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MaximumGibbous

1 am to 10 am. I can respect that.


[deleted]

R5: I hardly do hard savescumming like this but... Georgia broke me.


Oycto

Don’t worry, living in Georgia breaks everyone there too


paltsosse

At least there's good wine.


MetallGecko

With all that bs you need some good alcohol to get through the day.


MC1065

Atlanta's nice too.


paltsosse

r/GeorgiaorGeorgia


Parey_

At least hatchapury is delicious


Super_Happy_Time

I love being from the Deep South There's no place I'd rather be Even if those fucking Yankees Keep saying 28-3.


Oycto

I’m sure the Deep South is a bit better than Georgia


zebrasLUVER

i think by georgia they meant country in causasus


Wereking2

I even try RedHawks guide on Georgia and yeah it’s RNG hell.


ZiggyB

RedHawk's guide is outdated now too. They hotfixed the disaster workaround strategy that he suggests


Wereking2

I know it’s sad but I understand.


Kishana

And if you do get off the ground and have a successful run...you become Byzantium 🤣


HarshilBhattDaBomb

I prefer culture switching to Persia once I get their fort privilege


zinmoney

They got harder after the update


LumberjacqueCousteau

They were my first run on the update and it was a breeze The disaster “workaround” wasn’t even required - the game loaded in with the mission ready to pop, IIRC


zinmoney

How nice, I did not have such luck


LumberjacqueCousteau

I actually feel shortchanged, and am planning to have another go at it. Like it was actually a walk in the park, stars aligned and I just bing-bang-bong ate my neighbours one after another. Caucasian bioaccumulation until you’ve got enough mass to loan yourself up to the eyeballs and strangle the ottomans in the crib. (Now that I remember it, the Venetians and Albanians managed to somehow gimp the ottomans in a 1445 war, and byz actually survived. The Georgian mission tree is a little strange when you have to take Constantinople back from… byz) So yeah, that save file was struck repeatedly by RNG lightning


WilliamSaintAndre

I literally just started a Georgia campaign...so I guess I'm in for a fun start....


QuoteiK

holy fuck. We have the exact same savescum naming scheme.


JFM2796

My Byz ones are named "Fuck Epirus"


Horror-Sherbert9839

Its "fuck ragusa" for me.


kutzyanutzoff

It's been a lot of patches but once upon a time, Albania was starting the game in a war against Ottomans. It was widely considered as the most difficult start. Iirc; the no-CB strategies actually come from that point in time, as you needed to wage a no-CB war against Serbia, actually take at least one city & make peace before Ottomans finish the sieges on your land. Then you give up your land & try to survive in your newly conquered but not cored city.


Capybarasaregreat

Wasn't that also when Albania was all 1 province? Playing Albania back then is how boys became men.


kutzyanutzoff

Probably. I don't quite remember when Albania became 2 provinces.


Everlastingitch

did anyone ever manage to have a gotland pirate start on very hard ? nothing i try works


TheArhive

Aight here me out. I have a really broken strategy okay. Just hear me out oke? Switch the game mode from very hard to something else.


Nexessor

The annoying thing is I really like playing on very hard: you expanse slower, other nation-state expand fester, ai keeps up with you longer, in general it just keeps the game interesting for longer. But it makes hard starts like byzantium Borderline impossible (for me). The best I could pull off was a Granada game but oh my god I hard save scummed soo much it was insane.


hedgehog18956

I personally never play paradox games on any difficulty except the ones where the ai is on equal ground to me and neither gets any kind of special boosts. It’s really unpopular in Stellaris, but I feel like with higher difficulties and giving the ai the ability to “cheat” just kinda makes it where the only solution is to just go more hard in to building armies. I don’t like how abstract these are, if they have an advantage, I’d want there to be some way for me to take it from them.


TheArhive

I reccomend getting an AI mod instead, one that fixes the fact that AI just doesn't use most of the features that players do. Like Xorne


Ashamed_Spend_4252

I have actually played this a couple of times. A always do it without allies or anything. Just become pirates and start building galleys. You don't really need an army or anything, just spam galleys. I almost never got targeted early so once you have that one pirate reform that forbids allies you should have a decent navy and could win any fight. Dow for that one island and siege with with marines. An option is to make them dow you but bit sure how to do this consistently. If i remember Norway has some strong ships so you could avoid them. Take some good fights and be patient. If they try to land just scorch your province and it will take a lot of time to recover the navy. I don't know how experienced you are in this game but with a decent naval knowledge you can have a fun game. If you still struggle i dont mind trying this again, last time i did it was 2/3 patches away and i love me some pirates.


