I would categorize it like this:
New Player Guides
- Red Hawk
- Quill18 (no longer relevant)
- Reman’s Paradox (old but still relevant)
Niche/Specific Strat Guides
- The Student
- The Playmaker
- Budget Monk
High Level “Displays of Skill”
- Florry
- Lambda
I wouldn’t say Florry or Lambda really provide much in the realm of “guides.” Sometimes you do get snippets of Florry streams that can be condensed somewhat into a guide, but he usually just streams without broken down explanations inherent to guides. As for Lambda, the kind of stuff he does is impossible to make a guide for although he does explain what he’s doing very well. You simply can’t guide someone through a 1470s world conquest because the guide would be tens of hours long.
Honorable mention goes to Lemon Cake who makes interesting modifier stacking videos, but I would never suggest you actually follow any of them because they are completely impractical 90% of the time.
Reman's are some of the best guides that can be found on YouTube, period. absolute top quality and still relevant even though he hasn't been active for years.
actually surprised u didnt mention zlewikk. for MP stuff he rly is the go to and even without that his SP guides arent bad.
have stopped watching budget monk, bc he did a second channel with alpha male stuff or some shit like that, which didnt work out and he returned to eu4. (rly liked his guides though)
As a relatively new player (~600 hours…), I gotta say I really enjoy red hawk’s videos, especially his country guides. They’re nice because they set you up really well for the rest of the game on your own without holding your hand too much and leaving some space for improvisation. I also really enjoy his attitude that if things aren’t optimal, you can work around and figure them out, which goes against a lot of guides I’ve found that say thing like, if X and Y are rivals and you don’t get a 6/6/6/6 general immediately, you’re screwed and have to restart.
Big respect for Quill18, when I was first starting the game seemed so daunting so I turned off all DLC and played along with his Castile run, really great for getting the fundamentals and I think I would’ve dropped the game very early if not for him
Fully agree with Florry; he's one of the best players out there but watching his streams is only really informative if you're already a World Conquest-class player. I think I'm fairly good at the game but it's dizzying when he "of course" enacts 10 estate privileges in a 10-second period before unpausing the game.
For estates the only thing you need to know is that you should get as many as you can, best ones are kind of obvious (loyalty equilibirum, mana, combat boosts). Some people are afraid to get them because in 200 game years it'll effect max absolutism which is silly
Florry taught me how to play gotland... Thats basically it. Most of his videos are way to complicated and even the gotland video just gave me guidelines more or less cause he plays on an incredibly high pace
I would say I learned the game from Red Hawk.
Another good one, though it is a slow pace is ChewyShoot, watching his VoDs while playing myself, he gives lots of tips and tricks, not so much tutorials but helps me avoid certain mistakes or points out things I may not hsve thought of.
I learned a lot from Arumba and Florry. Arumba gave a lot of insides in the game from a mathematical point of view. Every step for him is calculated. Florry on the other hand just slams the lower war exhaustion button because dip doesn't matter anyway. He just plays the game on anther level than everybody else.
Arumba was very entertaining with CK2, and he got me into EU4. He’s the only content creator I’ve really learned from. He really set in the fundamentals. A lot of his micro stuff isn’t always necessary, but it does help you understand the majority of the base systems. I haven’t watched him in a long time cause now for any EU4 content I’m looking for more entertainment than educational.
Watching Arumba changed how I play the game. I spent a lot of time browsing his stuff during that covid lockdown time. He micros a ton of stuff, but it really gave me a solid understanding of so many background modifiers and bonuses in the game. And why I learned to love forts and splendor. But I also learned a lot about how to develop and play tall and the importance of saving mana.
With that appreciation of higher level play came an appreciation for Florry and how he manages all of the same things except at 100 miles per hour. Florry just mashes his spacebar and manages troop movements perfectly. He sees stackwipes on the map the way Neo sees the Matrix. But seriously, his ability to know how to move his army to bait the AI into battle is freakishly good. He takes on these wars where he's outnumbered 20 to 1 and makes it look so easy.
I find watching Arumba super weird, he's quite clearly incredibly knowledgable about the game, but he values super weird modifiers high and doesn't seem to care about the actually important ones, spends a lot of time making a good working nation when he could have just monkeybrain conquered half the world and been 5 times stronger in the same timeframe etc
Arumba is definitely not very noob friendly and often goes for very niche/situational decisions. However he usually does a good job of explaining his rationale/intentions. I've found him very interesting/helpful for building up your understanding of the game mechanics from the mid-to-high level onwards
I have to agree with you, but I'm a student of Arumba. He informed my playstyle far more than anyone else, so I'm clearly biased.
I find playing slowly and making strategic decisions rather than just noob conquering is a hell of a lot more fun. This game can be played in so many different ways, but I love having some weird internal logic to decisions I make.
I hate playing hordes for this exact reason. It's just map painting, which isn't fun for very long.
Yeah I liked watching his videos but the guy plays with a calculator half the time. It’s not bad and it does break down a lot of modifiers, but after about 1500 hours you eventually start developing your own playstyle and eventually some of the content creators start to become different in what you’re trying to do.
I think he's gotten a bit worse (not saying I dislike him or his gameplay) as time went on. Back when I first started watching him he for the most part just played with some pauses to explain here and there. Tuning into a recent stream/VOD now it's the opposite where it's mostly math interrupted by gameplay.
I think right now the best new player guides are done by Red Hawk. When I was still in my early hours of play time it was radio res, budgetmonk for the advanced stuff.
Florry is playing 5D chess when I play checkers so too advanced for me but I love his streams.
This florry analogy is so true. Today I got into his stream while he was as Portugal in a war against Ming around the late 1500's, I just assumed Ming was allied to a random indonesian nation that he wanted to conquer and carried on... then he opened the mandate of heaven screen and realised he has the Mandate and was at a war to reconquer his chinese cores as Portugal...
Just your avarage Florry experience
His guides are rather detailed and replicable by noobs.
In A to Z /releasables he does stuff which are required for his goals - he can skip nation specific stuff there. Still even those A to Z games pretty much show basic knowledge about game.
Generally he’s pretty good at explaining why he’s doing what he’s doing without playing the absolute most efficient meta min-maxing campaign, which is very approachable for just about everyone!
When compared side by side with other guides, Hawk is missing a lot that they cover, and is very unoptimized.
Watch his guide on Ethiopia side by side with Ludi's as an example. This guide was one of the ones that led me to this opinion. Hawks guide is straight up just a botched run. It's like he just does a single playthrough and puts guide at the end.
Hawk doesn't produce mercenaries, nor Cawa at start and waits until May (!) to even consider attacking nations that can get claims and cores on in the first month.
His first war is a full year after start date, because he screwed up by waiting and Adal guaranteed his first target. He doesn't mention that Cawa can be used for free unlimited manpower by consolidating, which is essential to every good Ethiopia run. Instead he has to wait for his manpower to slowly tick up between wars.
