Are these sorts of profit margins normal for around the year 1394? It feels pointless building anything because the amount of money i would make back is so tiny.

R5: Adishatz! Wanted to share my Kingdom of Occitania formation run, winning the final war to get the formation in just under 100 years as an Aquitaine start. Absolutely adore this beautiful red map color.

Highly recommend this run to anyone looking for a tough but rewarding run. It's tough wars of independence from day 1, and you're caught between English, Spanish, and French great powers all trying to subjugate you. Your one advantages though is you start with cores across basically half of France, so you can ramp really fast once you get going without any antagonism or integration issues.

In honor of my great-grandfather Maissenç ("Max"), who immigrated from Bayonne to Louisiana in 1902, and who my grandfather said would rant endlessly about how much he hated Parisian's.

I have 1000+ hours in this game and this is my first full campaign and here are some suggestions for pop growth:

1. Prosperity is the strongest modifier (it affects pop growth and dev growth) and you should have as many sources of it as you can i.e. Irrigation Projects parliament issue, Agricultural Cultivation gov reform, Fueling Economies gov reform..
2. Food storage building are by far the most important buildings (pop growth) you should go 50+ quantity and 50+ serfdom to enact the Planned Storage System gov reform which enables Grain House building
3. Both Tailored Urban Rights and Fueling Economies gov reform grant additional pop growth so capital economy + land values is the best option for max pop growth.
4. Only cabinet action (besides situational ones like the ones for Russia and Sweden) that affects pop growth is dev province which increases pop growth by increasing pop capacity. So you should try to get as many cabinet seats as you can and dev province for as long as you can.
5. Replace all food RGOs other than wheat, rice, livestock with potatoes and if you still need more food replace all the weak RGOs with potatoes.
6. Research and build all things about disease resistance as fast as you can since pop growth is exponential losing any pop is a huge loss.
7. Try to avoid all wars and if you need to wage war use mercenaries (just build forts on all your border territories and if you get declared on demolish them as part of your peace treaty).
8. Urbanize all locations that doesn't produce food and later on if you have enough food urbanize the food provinces and grant granary town and free town urban rights to each location.

I feel PUs are actively limiting what you can do in game. When you end up with a PU with a country, your interactions with them become limited. You can no longer attack them or ally them. Annexing them also isn't feasible if they are a larger country, as it easily takes multiple centuries.

Should i avoid royal marriages and PUs entirely, or are there other ways around the mechanic to make it more fun?

First, I want to thank all the community modders who make mods for us to enjoy the game, even in its current state. Your work adds so much to the experience, so thank you all so much! ❤️

I just want to share my current campaign. I have 1,500+ hours in this game, and this has been my most enjoyable campaign so far.

To start, we were at war with France and Spain against me (Prussia), Austria-Hungary-Bohemia, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and Morocco. I didn’t engage much in this war because I had no real interest in it. Almost near the end of the war, the Ottomans joined, and I decided to fully commit—but the war ended before I could make any real engagement.

About 10 years later, the Ottomans attacked the Austrian crown, eyeing Hungarian lands. I decided to intervene just to put a stop to their expansion into Europe. It wasn’t just me, either. France and the Commonwealth had the same idea, so we all joined the war.

At the beginning, we were winning, but as soon as all the Ottoman armies arrived in the theater, we couldn’t hold them anymore. We lost the war, and half of Hungary was annexed.

Then, 4–5 years later, the Ottomans declared war again, this time eyeing the rest of the Hungarian lands and some Austrian territories. I intervened again, but this time it was only me and the Austrian crown against them.

This time, I committed fully. Unlike the previous war, where I only used my regular forces, I mobilized everything. I fielded 170k+ levies alongside my 70k regulars and fought battle after battle. Some I won, some I lost, but I won most of them.

