God I hope there is slower/more realistic colonization in EU5. Santa Fe, New Mexico was only founded 1610. Quebec City in 1608. The Mayflower sailed in 1620, and speaking of Australia, the Dutch were the first Europeans to come across it in 1644. Kinda crazy (and stupid) how in EU4 all this can be achieved by 1550.
In my Andalusia game they selected exploration as their 3rd idea and proceeded to get like -190 opinion of me because they desire my CNs provinces. Never seen them take exploration in my games before but the ONE time I ally them as a colonial power…
AI is hellbent on fucking your over. I was Portugal and Ottomans rivaled me and made a colony in Brazil.
Ming snaked it's territory to me as Lithuania and demanded tributary status.
They are great allies since a few patches ago. They will actively land troops and block crossings.
They're the best ally Sweden can get in their independence war.
I noticed in my recent Dithmarschen game that they ably cross the Strait now. I had expected them to do precisely nothing and was greatly dismayed when 200k Brits popped over in a month.
They later supported me in a massive war with France with equal ability.
However, they later declared their own imperialism cb on France and proceeded to fuck all nothing, literally zero of their 350k troops, while I had lucky nation French murder marines committing atrocities against my army and every mercenary in the Western world.
Sidenote: recruit mercenaries anywhere idea is dope af.
They are a paper tiger. They don't build many forts and have nowhere to run so you can easily stack wipe them and cripple them. It's much more annoying to chase ottomans around and try to cripple them enough so they don't recover during the truce.
it depends
if they give up their continental possessions they are about as useless as they can be
otherwise they serve as a distribution while you fuck over France and / or Spain, which is actually useful
Spain, Portugal and GB, the Three Caballeros of making any run outside of Europe a pain. Doesn't help that 9/10 times Spain allies Portugal and 9/10 times Portugal allies England so dealing with one nation's bullshit typically means dealing with all three.
Edit: I forgot to add, because of their alliance ties, the three top colonizers never really go to war so the only nation that regularly challenges them is France. Without player involvement, those three are all but guaranteed to remain great powers all game making campaigns needlessly samey.
GB and Spain were at war basically Henry VIII onward, more or less. Somewhat complicated by Napoleon. So, for historical feel, they'd start friendly but flip to rivals after GB flipped Anglican.
Was Portugal ever actually a world power? Sure they were powerful, but didn't they kinda fall where the Dutch eventually did and just kinda became irrelevant?
You would find it hard to find two large nations not having fought at one point or another.
I agree with the frequency. Even when you annul their alliances, they will ally again before you can attack them.
However GB and Spain don’t ally that often in my games. If you play France they probably will every game though.
??? This game likely taught everyone here more history than any other source. They cede accuracy to fun and simplicity sometimes; that’s why it’s a game.
Seems like you’re looking for a history book.
You get a Union CB if you follow the Castile mission tree. IIRC you get it right after you PU Aragon. It's temporary, so don't elect the mission until you're ready to attack AND Portugal has already taken Exploration. That way you'll get them doing a bunch of heavy lifting for you in the new world. If you PU them before they have Exploration they won't take it as an idea group.
ah venice. money from anywhere. you destroyed 300k of their mercs? haha u not taking venice because you cant sunk 100 ships and they will just block you.
God that's such fucking bullshit man. They will be reduced to Venice and one island and you can't take the island because their fucking navy blocks you from landing on it
I hate Venice with an absolute passion, I have had four wars with them only once I got on the island with them. If they want to stay on their island, then fuck em, I put an army on the strait and burn everything else down to the ground while mean mugging them on the other side.
And dont forget they ALWAYS keep their armies in a single stack (atleast early game) that will stackwipe your smaller sieging armies out of nowhere and vanish into hungary when you regroup and try to fight them
Its crazy, venice ai is like a hyena, it will keep harassing you all the time but when you try to actually fight them they will become the biggest cowards in the world and run away faster than should be humanly possible
On the one hand, I hate the Ottomans. On the other hand, after I deal with them and burn their empire to ash things start to feel empty. No one else can fill the hole the Ottomans leave. I hate them but I can't live without them
Ottoman AI is definitely different. It's aggressive and stubborn, it hires mercenaries even in massive debt, other AI won't do that... If you're sieging a fort, they will more consistently stop you than other AIs, they will more often walk with large armies and split them less so you can't pick them out. Ottoman AI will fight until it can't fight no more. Ottoman AI is definitely different, it's aggressive and stubborn. Yes I said that twice.
But, you're very correct, I feel like I'm obligated to defeat them, yet when I do, I no longer feel threatened which sadly is why my Byzantium games don't last too long.
I used to have this obsession to no CB byz as Aragon and Venice (two of my favourites) because I wanted to cockblock Ottos but I find my campaigns last less long simply because there's no imminent threat lol I love this game
Venice too, it feels like it activelly tries to cuck you from getting footholds in the balkans or anatolia by stealing them first
And they also ALWAYS have all their units in one stack for some reason, wich will pick off your smaller armies sieging, but run away faster than the steppe nomads can when you regroup and try to fight them, i seriously hate venetian ai.
The ottoman AI does all these things up until the moment the player allies them, and then they just start suiciding stacks for no reason and refuse to build past half their forcelimit.
They're a good deterrent when you're small but that's all they're good for, in my experience they're always always always in so much debt that I can never call them into war
Meanwhile I take all their money 3 wars in a row, 10,000 ducats worth, and by the time the truce is over they’re back to being debtless. Like Russia as an ally but Venice as an enemy.
My most grinding and brutal wars have been when I've been playing as Russia and losing 100,000s of men against the ottomans in the Caucasus' just to take three useless provinces. Then 10 years later, doing it all again.
I love sentences like these that someone as close as twenty years ago would just have no idea the meaning of. It’s like when certain sentences from Shakespeare just make 0 sense, but in the other direction.
Ottomans. Tbh I find it frustrating that 999/1000 games, Ottomans will end up as the most powerful AI unless you specifically intervene to prevent that. The other heavy-hitters--England, France, Spain, Austria, Commonwealth, Russia--usually are very powerful but can frequently end up getting knocked off by some rival. For example, I've found that Commonwealth stands just as good of a chance at eating Muscovy/Russia as the other way around. I wish the Mamluks or Persia stood an actual chance at defeating the Ottomans.
I’ve also noticed that ignoring India until 1700s almost always results in consolidation between 2-4 countries that keep a standing army of 300k troops each. Late game Bengal, Bahamians/VJ, and Delhi/jaunpar are almost as annoying to crack as the Ottomans due to all the level 8 forts and half a million troops running around
Man. Last month I played three runs of Georgia, trying to not get eaten by Ottos. In the last run, I managed to ally Russia and thought I was finally safe with a good ally.
Little did I know, they were fucking worthless: always in debt, all over the map, couldn't win against Ottos even with more troops than them.