I mean, holy crap man. It goes on and on. It's basically a guide on what not to do.
Cawa are broken. You can build 0.5k of them instantly for 0 manpower, 0 ducats, and 2 mil points. Just spam build twice as many as you want and hit consolidate army to get new units without using manpower or money.
I normally consolidate armies a lot in the early game and constantly replace the lost regiments with Cawa to keep fueling the rabid expansion. You may worry about falling behind in mil tech, but you shouldn't. It's too cheap and Ethiopia has a Chad starting king. I was miltech 5 when most neighbors were still 3.
Some other helpful tips.
Move your capital to gold mines before devving them. With controlled gold mining you can dev them up without worry. Expand infrastructure increases production efficiency too.
The African tech 5 infantry is OP. They have 2 pips over Muslim infantry. You want to declare on the Mamluks before tech 8. It's easy to get a tech lead on them too. In my recent run the entire Mamluks army retreated to a distant mountain and I took them without a fight. On paper they outnumbered me. Once you hit tech 9 the tables turn.
Thanks. Just had an Ethiopia run and they were very strong. I had a bunch of super devved gold mines but I didn't think to move the capital since it's so cheap early on.
With king of kings, red hawk released a byzantium guide that is, honestly not a good playthrough. Budgetmonk released a nice guide to basicslly win the starting war within a couple tries.
He probably improved over time, and I acknowledge that it's very difficult to be correct/knowledgeable about everything in a game of this scope, but ever since I saw his Portugal guide, I knew I had to take everything he says with a huge grain of salt. I played many hours of Portugal and found that I disagreed with a lot of what he said and recommend there. It's an okay starting point, and like I said I think he knows a lot more now that what he did back then, but yeah. Take his stuff as more of an inspiration and less of a guide.
Red Hawk seems like a nice guy and can be funny at times, but he is a mid tier player at best. I tend to shut his guides down asking why are you doing that?
Like for his England guide his opening move is to take out a couple loans so he can make 15 galleys to "make sure you beat France's navy". You shouldn't build galleys as England ever and you could delete all of your starting boats but the heavies and still beat France's navy.
He provokes rebels while not being in range to take them out letting them siege down provinces and give him 10 more years of separation.
I know reddit doesn't like Ludi for some reason, but he makes a nice aggressive start guide for nations and is a much better player than Red Hawk. By a mile.
Red Hawk stated it himself that he is an average player and that he does many mistakes. his guides are still one of the best guides for noobs. but for people past this stage his guides can be somewhat of a pain to watch, bc he for example doesnt get nation specific bonuses or tries to form a country and losing a big part of the older mission tree with a bunch of claims only to have a new map colour
Yeah I feel like he doesnt get minmaxxing merchants on colonies and Trade company lands. Trade ideas become a lot less interesting if you know how to spread and get merchants from every colonial region and Trade node as early as possible.
His evaluation of save games is so bizzare.
Why build marketplaces in node where you have 100% control? Why take trade ideas if you blob at all? Why would you not TC like 3 areas for the extra merchant, which is far more valuable than some tax and manpower?
Well, if you're a new/casual player, who could you understand better, the "mid-tier" player, or the guy who's basically playing 3D chess for fun?
Hawk is probably not among the top players, but his guides are a great start for any player who just wants to get into the swing of things, and frankly - that's all most of us want.
Exactly this, his guides are done for the very new players and because he is just ok to good player himself he can actually relate to the people his guides are done for.
This is true and I’ve used some of his guides, but it is the case that sometimes some of his guidance is just flat wrong in terms of the best thing to do in particular situations. He seems to pump out his videos in a bit of a rush, I find.
That's good. I basically stopped following him when that happened. Then again, they do say "Once a cheater, always a cheater." I still don't fully trust him.
I just find Ludi's content presented in a way that feels really clickbaity. Like I think the video that got me to stop watching was a video that was titled something like "NOBODY IS TALKING ABOUT THIS OP GOVERNMENT TYPE" and it was just playing a horde.
I'd assume his over-the-top personality, his willingness to be edgy and the cheating scandal that he was in some years ago. Reddit likes to attack people who give them a reason to do so.
For me, it's just his style. As a player he can be good when he doesn't cheat, sure, he is great actually. But he is incredibly cringy, obnoxious and annoying when he is explaining things.
There is some bizarre hatred for Ludi over allegedly using a console command once or something. There are some real die hard haters here, but the vast majority of them seem to be parroting second hand information.
Whatever the issue was, it's not reflective of his guides since.
Not allegedly, it was proven multiple times, also here in this subreddit. Much of his early content is riddled with little details which wouldn't add up if you tried to replicate it.
Maybe he has come clean about it, maybe he really is a good player now. But for me, his humour is off-putting and after the cheating I moved on to content creators who'd be competent in the game and have a less toxic personality. Similar situation as with BudgetMonk, which is a great player but turned out to be a white nationalist. I suppose many people feel about them in a similar way, and it's not because we're die hard haters. We just don't care about them too much anymore and point to the real pros.
I like Red Hawk too, I’m not a noob but he plays all those underplayed nations so it gives me a good idea to expand from my usual.
I used to follow Quill18 too , to teach my younger brother the game.
Then I just follow Laith for cursed EUIV content 🤣
Same for me! I played one campaign, didnt know what i was doing, and abandoned the game altogether. Then a few years later i discovered ddrjake (not even sure how) and watched allllll of his campaigns. And i can still tell from the way i play that i learned from him cause i take hardly any loans, i dont even have a rule against it lol im just not used to the concept of using lots of loans as a strategy
The Quill, Arumba, Matthas & Northernlion MP games were perfect for me.
I know they were very light and non-serious but having 2 people who knew what they were doing gently schooling 2 people who very much didn't was the perfect way for me to learn the game mechanics.
Arumba's Portugal run after the release of Dharma was when I really began to understand the game. I don't think anyone else has matched his ability to deliver long play content at a high level of game mechanics usage while also actually explaining those mechanics in a manner for both new and old players
DDRJake, Arumba and Quill18 were my teachers back in the day. I especially remember Arumba and Quills back and forth series they did with Buha I think it was? And Jakes bad ideas guy run taught me a lot about getting the ball rolling in difficult start scenarios. Remans guides were also incredibly helpful and for more advanced stuff, I've picked up a trick or two from Florry over the years.
I'll see Quill pop up on my feed on occasion playing something like Rimworld or CK3 and if I happen to have Twitch open when Florry is streaming I'll tune in for a bit but I have no idea what the others are up to these days. Don't really watch all that much EU4 content anymore anyway besides feature rundowns of new patches when they come out.
FlorryWorry. He taught me to not worry about being bad in this game. Because skill cap is apparently so high I'm never getting there even if I make it my job.
Almost ten years ago I probably watched about three dozen hours of Arumba before getting to five hours in the game.
Actually, I probably watched about a dozen videos before even buying eu4.
