Good 2024 Tutorial Guide?

[War-A-Tron]

As per title, looking on youtube there are a number of guides but many are five years old and I have been advised that a lot of QOL features have been added that are not covered by the old guides.

For reference, I get CK2, CK3, Stellaris, Vic3, HOI4 and have hundreds of hours in those. Just trying to pick this one up. I got the subscription for now so I have all the DLC.

So my question is if there is a high quality new player guide that someone can reccomend?

[Narrowmind]

To be honest, I haven't seen anything comprehensive lately. You maybe be able find something two or three years old. If you don't want to watch a let's play, and you don't want to dive in the deep end by yourself and come to the community with questions, it will be very hard to learn, I'm sorry.

The closest thing to a 2024 guide written down would come from Marquoz, one of our resident gods of the game. Please check it out and study it carefully, but come to us if you have any specific questions. We will take the time to help you:











EU4 is a game that is both complex and deep. You won’t be able to master it quickly. It will take hundreds of hours of experience before you actually get good at it. And that’s fine! Make mistakes! Watch them wreck you! Lose! But learn from the process. It’s a fun experience.

Also, note that I strongly recommend you play the Ottomans for your first campaign. They aren’t the game’s most powerful nation, but they are the easiest to learn with. They have a simple start and are most forgiving of the mistakes a new player is going to make. They have no dangerous immediate neighbors, the ability to almost ignore religion, a strong ruler, a solid economy and military, and many options.

Before you even unpause the game, you should customize your message settings. Pretty much every message in the game is customizable, and many of them should be set to "Pop up and pause." Army reaches destination? Pop up and pause. Fleet reaches destination? Pop up and pause. Battle begins? Pop up and pause. Battle ends? Pop up and pause. Siege ends? Pop up and pause. War starts anywhere? Pop up and pause. Etc. etc. etc. Letting the game sail on while your military sits without orders will cost you wars, and being ignorant of what’s going on around you will cost you the game.

Another thing to do before you unpause is to decide on what your goal is for the campaign you’re about to start. Are you trying to get a specific ironman achievement? Do you want to learn about colonization? Unify the Holy Roman Empire? Show Europeans that Japan can beat them at their own game? Having a goal will provide focus to your game.

Your most important resource is your monarch points. You get these from your ruler’s stats, from your advisors, from estate privileges, and from power projection. These are complex topics that I won’t describe in detail here, but some high points are appropriate. First, note that monarch points come in three categories, Admin, Diplo, and Military. All three categories of points buy technological advancement and ideas, and all three also have additional uses. Admin is used to establish control of newly conquered land—to “core it” in game parlance. Diplo is used to peacefully integrate vassals and to hire naval leaders. And Military is used to hire army leaders. There are other functions, too, but those are most important. Getting as many monarch points as you can is crucial.

Advisors provide between +1 and +5 to their category every month. Small, poor nations can’t afford any. Strong starting nations like the Ottomans can hire +1’s immediately and soon grow to +3’s. And global powerhouses can afford +5 in all categories.

Estate privileges can provide an additional +1 to each category. Estates represent the great internal power blocs of your realm—the church, the nobles, the merchants, and so on. Estate privileges and crownland are also not a simple topic and I won’t go into great detail here. As a beginner, focus on keeping your crownland above 30% to avoid penalties, and increase that value by “seizing crownland” whenever you can. Be careful with the privileges you grant. In addition to the ones that boost monarch power, focus on those that increase estate loyalty at least as much as estate influence. The most important single privilege is probably “Supremacy over the Crown,” which is usually but not always a nobility privilege. It boosts all estates’ loyalty equilibrium by 10% at the cost of allowing them to call periodic diets (legislative sessions). These diets will force you to choose between three missions to keep your estates happy—but many of these missions are great and provide useful bonuses.

Speaking of missions, each nation has a mission tree that can guide your playthrough. You don’t have to follow it if you don’t want to, but the rewards for doing so are powerful. I recommend looking at it frequently as your game position changes to see if an available mission is near completion. Then you can focus your efforts on it.

The most important thing you can do on a strategic level is create a good alliance web. If you and your allies are stronger than your potential enemies, those enemies will be too afraid to attack you. If you’re weaker, you’re going to be a target. Pick your allies carefully, with an eye towards future expansion. Tunis makes a good ally for the Ottomans, for example. They have a good fleet, a decent army, and a good geographic position. They aren’t an early target of yours, but they’re close enough to help you against nations that you’ll fight soon (like the Mamluks). Also, note that alliances will shift during the course of the game. Today’s ally is tomorrow’s conquest target.