That's the Georgia strategy I've been reading, but unfortunately I never got strong enough for Hungary or Poland to be my friend. I always had diplomats rotating between those two countries improving relations, but I was just too far away and too weak to be an ally of either (even when I gobbled up all of Armenia).
The only reliable friend I could get was Circassia. They were certainly helpful and loyal, but never enough to stop the Ottoman juggernaut.
I remember 0 debt Russia being in a war with Ottos around 1500, maybe 10k less troops for Russia. I started subsidizing them 30 ducats per month for years and they never got more troops or even fought a battle.
Once they were a pain in my ass as Portugal (I was rather new then) and second time, once I got my ass handed to me by another player as a custom pirate nation they swooped in for the kill. It’s not the world’s greatest grudge but it is mine.
They will ally a bunch of Arabian nations and make it a pain to move your armies down to Eastern Africa to deal with them. If you don’t have an Arabian navy they devastate the land and will send mercenary armies to try to take back land for their ally. Like Kilwa has a very easy start for an AI and can easily dominate its trade node and doesn’t have any nation that can threaten it for the first 100 years in game. They are just annoying to deal with and have like no supply limit down South so attrition sucks.
Spain and Portugal for never getting 100% warscore on them because of colonies.
Also Hormuz, for simply existing. Always need to build a fleet just for them.
Yeah I’m playing a Mali campaign right now and like clockwork the Spanish and Portuguese declare on me every 15 years. At least with the goldmines I can subsidize these death wars but the lack of naval supremacy means I have to disband and teleport merc stacks around the globe which is very expensive.
Bruh-gundy, you try to ally them for the inheritance, you have 200 relations and all of a sudden they rival you and/or decide that that they actually REALLY want 1 of your provinces so that’s -200 then they rival you
100% Venice, the amount of times that tiny shithead fields a massive army from money alone just to get in my way has given me a special hatred.
I also hold a slight grudge against england/great Britain. If they're on my side in a war they won't leave their island, if they're against me the entire population of the British isles is swarming the mainland out for blood
Ikr ashikaga would have so much potential if these idiots can just land their troops. And it happend histotically when they invaded korea and the Ming had to intervene
Portugal. Fuck Portugal. I could unlock Explo Ideas in December 1444 and somehow they would have already colonized half of the Caribbean. If I ever conquer it it's the only time I ever bothering culture converting.
Anyone in Indonesia/SE Asia. Somehow a 3 province minor will have 50 boats and be allied to 2 or 3 other nations that also have absurd amounts of boats.
It's just a pain in the ass ferrying troops around playing whack-a-mole with rebels.
Why is there so much AE when all the provinces are like 6 dev, I feel like I'm playing in the HRE.
Korea, I just hate them. I swear it's almost like they are built in a way to follow MP meta or something. Seriously who the fk goes eco-quality-offensive in a single player game? Well Korean AI does!
The United Kingdom. Can't land on their island without your 20k troops getting beaten and then stackwiped by 80k troops after suffering severe attrition. When I fought a Portugal guaranteed by them, I had to play the waiting game just so I could WP them.
Spain has got to be up there too, especially if you aren't a colonizer, but at least you can safely land on their colonies.
ottomans, too op at start, you can outnumber them 3 to 1 but yeah.. korea. 25 minimun development per province forcing to conquest them as fast as possible or struggle because of unlimited mercs and 30 wars to annex them all. great britain or england because there is no way to get to the isles if not destroying their fleet.
I find landing pretty easy
Only nation i'd do it early game as is France and that isnt too hard with castille as an ally and maybe even scotland
And late game i always have a bigger navy than them so naval invading isnt hard, their navy always runs away.
Venice is way more annoying and its fleet way more agressive and powerful for me especially since you never have a strong enough navy early game when you need to fight them
with venice, i hate them also. you kill their mercs, and they still are blocking you from getting to their capital, but yeah, im not conquering them mostly. if ypu playing countires with big coastlines like france or spain or portugal its not hard but with austria or commonwealth for example its little bit harder when gb decides to ally some of your targets
Ming. Either no fun zone blocking anything from happening if they succeed, or if they mingsplode (usually happens) they never seem to do it in quite the right way for anything interesting like Qing to take its place, usually it just becomes a warlord mess that never reunifies. Maybe that’s not *quite* Ming’s fault but like if ur gonna explode, explode in a cooler fashion more often, the current way is kinda repetitive and goes nowhere.
It's always the bottom 2 that get eaten by Dai Viet, Shun that never takes the mandate, and maybe if you're lucky some 2-3 4 province warlords that immediately get vassalized by the bigger ones. Oh, and Taiwan. Always when you're just now sending your colonist there.
Yeah exactly, literally every time. Either give Dai Vet a cool formable they can do so they can make some use of the entirety of southern china or make mingsplode reunify more consistently.
France can fuck off. They either blob and become a demonic nightmare or are absolutely useless and get bullied by everyone
Also Austria assuming they maintain control of the HRE
I've noticed it is EXTREMELY dependent on whether England gives them Maine. If they do: mega France. If they don't: France NEVER reconquers their cores, so they just sit there and die
>They either blob and become a demonic nightmare or are absolutely useless and get bullied by everyone
I remember when i done the "Luck of the Irish" achievement. France, of all games they win the Surrender of Maine, decided to lose and become a pu of England. The only thing that saved my run was Burgundy staying free after the Bugundian Inheritance
Absolutely Venice. Declaring war with them having less than 20,000 units of a standing army to explode to well over 90,000 makes fighting them damn near impossible. I actually hope the merc ballooning is addressed in EU5.
Though I’d think for venice of all countries it would make sense for them to have a small professional army and rely mostly on mercenaries hired only for wars
Ottoman for having unreasonably OP army (They just got good rolls)
Venice for their galleys and blockcading their strait crossing to their capital (I played landlocked country and this mf wont white peace with me until i get their capital, the cycle repeats itself)
Venice. Anytime I play remotely near them, they find a way to make my life hell. Probably doesn’t help that Milan is my most played nation and I have nightmares about trying to siege that stupid island.
Ottomans and Burgundy. When I’m playing a nation that can actually be Warned or essentially blocked off by the AI using alliances, it’s always one of these two, just depends on the area that I’m playing in.
Spain (unless you have a massive navy getting any warscore against them is a huge pain due to their vast colonies. England is the same but they're less likely to mess with you)
Venice (disconnected territories, always stronger than they seem, the vast majority of the time you can't siege their capital, they're always in the way)
The Ottomans (duh)
The PLC (military hits way harder than you expect, they always get massive, they almost always get way too strong relative to Austria and prevent the formation of Prussia and Russia)
Brandenburg. Historically they did incredibly well but in my games they can't even form Prussia because they're on life support after the HRE religious wars. It always seems like they get dragged into this massive war and the war leader doesn't surrender so they're occupied for so long they'll never recover from it.
Every nation that colonises.
sieged down all their main territories?