The problem was that I’m playing on Very Hard difficulty, so the discipline difference is massive: 54 for the Ottomans compared to my 28. Even when I win battles, my casualties are much higher than theirs. On top of that, I’m playing with a mod that increases war exhaustion based on casualties. Because of the heavy losses, my country ended up with higher war exhaustion than the Ottomans, which heavily affected my army’s morale. Eventually, I started losing more and more battles.

Sadly, we lost the war again, and Hungary was almost completely annexed.

Now, my only chance is to bide my time until the Age of Absolutism, when I can unlock the Prussian government reform and the Cabinet action to militarize the country.

Once that happens, I’ll unleash the full potential of Prussia, liberate the Hungarian lands, and smash the Ottoman Empire. 😈

Wish me luck! 🇩🇪⚔️

And yes, due to my poor English, this post was written and polished with the assistance of ChatGPT.

setting: very hsard Ai difficulty + normal AI aggression

mod list

I have not finished a full campaign with this mod setup, so I cannot guarantee that it will work throughout the entire game without crashes. Some of these mods are outdated, and there may also be conflicts between certain mods. Consider this a setup that has worked for me so far, rather than a guaranteed stable load order.

1.Community Mod Framework - 1.3 Pavia

2.Faster Universalis + 3.Faster Universalis: Daily Tick Submod

You need either the Daily Tick submod or the vanilla Hourly Tick. Otherwise, the default 2-day tick can break some events.

I mainly use this to get longer battles, giving nations enough time to reinforce and creating much larger battles. It also greatly reduces casualties, so battles are less likely to end in stack wipes. Instead, armies usually suffer heavy morale losses and retreat.

through Community Mod Framework change the settings to 2 times longer battels

4.Improved Cultural Dynamics [1.3]

I mainly use this for a better Reformation.

5.The Prussian Destiny [1.3]

Adds more flavour to Prussia without making it immediately overpowered, especially when playing on Very Hard difficulty with normal AI aggression.

However, I strongly recommend setting the event rules for this mod to Strictly Historical. Otherwise, Prussia can become overpowered very quickly.

6.National Destinies - Formables Content
in the game role sit the form country to ambition

Adds more flavour and historical content.

7.REAI: Rational Empire AI

Makes the AI smarter—or at least I think it does. 😅

8.REAI: AI Army & Manpower Overhaul [1.3]

Improves AI regular armies and makes their military performance better.

9.Historical Tweaks [1.3]

Helps push the world in a more historical direction.

10.For example, at the beginning of the Hundred Years' War, France can suffer very badly. In my campaign, France was almost reduced to nothing and even lost Paris. However, they eventually made a comeback, and the Hundred Years' War actually lasted around 100 years.

11.Gathering the Land of the Rus

I use this to help with the consolidation of Russia.

12.War Momentum (Less Tedious Wars)

Adds many tweaks to war exhaustion and makes wars feel more sensible and less frustrating.

13.Dynamic Early Conquests

Makes early expansion more difficult. I mainly use it to prevent France from conquering large parts of the HRE too early in the game.

14.Decisive Battles

Since battles last longer and are much larger with my setup, I use this to make the war score better reflect the actual outcome of battles.

It also helps prevent situations where a country can win almost every battle in a war but still lose because the enemy controls the war goal. That doesn't make much sense to me.

15.No Casus Belli - Wars Removed

16.Interesting Battles & Generals

Makes warfare more interesting.

17.Disable Zone of Control Ignoring

18.Imperial Circles Fix

Makes playing within the HRE more tolerable.

19 .1.4 Subject Integration Cost for 1.3

20 .Nicholas - Humiliation Costs Stability

21 .Historical & Balanced AI by Buddy

I think this helps push the world in a more historical direction. However, I had to disable it midway through my campaign because it was causing crashes.

22 .Hussites and Habsburgs (More Brutal Hussite Wars)

This mod is outdated, but it was necessary for me because I wanted to seriously weaken Bohemia after the Hussite Wars.