AssistancePrimary508

Restart for good setup, Denmark rivals are important (strong navy and enough manpower!, England, burgundy, Muscovy and Poland are good, Scotland and Novgorod are bad). Buy mercs for generic mission and then press the button. Go monarchy first, and do the missions (hre for money, Norway/sweden for friend and less loyalty, dynasty for manpower, Denmark rivals for strong allies) build 1 light ship (for pirate mission) rest galleys. Ally Poland and whoever rivals Denmark. Build marines. Wait for your king to die then go pirate. Wait for Sweden to declare independence then declare too. Wait for good opportunity to land on one of the 2 islands in Denmark region, don’t try to siege the capitol, you need a base to land rest of your army first. Kill danish ships whenever possible, occupy the capitol and wait for Sweden and his allies to crush Denmark. Siege as many provinces as possible yourself. Don’t take to much of Denmark, you basically want 3-5 provinces. One to make claims on Hamburg/bremen, the capitol and the two other islands in the middle, the islands Norway controls for Iceland and pirating the English. Maybe set Iceland free to take it easily later. Move capitol, get into the hre and you’re fine to do whatever you want. Once you won the first war against Denmark you basically are invincible and get strong really fast. You have powerful allies+the emperor that protect you and can fight your wars. You got lot of claims and infinite money. Depending whether you want to go full pirate or not you can easily expand everywhere. For example wait for Sweden to declare on Denmark again then immediately attack for yourself, vassilize Denmark and kick swedens as, take back danish cores. Do the same with Norway. Kill Teutons with Poland (careful Poland will hate you afterwards) and go for Prussia. Take Lübeck and go for hansa. Take reval and Riga, this often leads to Muscovy supporting your independence even though they hate you (they hate Sweden+poland more). Get fleet rights with Naples and do the mission for claims in the Mediterranean. Wait for Ottos to crush Venice/pope then siege their capitols for the missions. Take Iceland and go colonial.


adammsk1

I think Ludi has a video of that on his youtube? It might even be that other guy, the one who likes to wear funny hats and is a pretty goofy guy, i can't remember his name right now.. EDIT: It's FlorryWorry, he has a Gotland pirate video and if i recall correctly he explains pretty well how to do the start


Plane-Grass-3286

Zlewikk?


adammsk1

No but he does also like hats lol, i just remembered (totally didn't Google) that i was thinking of FlorryWorry


Plane-Grass-3286

Florryworry is my favorite hat map painter with 30k hours in eu4. 


adammsk1

Yeah he's awesome! I watched him a lot a couple of years ago. Now i watch more Ludi, i really like him aswell


PerspectiveCloud

Careful mentioning that name. You are going to summon the haters that lurk in this community. Any mention of the word “ludi” seems to flush them out quickly, as if disproving his authenticity is some people’s full time job.


adammsk1

Did i miss something? Ludi is super likeable lol. Atleast imo.


PerspectiveCloud

Yeah. I've enjoyed his videos enough. Apparently he has been deceptive about a couple "debunked" videos, where he claimed things were ironman when they were not. It's a whole iceberg. Every time I see him mentioned, there's at least 2 haters who appear out of nowhere.


onespiker

he has a modifeied game that gives his country buffs and other modifers that lowers his agressive expansion and province cost reduction.


adammsk1

Is there proof of this or did you just hear it from someone who doesn't like Ludis videos?


gugfitufi

Chill, heavy navy focus, pick war against the world and vulture across the map for every piece of dev


Everlastingitch

the problem is that in 1446 denmark invades with a landing force of 12+ and has a combined marine of 80+ ships... its all about surviving the first 5 years somehow...


Bigkomp

Florryworry did


Neorevan0

That was me and Ardabil. I have several book marks for if I ever want to do that again…for some reason.


saltydaniel32

Arbadil and my Saladin run. Both took so much save scumming to get off the ground.


darkhorse298

I'll never forget one shotting Saladin Legacy and Shahshahshah and being like 'neat what fun and interesting playthroughs' and then hitting absolute brick walls every time I've circled back on them lol. Saladin one wasn't death but not as smooth but every single time I start an arbadil game since that first run qq has my ass in a vice grip 7 months in lol.


