why starting as small nation is impossible ?! I need help

[Green Smoke]

I like to srart small and grow over time thats the reason I bought EU4, the game does not allow this to happen.

I always get minus income , tried loans , best trade method ,hell I even set difficulty very easy.

it does not work and never works. After watching many videos and read too many tips still stuck and frustrated , why while doing everything right sill there is no improvment?!! I dont understand how this is happening , it defies logic and common sense ... unless the game programmed poorly which is it not the case, but I am thinking of every possibility here .

and you know what the irnoy is ? I understand the mechanic of the game and every bit of it.

I need help.

[Salty Platypus]

The simplest answer i can give you is don't start as a small nation until you gain more experience playing the game.

[Loquitran]

Obviously is not impossible, but also it is more challenging.

I don't know what nation you're trying to start with but, there are some stuff you can do to increase your odds.

First, try to secure some strong allies, the allies you should aim for, depend on which nation you choose to start with.

Second, since you don't have a good income, don't mind hiring advisors, since you wouldn't be able to maintain them.

Lower your army maintenance while in peace and mothball all your forts. If you have some boats, you can try to sell some of them to other nations, but only do so if you are really hurting for ducats, naval warfare is a thing in this game.

If you didn't already knew, don't train troops above your land force limit, they will be exponentially expensive the more you surpass the limit. Also, you don't need to be at the land force limit if you have low income, but keep in mind that doing so, will make you more vulnerable to the AI(that is one of the reasons you should secure strong allies early, since they will mostly likely join defensive wars).

The first years as a small nation are really rough, but completely doable. After you solve your income problems, you can start fabricating claims on other people.

I hope this helps.

Oh, and if you want a more thorough strategy for a country, check the EU4 wiki. They have strategies for all the countries, at least for the early game stuff.

[drcox321]

many small nations require in depth knowledge of the game and a large dose of luck. if your having problems with a small nation maybe play a larger nation in the same area and get a feel for the area before trying the small nation again. pay attention to special events that occur and when they occur.
As for your money situation thats a bit trickier. smaller nations almost make no money. you usually cant afford advisors. when not at war have army and fort maintance low. if you have common sense develepment can help jumpstart an economy. other then that stick mostly with infantry as calv are to expensive. It may not be a good idea to be at force limit unless its necessary for conquest and defence. Take it slow with a small nation. Its hard to take lots of land when small and usually you have to wait years between wars. as a small nations loans at times are fairly unavoidable but still try to keep them uncommon. loan interest can cripple what little cashflow you have. always try to have a war chest before a war starts. Taking money in wars can help alot. really just be very fiscally conservative and you should be fine.

[Valar Morghulis]

As mentioned before. Starting as a low dev nation isnt easy and require knowledge.

Good starting nations are in the HRE. You can only expand slowly because of AE but you can take one small bite at a time until you snowball. Also it's not so difficult too find allies and the bations in the HRE tend do be at war pretty often so you have many good attack windows.

[Mol]

Yeah it took me about 50 hours to understand the basic mechanics, and I still learn new tricks every once in a while after 900 hours lol.

[equinox1911]

Originally posted by ᴏᴍɴiSᴜᴘᴘᴏʀᴛ:

I like to srart small and grow over time thats the reason I bought EU4, the game does not allow this to happen.

...

I understand the mechanic of the game and every bit of it.

Playing as minors or OPMs is very possible and except a few cases isn't that luck dependent.
The bigger issue is that you think you know the game after 26 hrs, you obvioiusly don't else you would at least ask the right questions instead of claiming to do everything right...

The best advice is probably to stick to bigger nations until you learn at least the basics, i usually wouldn't advice anyone with less than 100 hrs to start thinking about nations smaller than 100 dev.

And just to clarify, in the current version one tag wc one faith on very hard with ryuuku without exploit is possible and except the time investment not even that hard.

[kaiyl_kariashi]

Start big (Ottomans or France are both very strong starts without too much early game BS to deal with). Then look towards England or Castile. They're also strong starts but have a lot of annoying early events that can wreck you if you aren't well settled on the basics and know how to better handle their early game events.

Then maybe try portugal to get a medium sized nation start built around colonization and trade.


Early on you want to be a western nation or close to the mediterrian, since this will allow you to more easily acquire early institutions. Which means you'll have to pay less attention to managing your tech penalty and can spend more time on other aspects.

Before you jump into OPMs, it might do to play an India or Asian medium nation first, since this will include valuable learning about how to manage your tech penalty while also playing in less well developmented but still fairly strong nations. (the Russian region can also work but being right next the HRE can ♥♥♥♥ you over pretty badly while you're still learning, where as India/Asia everyone is still on roughly the same page)

After that then you can try and Ireland or HRE game.

Ireland is much easier than it used to be since they doubled the development of each province and increased by about 50% the amount of provinces, so now Ireland as a whole is about as strong as Scotland (previously they were a fair bit weaker economically and made Luck of the Irish VERY difficult (unless you used the Exodus strat which was the safest but also slowest method). The only hard part is quickly consolidating Ireland before England vassalizes/eats part of it and then go after Scotland before England can. This will give you the economic base to fight England more evenly since you can negate their naval superiority advantage and getting France as an ally can beat up England's main-land allies.

HRE is very well developed but the HRE system itself means that AE management and learning how to deal with the imperial mechanics will further complicate things.

If you'd prefer a more slow paced OPM experience, HRE is it.


once you've done all that, playing RotW Minors or Native Americans is potentially on the list. And hopefully by this point you've have mastered all the tricks and tactics of game.

The only potentially luck based ones are Byzantium and going for Albania to Iberia, since both of them put you as very small nations who only have a couple years to make something happen before Ottoblob stomps on you.

[Ficelle]

The game is not symetrical.
Some nations have it easy, many have potential, some have it hard...like it was back in time for those nations, depending on size, neighbours, area etc...


Start with Ottomans, France, Castille, Portugal or some medium sized nations in Asia or Africa (institutions and techs will be a problem there...)...and try to win in normal, this is the first step.

Those nations will teach you plenty of essential mechanics...with a safety net (dont believe it will be piece of cake, if anything you will learn coalitions...)

Combat, Eco, Diplo, Religion and stability...are very important to understand to do well and are essential to play a weak nation.

Easy difficulty is the best way to not learn anything at all.

After you have done well with some good nations and have some experience, you can switch to whatever suit you.

OPM and quite a few other nations are challenging or even doomed to lose, no need to add the player as handicap.