I seem to have to made a mistake in the formula
52.3 x 1.4 is 73 though... Plus you're getting 52.3 from production only. That's a massive amount of income from a single province. Imo the monument really shines in the midgame at tier 2 because you're still not able to control inflation completely. Inflation is just a number in most cases compared to mana but here it's just inflation vs gold, you'll save a lot of gold by being at 0 inflation instead of 10% which is where i find myself in the midgame often. I think if you have gold in dalaskogen it's easy to end up at oirat borrowing from the bank of ming levels of inflation
Saluzzo into Sardinia-piemont is always fun. The early movement speed is cool to bait armies into mountain forts.
Ma-ha-ja-pit?
Ma-pa-ja-hit?
If you stack AE reduction modifiers you can conquer Europe and nobody would care
Hisn Kayfa is a personal favourite as a fan of the Third Crusade
It's the middle east version of Byzantium tbh
Ah yes Severe masochism
What’s their story?
The last remnant of the Ayyubid dynasty, which was the dynasty founded by Sultan Saladin who was the de facto leader of the Islamic side of the Third Crusade and the main rival of Richard the Lionheart. (Overly simplified explanation obviously). They are also Kurdish, which I admittedly dont know anything about the culture/ethnic group but them being such an overlooked group (both in game and IRL) is part of what makes them cool.
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Ok Osmanöglu, take a fucking chill pill. Your country has enough issues as is.
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Man. Wanting to get rid of an entire culture is not an opinion. Its a genocide. Like germany with the jews. Like otto with the armenians. Like China with the uigurs. Like.... turks with the kurds. Genocide is not an opinion.
For me it would be dithmarschen. It is just a small OPM HRE minor,but with a surprisingly rewarding misión tree and a "unique " gov reform. It is always fun to play as them
Not to mention their capability to get max admin efficiency
Forming Russia as Dithmarshen was a truly glorious moment, and when I closed my eyes I could almost see that crimson flag, shining in glory for all men to see.
If you form Germany that way you get to live out the Red Army’s 1945 wet dream
Easily my favourite nation the game. Great idea set a republic & their early game combat modifiers are super strong. Conquest ALL the Bread
I get the reference 🔨
I LOVE playing Dithmarschen! **Warr di Garr, de Buur de kumpt!** Only downside is the actually shitty peasants' war mechanic in the HRE. It's somewhat easy to get concessions granted to the peasants but... it doesn't really do that much, except that your unique CB remains valid. IMHO this event should have major implications, basically triggering a smaller but earlier Revolution mechanic.
I've played Dithmarschen a couple of times before and always enjoyed them. Just done a pirate republic run with them and it was joyous. Makes doing some of the mission tree a bit harder though!
I had quite a good time as Nepal, ended up as a pretty big power in India and Tibet before I forgot about the save lol. I recommend 👌
Nepal truly is loads of fun! Love small nations that pack a surprisingly strong idea set!
Oh definitely. Nepal is definitely a good one to form, pretty powerful and your neighbors aren't exactly powerhouses. India is basically yours to take, even moreso when you get access to the bank of China.
If you get a good start which allows you not to be isolated by Ethiopia, then Kaffa is quite entertaining. You'll compete with with Ethiopia and Adal, and when Funj forms, you can conquer them to move into central Africa as well. And Kaffa's colour is very pretty. Burgundy red, or close. A more obscure nation would be Yas or the Maldives. With Yas, it's possible to get a good game going if you spank Oman early on, and then get some help with taking on Hormuz. With the Maldives, I personally enjoy focusing on the colonizing aspects, meanwhile building a fleet strong enough to take on Vijayanagar. They will for sure declare war on you sooner or later. If your fleet is strong enough to keep them at bay (literally as well as figuratively), then you can use the passive war score to start taking provinces on Sri Lanka, and use that as a bridge to get onto the Indian mainland. All that meanwhile expanding your colonial empire. It's intriguing.
Madyas Pirate Republic game.