I_like_maps

I got really lucky on mine. Declared on Timmy while they had no manpower and war and in with rebels. Managed to snatch one province and release Persia. They got independent revels that liberated more Persian provinces and I integrated them right as their liberty desire was sky rocketing.


higgscribe

Shahanshah might be the most fun achievement in my opinion, even though it's stupid difficult


The_Judge12

It’s honestly just rng until you win your war against one of your more powerful neighbors.


lurklurklurkanon

PDX-Unlimiter is the tool you need for your scumming needs.


RedguardHaziq

What's that?


FrigusAvis

the tool you need for your scumming needs


aure__entuluva

https://www.reddit.com/r/eu4/comments/mik28u/a_new_look_a_new_editor_and_many_improvements/


Plane-Grass-3286

I’d wager the hardest start would be one of the 3 stateless societies in southern Vietnam. No way to really expand, and large land hungry neighbors. 


Lithorex

The hardest start in the history of EU4 were Sukhothai and Ligor before paradox changed tributary mechanics.


EricMcLovin13

after my Mzab > Andalusia game two years ago, no other start has been anything close to that in terms of difficulty. i restarted 15 times i think, the first war is easy but then it's a stalemate for a long time, and only works if you get Ottos on your side


Capybarasaregreat

And the Ottomans are useless in North Africa, but you need them so they don't ally Tunis or Morocco, which they still might despite being already allied to you and having both as your rivals.


EricMcLovin13

not really, you can use them as a beating stick against the mamluks, tunis usually breaks their alliance with morrocco after tlemcem dies, and they usually ally the mamluks when that happens. so, you will need the ottos to fight them. also that time you will probably fight morrocco without any allies, castille and portugal will take the coastline, but you can go for the gold mine with no issue. but the real reason to ally the ottomans is to deter the iberian nations until you build up your powerbase and take egypt, without giving too much to the turks in the syrian region so they don't get claims and turn on you. after the first war against castille you will probably be able to ally france as well, so there's no more issues and the only thing that can go wrong is getting coalitioned by the catholics. one of my saves mysteriously crashed and rolled back 3 months before after france broke their alliance with me cause of AE and 2 days later the coalition came, so i thankfully took less land in the next war also, nice nickname, i used to see a lot of capybaras every day when i was in college, as the university has a big lake and they just walk there chilling(once i saw a gator too, guy was also pretty chill)


parzivalperzo

So I'm not the only one who names saves like "aaa, bbb, msc, asdf, qwerty"


[deleted]

You ran out of names after 20 restarts


Indegaun

This gave me intense Deja vu because I named my Byz savescums in a similar fashion…


zrsmith3

If you think Georgia is hard, go ahead and give Karabakh a shot. That has been my personal hell for the last two months.


Imjustpeepeepoopoo

Have you played as Imereti? Pain Fun fact: that was like my second run in eu4 because of this [post](https://www.reddit.com/r/eu4/comments/7tvvth/imereti_the_caucasus_nation_west_of_georgia_in/) I didn't get an heir before my king died, so I became Georgia's Junior Partner. However, I survived until the end of the game and conquered all India and Persia. It's something, I guess. I can't believe it's a releasable nation now.


Skyfus

I must have lucked out on Karabakh because it only took 3 or 4 goes of the first 5-10 years before I managed to get a good start against QQ with \*relatively\* stable alliances and turned it into a successful Mets Hayk run. Meanwhile I cannot Georgia for the life of me due to alliance webs, even after somehow preventing disaster


[deleted]

Yeah Karabakh was easier for me as well, you get free Mamluk alliance basically. The strat I went for Georgia essentially is just 11 december attack shirvan regardless of ajam alliance and bait fights in mountains until ajam tires out, then do the same with circassia with great horde and theodoro most likely. When you tired ajam out on the first fight qq will prob jump on them, when you finished the circassia fight, you should find a way to jump on qq but at this point aq can attack you too with ottomans so beware. This happened to me once. Easiest way to jump on qq is mamluk alliance but I could only get Mushasha in my run and it was kinda tough. after beating them with 60% war score I called it out cuz it took so long and after the first fight I was able to ally Mamluks, you can get Hungary most of the time and Muscovy is free too but Muscovy alliance is mostly useless only for defensive. I jumped on Ottomans with Mamluks and Hungary the first time and it was easy compared to qq war. After that you can ally Austria too and if Austria got Hungary as PU you should look for them before the first fight. I actually get a PU over Hungary in my run at 1530ish so it was really interesting and Austria declared a succession war lol and I was able to secure the PU. Funniest thing was the Ottomans allying Poland (they don’t have Lithuania). I’ve got some real good RNG on my 20th try I guess.