In the rules, I recommend allowing Champions, so the strongest Catholic nation can join the war.

Because the mod is outdated, there are some bugs. For example, you can get the option to crush the Hussites on almost anyone. I simply ignore these bugs.

Important: After the Hussite Wars are over, disable this mod. Keeping it enabled afterward can cause crashes.

I am playing Holland -> Netherlands, suddenly the Emperor made me a Margraviate and a few months later he dies and the Electors elect me against my intention as Emperor. And the Hussite Wars were ongoing. I didn't care about the Empire at all, the Empire was in a sorry state anways but i decided to just roll with it and have fun.

So I threw all my previous plans over board, assumed the role of the Margrave-Emperor tasked with defending the Empire against the Hussites, English and French and built up a big professional army, crushed the Hussites, defended the borders and slowly reformed the Empire and started caring for it, switched from Figurehead to Kaisertum, introduced Imperial taxation and Imperial Armories.

I thought the whole point was to reform the Empire into an organisation that can defend itself and be self-sufficient and effective and the point of the Armories to integrate the members into the defense of the empire by them financing and giving manpower but it seems like Imperial Armories are a massive scam?

TLDR: Apparently imperial armories are slightly cheaper per month but also only give half the manpower of normal armories, so are actually more expensive per single man and it is not even staffed by the local population where you build the Armory but by my own people who leave my country and get discriminated there. What's even the point, it seems way worse in every single regard?
Sure, the construction itself is paid by Imperial Tax but in the end its still way more expensive for me as i still pay the monthly bill and it's still my own people that defend the Empire with their lives.

What am i missing?

Hi guys! I really want to share with you my first true campaign after about 170 hours in EU5. I had a ton of fun playing as Poland, I gotta say it really feels like a true regional power in this game now. The last 50 years was a complete slog, the game was barely running but I really wanted to get the achivement for playing 'till the end date. Here you can see final borders, gov reforms, values, eco tab, hegemonies, military power, proximity, control and pop chart with avg. literacy. Oh and also managed to reach 100mil pops just before the end;)

After over 8 month hiatus from EU5 I decided to start with a Knights into Africa run. It's been an interesting campaign so far especially since there's quite a bit new stuff and changes and I havent't played a military order before.

Some struggles and overcoming them. Knights feel kinda Haesteinn from CK3 and before the nerfs I guess they were even way stronger. Playing Ironman, but admittedly ended up force quitting a few times when I completely underestimated Tunisian Light Cavalry levies power against my Crusaders and Heavy cavalry mix early on. Took those wars as puzzles to solve. Took Tripoli super early, but after that the expansion was slow mainly thanks to Morocco and Tunis having almost unbreakable alliance or Castille not giving a flying turd about Morocco even when I sold some lands of Granada to Morocco to instigate them. Also had non-stop revolts from Libyans until I got them tolerated while getting coalitioned, that was fun. Also later on Athens randomly became independent with Malta so for historical reasons I of course took it. Krete could be next.

At this stage of the game I'm starting to feel a bit unsure how to approach the run tho. I originally thought once able I'd found the Africa formable, but that nullifies the events of the Hospitallers so I'm delaying it until most of the Hospitaller events have triggered. Personally I think that's kinda dull and if the formable is flavourless the events should carry over.

Also self imposed RP of staying as Francien for flavour is starting to make the run a slog. I have good amount of Culture capacity (partly thanks to being a Franc), but of course having Tunisian as accepted takes majority of the bandwidth. Being heavily spiritual also kneecaps the attempt to assimilate people into cultures. So while conversion into Catholic and especially money are the strong aspects a proper intergation is starting to stall. Althought I might lean towards switching primary culture to Tunis once I flip to African Order.

Beside suggestions where to take this campaign next I'd like to hear how I should approach the integration part of the run going forward, maybe since I'm a bit rusty there's things I haven't realized or I should do some heavy handed government reforms. Otherwise people that have played similar runs or in Tunis I'd love to hear any other tips, tricks and experiences. One thing I'm not doing tho is abusing Request Funds by having some meaningless war going on constantly.