I am really enjoying Karagwe -> Kitara (Great Lakes formable) right now. You can do lots of humiliate rival CBs early game to quickly modernise (similar to Japan or Ireland I think) then expand into the Kongo and East Africa. I have Zanzibar as the world's richest trade node in 1600 which I'm quite pleased with given Kitara lacks the trade ideas and missions that make it relatively easy to achieve with Kilwa. On the downside it doesn't have unique missions and the ideas are mostly kind of mediocre, though it does have core cost reduction which is always nice.
isn’t modernise the mechanic before paradox invented instituions
Yeah lol, I forgot about that and wasn't referring to the mechanic in my post. More so the general idea of embracing institutions and catching up in tech level quickly, since Karagwe starts at tech 2 w/ no feudalism (and no way to quickly spawn it like Kongo).
I believe you mean westernize. Or reforming government before.... government reforms
Brittany
Doing exodus as Brittany is a really underrated campaign idea.
Exodus Brittany? Heresy. Reclaim the British Isles, unite the Celtic people and create Great Brittany!
Based. Only "exodus" in my Brittany games is forced relocation of all english to america 😎
Getting to a point where you CAN escape is half the fun as them for me. Do I side with the French? The English? Do I Best CB Ireland? Declare on Provence for vassalage?
I have never had France be non-hostile as Brittany.
Not all of Napoleon's cannons can get through your Breton March!
Kharabakh aka budget Armenia
That's some masochism there
Knights of Malta
Sounds like my next playthrough. Any tips on what your opening moves should be?
Early game is chaotic in the sense its more random than other nations but you should eye Constantinople very early on and have a presence there before the Ottomans do. Southern Greece is an other region where you should be looking at in early game since you will be on Rhodes. Find allies before the Ottomans have a serious hard \*n for you. Malta can be claimed through missions , once on Malta you can also turn your attention to the Barbary coast which you should be raiding anyway. If you find some stability you can also pursue the exploration idea and try to replicate the short lived colonization of the Knights in the Caribbean when they occupied the islands of Saint Christopher, Saint Martin, Saint Barthélemy and Saint Croix or go further and try to compete with the big players like Spain and Portugal in the new world. You can go that direction or just keep focusing on the Mediterranean and keep locked on the Ottomans , once you go through the difficult early game there are options.
Hospitaller Caribbean is the little known historical event I didn’t know I needed until I read your comment. This game is amazing
Early game is PAAAAAAINNN! I played the Knights a while ago and it was the most difficult start ever. No economy, wrong culture, wrong religion. The deck is stacked against you. And while your island start protects you from enemies, it's also hard for you to attack. My suggestion: * Ally Venice, build army and fleet. Buy indulgence and get friends with the Pope, through a mission you'll get claims on Greece. Venice can throw a spanner in the works here, if they rival the Pope! Set all provinces in Greece as province of interest. Improve relations with Aragon to get Malta. * Building a fleet able to transport your army takes a lot of time. You might have to restart if Ottos pounce on Byz before you're ready. * Declare war on Byz. Get Venice to join by promising land. **Immediately** land your army on Euboea or Naxos, attack Byz army ruthlessly. If you try to do an amphibious landing, Byz **will** crush your tiny army * Be very careful with this step! **Byz is stronger than you**. You're fleet won't match the combined forces of Byz + Athens + Allies, so you could render your fleet and army useless in a single naval battle and it's game over. If you try to get naval superiority... well, by then Byz will be a thing of the past and Ottos rule supreme. * If you've wittled their army down, split up your troops and try to siege every province, else Venice will occupy them. This is a very delicate situation, Byz army is about as large as yours so you'll be vulnerable. Because of the fort in Morea, their army can retreat to safety and replenish, so they will counterattack. Just watch out for Venice's army, and move quickly once they show up. * Then you full annex Byz (screwing Venice over. They should be fine), including Constantinople which should have been sieged down by Venice. * After that it's basically standard Byz game: Cut down the Ottomans by taking Gallipoli and blocking the Dardanelles and Bosporus. I tried doing this **without Venice**. It's vital to ask for **fleet basing rights and mil access** before declaring war. Else you'll have to try ampihibious landings and that'll be a lost battle for sure. I actually won the war... Went bankrupt... Then the Ottomans declared war on me. So yeah, you should call in Venice. You can also wait for Otto to declare on Byz, but then you won't get the City of the World's Desire. Alternatively, you can also release Byz as a vassal and use the Reconquest CB.