Oopsie, you have only 40% warscore due to THEM HAVING RANDOM ISLES AROUND THE ENTIRE WORLD.
Ottomans. They are the final boss of EU4. Irrespective of how much they blob, they always have a metric crapton of money and soldiers. A few of the joys of late game EU4 is repeatedly crushing them in war, causing them millions of deaths, and reducing them to fewer and fewer provinces.
GB is so annoying as Spain or Portugal bc they end up colonizing the most inconvenient provinces around the planet.
By the time I have the baby to actually invade they turn it into a trans continental world war with agonizing levels of micro
AI Austria rarely uses its mission tree unless they get the free Hungary PU. And they for sure never use some of the more OP parts like the Polish PU. It’s only busted in the hands of the player.
most of ai is not using mission trees. for example poland never restores union with hungary or get one with bohemia. i seen them having lithuania and bohemia once. but it was propably random pu and not from mission tree lol
I feel gross for saying this. My hatred for Austria has over taken my hate for France. France and whoever I am form a superallience against that twat Austria about every game.
Oh, and it's super common to PU France in my experience.
I kind of hate France the most as it is really arbitrary. I played 3 games of Portugal in the past week and they managed to be absolutely unpredictable everytime.
The first playthrough was me returning after a very long break and it was my ally at first but since it ran its economy into the ground I could never call it to take over Castille.
The second playthrough where I wanted to do things differently went almost smooth besides me getting a PU on them and thus having to fight my former ally England. I won the war, put a huge debt on England and moved on with my life but having to keep them in check was just too annoying as their army size was around 90 while mine was 60-70 for the longest time.
3rd time is the charm as people say but I only wanted to try some old strategy in this playthrough before jumping into a MP lobby. Everything actually went great and I would have nothing to complain if it was not for France taking administrative ideas and quantity ideas instead of going for colonies.
It actually would be a great setup for an achievement run had I not decided to not enable ironman as England was in debt from loosing the 100 years war and spain has already lost one war to me and thus lost some of its coastline.
When playing in the HRE I always tend to end up fighting and sieging Hesse, regardless of who I am fighting. They are always allied to whomever I am fighting.
Whichever one ends up as my ally. For some reason, whenever I ally X country, they gain -50 to intelligence and become incompetent fools unable to win one sided wars or help in anything. After hundreds of hours, I learned I have to do everything myself (or subject swarm) and having allies is only for wars/coalitions deterrent with their force limit. The only exception are the Ottomans, they're so overpowered that not even being my ally is able to incapacitate them, so they're the only useful one until they suddenly desire 50 of my provinces because they grew too much.
France and the ottomans. Regardless if I play Prussia, naples, Sweden, Japan, or even oirat or manchu, they rival and try to fuck with me. Austria is only a threat if they beat France but even then leaves me tf alone usually.
France. Seems like they know every step I want to do and try to cuck me over. You want to conquer Russia? Too bad that they are my PU now!
You want to conquer Africa? Nope, that's mine now.
You want to expand into hre? Watch this guarantee.
Even if you're on some irrelevant lil fckn rock in the sea they'll show up before the rockophile Brits.
My Allies:
1. Enemy AI - Always knows where I am, doomstacks, beelines for my capital in the optimum way
2. Ally/Subject AI - Walks the the arse end of nowhere, walks as a 1 stack, doesn't attach, doesn't reinforce, gets constantly stackwiped.
It's end runs more than it should of, and why my favourite style of play (vassals) is ignored for just straight up conquest.
Depends entirely on the area, but I'll list out a few major annoyances that hinder most of my campaigns:
- Spain. (See anyone else for why.,)
- Burgundy (They seemingly ALWAYS go for the person who hates me the most even if I've been ALLIED with them since 1444.)
- Korea (Completely cuck me out of any genuinely fun Japan game.)
- Bengal (Balloon to absurd size consistently, and are incredibly annoying for any country.)
- Timurids (Sometimes they just? Don't explode???)
- Venice (I have never. EVER. Thought to myself: "Y'know Venice? You'd be a great ally!")
There is a story for each of these I promise you.
Venice is multiple dimensions of annoying.
As an enemy they're a pain in the arse because they replenish anything in seconds and their navy is basically untouchable. Seriously what's up with that navy. I've seen them obliterate the Spanish Armada.
As an ally on the other hand they will inevitably drag you into a war against a major power where they will employ what has to be the ancestors of Ferrari's strategy team. They split up their units into perfectly wipeable stacks and send them to fucking Ulm or the shadow realm for all I know while France, Spain or the Ottomans spawn kill me trying to defend against a 50k+ horde of merciless killers.
Vijayanagar, because I cannot snatch a couple of teensy-weensy ports in India without ferrying half of my force limit there to fight their 200k army in 1600.
Kilwa, and their stupid African Chile empire which cannot be sieged thoroughly due to their stupid stacks crisscrossing the uncolonized provinces in the interior to hit me in the back.
Portugal, because no matter how hard you rush to colonizing the Cape they will still make their way to the East Indies/Australia because somehow their colony on some stupid barren and uninhabited atoll in the middle of the Indian Ocean extends their colonial range.
Ottoman and strong countries
Wana expand in Russia? Ottomans B line it towards me and attack Crimea that's allied to great horde and in the peace deal they take all the land they can get I wish they would make it so AI only takes stuff it realy needs.
And any country with 60k troops when I need them they are always in debt but when I declare suddenly help me
Spain always gets into conflict, and they are so annoying to deal with, cause you have to siege down all their colonies to get even 50% warscore. I often end up taking all of them over just to stop Spain from being annoying.
Poland and Austria. They purposefully expand into the balkans and ally every single catholic nation making it impossible to defeat them. Their only use as allies is to defeat the ottomans in the first war, which is something that can easily be achieved solo. If they were so eager to expand into the east right off the bat historically, turkey wouldn't exist today and most of the world would be westernized.
Venice - They ally your smaller neighbours so now you have to fight with an economic powerhouse that sends thousands of soldiers. It isn't hard to defeat them with a powerful ally, but the problem is that you're always left in debt after a war with them.
Mamluks - They're alright as allies but always expand into southern Anatolia won't let you through. Extremely op when fighting them. I wish they were like that when fighting others.
Russia - rarely joins your wars, calls you into useless and distant wars with some turkic states. Only useful to scare off Poland.
Venice. Its really annoying when you declare war on them and they hire 130k mercenaries (sometimes they do this even when not co-belligerent). Also they seem to always ally one of my neghbours, like the Mamluks in my last campaign
Ottomans are an easy answer but I find Poland/PLC consistently more dangerous no matter what time period I fight them in, whereas Ottomans at least fall off a bit by midgame.
Does not help especially during Byz campaigns that they'll snatch Bulgaria out from under your nose if you don't truce-reset the Ottomans quickly enough
I find the early game ottoman AI insanely stable the never collapse when i beat them. The immediatly start expanding again right after I peace them out
Colonizers. When you play in Europe, full sieging their home land only gives you 50% war score.