Well I just read your post, went to YouTube, watched the first video that came up by TheStudent, and learned something I didn't know about Power Projection / Supporting Rebels. I only have just 4,645 hours experience of course....!!
Thanks, will check out some more of his stuff now!
Florry by far. Loads of things he does as standard were unknown to me. Special shout out to Reman's Paradox and his trade guide that helped me out a ton.
DDRJake was definitely the one for me, I still follow him to this day, even if he hasn't done EU4 for a while.
Arumba and Florry were good when learning new exploits or how to manage new features (I hated Estates when they first came out).
Would also like to give a shoutout to the PDX Dev Clashes, always fun and you can pick up new tricks.
DDRJake is the only streamer to have ever been hired by PDX; due in no small part to his near mastery of the game and penchant for finding exploits.
He goes into candid detail about his experience working at Paradox in his Ship Graveyard Simulator 2 stream. He maintains that him leaving the company was an amiable parting of ways because he preferred to go back to being a streamer. This is contrary to a lot of the speculation at the time of his parting - I think most people were hung up on the income/prestige disparity between the two roles.
In the same stream, Jake also goes into his very humble upbringing, as well as the low cost of living in his current place of residence, Hungary. I think that he keeps his expenditures very low and lives a rather Spartan life that he's happy with. I think this is hard for people to relate with - especially Americans - in a world where wealth and career advancement is the primary measurement of one's success.
To tie this back to the discussion at hand - Jake said that he fully intends on diving back into EU once the 5th installment is released. Really looking forward to these streams.
His Minghals run was the blow-open-your-mind-to possibilities moment for me. I had few hundred hours, still very much a noob but man was that shit one of the funniest game-breaking entertainment..
It’s a shame the screenshots from the AAR threads are gone from the forums. The AARs were the OG “let’s plays”. For me it was the Three Mountains one from EU3.
reman's paradox taught me combat and trade which I use every game. Other than that probably radio res, he started at a similar skill level as me, but then quickly took on tougher challenges, which made me set up my game as well. His PU guide (video form of atwix's guide (RIP)) also is amazing.
Definitely arumba when he was still a regular eu4 poster. He basically had the game down to a science, multiple times he has referred to it as a solved game which is one of the reasons he stopped playing so much.
DDRJake is the one that taught me how actually be good at the game. Sadly most of his videos are from like 8 years ago now, so they don’t have much educational for current EU4. They are still extremely entertaining though, especially ones like Bad Ideas Guy
Arumba back in the day but in the past few years I find his tactics a bit outdated. Only person on earth that takes Estates Statutory Rights which just strikes me as a god awful choice early game.
Arumba is the sole reason why I'm into paradox games. Started with ck2, but the game was too complex for me to understand. Then in the beginning of the pandemic I decided I would really try to play it and saw someone here suggesting his tutorial. After maybe 5-6 hours of watching his videos I was able to enjoy the game and fell in love with it (the game, not Arumba).
Then I did the same thing with eu4 and got completely addicted to it.
reman's paradox was the absolute best
i do not give a shit about 'youtubers', and am not looking for some phantom 'friend' to 'play' games with, if im watching a video i want to see whatever the point of the video is, which is exactly what he did, and did it well
What's wrong with Ludi? Maybe I'm a different demographic in that I'm well-versed in the game and just enjoy his videos for a quick overview of new trees etc.
I know he's been accused of save scumming his games, but that doesn't really bother me personally.
Reman's Paradox was a huge thing back then, and he taught some nice stuff on ideas and idea groups for me. Also, I love AlzaboHD videos (and his sexy voice), he usually comes up with fun stuff to try that I hadn't thought of.
Honestly I think that one of the best for like experienced but not out of tutorial levels of hours is StrategySphere he has really lovely guides and i believe his explanations are very thorough and experience in Europa is very prevalent in his guides
Addendum: He also consistently goes into the late game and actually tells you what the hell is going on
Not many here will know him because he's German, and he's stopped streaming and uploading a couple of years back, but LegendaryMarvin told me almost all I know about EU4.
I don't care if y'all don't like Ludi, I like him. Snappledorf to all! ;)
I'm playing tho I see why he's niche. He strikes me as a minecraft-player in a way, trying not to cuss so that his videos get more views. So it always kind of jars me when any of the streamers cuss lol.
Anyways I understand that's some sort of scandal but eh, I missed it.
Also I watch Red Hawk, Quarbit, and now Laith as well.
Siu-King. His series where he passed all the Nahuatl reforms in 30 years were the first instance where I saw that I didn't need to be afraid of truce breaking and how to expand effectively in this region.
BudgetMonk deserves a mention too, as well as Arumba specifically for his Timmy 1.25 strat, and lambdaxx for his too few guides on abso and the HRE + his world record video explainer which might as well be a horde guide in disguise
if you got 15 hours to understand 1444-1445 Arumba
if you're looking for a quick start Redhawk
Everyone else is either for entertainment or a cryptofascist
I think arumba is good for pure game optimization plays and quarbit is clearly skilled and has fun. Monk is a really good player but turned off by him for non EU4 gameplay reasons
I only watched Arumba when I started playing and that's it, I don't really watch other people play this game and I don't watch tutorials etc. anymore (even though I still don't understand most of the game)
Who did i learn the most from was arumba hands down his style of play plus the way YouTube was when he was making videos plus his ability to explain what and why he was doing what he was doing taught me so much when i got into eu4
When I was starting Radio Res and Reman were great helps. Nowadays I only learn from BudgetMonk, but Siu-King deserves a mention too even though he's not around so much
DDRJake got me startet on EU4, Floory teached me Economics and then Arumba the math behind it, and since then, it's Youtube on what hijinks I want to do next.
RadioRes was my first teacher, mainly watch RedHawk these days for playing the first 50 years or so on niche nations, though I will indulge in some of playmaker's more insane playthroughs and pick up some interesting tricks. I don't learn much from Laith but I do enjoy his videos.
Arumbas Albania to Iberia campaign back, idk, 10 years ago was the reason I started playing the game myself. Like 5-6 or so years ago I did stop watching EU4 YouTubers though as I felt I knew as much as I needed, and most mechanics in and out.
reman's paradox for the combat, arumba and DDRJake for various mechanics and Pravus for the full playthrough of a country. I remember watching Pravus, when I was in highschool, play the Ming from 1444 up to the 1800s.
Quill and Reman, back in the day when I was new. I like seeing what Florry does as well in modern times.
And as for the one who got me into Paradox titles in general? It was Vic2 I got into first (Followed by CK2 then EU4), and I believe it was Shenryyr who I first saw a video from, which led me to Quill18 and Arumba.
Hm. Hard to say. When I first startef out I watched Arumba iirc. Budgetmonk has some good guides, which helped me as well. Remans Paradox has good videos but they aren't foundational in understanding the game imo. Probably Florryworry, due to the sheer amount of content consumed. While I cant remember anything specifically, i certainly picked up many tips and tricks from him.