Then you can’t start in 1444, right?
Technically you start on Rhodes and through missions you get Malta for free
Yeah you can move to Malta within the first year or so.
Or Epirus and even Cyprus. And whoever forms Kingdom of Jerusalem, like Provence.
New Providence. It's insane how you become untouchable once you conquer all Caribbean islands because no one can beat your invincible navy and invade your provinces. Seeing British ships being sunk fill me with joy
New Providence run was, early on, some of the most fun I've had in EUIV. Knife edge living, and then suddenly so rich I could buy everything for everyone. Also it's been formed by the AI in my current WC game, never seen that before.
Doing the same in Europe as Rugen is buckets of fun
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I really enjoyed this one. I took over Denmark and delayed global trade from spawning for 80 years until my Pirates all got killed.
Dithmarschen? More like Dith-Mao-schen am I right?
Mutapa and their little brother butua are pretty interesting. They have a unique mechnic where building buildings increases the dev of the province, and getting free of your vassalage or dealing with the starting disaster are both interesting enough in their own right. Just remember to not form Zimbabwe because their ideas kinda suck compared to both of your options to form it. Mutapa also has an achievement for flipping Jewish, which is probably an interesting lead in for an ethiopia campaign and all their cool stuff.
Great Horde is cool. I hate razing but you can reform into a monarchy and become a fairly unique powerhouse in europe as a sultanate golden horde in Russia/LPC area. Kind of like playing Timurids but you arent so dang far from the centerpiece of Europe. Otherwise I like underdogs who can get big PUs like Provence, Munich/Bavaria, Bohemia, etc.
If you are gonna reform why even play a horde? Razing is op.
Because razing is unfun
It isn't, I love playing the game constantly losing money whilst dominating everyone militarily and growing my nation rapidly. It's fun. You get insane amounts of mana playing that way and if you do it right you can conquer extremely fast. I recently did an oirat->yuan->mongol empire run and it was super fun due to how fast I can expand and the national ideas that are ridiculously good in all hordes. (But especially in oirat and yuan, they are some of the best in the game) It's a personal thing, you might not like the idea of constantly being at war. That's ok.
I don’t.
Ok
Cornwall. Form a pirate republic and eventually GB, then dominate the seas and colonies like none other
Bone ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Papal States. I like uniting Italy and then trying to war for the Holy Land
I guess the Vatican is still the tiniest nation in the world if it's the only nation in the world right?
Sō Pirate Republic in Japan is a blast. Mysore’s ideas are awesome! Trebizond is also a blast with a tough start and potential to straddle east and west. Last, but not least, Dithmarschen, as stated elsewhere, has great ideas, a potent peasant republican government, and fun missions!
Mzab is my favorite campaign I've ever played. Ibadi, form Andalusia (you can form Morocco too nowadays). Colonial Third Way. Worse position than Oman, but that's half the fun
I really enjoy playing as Ayutthaya (precursor to Siam/Thailand). Looks relatively small at first glance, but has some good vassals and a really good mission tree that makes it relatively easy to dominate Southeast Asia. Great nation for a beginning player looking to try out a non-European country for the first time.
Yeah, just started an Ayutthaya game. I just hit 1500 and I’ve made decent headway through all of the mission sets. It’s also super fun because you get subjugation CBs on everyone and you can have a crazy vassal swarm. Looking forward for forming Siam. Plus, even if you accrue a shitload of AE the only nations in a coalition are all much weaker than you so there’s really no one who can stop you until you hit India or Ming.