Speaking of conquest, warfare is a complex topic. But some general tips will be helpful. Battle results are determined by the following factors:

--Relative tech levels. Even a difference of one point can have a huge impact. Make sure you are the one in the lead.
--The terrain you fight on. Always attack in plains. Always try to defend in hills, mountains, or forests. Don't cross rivers to attack. Make your enemies cross one to attack you.
--Generals. But not just any general will do. Siege pips are wonderful against forts but do nothing in a battle. Fire pips are useless until infantry develop good fire values and cannons advance a few levels. Etc.
--Combat width and army composition. You want a front row of infantry + cavalry equal to your combat width. For most nations, a small number of cavalry (2 to 6, depending on combat width) is optimal. Your rear row should be exclusively artillery. At low tech, you don't need many, but by the time you reach military tech 10 to 13, you want a complete row if you can afford it.
--Sending in a second army to reinforce the first in large battles after significant damage has been done to your side.
--Making sure your troops are fully funded in wartime and have time to reach max morale.
--Drilling. The AI loves to drill, and the bonuses it provides are powerful. Once you can afford it, drill your armies in peacetime.
--Advisor and ruler bonuses
--National and military idea groups--but note that you can do VERY well in combat without either of these.

Once you really learn how combat works, you will go entire campaigns without losing a single battle.

Finally, I want to mention idea groups. As you move through the tech tree, you will unlock a series of eight idea groups. The groups you pick will play a big role in defining your playthrough. As the Ottomans, in order, I recommend Admin/Diplo/Influence as the first three that you choose. I call those groups “The Big Three” because they’re so useful. The reasons why won’t make much sense to you yet, but trust me, you can’t go wrong with them. Humanism makes a good 4th pick for the Ottomans. After that, it gets more complicated, but Expansion and Trade should be on your radar (if your game gets that far).

I hope this is of use. Feel free to ask specific questions on these forums as you learn the game. And remember the point I made at the beginning: EU4 is complex, and you’re going to be bad at it for a long time. Enjoy the learning process.

[High Society]

Things I want to add to this, when making peace deals when you select the provinces you want. You will generate something called "agressive expansion" also known as ae towards other countries mostly within the same culture/religion. When it becomes to high they will form a coalition against you. These coalitions are a big reason why beginners have to end their campaign. You can keep a look out for this by keepin an eye out for 2 crossing arrows on the peace deal screen. This will notify if a coalition could form and how big it would be (hover over it).

Coalition is a a group of countries that will attack simultanious and don't require them to be allied to each other.

Ottomans is seen as the strongest starting nation and a good recomendation. I would however recommend Offensive, Admin and Espionage.
- Offensive will help you generate powerfull generals a larger army and offers better use of manpower due to shorter sieges.
- Espionage will help you economicly and offensive. It has siege ability like offensive, ae reduction, rooting out corruption as well as a discount to your advisors. The corruption is a thing a lot players sleep on its powerfull.
- Admin has always been and will probably be the must have idea group in the vast majority of play throughs.

Other usefull idea groups:
- Humanism with offensive gives a policy which will practicly means you won't have rebels for the rest of the campaign. (you will get notified)
- Diplo or Influence, both have a lot of similaties with some distinct differences. In short if plan to play with vassals you should pick influence, if not go with diplo. If you want to keep it simple I would suggest diplo.

after that it really doesnt matter what ever you feel like.

In general:
Most players will regardless of country start with either a diplo or military idea group at admin tech 5 so they can get quicker to admin tech 7 which allows a 2nd idea group and take their first admin idea group. This somewhat important as these ideas unlock your national ideas. Especially at the start of the game admin power will be the most important resource you have as coring territories, upgrading tech buying stability all cost admin. These idea groups require a lot of resources (totally worth) so putting admin ideas at 5 is a bit early imo.

Playing the game is the best way to learn i've around 4k hours my brother over 6k and 2 days ago i though him something regarding trade and a week before that he thought me something about trade companies. With combined 10k hours we are still learning and thats what makes the game fun.
The game is very diverse every religion, government form and culture comes with unique mechanics and flavour. For example Indian nations have 5 different estates where European have 3, most Muslim countries have 4, Tribes and Hordes have 1 and Pirate republics have 0.