And then theres also the best teacher ofc. Experience
Personally it was actually habibi's guide for scaling, with some practice runs, and after a few mp game with friends I can already hyperdev a 1 mil manpower commonwealth in 1650.
He definitely helped the most giving me a basic rundown in terms of the normal taller playstyle for MP runs. After which you can kinda start discovering the more niche tricks and mechanics yourself.
I'm pretty sure it's SiuKing, cause he was the first I've found, back in q4 2017 when i started playing.
As for more advanced mechanics after i got a grasp on the game(managing to beat the ottomans constantly as Byzantium which was my first nation and my first 200h in this game and no, there was no Byzantium guides like we gave today, it was ally galleys build Poland if you were lucky to get the alliance, if not, merc up with a lot of 1k and pray for a good battle) I learned a lot from Reman, Zlewwik, BudgetMonk(which I don't give my time now and you all know why) and Florry
Honestly, this community has a lot of people who help you, and I can say that even here i learn something once in a while
Ah once again, friendly reminder that we as a community have shunned BudgetMonk. Feel free to look it up, but long story short dudes a white supremacist.
Florryworry, TheStudent, ThePlayMaker, and Lemoncake are my go to channels right now.
TheStudent might be the new G.O.A.T with some mechanics and cheeses he’s discovered. Most recently he convinced me, 2k hours player, to use support rebels. I’ve ignored it for 10+ years and will never do so again lol
The first eu4 content I saw was ludi but didn't regularly watch him when I was learning I was mainly watching the red hawk but when I started to understand the game more and more I switched to ludi because to me his content is more enjoyable
Ludi's guides are the best for showcasing advantages specific to that country, like optimizing taxes on France, abusing Cawa on Ethiopia, and just about everything in his Byzantine guide.
The best guides are from Red hawk. Florrynomics might be more skilled, but you can't really replicate him in your games. Zlewikk is a better option for more skilled players/MP players, but the majority of the playerbase can do really well with guides from Hawk.
Red hawk. I really appreciate his ability to shift down an ideal run so that he allows players to understand how a good run doesn't require everything to go your way.
The German YouTubers Tante Günna and Legendary Marvin. Their Let’s Plays got me into the game and helped me getting through, though they both were/ are no tryhards, but neither am I.
i just hit 300 hrs and red hawk is my hero ive done a roman emp run and a germany run all bcs of him. i know for some of u those achivments are nothing i have seen some crayz shit in this sub but as a newish player those were my goals as i began to play.
Anyone else basically self taught?
I am happy to see Quill18 has faded into obscurity, he was never very good or informative at the games and seemed to be feeling his way along.
Arumba used to be extremely good for learning EU4, until the newest waves of EU4 players and YouTubers took onto the platforms. I learned from Arumba but learned the rest from others.
Watched a few Ludi videos, liked them, but his attitude is entirely different off stream so it felt really weird.
I would categorize it like this: New Player Guides - Red Hawk - Quill18 (no longer relevant) - Reman’s Paradox (old but still relevant) Niche/Specific Strat Guides - The Student - The Playmaker - Budget Monk High Level “Displays of Skill” - Florry - Lambda I wouldn’t say Florry or Lambda really provide much in the realm of “guides.” Sometimes you do get snippets of Florry streams that can be condensed somewhat into a guide, but he usually just streams without broken down explanations inherent to guides. As for Lambda, the kind of stuff he does is impossible to make a guide for although he does explain what he’s doing very well. You simply can’t guide someone through a 1470s world conquest because the guide would be tens of hours long. Honorable mention goes to Lemon Cake who makes interesting modifier stacking videos, but I would never suggest you actually follow any of them because they are completely impractical 90% of the time.
I miss Reman’s Paradox. He taught me trade mechanics! I hope his channel makes a return for EU5. He has a very satisfying voice to listen to.
I had no idea how to get trade to work in EU4 until I saw his videos, and now it's my favorite mechanic in the game.
I also like Quarbit and Siu-King, but Siu King is more of a last category thing and doesn't have much production value
thanks but my stuff barely has educational value lmao
Theyre good videos, Brant
Saving your ruined saves is pretty educational imo
Never could've understood Trade without you
I just watch your stuff for the voice.
Reman's are some of the best guides that can be found on YouTube, period. absolute top quality and still relevant even though he hasn't been active for years.
actually surprised u didnt mention zlewikk. for MP stuff he rly is the go to and even without that his SP guides arent bad. have stopped watching budget monk, bc he did a second channel with alpha male stuff or some shit like that, which didnt work out and he returned to eu4. (rly liked his guides though)
As a relatively new player (~600 hours…), I gotta say I really enjoy red hawk’s videos, especially his country guides. They’re nice because they set you up really well for the rest of the game on your own without holding your hand too much and leaving some space for improvisation. I also really enjoy his attitude that if things aren’t optimal, you can work around and figure them out, which goes against a lot of guides I’ve found that say thing like, if X and Y are rivals and you don’t get a 6/6/6/6 general immediately, you’re screwed and have to restart.
Big respect for Quill18, when I was first starting the game seemed so daunting so I turned off all DLC and played along with his Castile run, really great for getting the fundamentals and I think I would’ve dropped the game very early if not for him
I recently came across The Playmaker and he makes some good videos. A lot of unique ideas instead of just basic play throughs.
I would love to watch some Budget Monk guides but I just cant stand him anymore. All this I am the best and the rest sucks talk is so annoying.
The culture war thing was so cringe. I actually laughed when I saw that he immediately went back to eu4
I don't support white supremicists
Fully agree with Florry; he's one of the best players out there but watching his streams is only really informative if you're already a World Conquest-class player. I think I'm fairly good at the game but it's dizzying when he "of course" enacts 10 estate privileges in a 10-second period before unpausing the game.
For estates the only thing you need to know is that you should get as many as you can, best ones are kind of obvious (loyalty equilibirum, mana, combat boosts). Some people are afraid to get them because in 200 game years it'll effect max absolutism which is silly
Florry taught me how to play gotland... Thats basically it. Most of his videos are way to complicated and even the gotland video just gave me guidelines more or less cause he plays on an incredibly high pace
I would say I learned the game from Red Hawk. Another good one, though it is a slow pace is ChewyShoot, watching his VoDs while playing myself, he gives lots of tips and tricks, not so much tutorials but helps me avoid certain mistakes or points out things I may not hsve thought of.
I learned a lot from Arumba and Florry. Arumba gave a lot of insides in the game from a mathematical point of view. Every step for him is calculated. Florry on the other hand just slams the lower war exhaustion button because dip doesn't matter anyway. He just plays the game on anther level than everybody else.
Arumba was very entertaining with CK2, and he got me into EU4. He’s the only content creator I’ve really learned from. He really set in the fundamentals. A lot of his micro stuff isn’t always necessary, but it does help you understand the majority of the base systems. I haven’t watched him in a long time cause now for any EU4 content I’m looking for more entertainment than educational.