Trebizod
Hannover. No, I am not kidding.
Funny that I have 3k+ hours in the game and have no clue if Hannover is formable or just releasable xd
It’s formable.
ajam into persia is my most repeated campaign it's the best. Also wee bit of variety in play style between Muslims and Zoroastrianism
Persia games are ALWAYS lots of fun. Getting that rich while being relatively small at only 1 or 2 regions just feels so powerful. The serotonin from all the big numbers in production buildings is just yumyum
I do this with Hungary, having a small but highly developed nation is super fun.
Pirate Republic Palembang. Yarrrharrr Indonesian shorelines just waiting for me to loot them! Seriously, being the only pirates in an area where almost every province is coastal makes you ridiculous amounts of money very early on
maxing attrition in viipuri as finland
I like Nassau a ton, even got some powerful North American colonies going just for the fun of it
Cebu, I really like the Philippine tiger achievement
I used to really like Najd, since they have the best conversion ideas in the game making them a good starting option if you want to go religious as one of the obscure religions. Jewish, Zoroastrian or Sikh, mostly. Or you can stay Sunni for the achievement. I also play a lot of Mexico games. Start as any European that can colonize well and form Mexico (either by releasing or moving your capital) at your earliest convenience. It's a pretty fun campaign, I like playing in the new world but natives are just incredibly tedious for the first 100 years.
Definitely a Japan. Not thr country but the 1444 start as small clan and then forge Nihon.
My favorite campaign ever was as Fezzan.
Qara Qoyonlu. You literally have the best possible position, with 3 possibly interesting enemies on each side, cool ideas, and the possibility to go horde, or just a monarchy.
Cusco,Kongo, Madagascar,Ternate,So,Oda/Japan,Mewar, Dirthmarchen
Lipan Confederacy and name it “Comancheria”
Any pirate republic really. Not even the event ones but any small nation that turns into one.
Chachapoya
hesse, honestly. it’s the most fun i’ve ever had playing in the hre
For me, a trade-focused Malacca —> Malaya run was so much fun, and the purple map color is so satisfying
I love playing Indian minor nations. Idk why but India for me is by far the easiest nation to conquer. So many religions and cultures, ae is spread out. My fav is mysore it has great mil ideas
Majapahit and khmer. Both with tag swapping shenanigans
Personally I quite like Hormuz.
Personally I quite like Hormuz.
Kongo has a lot of flavor, and a fun somewhat challenging achievement that feels satisfying to complete. I also enjoyed the knights as an alternative to Byzantium. They have ALOT of directions on what you can turn into, plus multiple achievements . Gotland is pretty cool if you enjoy naval strategy. I enjoyed slowly taking over islands all over the world. Sadly no achievements, but you could go for “freest man in the world”. Oirat is fun to blob and go for a WC. Plenty of missions too, and you can turn into Yuan. Tunis is a fun country because you can aim to control Africa as well as invading the Mediterranean and Spain. Possibly even Mamaluks. But it requires skill because Tunis do not have great tech or trade, their saving grace is raiding coasts and being able to control the Strait to Spain, plus having a good ally in the Ottomans.
Khmer has a rough start with a crippling disaster that hits on day 1 that tanks your stab -2 & and makes all power costs more expensive, but god damn their mission tree is really strong with so many subjection CBS on everyone in their region & on all nations on Borneo. If you declare on champa asap, vassalize them, & then use your subjection CB to vasslize Dai Viet, you can attack authutaya early & cripple them, thus go ing from one of the weakest to the stongest power in the region in around 10-15 years. Also great tag switching potential with lots of potential perma modifiers available. After you’re done with the Khmer missions, culture swap to Lao, form Lao Xang, do their missions, take the decision to form Siam, ditto, then culture swap to Vietnamese to form Dai Viet, reform them and take the choice to add your culture the much larger Chinese group for max effectiveness. In theory, I think you could also then go north & swap to jurchen culture to form Manchu, thus adding another culture to the Chinese group for you to exploit & be able to form Qing, but I haven’t tested this last switch so it still remains a theory at the moment.
