Let's start off with the assumption that you've never played a grand strategy game before. You've seen pictures, watched videos and heard great tales about map painting, and it peaked your interest. You end up here, for whatever reason, opening your wallet, ready to throw some money at Paradox for Europa Universalis 4. Great, you've made a fantastic choice, depening on how you look at it, on how willing you are to learn.

If you are like me, you'll probably open it and click on the tutorial button first thing. You're probably going to give the tutorial a few shots, before saying "screw it" and closing the game, going back to doing something more productive, like watching youtube and playing other games. All is well, then a dark thought comes to light, "got to conquer the world", and you're right back at it, you open the game, playing through the tutorial all over again, and again. You check up some tutorial videos and maybe check in on a wiki or forum, just to be sure.

You feel like you have learnt somewhat, the very basic mechanics there is to learn, and you feel ready to take on the world! Or, at the very least, a few bits here and there. Booting up the game, you feel the excitement, ready to click on singleplayer, the world at your disposal. Chances are, you'll probably pick a nation synonymous to your native country, or at the very least, something similar. You look at the map, there it is, your nation. Looks different, yes? Because it is.

Now, we got a couple of interesting starts if you don't fancy your own, not because it probably is a small and weak country at the time, no, you just fancy playing someone else.

Looking at the best starting area for beginners at this game, Europe, we got quite a mess going on. Germany is in shambles, France and England are at it again, the Ibearians are finishing off their reconquista and Austria is being an overprotective Emperor. Denmark is just being a nuisance, Muscovy starts map painting right off the bat and the Ottomans are consuming the remnants of the Eastern Roman Empire. Now you ask yourself, why on earth would I start in this ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, and the answer is simple, you start in it, or it comes to you.

Forget the middle east, the Ottomans will devour you before the end of the decade and after the Ibearians are done with their deed, they start cutting down some, cutting down on the "re" in reconquista that is, haha, starting the conquista of all Northern Africa, and if that doesn't stop you, the Tunisian-Ottoman alliance will.

You turn to Asia, more specifically India. Now this would be a great choice, if you were familiar with the tech mechanic and how to deal with it. Either way, after recent patches, you can now also get some sweet red, blue and yellow paint spilled all over you, Great Britain, France and Spain, that is.
Unless you can conquer all of India by the time the Europeans start with their charter companies, you're in deep trouble as a beginner. Your neighbouring nations in India or Indochina will sell out their provinces to filthy rich Europeans, giving them more of the good stuff, trade income. Once they get a taste of that, you can bet that they'll be all over you all the time. Not to mention, if you're really unlucky, Ming, also known as China, might just get there beforehand, at least you can escape them if you play in Europe.

You want to start as Ming you say? Go ahead, enjoy your constant tributary wars and attrition. Doesn't really matter, you got the money and the men to keep that going for a millennium. Don't though, before you're a true warmongerer, diplomat and rebel supressor you're probably not going to last for long, tech penalties, hordes and rebels will start your demize, and the colonizers will finish it. It's an easy nation, but get used to the game first with some more stable nations instead.

Start off in Africa and you're going to be a subject to a major European power before you know, you'll be their stepping stone to India and other colonizable areas. If that's something you fancy, try it. You probably won't enjoy it though. It's no fun being annexed and or vassalized by Europeans.

Which brings us to the Americas! You're excited about trying to play the solo game, the chill game? Don't, leave. You're going to hate it, and a pro tip, never play in mesoamerica, that's just you embracing doom on your own. You don't want to start in the Americas already, you're hardly familiar with the game mechanics, or the native mechanics, and not ready to take on the smallpox that will be brought in from the colonizers, much less their troops.

Well, that's the startes for you, roughly. You also got the steppe hordes, however handling with Muscovy can be problematic. Though, if you want a game mainly focusing on land, not having to worry about pesky liquids and ships, then Muscovy is for you. Here it's all about taming the steppes and conquering as much to the north, south, east and west as you possibly can. This can be a great step after you have learnt the basics of combat, and you feel comfortable taking on the Polish-Lithuanian union with a small taste of a Danish invasions to your north.

Well, who to start as? Like many would tell you, as I will, start as Portugal, Castille, England or the Ottomans. With Portugal you get to chill and get used to the game's mechanics, one of which is colonizing, and that will benefit you greatly in the future. You don't have many enemies to deal with with the exception of the natives, so you get somewhat trained with the combat mechanics. You'll get to experience how the navy functions and how colonization affects your trade to name a few. ((Trade is important))

This is the same with Castille, except you're in a stronger position, especially if you manage to keep France at bay and Aragon alone until you get a personal union over them. England is also a good start, as your navies are the strongest in the game at the start of the game. However, if you are completely new, I suggest surrendering the land of mainland europe to France, so to avoid the annoyance of having wars declared on you, letting you focus on the British Isles and colonizing in peace.

The Ottomans is a great start considering they are one of the most powerful nations when you begin. You have a lot of small nations around you so you can get used to sieges, core-cost, war mechanics and the like without many nations caring to stop you. Be careful however, you might be powerful, but a coalition of Austria, Hungary and Poland-Lithuania might be too much for you to chew, and once that starts, the Mamluks won't waste any time stabbing you in your back.

Now that you've settled down in a nation my rambling is almost done. The things you should focus on now as you start is technology, alliances, miltary tab and all its small numbers, armies, navies, trade, goods, states & territories. Focus also on your nations ideas, and try to pick ideas that will build upon the ones you already have, or things you plan on doing in the future. As Portugal, exploration ideas works as a starter for colonizing, and as Muscovy, religious, quantity or humanist ideas will work. These ideas on Muscovy is based on their need to expand quickly, thereby manpower, or all the heathen religions they'll have to deal with in the steppes, thereby religious, or thanks to the new religion state updates, humanist ideas will suffice.

I do not have more room for text, so I'll end with this. You'll notice this game has a bunch of DLC. Yes, too much one might say. These aren't needed by a beginner by any means, and bring for the most part really great quality of life things into the game, as well as some really cool new mechanics, such as great powers. You can look through each one and decide on which one you feel would fit you the best and buy one or two as the time goes. I would not recommend buying it all at the same if you've just started, bad idea. There are lots of things to get into already without the DLC.