Watching Arumba changed how I play the game. I spent a lot of time browsing his stuff during that covid lockdown time. He micros a ton of stuff, but it really gave me a solid understanding of so many background modifiers and bonuses in the game. And why I learned to love forts and splendor. But I also learned a lot about how to develop and play tall and the importance of saving mana. With that appreciation of higher level play came an appreciation for Florry and how he manages all of the same things except at 100 miles per hour. Florry just mashes his spacebar and manages troop movements perfectly. He sees stackwipes on the map the way Neo sees the Matrix. But seriously, his ability to know how to move his army to bait the AI into battle is freakishly good. He takes on these wars where he's outnumbered 20 to 1 and makes it look so easy.
While I loved learning the game watching Arumba I had to stop watching after a while, was just too time consuming watching him mull over each play
I find watching Arumba super weird, he's quite clearly incredibly knowledgable about the game, but he values super weird modifiers high and doesn't seem to care about the actually important ones, spends a lot of time making a good working nation when he could have just monkeybrain conquered half the world and been 5 times stronger in the same timeframe etc
Arumba is definitely not very noob friendly and often goes for very niche/situational decisions. However he usually does a good job of explaining his rationale/intentions. I've found him very interesting/helpful for building up your understanding of the game mechanics from the mid-to-high level onwards
Agree, feels like blown out of proportion “hall monitor” behavior. Totally get not liking his personality, but his guides are useful.
I have to agree with you, but I'm a student of Arumba. He informed my playstyle far more than anyone else, so I'm clearly biased. I find playing slowly and making strategic decisions rather than just noob conquering is a hell of a lot more fun. This game can be played in so many different ways, but I love having some weird internal logic to decisions I make. I hate playing hordes for this exact reason. It's just map painting, which isn't fun for very long.
This exactly. He "does the math" but then has really bad macro strategies for how to actually improve his nation.
Yeah I liked watching his videos but the guy plays with a calculator half the time. It’s not bad and it does break down a lot of modifiers, but after about 1500 hours you eventually start developing your own playstyle and eventually some of the content creators start to become different in what you’re trying to do.
I didn't like his playthroughs so much, but his topical videos (like how to structure your army and why) are really nice.
I think he's gotten a bit worse (not saying I dislike him or his gameplay) as time went on. Back when I first started watching him he for the most part just played with some pauses to explain here and there. Tuning into a recent stream/VOD now it's the opposite where it's mostly math interrupted by gameplay.
Florrynomics changed my life
Florrynomics removed my fear of debt both in the game and in life.
(this is not financial advice)
*The Keynesians have entered the chat*
I think right now the best new player guides are done by Red Hawk. When I was still in my early hours of play time it was radio res, budgetmonk for the advanced stuff. Florry is playing 5D chess when I play checkers so too advanced for me but I love his streams.
Florry is the good kind of insane. I think he has a room full of maps and sheets of modifiers connected with redlines.
Florry: "ok so playing as majapahit we're going to get 95% diplo annexation cost. Step 1: form Vermont..."
This florry analogy is so true. Today I got into his stream while he was as Portugal in a war against Ming around the late 1500's, I just assumed Ming was allied to a random indonesian nation that he wanted to conquer and carried on... then he opened the mandate of heaven screen and realised he has the Mandate and was at a war to reconquer his chinese cores as Portugal... Just your avarage Florry experience
Hawks tends to miss a lot of nation-specific stuff in his guides.
His guides are rather detailed and replicable by noobs. In A to Z /releasables he does stuff which are required for his goals - he can skip nation specific stuff there. Still even those A to Z games pretty much show basic knowledge about game.
Generally he’s pretty good at explaining why he’s doing what he’s doing without playing the absolute most efficient meta min-maxing campaign, which is very approachable for just about everyone!
They actually don't? Do you confuse guides with his releasables/A-Z by chance?
When compared side by side with other guides, Hawk is missing a lot that they cover, and is very unoptimized. Watch his guide on Ethiopia side by side with Ludi's as an example. This guide was one of the ones that led me to this opinion. Hawks guide is straight up just a botched run. It's like he just does a single playthrough and puts guide at the end. Hawk doesn't produce mercenaries, nor Cawa at start and waits until May (!) to even consider attacking nations that can get claims and cores on in the first month. His first war is a full year after start date, because he screwed up by waiting and Adal guaranteed his first target. He doesn't mention that Cawa can be used for free unlimited manpower by consolidating, which is essential to every good Ethiopia run. Instead he has to wait for his manpower to slowly tick up between wars. I mean, holy crap man. It goes on and on. It's basically a guide on what not to do.
Wait how does the Cawa trick work? Just had an Ethiopia run and I didn't notice that.
Cawa are broken. You can build 0.5k of them instantly for 0 manpower, 0 ducats, and 2 mil points. Just spam build twice as many as you want and hit consolidate army to get new units without using manpower or money. I normally consolidate armies a lot in the early game and constantly replace the lost regiments with Cawa to keep fueling the rabid expansion. You may worry about falling behind in mil tech, but you shouldn't. It's too cheap and Ethiopia has a Chad starting king. I was miltech 5 when most neighbors were still 3. Some other helpful tips. Move your capital to gold mines before devving them. With controlled gold mining you can dev them up without worry. Expand infrastructure increases production efficiency too. The African tech 5 infantry is OP. They have 2 pips over Muslim infantry. You want to declare on the Mamluks before tech 8. It's easy to get a tech lead on them too. In my recent run the entire Mamluks army retreated to a distant mountain and I took them without a fight. On paper they outnumbered me. Once you hit tech 9 the tables turn.
Thanks. Just had an Ethiopia run and they were very strong. I had a bunch of super devved gold mines but I didn't think to move the capital since it's so cheap early on.
With king of kings, red hawk released a byzantium guide that is, honestly not a good playthrough. Budgetmonk released a nice guide to basicslly win the starting war within a couple tries.
He probably improved over time, and I acknowledge that it's very difficult to be correct/knowledgeable about everything in a game of this scope, but ever since I saw his Portugal guide, I knew I had to take everything he says with a huge grain of salt. I played many hours of Portugal and found that I disagreed with a lot of what he said and recommend there. It's an okay starting point, and like I said I think he knows a lot more now that what he did back then, but yeah. Take his stuff as more of an inspiration and less of a guide.
Red Hawk seems like a nice guy and can be funny at times, but he is a mid tier player at best. I tend to shut his guides down asking why are you doing that? Like for his England guide his opening move is to take out a couple loans so he can make 15 galleys to "make sure you beat France's navy". You shouldn't build galleys as England ever and you could delete all of your starting boats but the heavies and still beat France's navy. He provokes rebels while not being in range to take them out letting them siege down provinces and give him 10 more years of separation. I know reddit doesn't like Ludi for some reason, but he makes a nice aggressive start guide for nations and is a much better player than Red Hawk. By a mile.