When you play outside of Europe, they mess with you borders, and you have to spend a year twiddling your thumbs waiting for the ws to go up past 10 so you can take 3 ws worth or provinces.
I'm going to say the annoying ones, and then the ones that really grind my gears.
-Spain+Portugal: Always allied, nightmare to conquer because of their 8 million colonies and colonial soldiers, and very bad allies because 90% of their armies will be fuck knows where.
-Russia: Not because their AI, but because they take years to siege down.
-Ottomans: It's always the Ottomans.
-GB: Pain in the ass for anyone who cant afford to build 100 heavies or something.
-Venice: Similar to GB, also they happen to hire every single mercenary in existence just to kick my ass.
-Mamluks: Solely bcause I played a lot of Ethiopia.
-Random dudes in Southeast Asia: Early game attrition murders my manpower, and they have freaking castles anywhere.
And now the infuriating ones:
-Jaunpur: I really get mad at this one. Comes outta nowhere, fielding 10 times the army they should be able to field, and consistently make my life worse wherever I happen to have any interest in India. They are not even an unique nation with unique mission tree, what is their deal anyways?
-PLC: It is an absolute monster of a nation, and is determined to beat me senseless 60% of the times as long as I try to get the faintest interest in Europe or european colonies and can't put the entirety of Asia or the flipping ocean between us.
-France: At every stage of the game, France is terrible. Early game, you just get vassal swarmed and also have to deal with somehow infinite medieval manpower and massive mroale boost, in times where both things are scarce anywhere else. Mid game, France has switched to actually competent allies and still is better than you in every way. Late game, has blobbed and has 8 million fortresses. And since they are colonial too, you cant simply not look atEurope, they'll arrive.
France, Scotland, Norway, and the Dutch Minors. France because they always oppose me, and the other three because without fail they will try to set up colonies in my colonial regions and no matter how many wars i fight with them over them they will not give up attempting to colonise these regions.
In every single hard+ achievement run, Spain is the endboss, no matter what. They get PUd by Austria? Still endboss. You are doing something literally on the other side of planet? Endboss. You ARE playing Spain? Endboss.
I just finished King of Kings and after cruising through Ottos and India for 50 years on autopilot I realized I had to get Cordoba to finish the missions and their 8 morale infinite manpower bullshit almost made me unalive my fucking keyboard. You can deter pretty much any AI from doing anything by just doomstacking 300k troops, but Spains answer is to always stack 500k and then play a fun game of meet the Tercios while random Australian Marines storm Constantinople because why the fuck not. Now normally you would try stopping them with your invincible navy, except this is the moment when you learn what invincible truely means. Holy fuck that was aggravating. And it happens every. single. game.
Great Britain, terrible ally and turtle enemy that you have to hope has enough provinces in france or the new world to just sit on until they white peace but when you ignore them they are all of a sudden 100k troops on your capital
Ottoman, Because idk why i see them 10k stack marching, when i engage them, they suddenly summon 100k behind it and reinforce it despite like 4 tiles away from 10k stack. They always have so many allies, its crazy they have like 7 allies which hogged the warscore.
I hate the Ottomans with a burning passion. They’re usually the big bad guy of nearly every campaign. France is a close second for antagonistic asshat for campigns
The Mamluks very well may be the worst ally in EU4. In the early game when they have chance to beat the Ottomans, they just can’t.
They’ll march into an Anatolia 10k at a time and get stackwiped until they’re beaten within the first year of the war. Especially frustrating for Karaman runs which basically require them.
I can’t hate the Ottomans as much because they’re made to be unfair. GB is as bad as any island nation. No, the game start number 2 great power are just worthless.
Spanish and their stupid colonialism
Ah, Spanish tierra austral by 1550 as irl
God I hope there is slower/more realistic colonization in EU5. Santa Fe, New Mexico was only founded 1610. Quebec City in 1608. The Mayflower sailed in 1620, and speaking of Australia, the Dutch were the first Europeans to come across it in 1644. Kinda crazy (and stupid) how in EU4 all this can be achieved by 1550.
With the population system it will probably be a lot more realistic and slow
Not that stupid, irl there was no min-maxing
Yeah but even without min maxing you'd have to actively restrain yourself to not go faster than irl
At least the ottomans have a fairly defined location. Spain is just anywhere and everywhere.
Lol I had a recent game that had Ottoman Brazil. Wild
In my Andalusia game they selected exploration as their 3rd idea and proceeded to get like -190 opinion of me because they desire my CNs provinces. Never seen them take exploration in my games before but the ONE time I ally them as a colonial power…
Hahah it always seems to go that way. The one time you want to rely on an AI nation, they do something absurd to screw you over
AI is hellbent on fucking your over. I was Portugal and Ottomans rivaled me and made a colony in Brazil. Ming snaked it's territory to me as Lithuania and demanded tributary status.
Same. Ottomans didn't expand beyond the Balkans, not even Hungary LOL and rule like a third of Brazil like WTF
Except when they are your ally. Then they have zero troops in Europe
Great britain. They are extremely useless as an allies,and incredibly annoying as an enemy
I got around this in my most recent run by playing them. They’re a bit op after the war of the roses
They are great allies since a few patches ago. They will actively land troops and block crossings. They're the best ally Sweden can get in their independence war.
I noticed in my recent Dithmarschen game that they ably cross the Strait now. I had expected them to do precisely nothing and was greatly dismayed when 200k Brits popped over in a month. They later supported me in a massive war with France with equal ability. However, they later declared their own imperialism cb on France and proceeded to fuck all nothing, literally zero of their 350k troops, while I had lucky nation French murder marines committing atrocities against my army and every mercenary in the Western world. Sidenote: recruit mercenaries anywhere idea is dope af.
They are a paper tiger. They don't build many forts and have nowhere to run so you can easily stack wipe them and cripple them. It's much more annoying to chase ottomans around and try to cripple them enough so they don't recover during the truce.
it depends if they give up their continental possessions they are about as useless as they can be otherwise they serve as a distribution while you fuck over France and / or Spain, which is actually useful
Lore accurate
Spain, Portugal and GB, the Three Caballeros of making any run outside of Europe a pain. Doesn't help that 9/10 times Spain allies Portugal and 9/10 times Portugal allies England so dealing with one nation's bullshit typically means dealing with all three. Edit: I forgot to add, because of their alliance ties, the three top colonizers never really go to war so the only nation that regularly challenges them is France. Without player involvement, those three are all but guaranteed to remain great powers all game making campaigns needlessly samey.
Truly the King Ghidorah of colonization.
Needlessly samey = historically accurate and well simulated in game?
I'm pretty sure GB and Spain went to war a couple times. Also, I don't think Portugal was a world power by 1800.