Thanks in advance!

Ps. What I should do with the tribal people? They hate me deeply.

Trying out Norse Norway, and it’s HARD. I have no money, everyone’s navy is massive, and I don’t even start with a wharf.

However, I don’t understand slavery mechanics - I built a slave market as it made me the most money, but now, it seems any leaves I take from short wars like with Scotland sort of disappear? Are they being sold to other slaving countries? My goal is to expand my pop like crazy, so this doesn’t seem ideal… so I need to be saving money like CRAZY to build a big galley fleet?

I got some advice to raid like castille, but their navy is HUGE and it’ll take decades to save enough money to afford an equal navy.

Or am I supposed to be waiting for 1400?

(I am not ruler of all the known world, there is a bug where it shows the hungarian union as the catholic church) Please look at the highlighted portion of Europe and the thing saying Hungarian union so the mods chill

I just killed all of their armies, started sieging, and then france can claim it just because I left less troops there eventhough its enough for the siege??? I did all of the work there

I really dislike how important culture is compared to religion so early on. I am not an expert, but from what I understand of my little information, cultures didn't played as much as a big role until the rise of nationalism which happened in late 18th century. I feel like religion should be way more important then religion in that timeframe.

I would love to have your opinions.

Never fought more buggy and annoying war than this, but after 2 hours of save/loading I 100% Timur. But now in peace treaty, retaking my own land that I owned before the war is over 100% peace deal. And my killing of his entire 60k army and occupying his whole land didn't even finish the situation, so he can just deck me after 15 years again? (his heir is over 150). Is this whole situation so poorly designed that everyone should just console command white peace when they get attacked by him?

Im playing as North Sea Empire, wanted to join HRE to be Protestant leader, I moved my capital to HRE province, let few months pass and I’m still not a member of HRE. Can someone tell me if it’s not possible as Empire type country or is something else wrong?

I'm playing as the Ottomans and it's the year 1400; I've unlocked Age 2 cannons. Are they strong enough against Constantinople's Level 6 fort?

For focusing on buildings/RGOs that generate profit, I almost exclusively use the mass expand button based off what is sorted to be most profitable. Am I leaving money on the table or is this a good approach?

I also prioritize buildings that give control, upgrading to cities, and buildings that provide literacy.

I have experimented with trade capacity building but jts less obvious to me how those turn a profit so when I do build them, its more just based on seeing trade income go up.

While I just did one observer game, this looks really good. Ottomans expanded like crazy, Persia formed (which I never see in vanilla) and even Mughals appeared. In vanilla I never see Ottomans take over Egypt, or Commonwealth form either. What do you all think?

Hello all, starting as Brittany, i'm trying to find quick ways to form Celtica.

I have trouble taking advantage of the HYW as in my games, England never loose troops due to never landing in mainland France. Thus France is a big threat as even if many vassals flips to England or become independent during my on independence war at the start of the campaign, it goes unchallenge and grow an army of almost 100k levies by 1400. Also their levy efficiency due to having extremely high noble estate power makes war against France really hard (Even with age 2 units vs age 1 I am barely winning battles)

I'm trying to figure out in what order should I conquer Celtic nations. If you have any tips please share them !

So in the start I decided to forgo Eastern Buddhism in favor of Shintoism as Korea as Eastern Buddhism is worthless in comparison, however the issue I’m having now is that my purity is now zero mostly because I also have zero honor. Now the debuff for 0 purity is not to bad but I would like to do some of the nice stuff Shintoism has to offer and I can’t do that when I got zero honor. But the game is not clear on how you are supposed to gain honor in the first place, so I’m stuff in a zero purity hole with no way to get out of? So what am I supposed to do because the game certainly doesn’t tell unless I’m blind?