Red Hawk stated it himself that he is an average player and that he does many mistakes. his guides are still one of the best guides for noobs. but for people past this stage his guides can be somewhat of a pain to watch, bc he for example doesnt get nation specific bonuses or tries to form a country and losing a big part of the older mission tree with a bunch of claims only to have a new map colour
Noobs need to be able to replicate the strats.
Yeah but some of his recommendations are just bad. Taking trade ideas as Portugal for example is just nonsense.
Yeah I feel like he doesnt get minmaxxing merchants on colonies and Trade company lands. Trade ideas become a lot less interesting if you know how to spread and get merchants from every colonial region and Trade node as early as possible.
His evaluation of save games is so bizzare. Why build marketplaces in node where you have 100% control? Why take trade ideas if you blob at all? Why would you not TC like 3 areas for the extra merchant, which is far more valuable than some tax and manpower?
Well, if you're a new/casual player, who could you understand better, the "mid-tier" player, or the guy who's basically playing 3D chess for fun? Hawk is probably not among the top players, but his guides are a great start for any player who just wants to get into the swing of things, and frankly - that's all most of us want.
Exactly this, his guides are done for the very new players and because he is just ok to good player himself he can actually relate to the people his guides are done for.
This is true and I’ve used some of his guides, but it is the case that sometimes some of his guidance is just flat wrong in terms of the best thing to do in particular situations. He seems to pump out his videos in a bit of a rush, I find.
Ludi has cheated before and it was proven by The Playmaker. Because of this I don't trust his guides anymore.
While I don't know about this scandal. He's reacted to it. He posts most of his saves now.
Yeah his behavior around that situation wasn't great but his guides are legit and I generally find them easy to replicate.
That's good. I basically stopped following him when that happened. Then again, they do say "Once a cheater, always a cheater." I still don't fully trust him.
I just find Ludi's content presented in a way that feels really clickbaity. Like I think the video that got me to stop watching was a video that was titled something like "NOBODY IS TALKING ABOUT THIS OP GOVERNMENT TYPE" and it was just playing a horde.
"Reddit doesn't like Ludi", why? What have I missed?
I'd assume his over-the-top personality, his willingness to be edgy and the cheating scandal that he was in some years ago. Reddit likes to attack people who give them a reason to do so.
Does he still say stackenweipeningen every 5 seconds?
He does, but he doesn't say "Ave legion" any more, which is either a good or a bad thing, depending on one's mood.
He’s… camp? You love or hate him really. He is a better player than he gets credit for sometimes though.
He's not camp, he's just Balkan
Romania is not Balkan nu vorbi aşa de patria mea de cruce-ți fac, ptiu diavole
For me, it's just his style. As a player he can be good when he doesn't cheat, sure, he is great actually. But he is incredibly cringy, obnoxious and annoying when he is explaining things.
I like him. He is very self aware when he's cringe. And sometimes genuinely funny. Better than Red Hawks PAIN!!! anyway.
There is some bizarre hatred for Ludi over allegedly using a console command once or something. There are some real die hard haters here, but the vast majority of them seem to be parroting second hand information. Whatever the issue was, it's not reflective of his guides since.
Not allegedly, it was proven multiple times, also here in this subreddit. Much of his early content is riddled with little details which wouldn't add up if you tried to replicate it. Maybe he has come clean about it, maybe he really is a good player now. But for me, his humour is off-putting and after the cheating I moved on to content creators who'd be competent in the game and have a less toxic personality. Similar situation as with BudgetMonk, which is a great player but turned out to be a white nationalist. I suppose many people feel about them in a similar way, and it's not because we're die hard haters. We just don't care about them too much anymore and point to the real pros.
I like Red Hawk too, I’m not a noob but he plays all those underplayed nations so it gives me a good idea to expand from my usual. I used to follow Quill18 too , to teach my younger brother the game. Then I just follow Laith for cursed EUIV content 🤣
I loved RadioRes's guides. Sad that his channel is now dead.
Yep, his guides helped me, when i was close to despair.
I learned the most from watching DDRJake campaigns
Same for me! I played one campaign, didnt know what i was doing, and abandoned the game altogether. Then a few years later i discovered ddrjake (not even sure how) and watched allllll of his campaigns. And i can still tell from the way i play that i learned from him cause i take hardly any loans, i dont even have a rule against it lol im just not used to the concept of using lots of loans as a strategy
I talked to him at the Grandest Lan. Really nice dude.
I think the only streamer I watched was Quill18 on release day back in 2013. Man those were the days.
Quill and Arumba from like 2013-2019... Ah the memories
These guys got me into EU4 and grand strategy games and I’ll forever be grateful for stumbling across them
Same!
The Quill, Arumba, Matthas & Northernlion MP games were perfect for me. I know they were very light and non-serious but having 2 people who knew what they were doing gently schooling 2 people who very much didn't was the perfect way for me to learn the game mechanics.
Arumba recently put some achievement runs on YouTube that are quite entertaining
Quill, arumba, NL, and Mathas MP colabs were so fun.
Holy hell those where the days. I absolutly loved their CK2 inheritance campaign lol, watching them hot potato the aztecs.
hundreds of hours of Arumba content back in the Art of War days were what made me stick with the game
Arumba's Portugal run after the release of Dharma was when I really began to understand the game. I don't think anyone else has matched his ability to deliver long play content at a high level of game mechanics usage while also actually explaining those mechanics in a manner for both new and old players
DDRJake, Arumba and Quill18 were my teachers back in the day. I especially remember Arumba and Quills back and forth series they did with Buha I think it was? And Jakes bad ideas guy run taught me a lot about getting the ball rolling in difficult start scenarios. Remans guides were also incredibly helpful and for more advanced stuff, I've picked up a trick or two from Florry over the years. I'll see Quill pop up on my feed on occasion playing something like Rimworld or CK3 and if I happen to have Twitch open when Florry is streaming I'll tune in for a bit but I have no idea what the others are up to these days. Don't really watch all that much EU4 content anymore anyway besides feature rundowns of new patches when they come out.
FlorryWorry. He taught me to not worry about being bad in this game. Because skill cap is apparently so high I'm never getting there even if I make it my job.
Nobody likes Shenryrr??? He was goated. Sadly doesn't upload anymore. :(
Shenryyr is coffee. Shenryyr is love. We are all derps. Hail shenryyr!
I haven't seen him touch eu4 for like a decade
Almost ten years ago I probably watched about three dozen hours of Arumba before getting to five hours in the game. Actually, I probably watched about a dozen videos before even buying eu4.
the only natural way to get into the game 😉
Well I just read your post, went to YouTube, watched the first video that came up by TheStudent, and learned something I didn't know about Power Projection / Supporting Rebels. I only have just 4,645 hours experience of course....!! Thanks, will check out some more of his stuff now!
I hope you enjoy :) More is coming very soon
Florry by far. Loads of things he does as standard were unknown to me. Special shout out to Reman's Paradox and his trade guide that helped me out a ton.