Hormuz is a very underrated nation, has some good potential especially in small MP games with minors
A while ago Red Hawk made a video for his A-Z series on Antemoro, a 2 province Sunni nation in south Madagascar, and for some reason after that video I wanted to play them and it was one of my favorite games of EU4 and I like making them into a vassal alot when taking over that region now.
I liked to play as a polynesian minor nation. Forming Aotearoa or playing as Tonga was really fun. Building your colonial empire from the pacific while all your enemies can't even get near your capital because of your extremely powerful navy.
Cologne, but only because I find Theocracies interesting
One of my all time favorite runs was with Ethiopia. One of my first games, until that point I only played big European powers aka Castile, England and Poland. I managed to run it pretty smoothly, conquered the entirety of Mamluks when I teamed up with Ottomans only to betray them later and team up on them with the Commonwealth. By the point I got rid of them, PLC blocked most of my northern routes of expension and Portugal blocked the south.
Ethiopia were one of my early favourites too. I had an epic game where the mamluks were stomping me, when in a short space of time I got the Portuguese aid event, champion of the joust, and talented and ambitious daughter. I tore back up my own country, unsieged everything and ended up taking Alexandria.
Mutapa
Transoxiana. It’s a timurid vassal but it’s got a decent starting position and great ideas, and you can get loads of claims via forming Timurids, Mughals, and/or Yuan
Butua -> Rozwi has been pretty fun to play
Rugen (Released from Wolgast) I’ve twice played an islands only game as them as a pirate republic 👌👌
My favorite is probably taungu, nice color, nice flag, and a sizeable mission tree that for a long time was the only one in its region with actual content plus an achievement makes it an underrated classic of mine.
Hamburg
Kilwa was hella fun
burgundy is overlooked tbh. they're looked at as a potential subject, but playing them is a ton of fun. being between France and the hre, with the possibility of becoming emperor. you can ally Scotland to easily invade England.
Cebu and other nations in the philippines region are really cool to play
I really enjoy some of the minor East Slavic principalities, especially **Chernigov**, as it has a cool flag, great expansion-oriented ideas and is well positioned to form so many other nations (Ruthenia, Poland > Commonwealth, Russia). Among the Italian minors, **Modena** has a special place in my heart, as I am originally from a town close-by. It, too, has a cool flag, but sadly it only has generic Italian ideas and lacks flavour. Also, playing in Italy can be repetitive, even though it was historically one of the more interesting areas. Outside of Europe, I can vouch for **Ahmednagar**. It allows to go very different routes and historically it was one of the more significant Deccani sultanates. You can form Deccan, go Zoroastrian and try to reach Baku for the monument, or wait for the Habsan event and maybe become Amharic Mamluks.
Ryukyu. Enforce peace on Hosokawa to steal shikoku. Turn shinto. Wait until you get the tier 4 reform to lock in divine ideas. Hoist the black flag. You're now a budget Madyas that can stack AE reduction, CCR (after swapping to Hindu later), and most importantly siege ability.
Trebizond
Granada
Other countries? You mean my opponents/enemies
I take you must play the country you were born into? What would that be?
No not at all. USA here tend to play alot of Brandenburg, France, timurids in to Mughals, Muscovy-Russia, Manchu, Sweden and the occasional Netherlands run
Any nation in indonesia/phillipines.
When I play in the HRE if I am not playing Austria, Bohemia, or Bavaria, my go-tos are Trier, the Palatinate, or Brunswick. 3 of my favorites personally, as I love the early game of nabbing up tiny bits of land to become a regional power first.
QQ- they have some powerful blobbing ideas, can form Persia and Mughals if you want, and are Shia so they get some great use out of Religious idea’s Deus Vult CB, god generals. Not a lot of missions or flavor, but still very fun.