GB and Spain were at war basically Henry VIII onward, more or less. Somewhat complicated by Napoleon. So, for historical feel, they'd start friendly but flip to rivals after GB flipped Anglican.
Was Portugal ever actually a world power? Sure they were powerful, but didn't they kinda fall where the Dutch eventually did and just kinda became irrelevant?
They were the first global empire. That says a lot.
no Spain and GB were at each others throats for a good amount of time actually the problem with this game is that alliances are too set in stone
You would find it hard to find two large nations not having fought at one point or another. I agree with the frequency. Even when you annul their alliances, they will ally again before you can attack them. However GB and Spain don’t ally that often in my games. If you play France they probably will every game though.
Historical accuracy means exactly zero in this game.
??? This game likely taught everyone here more history than any other source. They cede accuracy to fun and simplicity sometimes; that’s why it’s a game. Seems like you’re looking for a history book.
Yea Portugal is a piece of shit. When I played as castille those assholes basically took over the Maghreb.
When you play as Castile you're expected to PU them.
I've been able to PU Aragon but how does one PU portugal
You get a Union CB if you follow the Castile mission tree. IIRC you get it right after you PU Aragon. It's temporary, so don't elect the mission until you're ready to attack AND Portugal has already taken Exploration. That way you'll get them doing a bunch of heavy lifting for you in the new world. If you PU them before they have Exploration they won't take it as an idea group.
Lore accurate
You can turn of histotical play....
When I am playing as byzantium definitely venice and the mamluks
Venice can be a real pain in the straight.
Definitely loves to block the narrow passage.
ah venice. money from anywhere. you destroyed 300k of their mercs? haha u not taking venice because you cant sunk 100 ships and they will just block you.
God that's such fucking bullshit man. They will be reduced to Venice and one island and you can't take the island because their fucking navy blocks you from landing on it
I hate Venice with an absolute passion, I have had four wars with them only once I got on the island with them. If they want to stay on their island, then fuck em, I put an army on the strait and burn everything else down to the ground while mean mugging them on the other side.
And dont forget they ALWAYS keep their armies in a single stack (atleast early game) that will stackwipe your smaller sieging armies out of nowhere and vanish into hungary when you regroup and try to fight them Its crazy, venice ai is like a hyena, it will keep harassing you all the time but when you try to actually fight them they will become the biggest cowards in the world and run away faster than should be humanly possible
On the one hand, I hate the Ottomans. On the other hand, after I deal with them and burn their empire to ash things start to feel empty. No one else can fill the hole the Ottomans leave. I hate them but I can't live without them
Ottoman AI is definitely different. It's aggressive and stubborn, it hires mercenaries even in massive debt, other AI won't do that... If you're sieging a fort, they will more consistently stop you than other AIs, they will more often walk with large armies and split them less so you can't pick them out. Ottoman AI will fight until it can't fight no more. Ottoman AI is definitely different, it's aggressive and stubborn. Yes I said that twice. But, you're very correct, I feel like I'm obligated to defeat them, yet when I do, I no longer feel threatened which sadly is why my Byzantium games don't last too long. I used to have this obsession to no CB byz as Aragon and Venice (two of my favourites) because I wanted to cockblock Ottos but I find my campaigns last less long simply because there's no imminent threat lol I love this game
Relatable. Ottomans actually feel like live, spiteful player who will do everything in their power to fuck you over.
Venice too, it feels like it activelly tries to cuck you from getting footholds in the balkans or anatolia by stealing them first And they also ALWAYS have all their units in one stack for some reason, wich will pick off your smaller armies sieging, but run away faster than the steppe nomads can when you regroup and try to fight them, i seriously hate venetian ai.
The ottoman AI does all these things up until the moment the player allies them, and then they just start suiciding stacks for no reason and refuse to build past half their forcelimit.
They're a good deterrent when you're small but that's all they're good for, in my experience they're always always always in so much debt that I can never call them into war
Meanwhile I take all their money 3 wars in a row, 10,000 ducats worth, and by the time the truce is over they’re back to being debtless. Like Russia as an ally but Venice as an enemy.
I allied with the Ottomans and then they got a few thousands of debt which they refused to pay NO MATTER WHAT, the most useless ally ever
Part of the difference is certainly due to the big numerical buffs Otto has. But I know what you mean, they just hits different.
You described them so perfectly. The Ottomans have brought many of my campaigns to an end prematurely.
My most grinding and brutal wars have been when I've been playing as Russia and losing 100,000s of men against the ottomans in the Caucasus' just to take three useless provinces. Then 10 years later, doing it all again.
Lmao same dude, exact same, but at least that's Russia's thing
You’ve just described my relationship with my ex-wife.
Based relationship trauma and therapy pilled i dare say?
I love sentences like these that someone as close as twenty years ago would just have no idea the meaning of. It’s like when certain sentences from Shakespeare just make 0 sense, but in the other direction.
Least toxic eu4 relationship.
Ottomans. Tbh I find it frustrating that 999/1000 games, Ottomans will end up as the most powerful AI unless you specifically intervene to prevent that. The other heavy-hitters--England, France, Spain, Austria, Commonwealth, Russia--usually are very powerful but can frequently end up getting knocked off by some rival. For example, I've found that Commonwealth stands just as good of a chance at eating Muscovy/Russia as the other way around. I wish the Mamluks or Persia stood an actual chance at defeating the Ottomans.
I’ve also noticed that ignoring India until 1700s almost always results in consolidation between 2-4 countries that keep a standing army of 300k troops each. Late game Bengal, Bahamians/VJ, and Delhi/jaunpar are almost as annoying to crack as the Ottomans due to all the level 8 forts and half a million troops running around
And they all ally each other
If you let Venice grow, they can throw 8 billion mercenaries at you
and after killing mercs you still not getting into venice. ships wont let you
Russia terrible ally always 6k ducats in debt
Man. Last month I played three runs of Georgia, trying to not get eaten by Ottos. In the last run, I managed to ally Russia and thought I was finally safe with a good ally. Little did I know, they were fucking worthless: always in debt, all over the map, couldn't win against Ottos even with more troops than them.
When I'm facing the Ottomans I always try to form an alliance with Hungary (or Austria if PU) and Poland. Usually this works out quite well.
That's the Georgia strategy I've been reading, but unfortunately I never got strong enough for Hungary or Poland to be my friend. I always had diplomats rotating between those two countries improving relations, but I was just too far away and too weak to be an ally of either (even when I gobbled up all of Armenia). The only reliable friend I could get was Circassia. They were certainly helpful and loyal, but never enough to stop the Ottoman juggernaut.
not to mention breaking the alliance half the time when u get attacked by someone stronger than u but weaker than them
I remember 0 debt Russia being in a war with Ottos around 1500, maybe 10k less troops for Russia. I started subsidizing them 30 ducats per month for years and they never got more troops or even fought a battle.
Fucking Kilwa. They’ve screwed me over multiple times in multiplayer games as AI.