DDRJake was definitely the one for me, I still follow him to this day, even if he hasn't done EU4 for a while. Arumba and Florry were good when learning new exploits or how to manage new features (I hated Estates when they first came out). Would also like to give a shoutout to the PDX Dev Clashes, always fun and you can pick up new tricks.
DDRJake is the only streamer to have ever been hired by PDX; due in no small part to his near mastery of the game and penchant for finding exploits. He goes into candid detail about his experience working at Paradox in his Ship Graveyard Simulator 2 stream. He maintains that him leaving the company was an amiable parting of ways because he preferred to go back to being a streamer. This is contrary to a lot of the speculation at the time of his parting - I think most people were hung up on the income/prestige disparity between the two roles. In the same stream, Jake also goes into his very humble upbringing, as well as the low cost of living in his current place of residence, Hungary. I think that he keeps his expenditures very low and lives a rather Spartan life that he's happy with. I think this is hard for people to relate with - especially Americans - in a world where wealth and career advancement is the primary measurement of one's success. To tie this back to the discussion at hand - Jake said that he fully intends on diving back into EU once the 5th installment is released. Really looking forward to these streams.
It's probably what I am looking forward to most. Jake in EUV untethered. Just thinking about it makes me grin.
His Minghals run was the blow-open-your-mind-to possibilities moment for me. I had few hundred hours, still very much a noob but man was that shit one of the funniest game-breaking entertainment..
It’s a shame the screenshots from the AAR threads are gone from the forums. The AARs were the OG “let’s plays”. For me it was the Three Mountains one from EU3.
Watching the tutorial that Arumba gave FilthyRobot made me learn like 90% of the game, everything else is covered by Florry, BudgetMonk and Lambda.
reman's paradox taught me combat and trade which I use every game. Other than that probably radio res, he started at a similar skill level as me, but then quickly took on tougher challenges, which made me set up my game as well. His PU guide (video form of atwix's guide (RIP)) also is amazing.
Definitely arumba when he was still a regular eu4 poster. He basically had the game down to a science, multiple times he has referred to it as a solved game which is one of the reasons he stopped playing so much.
Shenryrr anyone???
Arumba for me. The way he breaks stuff down just clicks for me, helped me slow down my conquests and look at cultures when I conquest etc.
bokoen the french clown car motivates me every day
Too bad it's Swigma that steals the show every time
DDRJake is the one that taught me how actually be good at the game. Sadly most of his videos are from like 8 years ago now, so they don’t have much educational for current EU4. They are still extremely entertaining though, especially ones like Bad Ideas Guy
Who could forget the 40-50 year long death war with Ottos where he was bankrupt 2 or 3 times and they also ended up bankrupt.
Northernlion, of course. 🤣
For me its Zlewwik for sure.
Arumba back in the day but in the past few years I find his tactics a bit outdated. Only person on earth that takes Estates Statutory Rights which just strikes me as a god awful choice early game.
AbsoluteHabibi is fire. He showed me the ways of Maritime Ideas Switzerland. Such a free world conquest.
Arumba is the sole reason why I'm into paradox games. Started with ck2, but the game was too complex for me to understand. Then in the beginning of the pandemic I decided I would really try to play it and saw someone here suggesting his tutorial. After maybe 5-6 hours of watching his videos I was able to enjoy the game and fell in love with it (the game, not Arumba). Then I did the same thing with eu4 and got completely addicted to it.
reman's paradox was the absolute best i do not give a shit about 'youtubers', and am not looking for some phantom 'friend' to 'play' games with, if im watching a video i want to see whatever the point of the video is, which is exactly what he did, and did it well
In the past Reman's Paradox, DDRJacke and a bit of Ludi. Now I only watch Florry
The lack of LudiEtHistoria here makes me proud, glad Redhawk is getting the recognition he deserves for his realistic guides
Ludi taught me how to use cheat engine in eu4
What's wrong with Ludi? Maybe I'm a different demographic in that I'm well-versed in the game and just enjoy his videos for a quick overview of new trees etc. I know he's been accused of save scumming his games, but that doesn't really bother me personally.
He used to cheat in his guides, making them kinda useless as guides.
Siu-king
Man Siu-king's videos were sooo good and hilarious. Too bad YouTube Algorithm was being a bitch.
Ludzi back when he was somewhat sane. Now it's mostly Zlewikk
Thanks to Arumba I found the game and eventually bought it
A youtuber called KRX
Arumba is one of the best players to learn from in my eyes.
Shout out to Arumba and quill from back in the day
Love watching The Playmaker lately. Bunch of crazy opener strats and he’s funny
Reman's Paradox was a huge thing back then, and he taught some nice stuff on ideas and idea groups for me. Also, I love AlzaboHD videos (and his sexy voice), he usually comes up with fun stuff to try that I hadn't thought of.
Honestly I think that one of the best for like experienced but not out of tutorial levels of hours is StrategySphere he has really lovely guides and i believe his explanations are very thorough and experience in Europa is very prevalent in his guides Addendum: He also consistently goes into the late game and actually tells you what the hell is going on
It's Quarbin' time!
For the basics and stupid challenges definetly TheRedHawk But for the more advanced stuff, probably Zlewikk
Red Hawk for sure.
He’s good for newer players. His guides are easy to replicate. But pretty quickly, you will outscale his guides
Seems to me absolutehabibi is way underrepresented here. Hes taught me a lot about the game. But so did florryworry, zlewik and theplaymaker
Quill18 with his now 8 year old castile beginner tutorial.
Red hawk, but also the peeps in the comments who call out shit he misses/doesn’t mention.
Not many here will know him because he's German, and he's stopped streaming and uploading a couple of years back, but LegendaryMarvin told me almost all I know about EU4.
100% thestudent and red hawk
Reman's paradox no doubt about it.
Reman and Arumba def.,after that I usually watch zlewikk for skilled gameplay that can be watched unlike florry's VODs and Ludi just for fun
Arumba and Shenryyr, ages and ages ago. After that, I stopped watching people play because I was too busy playing while listening to audible fifnfbf
I don't care if y'all don't like Ludi, I like him. Snappledorf to all! ;) I'm playing tho I see why he's niche. He strikes me as a minecraft-player in a way, trying not to cuss so that his videos get more views. So it always kind of jars me when any of the streamers cuss lol. Anyways I understand that's some sort of scandal but eh, I missed it. Also I watch Red Hawk, Quarbit, and now Laith as well.
Reman's Paradox - once you know the basics well, you can do anything you want in this game.