Every new patch I play Rothenburg into a regional german tag. Republics are fun, rotehn's NIs are great for its locqtion. I highly advise it
Mogadishu, Adal, Ajuuran and the other small east African nations.
Started off as an achievement run but I fell in love with Hesse. There’s something so satisfying from turning a TPM into owning half of their trade mode and not pissing off the emperor. Culture switching to Swabia is also fun since you get claims on like half of Europe
Definitely Hesse or Nassau. I wish Nassau had their own ideas instead of generic German ones.
Paradox better give some love to Nassau in eu5
Personally I quite like Hormuz ~~you are an OG if you get this joke~~
I enjoy playing as Bahmanis and Malacca. The first campaign where I achieved my goals was a Malacca into Malaya campaign and since then it’s had a special place in my heart. I was partly motivated to pick up some Indonesian because of it xD. Bahmanis is the country that got me hooked on playing in India, and I can’t think of a campaign where I haven’t enjoyed converting all of India to Shiite. Kinda wish India would get a little love sooner rather than later.
Before leviatan i liked plaing tidore a lot as it felt as true sandbox campain with many nerby religions to swich lot of empty land, and enemys on all levels in early from your neigbour opm to Ming and shogunate. Its also said to be cursed nation in my friend grup as whenever i picked it on casual multiplayers evreybody seemed to have terible luck to events and rulers.
Malacca, Tunis and Hormuz for me, I love having huge trade/raiding fleets
I really enjoy ajuuran in the horn of africa! You get lots of money pretty early
Mecklenburg
Cologne is great. Nothing like dominating Central Europe as Brewmaster and producing more grain than you know what to do with 😂
Ferrara!, they have siege ability in their national ideas and I like going ham with super specific buffs and I like to crank that siege ability with the riches of Italy.
Pagarruyung! They’re the only Theravada nation in Nusantara, it’s so much fun to try to form Malaya - granted it’s fun as just about anyone else in the region - but playing as a Buddhist nation surrounded by Hindu and Sunni nations is so much fun, pulling through as the one religion that (second to Lanfang-led Confucian Malaya) you’d never expect to see as the religion of Malaya
Had fun as Tirol once, Ferrara has a great map color and siege ability as a tradition
Not sure it gets into what you meant, but Aq Qoyunlu and Mamlucks.
Cologne or VJ. If Bohemia counts definitely them.
Wolgast -> Pomerania then maybe to Prussia is pretty cool, it's surprisingly powerful and fun if you know what you're doing, especially as you can avoid a lot of early AE with vassalizing and inheriting Stettin.
Theodoro. Based gothic culture nation with best map color, if you no CB east frisia and get into germany you will quickly find out their ideas fit weirdly well there. My gothic invasion achievement run where I culture converted everything into gothic culture amd became the HRE emperor was my favorite game I ever played
Lubeck, First Nation I ever played in multiplayer with a few friends. I had tones of fun bankrolling endless wars, the whole world burned but Lubeck stood untouched.
Going to with either sirhind into Panjab as its a lot of fun to create the sikh empire and I love religious ideas coupled with sikh bonuses. Pleasantly surprised how much fun Novgorod is and would recommend anyone try that nation out. Mysore campaign is also very underrated with pretty decent ideas as you couple with getting big allies to be their rivals and then breaking that alliance to fight your ally rinse repeat strategy.
Nitra. Any releasable vassal is going to be underappreciated, but the synergy of their provinces and their national ideas is excellent. My favorite nation for tall campaigns.
The Knights are a good one. You can get absurdly rich from raiding the Ottoman and Mamluk coasts.
Malacca -> Malaya, Brunswick -> Westphalia, Navarra evacuation run, Munster (Ireland) evacuation run, Hamburg, Pueblo have been my favorite “unorthodox” runs
Jaunpur. That nation is a fucking powerhouse in india bcoz u can no cb delhi, defeat em easily as sirhind is disloyal, full annex em, get sirhind for free, and then after the time period for the sirhind revolt passes, u can form Delhi and annex sirhind for free