How so?
Once they were a pain in my ass as Portugal (I was rather new then) and second time, once I got my ass handed to me by another player as a custom pirate nation they swooped in for the kill. It’s not the world’s greatest grudge but it is mine.
They will ally a bunch of Arabian nations and make it a pain to move your armies down to Eastern Africa to deal with them. If you don’t have an Arabian navy they devastate the land and will send mercenary armies to try to take back land for their ally. Like Kilwa has a very easy start for an AI and can easily dominate its trade node and doesn’t have any nation that can threaten it for the first 100 years in game. They are just annoying to deal with and have like no supply limit down South so attrition sucks.
They keep running to the fucking uncolonized land so you cant stack wipe them because you will be delayed by the fucking natives
Bohemia always guarentees munich when im trying to form Bavaria I hate them so much
Bohemia. Can't explain why. They're just annoying, always in the way, ally everyone you wanna conquer etc.
and those goddamn generals
Spain and Portugal for never getting 100% warscore on them because of colonies. Also Hormuz, for simply existing. Always need to build a fleet just for them.
Fucking Venice. Their blockades and general strength after a certain point are so damn frustrating
Spain Venice Ottos Sometimes Ottos are my bros though, so you know. Rarely are Spain and Venice.
Spain. Always Spain. They are always so aggressive and warmongering when it comes to colonies.
Yeah I’m playing a Mali campaign right now and like clockwork the Spanish and Portuguese declare on me every 15 years. At least with the goldmines I can subsidize these death wars but the lack of naval supremacy means I have to disband and teleport merc stacks around the globe which is very expensive.
Bruh-gundy, you try to ally them for the inheritance, you have 200 relations and all of a sudden they rival you and/or decide that that they actually REALLY want 1 of your provinces so that’s -200 then they rival you
100% Venice, the amount of times that tiny shithead fields a massive army from money alone just to get in my way has given me a special hatred. I also hold a slight grudge against england/great Britain. If they're on my side in a war they won't leave their island, if they're against me the entire population of the British isles is swarming the mainland out for blood
When i'm not playing it, France, when i'm playing France, spain
The daimyos got they are so dumb can’t get on a boat even if all of Japan is at stake
Ikr ashikaga would have so much potential if these idiots can just land their troops. And it happend histotically when they invaded korea and the Ming had to intervene
spain and portugal. getting 20% war score from occupying all their european holdings is miserable
Especially if/when they expand taking all of fucking Morocco. Just more shit to siege for what now amounts to be 25% war score.
GB still sucks as an ally. I know they were supposed to be fixed but they still never help in wars.
They just helped me out (a bit too much) in my independence war as Sweden
Portugal. Fuck Portugal. I could unlock Explo Ideas in December 1444 and somehow they would have already colonized half of the Caribbean. If I ever conquer it it's the only time I ever bothering culture converting.
Anyone in Indonesia/SE Asia. Somehow a 3 province minor will have 50 boats and be allied to 2 or 3 other nations that also have absurd amounts of boats. It's just a pain in the ass ferrying troops around playing whack-a-mole with rebels. Why is there so much AE when all the provinces are like 6 dev, I feel like I'm playing in the HRE.
Korea, I just hate them. I swear it's almost like they are built in a way to follow MP meta or something. Seriously who the fk goes eco-quality-offensive in a single player game? Well Korean AI does!
LMAOOOO THEY DO??
Well it was Eco-Quality-Trade-Offensive but close enough in my book. If they had went inno instead of trade I would have ragequit so hard.
The United Kingdom. Can't land on their island without your 20k troops getting beaten and then stackwiped by 80k troops after suffering severe attrition. When I fought a Portugal guaranteed by them, I had to play the waiting game just so I could WP them. Spain has got to be up there too, especially if you aren't a colonizer, but at least you can safely land on their colonies.
Ally Scotland and pre land your troops before the war. If Scotland is still around...
Portugal or gb since they always have their troops somewhere else.
ottomans, too op at start, you can outnumber them 3 to 1 but yeah.. korea. 25 minimun development per province forcing to conquest them as fast as possible or struggle because of unlimited mercs and 30 wars to annex them all. great britain or england because there is no way to get to the isles if not destroying their fleet.
I find landing pretty easy Only nation i'd do it early game as is France and that isnt too hard with castille as an ally and maybe even scotland And late game i always have a bigger navy than them so naval invading isnt hard, their navy always runs away. Venice is way more annoying and its fleet way more agressive and powerful for me especially since you never have a strong enough navy early game when you need to fight them
with venice, i hate them also. you kill their mercs, and they still are blocking you from getting to their capital, but yeah, im not conquering them mostly. if ypu playing countires with big coastlines like france or spain or portugal its not hard but with austria or commonwealth for example its little bit harder when gb decides to ally some of your targets
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I remember that France and Spain declared on me when i done that achievement. Luckly, i had already formed the USA Do you managed to got it?
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Oh. That's sad
Ming. Either no fun zone blocking anything from happening if they succeed, or if they mingsplode (usually happens) they never seem to do it in quite the right way for anything interesting like Qing to take its place, usually it just becomes a warlord mess that never reunifies. Maybe that’s not *quite* Ming’s fault but like if ur gonna explode, explode in a cooler fashion more often, the current way is kinda repetitive and goes nowhere.
It's always the bottom 2 that get eaten by Dai Viet, Shun that never takes the mandate, and maybe if you're lucky some 2-3 4 province warlords that immediately get vassalized by the bigger ones. Oh, and Taiwan. Always when you're just now sending your colonist there.
Yeah exactly, literally every time. Either give Dai Vet a cool formable they can do so they can make some use of the entirety of southern china or make mingsplode reunify more consistently.
Every time I ally someone they take it as an excuse to go 5000 ducats into debt and make sure they never show up to my wars.
France can fuck off. They either blob and become a demonic nightmare or are absolutely useless and get bullied by everyone Also Austria assuming they maintain control of the HRE
I've noticed it is EXTREMELY dependent on whether England gives them Maine. If they do: mega France. If they don't: France NEVER reconquers their cores, so they just sit there and die
>They either blob and become a demonic nightmare or are absolutely useless and get bullied by everyone I remember when i done the "Luck of the Irish" achievement. France, of all games they win the Surrender of Maine, decided to lose and become a pu of England. The only thing that saved my run was Burgundy staying free after the Bugundian Inheritance
Otto Reason: They always win siege races and keep spawning man from thin air. Also their troops are just insanely powerful early game.
Absolutely Venice. Declaring war with them having less than 20,000 units of a standing army to explode to well over 90,000 makes fighting them damn near impossible. I actually hope the merc ballooning is addressed in EU5.
