EU4 - 5 Mistakes Beginners Make [2019]

Have you just started playing Europa Universalis 4 and wondered what you are doing wrong? Maybe you've got 100 hours in but can't make Ulm into a world power. We've created a short & easy guide to the five mistakes you might be making. 🏰

- Understanding force limit
- What to do with rebels
- Dealing with diplomats
- Managing aggressive expansion
- To use forts or not to use forts
If you have any more advice, let us know in the comments below! 👇

(We organise Europa Universalis and Crusader Kings 2 Holy Fury patch multiplayer games!)

[Chironex_Fleckeri]

A 2 second intro? Jesus Christ be praised.

[LordVelari]

Love that you're showing Trebizond. Trebizond was my first EU4 game ever!

[TheTadek]

When I first played EU4, I knew nothing about fabricating claims. Do yeah, -2 stability each 10 years.

[aegis]

i came from CK2 and thought the coalition was some kind of thing like a defensive pact. well i was wrong when some irrelevant small nation declared some shitty war on my and the whole of Europe joined in. Luckily i was able to get peice by offering some territory from my allies :)

[KittJT]

Best time I had with aggressive expansion was ladt night. I was gunning for the Big Blue Blob achievement, and I was on about my 20th attempt. In 20 attempts, I never got the burgundian inheritance, charles always got an heir. Anyway, peaced out my last war I needed for 100 provinces around 1490, but it triggered a ton of AE. Coalition forms so rapidly that it fires, half the HRE declare on me, but then another coalition starts forming immediately, which subsequently declares. Fighting off 2 monster coalitions as a depleted france trying to keep my new provinces unoccupied so the cores complete.

Ended up busting both coalitions, and my final core completing around 1495. 10/10 for fun, but never doing that again.

[zakaryloreto]

Wow thank you I suffered from all of these except the last one and now I’ll player better

[rubenvanbelzen]

About that harsh treatment: sometimes, during long wars, it can really help. During the religious league war, I had Sunni zealots almost spawning in Constantinople(I was playing as Austria) and my troops were all needed at the frontline. Because I harsh treated the rebels, they didn’t rise up I could set my focus on the massive war I was fighting

[omperial]

I find this useful, one tip I disagree on however is force limit, it should be noted that going over makes armies more expensive (by an increased %) to maintain so going over that is risk vs reward based

[ik]

Talking about forts:
Forts are useful when you've got huge country at your hands - it's more productive to leave AI troops pummeling forts, rather than running around an empty country after them, so they don't shatter into 2k and tank your economy. Well placed forts are a godsend. Though I always keep them on mothballed, and activate them only at war.

[ayenul]

I don’t know if you have plans of uploading again but I liked this vid. You get into the topic immediately and I like that

[FatheredPuma]

When I was a new player I actually did none of these lol. I was just really bad at fighting the AI. I mean I found Byzantium to be a difficult start lol. Although I also watched around 50 hours of YouTube videos before playing my first game.
Watching my friend play (before he decided he hated the game) though I think a huge mistake is thinking it's fine to take on literal constant loans while at peace and ignoring your force limit all together.

[onehillyboi]

My first ever game I played as England. I freaked out when the War of the Roses started and they had more rebels than I had troops. Then I was beaten by France and Scotland (I only had London and Cornwall of all places). I stopped playing for nearly 2 years before my friend (who has over 1500 hours in the game) retaught me how to play properly. Also I made my first mistake as Castille against Grenada, I declared War without a cassi bell and got smashed by Morocco and other Islamic nations

[SeisoYabai]

This video is broken for me, so weird. Wont load past 10 seconds, and only audio, no video.

[yannick]

just wanted to say your dialect sounds so nice

[pete-ip]

I am an absolute beginner but today I had a decent game with Sweden, I managed to conquer almost all of Norway and 2 provinces from Denmark, I was preparing a war against Novgorod but then Muscovy attacked them first and somehow took almost all of the country in the most brutal AI war I've seen, then the Muscovites fucked my ass.

[REAL-UNKNOWN-SHINOBI]

The one major major mistake beginners can make is getting expansion ideas, the moment you do that every new piece of land because of account is freaking colony but I don't want that's not realistic at all.

In real life you can forbid colonies from actually joining up and becoming a nation in this game you can't unless you have to accept the max value to 100 from 75 and that fixes it supposingly

[oltajt.]

That helped me A LOT, thank you, for real

[youtuberobbedmeofmyname]

If you played EU4 for more than 50 hours and still make these mistakes, you won't make it. I've played multiplayer a lot and I've seen tons of people quit because they're so frustrated and don't know why they suck so bad.
My best advice is get someone to teach you the game from Hour 0. Or watch someone play the game on a stream first.
This is not Civilization where you have turns and are allowed to do everything at any time. EU4 takes planning, experience (knowing what buttons do what, where to find the buttons you need), and you must follow certain guidelines so you won't sink your country immediately.
EU4 gives you the freedom to play as good or as bad as you want.
Because the game gives you so much freedom to make as many terrible decisions as you want, you have to power through a lot of bad play throughs as a beginner before you will come to see what the game is really about.

[candemirayak]

Hey, i just found this channel and i really like your videos, are you still active?

[Maurdm]

I didnt Know where to see my Force limit so i used to just build up my military until i had almost no extra mony a month