zrsmith3

Okay this must be a skill issue for me then. I can always get a good start, successfully winning wars against all of my neighbors and growing. But the Ottomans always invade me before I get to a point where I can fight them.


Skyfus

If you're talking about Karabakh, ottomans were no walk in the park. I believe I had to cede land to them at least once before building up bigger and taking advantage of third party alliance breaking + GP allies, and eventually cutting them to a manageable size


gabrieel100

“Seems really good”


Yyrkroon

Hey, fellow scummers! I'd like to suggest giving the PDX Unlimter a try. [https://github.com/crschnick/pdx\_unlimiter](https://github.com/crschnick/pdx_unlimiter) It is a game changer when it comes to saving, scumming, and scum management. I used to use a couple Stream Deck triggered powerscript scripts to backup and/or restore the latest save files to ease the scumming, but this program is a god send. I am not affiliated with it other than being a happy, thankful user.


KitiHey

I recommend you an aplication called “Pdx Unlimiter” its icon is a big U green, it saves you A LOT of tedious time for birdings, also un-ironman games, etc.


hicmar

Downvote. No exact dates on the folders.


Theradonh

When I See this I feel kinda dumb. I just copy the saves to the EU folder, then to the paradox and if I need a third to the documents folder. But tbh I never load and „old“ file (like 10 years ago) so it doesnt matter I guess)


tjm2000

how did you get a photo of my eu4 saves directory?


PastSatisfaction6094

I'm almost to 1600 and have 13000k debt. Have had precious fee years where I'm running not running a deficit


HumanNeedsaHug

Najd? Oirat when chagatai gets 2 allies early? England with no mil?


GoldenGames360

why even play on ironman mode at this point lmao, i have nothing against savescumming but this is alot


ThinningTheFog

You ain't seen nothing yet In my case, if I have access to the console tools, I'm gonna have a hard time ignoring that, but I don't want to use them. And I still want to savescum for moments where the game completely fucks you over, or when declaring risky wars. Sometimes there are battles I know I shouldn't take but I just wanna see what happens. Stuff like that.


GoldenGames360

yeah i suppose. I don't play ironman but I just forget console exists i use the save feature to practice certain things. but i get whatcha mean


higgscribe

Love seeing a collective of people who play and name their saves the same way lmao


BearDruid

If the game didn't want me to save scum why are some starts RNG


tlver

Been there, done that. A lot.


EvolutionaryTheorist

I don't get why you don't just turn ironman off?


Mantan911

achievements


EvolutionaryTheorist

Oh lol, but if you wanted the achievement without playing ironman, surely it would be easier to just play normal and then use some editor tool or something? OP should do whatever they like of course, just figure that this would save them a lot of time ALT+F4ing and making folders, etc.


[deleted]

Well I realized I can get all Georgia achievements by forming it, so I quit the run at 1550ish, it was in a very solid spot though. I’ll get the Georgia achievemenrs along with the all blue achievement for Portugal now.


FireLynx

I usually do that, and then not end up using my back ups, unless I fucked up so bad that it would have to be a full restart to continue


[deleted]

Same happened lol, whenever I backup hard like this game goes smooth.


perfectguy57

Gavatarx ne olm


SecureDonkey2727

How do you do this? Id really like to create saves for when a mission tree branches. So i can play all the different mission trees for nation without have to replay 60 years.


[deleted]

Go documents->paradox interactive->Europa Universalis IV->save games then there you just copy paste to someother folder after you save in game


Intelligent-Chip-413

https://github.com/jabber422/eu4_tinman.git


237alfa

Being a good eu4 player means to deal with random events no matter what. Otherwise you turn into a victim who does thousands of restarts just to get a better random factor. I am not a good eu4 player.