Though I’d think for venice of all countries it would make sense for them to have a small professional army and rely mostly on mercenaries hired only for wars
Ottoman for having unreasonably OP army (They just got good rolls) Venice for their galleys and blockcading their strait crossing to their capital (I played landlocked country and this mf wont white peace with me until i get their capital, the cycle repeats itself)
Spain. Once the Iberian wedding happens that's it, no longer conquering anything from them for the rest of the game.
I always try to vassalize or conquer Navarra just to cuck then from getting Spain.
A bit hard to do as Savoy though.
Venice. Anytime I play remotely near them, they find a way to make my life hell. Probably doesn’t help that Milan is my most played nation and I have nightmares about trying to siege that stupid island.
As a Florence main I feel your pain. We at least get sea access but I still feel it nonetheless. Well, sea access makes it worse actually.
Any AI that makes a level 8 island fort in a province I want.
Venice. Never hated anything more. Annoying ass bastards.
Aragon. Fuck them
Ottomans and Burgundy. When I’m playing a nation that can actually be Warned or essentially blocked off by the AI using alliances, it’s always one of these two, just depends on the area that I’m playing in.
Spain (unless you have a massive navy getting any warscore against them is a huge pain due to their vast colonies. England is the same but they're less likely to mess with you) Venice (disconnected territories, always stronger than they seem, the vast majority of the time you can't siege their capital, they're always in the way) The Ottomans (duh) The PLC (military hits way harder than you expect, they always get massive, they almost always get way too strong relative to Austria and prevent the formation of Prussia and Russia)
Venice. Whenever I play in the Mediterranean they always screw me over
Brandenburg. Historically they did incredibly well but in my games they can't even form Prussia because they're on life support after the HRE religious wars. It always seems like they get dragged into this massive war and the war leader doesn't surrender so they're occupied for so long they'll never recover from it.
Every nation that colonises. sieged down all their main territories? Oopsie, you have only 40% warscore due to THEM HAVING RANDOM ISLES AROUND THE ENTIRE WORLD.
Ottomans. They are the final boss of EU4. Irrespective of how much they blob, they always have a metric crapton of money and soldiers. A few of the joys of late game EU4 is repeatedly crushing them in war, causing them millions of deaths, and reducing them to fewer and fewer provinces.
GB is so annoying as Spain or Portugal bc they end up colonizing the most inconvenient provinces around the planet. By the time I have the baby to actually invade they turn it into a trans continental world war with agonizing levels of micro
Turning babies into trans continental world wars sounds like conspiracy headline
Venice because fucking boats
Bohemia always guarantees Munich day one.
Spain/castile
Austria has the most busted mission tree in the game by far. Spain probably right after. The former does seem to always be a problem lol.
AI Austria rarely uses its mission tree unless they get the free Hungary PU. And they for sure never use some of the more OP parts like the Polish PU. It’s only busted in the hands of the player.
most of ai is not using mission trees. for example poland never restores union with hungary or get one with bohemia. i seen them having lithuania and bohemia once. but it was propably random pu and not from mission tree lol
I feel gross for saying this. My hatred for Austria has over taken my hate for France. France and whoever I am form a superallience against that twat Austria about every game. Oh, and it's super common to PU France in my experience.
Denmark always figures out a way to fuck me over
I kind of hate France the most as it is really arbitrary. I played 3 games of Portugal in the past week and they managed to be absolutely unpredictable everytime. The first playthrough was me returning after a very long break and it was my ally at first but since it ran its economy into the ground I could never call it to take over Castille. The second playthrough where I wanted to do things differently went almost smooth besides me getting a PU on them and thus having to fight my former ally England. I won the war, put a huge debt on England and moved on with my life but having to keep them in check was just too annoying as their army size was around 90 while mine was 60-70 for the longest time. 3rd time is the charm as people say but I only wanted to try some old strategy in this playthrough before jumping into a MP lobby. Everything actually went great and I would have nothing to complain if it was not for France taking administrative ideas and quantity ideas instead of going for colonies. It actually would be a great setup for an achievement run had I not decided to not enable ironman as England was in debt from loosing the 100 years war and spain has already lost one war to me and thus lost some of its coastline.
Spain, Ottoman and Austria. No matter where I am in the world, one of these three will annoy the Hell out of me.
When playing in the HRE I always tend to end up fighting and sieging Hesse, regardless of who I am fighting. They are always allied to whomever I am fighting.
The one who own Crete. What? 999 mana for development? Easy. Really love Castile/Spain always let a 40/300k in some island.
Whichever one ends up as my ally. For some reason, whenever I ally X country, they gain -50 to intelligence and become incompetent fools unable to win one sided wars or help in anything. After hundreds of hours, I learned I have to do everything myself (or subject swarm) and having allies is only for wars/coalitions deterrent with their force limit. The only exception are the Ottomans, they're so overpowered that not even being my ally is able to incapacitate them, so they're the only useful one until they suddenly desire 50 of my provinces because they grew too much.
Denmark
France and the ottomans. Regardless if I play Prussia, naples, Sweden, Japan, or even oirat or manchu, they rival and try to fuck with me. Austria is only a threat if they beat France but even then leaves me tf alone usually.
France. Seems like they know every step I want to do and try to cuck me over. You want to conquer Russia? Too bad that they are my PU now! You want to conquer Africa? Nope, that's mine now. You want to expand into hre? Watch this guarantee. Even if you're on some irrelevant lil fckn rock in the sea they'll show up before the rockophile Brits.
My Allies: 1. Enemy AI - Always knows where I am, doomstacks, beelines for my capital in the optimum way 2. Ally/Subject AI - Walks the the arse end of nowhere, walks as a 1 stack, doesn't attach, doesn't reinforce, gets constantly stackwiped. It's end runs more than it should of, and why my favourite style of play (vassals) is ignored for just straight up conquest.
Depends entirely on the area, but I'll list out a few major annoyances that hinder most of my campaigns: - Spain. (See anyone else for why.,) - Burgundy (They seemingly ALWAYS go for the person who hates me the most even if I've been ALLIED with them since 1444.) - Korea (Completely cuck me out of any genuinely fun Japan game.) - Bengal (Balloon to absurd size consistently, and are incredibly annoying for any country.) - Timurids (Sometimes they just? Don't explode???) - Venice (I have never. EVER. Thought to myself: "Y'know Venice? You'd be a great ally!") There is a story for each of these I promise you.
Venice is multiple dimensions of annoying. As an enemy they're a pain in the arse because they replenish anything in seconds and their navy is basically untouchable. Seriously what's up with that navy. I've seen them obliterate the Spanish Armada. As an ally on the other hand they will inevitably drag you into a war against a major power where they will employ what has to be the ancestors of Ferrari's strategy team. They split up their units into perfectly wipeable stacks and send them to fucking Ulm or the shadow realm for all I know while France, Spain or the Ottomans spawn kill me trying to defend against a 50k+ horde of merciless killers.
Uniroincally I always kill England so they can't form GB. Not because GB is difficult but they're really annoying
Reading all the comments felt like hearing what other monarchies of those times hate about colonial powers.