Even 2 essays in we just covered the bare minmum there is soo much more but playing the game ♥♥♥♥ around and find out is the best way.
There is a line i've read multiple times first 1k hours is just to learn the game. It sounds as a joke or meme but it really is not. So go out there fail, learn and succeed.

If you want you can add me on steam and I can coach you through a playthough of your choice via discord or steam.

[neofutur]

No , the game is always changing too much and too fast, so the people who took hours to make good tutorials, guides . . . are discouraged to do so since everything is obsolete so fast.

[Narrowmind]

That's not actually true. In fact, Paradox pays people every few years to do updated tutorials when a major release happens. Most of the game does stay the same.

[High Society]

neofutur you are the guy that said in another topic that you don't need dlc to learn the game. So how can guides get outdated? I can see arguments why you do and don't. But in general take a side. A lot of the base game is still there. DLC's added tools which makes the situation more confusing for a new player but that doesnt mean you can't play with old mechanics and still be succesfull.

[VBigB]

“You will generate something called "agressive expansion" also known as ae towards other countries mostly within the same culture/religion.”

As someone who comes from over 1500 hour in CK3, even though I know AE is a mechanic it’s my biggest weakness. I get too greedy, lol. I didn’t know you could hover to see who would join so that’s good to know going forward.

In my current game a finished a war with Austria as Poland where I knew I would have a lot of AE. So I suspected that most if not all of the HRE would form a coalition against me… then the Ottomans joined, then the Malmuks (not sure I spelled that correctly as I’m at work), then what was left of Russia, etc. 3/4 of the known world was in it and I was starting to sweat. All told the coalition had a little over 1 million manpower. I was allied with England, Spain and the largest nation in Arabia (can’t remember the name). We had about 750k manpower. I wasn’t sure how that war was going to go if they decided to attack. Anyway I managed to wait it out until it broke up.

[Jetsun]

I’m glad I’ve founded this guy, he takes your hand in a pleasant, practical and smart way,
An over 10 hours introducing tutorial might sounds long at first glance, but II’d say it’s rather like an optical illusion:

-First, time flies in good company.
Self-explanatory

-Second, time well invested,
8 hours in the tutorial gave me more confidence than my previous 100 hours in in the game, mainly trying to follow other yt tutorials…

It’s an all fresh ongoing project that should drive more attraction pretty soon me guess.
Games with Brains, please by all means continue to deliver, but even if you stop now, I’m already a foot in and enjoying :), thanks for that.
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIY632rOtuKBW7-K9PDZZeaIfLWej_7Ji&si=iuxp4AORgYjp0uki

[=DFB= Crump's Brother]

Originally posted by Jetsun:

I’m glad I’ve founded this guy, he takes your hand in a pleasant, practical and smart way,
An over 10 hours introducing tutorial might sounds long at first glance, but II’d say it’s rather like an optical illusion:

-First, time flies in good company.
Self-explanatory

-Second, time well invested,
8 hours in the tutorial gave me more confidence than my previous 100 hours in in the game, mainly trying to follow other yt tutorials…

It’s an all fresh ongoing project that should drive more attraction pretty soon me guess.
Games with Brains, please by all means continue to deliver, but even if you stop now, I’m already a foot in and enjoying :), thanks for that.
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIY632rOtuKBW7-K9PDZZeaIfLWej_7Ji&si=iuxp4AORgYjp0uki

Nice...except this is a playlist for HOI4

[Ferocious Kitten]

Originally posted by Jetsun:

I’m glad I’ve founded this guy, he takes your hand in a pleasant, practical and smart way,
An over 10 hours introducing tutorial might sounds long at first glance, but II’d say it’s rather like an optical illusion:

-First, time flies in good company.
Self-explanatory

-Second, time well invested,
8 hours in the tutorial gave me more confidence than my previous 100 hours in in the game, mainly trying to follow other yt tutorials…

It’s an all fresh ongoing project that should drive more attraction pretty soon me guess.
Games with Brains, please by all means continue to deliver, but even if you stop now, I’m already a foot in and enjoying :), thanks for that.
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIY632rOtuKBW7-K9PDZZeaIfLWej_7Ji&si=iuxp4AORgYjp0uki

Glad you found someone to help you through your game, but unfortunately for the rest of us here, this is the wrong game!