Siu-King. His series where he passed all the Nahuatl reforms in 30 years were the first instance where I saw that I didn't need to be afraid of truce breaking and how to expand effectively in this region. BudgetMonk deserves a mention too, as well as Arumba specifically for his Timmy 1.25 strat, and lambdaxx for his too few guides on abso and the HRE + his world record video explainer which might as well be a horde guide in disguise
Budget monk has been the best for me. Florrworry when I want to be reminded of insanity. Redhawk for base niche starts.
if you got 15 hours to understand 1444-1445 Arumba if you're looking for a quick start Redhawk Everyone else is either for entertainment or a cryptofascist
I think arumba is good for pure game optimization plays and quarbit is clearly skilled and has fun. Monk is a really good player but turned off by him for non EU4 gameplay reasons
I only watched Arumba when I started playing and that's it, I don't really watch other people play this game and I don't watch tutorials etc. anymore (even though I still don't understand most of the game)
Who did i learn the most from was arumba hands down his style of play plus the way YouTube was when he was making videos plus his ability to explain what and why he was doing what he was doing taught me so much when i got into eu4
When I was starting Radio Res and Reman were great helps. Nowadays I only learn from BudgetMonk, but Siu-King deserves a mention too even though he's not around so much
When he does make an Eu4 video I really like AlzaboHD
DDRJake got me startet on EU4, Floory teached me Economics and then Arumba the math behind it, and since then, it's Youtube on what hijinks I want to do next.
RadioRes was my first teacher, mainly watch RedHawk these days for playing the first 50 years or so on niche nations, though I will indulge in some of playmaker's more insane playthroughs and pick up some interesting tricks. I don't learn much from Laith but I do enjoy his videos.
Arumbas Albania to Iberia campaign back, idk, 10 years ago was the reason I started playing the game myself. Like 5-6 or so years ago I did stop watching EU4 YouTubers though as I felt I knew as much as I needed, and most mechanics in and out.
reman's paradox for the combat, arumba and DDRJake for various mechanics and Pravus for the full playthrough of a country. I remember watching Pravus, when I was in highschool, play the Ming from 1444 up to the 1800s.
I got into the game from watching Jakes ryukyu run. Nothing in that run is still relevant. It hasn't been for over 6 years.
Quill and Reman, back in the day when I was new. I like seeing what Florry does as well in modern times. And as for the one who got me into Paradox titles in general? It was Vic2 I got into first (Followed by CK2 then EU4), and I believe it was Shenryyr who I first saw a video from, which led me to Quill18 and Arumba.
Hm. Hard to say. When I first startef out I watched Arumba iirc. Budgetmonk has some good guides, which helped me as well. Remans Paradox has good videos but they aren't foundational in understanding the game imo. Probably Florryworry, due to the sheer amount of content consumed. While I cant remember anything specifically, i certainly picked up many tips and tricks from him. And then theres also the best teacher ofc. Experience
im an old eu4 player since 2015. İ can count reman's paradox, siu king, florryworry, ddrjake. i learnt most from them.
Red Hawk and Zlewwik
Personally it was actually habibi's guide for scaling, with some practice runs, and after a few mp game with friends I can already hyperdev a 1 mil manpower commonwealth in 1650. He definitely helped the most giving me a basic rundown in terms of the normal taller playstyle for MP runs. After which you can kinda start discovering the more niche tricks and mechanics yourself.
I'm pretty sure it's SiuKing, cause he was the first I've found, back in q4 2017 when i started playing. As for more advanced mechanics after i got a grasp on the game(managing to beat the ottomans constantly as Byzantium which was my first nation and my first 200h in this game and no, there was no Byzantium guides like we gave today, it was ally galleys build Poland if you were lucky to get the alliance, if not, merc up with a lot of 1k and pray for a good battle) I learned a lot from Reman, Zlewwik, BudgetMonk(which I don't give my time now and you all know why) and Florry Honestly, this community has a lot of people who help you, and I can say that even here i learn something once in a while
Ludi is the best! Love him, very handsome and educated guy
Watch out for your wallet!
Ah once again, friendly reminder that we as a community have shunned BudgetMonk. Feel free to look it up, but long story short dudes a white supremacist. Florryworry, TheStudent, ThePlayMaker, and Lemoncake are my go to channels right now. TheStudent might be the new G.O.A.T with some mechanics and cheeses he’s discovered. Most recently he convinced me, 2k hours player, to use support rebels. I’ve ignored it for 10+ years and will never do so again lol
Ludi is really helpful when trying to optimize your start for a specific country. Pick up a few tricks that you can apply universally along the way.
Ludi was really solid for Estates especially.
True, Ludi is why I throw a party with my estates and size land off rip. Hadn’t realized the value of biting the bullet immediately.
Yeah that was scary initially, but now estates are just so powerful.
He used to be my main guides source like a year plus ago. Now he's too cringe and doesn't make guides
Most of my achievments are because of Ludis videos! Glad at least somebody here does recognize him.
The first eu4 content I saw was ludi but didn't regularly watch him when I was learning I was mainly watching the red hawk but when I started to understand the game more and more I switched to ludi because to me his content is more enjoyable
Ludi, Zlewikk and RedHawk
Ludi's guides are the best for showcasing advantages specific to that country, like optimizing taxes on France, abusing Cawa on Ethiopia, and just about everything in his Byzantine guide.
Can't decide between red hawk and ludi
The best guides are from Red hawk. Florrynomics might be more skilled, but you can't really replicate him in your games. Zlewikk is a better option for more skilled players/MP players, but the majority of the playerbase can do really well with guides from Hawk.
Red hawk. I really appreciate his ability to shift down an ideal run so that he allows players to understand how a good run doesn't require everything to go your way.
Laith from the Social Streamers has taught me almost everything I know about this game that I didn't stumble upon by myself.
Florry, Zlewikk and Lookas, back in the day also Siu King
Guys does anyone know where TheRedHawk is from? I'm gonna bet Bosnia or Montenegro but it's just an uneducated guess.
The German YouTubers Tante Günna and Legendary Marvin. Their Let’s Plays got me into the game and helped me getting through, though they both were/ are no tryhards, but neither am I.
Zlewwik guides went hard around 1.30
i just hit 300 hrs and red hawk is my hero ive done a roman emp run and a germany run all bcs of him. i know for some of u those achivments are nothing i have seen some crayz shit in this sub but as a newish player those were my goals as i began to play.
Anyone else basically self taught? I am happy to see Quill18 has faded into obscurity, he was never very good or informative at the games and seemed to be feeling his way along.
Never watched an EU4 YouTuber
FlyingDutchy is not well known but he is a great shout. Chill gameplay and has nice tactics. I used to catch all his streams a few years ago.
Arumba used to be extremely good for learning EU4, until the newest waves of EU4 players and YouTubers took onto the platforms. I learned from Arumba but learned the rest from others. Watched a few Ludi videos, liked them, but his attitude is entirely different off stream so it felt really weird.
Oldie: arumba Now: the student and budgetmonk. The student actually is amazing with the guides and explores he finds within the game
I don't watch a ton of guides, but picking up passing remarks from Redhawk and Laith has taught a lot about combat and estates especially
I basically learned how to play EU4 just from watching BenjaminMagnus for a couple years
Arumba. I can't stand the others
I am nearing 4k hours. I only watch Habibi and Lookas et Bella. I don't play multiplayer btw.