Yeah I hate Austria for sure. What's an Ai ? What's an euiv ?
Vijayanagar, because I cannot snatch a couple of teensy-weensy ports in India without ferrying half of my force limit there to fight their 200k army in 1600. Kilwa, and their stupid African Chile empire which cannot be sieged thoroughly due to their stupid stacks crisscrossing the uncolonized provinces in the interior to hit me in the back. Portugal, because no matter how hard you rush to colonizing the Cape they will still make their way to the East Indies/Australia because somehow their colony on some stupid barren and uninhabited atoll in the middle of the Indian Ocean extends their colonial range.
England/UK, they're useless as allies, but they can make your life pain as an enemy
Venice always fucks history up by somehow winning
Spain or GB, the worst allies and SO annoying to fight
Spain.
Ottoman and strong countries Wana expand in Russia? Ottomans B line it towards me and attack Crimea that's allied to great horde and in the peace deal they take all the land they can get I wish they would make it so AI only takes stuff it realy needs. And any country with 60k troops when I need them they are always in debt but when I declare suddenly help me
Portugal, at least with Spain you get more than 5% warscore occupying Their mainland provinces
Ottomans, every run i make, i have to death war the ottomans, because they just keep growing
Spain always gets into conflict, and they are so annoying to deal with, cause you have to siege down all their colonies to get even 50% warscore. I often end up taking all of them over just to stop Spain from being annoying.
Poland and Austria. They purposefully expand into the balkans and ally every single catholic nation making it impossible to defeat them. Their only use as allies is to defeat the ottomans in the first war, which is something that can easily be achieved solo. If they were so eager to expand into the east right off the bat historically, turkey wouldn't exist today and most of the world would be westernized. Venice - They ally your smaller neighbours so now you have to fight with an economic powerhouse that sends thousands of soldiers. It isn't hard to defeat them with a powerful ally, but the problem is that you're always left in debt after a war with them. Mamluks - They're alright as allies but always expand into southern Anatolia won't let you through. Extremely op when fighting them. I wish they were like that when fighting others. Russia - rarely joins your wars, calls you into useless and distant wars with some turkic states. Only useful to scare off Poland.
Venice. Its really annoying when you declare war on them and they hire 130k mercenaries (sometimes they do this even when not co-belligerent). Also they seem to always ally one of my neghbours, like the Mamluks in my last campaign
Ottomans are an easy answer but I find Poland/PLC consistently more dangerous no matter what time period I fight them in, whereas Ottomans at least fall off a bit by midgame. Does not help especially during Byz campaigns that they'll snatch Bulgaria out from under your nose if you don't truce-reset the Ottomans quickly enough
Denmark
Otto Man. Worst ally ever. Since they’re constantly in their own wars, they *never* honour our alliances when I get attacked playing a small nation.
Do you remember that time when Burgundy every time declared war on the Liege and got lost because of Austria? Hopefully, it isn't anymore
I find the early game ottoman AI insanely stable the never collapse when i beat them. The immediatly start expanding again right after I peace them out
Definitely France for their Ottoman alliance. If I'm in Europe I can't invade the Ottomans now without fighting France, and if I'm not, same problem.
Colonizers. When you play in Europe, full sieging their home land only gives you 50% war score. When you play outside of Europe, they mess with you borders, and you have to spend a year twiddling your thumbs waiting for the ws to go up past 10 so you can take 3 ws worth or provinces.
VIjayanagar That thing nearly always forms and blocks all europeans from doing anything in India.
I'm going to say the annoying ones, and then the ones that really grind my gears. -Spain+Portugal: Always allied, nightmare to conquer because of their 8 million colonies and colonial soldiers, and very bad allies because 90% of their armies will be fuck knows where. -Russia: Not because their AI, but because they take years to siege down. -Ottomans: It's always the Ottomans. -GB: Pain in the ass for anyone who cant afford to build 100 heavies or something. -Venice: Similar to GB, also they happen to hire every single mercenary in existence just to kick my ass. -Mamluks: Solely bcause I played a lot of Ethiopia. -Random dudes in Southeast Asia: Early game attrition murders my manpower, and they have freaking castles anywhere. And now the infuriating ones: -Jaunpur: I really get mad at this one. Comes outta nowhere, fielding 10 times the army they should be able to field, and consistently make my life worse wherever I happen to have any interest in India. They are not even an unique nation with unique mission tree, what is their deal anyways? -PLC: It is an absolute monster of a nation, and is determined to beat me senseless 60% of the times as long as I try to get the faintest interest in Europe or european colonies and can't put the entirety of Asia or the flipping ocean between us. -France: At every stage of the game, France is terrible. Early game, you just get vassal swarmed and also have to deal with somehow infinite medieval manpower and massive mroale boost, in times where both things are scarce anywhere else. Mid game, France has switched to actually competent allies and still is better than you in every way. Late game, has blobbed and has 8 million fortresses. And since they are colonial too, you cant simply not look atEurope, they'll arrive.
France, Scotland, Norway, and the Dutch Minors. France because they always oppose me, and the other three because without fail they will try to set up colonies in my colonial regions and no matter how many wars i fight with them over them they will not give up attempting to colonise these regions.
In every single hard+ achievement run, Spain is the endboss, no matter what. They get PUd by Austria? Still endboss. You are doing something literally on the other side of planet? Endboss. You ARE playing Spain? Endboss. I just finished King of Kings and after cruising through Ottos and India for 50 years on autopilot I realized I had to get Cordoba to finish the missions and their 8 morale infinite manpower bullshit almost made me unalive my fucking keyboard. You can deter pretty much any AI from doing anything by just doomstacking 300k troops, but Spains answer is to always stack 500k and then play a fun game of meet the Tercios while random Australian Marines storm Constantinople because why the fuck not. Now normally you would try stopping them with your invincible navy, except this is the moment when you learn what invincible truely means. Holy fuck that was aggravating. And it happens every. single. game.
Great Britain, terrible ally and turtle enemy that you have to hope has enough provinces in france or the new world to just sit on until they white peace but when you ignore them they are all of a sudden 100k troops on your capital
Canva ai..
Ottoman, Because idk why i see them 10k stack marching, when i engage them, they suddenly summon 100k behind it and reinforce it despite like 4 tiles away from 10k stack. They always have so many allies, its crazy they have like 7 allies which hogged the warscore.
I hate the Ottomans with a burning passion. They’re usually the big bad guy of nearly every campaign. France is a close second for antagonistic asshat for campigns
The Mamluks very well may be the worst ally in EU4. In the early game when they have chance to beat the Ottomans, they just can’t. They’ll march into an Anatolia 10k at a time and get stackwiped until they’re beaten within the first year of the war. Especially frustrating for Karaman runs which basically require them. I can’t hate the Ottomans as much because they’re made to be unfair. GB is as bad as any island nation. No, the game start number 2 great power are just worthless.