Learning EU4 working on Irish Luck achievement

walkthroug, post 1.6.1 patch, starting as a small and poor Tyrone ( or leinster ) irish lord, with the goal to get the "Irish Luck" achievement . . . and more

Introduction

warnings

• This guide is for post 1.6.1 patch only, we choose a very aggressive start and will use power projection.
  
• This guide is very detailed for the beginning, much less after 1550
  
• This guide is still work in progess, but I prefer to publish early to get some feedback and make it better with time
  
• This is hard . . . you could have to restart a few times ;)
  
• You need to play ironman mode and start in 1444 to get the achievements
  
• Ironman and cloud saves are not always working, good luck, I wish you not to loose 100 hours of gameplay ( like I did ) with the next bugs
  
• Since the game mechanics are completely changing every few weeks, this guide will possibly be obsolete within months
  
• See also my first irish campaign for irish luck on http://steamcommunity.com/app/236850/discussions/0/540743212683242487/ parts of this guide are based on this thread.
  
• This guide will recommend trade ideas ( 1st ), quantity ideas ( 2nd )and administrative ideas, (3rd ) feel free to try with other ideas.
  
• you will get quite a bunch of AE, try to keep enough strong allies and troops at your max forcelimit most of the time.
  
• This irish game is not easy and is for advanced players who already earned quite a few achievements and have a pretty good knowledge of the game, and the combat mechanics.
  
• This guide will use screenshots from both using tyrone and using Leinster, I tried both more than once.
  
• We will explore more than one option ( annexing or vassalizing connacht makes a big difference ).
  
• this guide is very long already ( and not finished yet ) its much more than just a "irish luck" guide, I try to give a bunch of advices about micromanagement, military and tradition, tactics and strategy, navy and trade . . .

choices :

• We will prefer vassalization and taking money, to full annexation
  
• This is a (very ) agressive start
  
• PP ( Power Projection ) is a vital ingredient in this agressive start
  
• We will use tyrone or leinster, and vassalize /annex connacht very fast
  
• Ireland will be a trade nation
  
• Infantry: you are poor and you still need military power, and fast, you will use only 100% infantry for at least the first 50 years ( believe me it works very well and its worth it ! )
  

goals

• Getting a second province as fast as possible ( connacht vassalized before 1447 )
  
• Vassalizing, then annexing all ireland within years ( before 1460 )
  
• Getting strong alliances with scotland and France as soon as possible
  
• Growing your trade income ASAP
  
• Freeing and liberating wales and / or Cornwall and also britanny as soon as possible, to vassalize them later ( you need some luck for that one ).
  
• Later trying to get antwerpen as soon as possible for trade power and income
  
• Surviving france dropping your alliance and rivaling you when you are still 3 times weaker than them
  
• Also Surviving austria and spain ( and denmark ) when they will also rival you when you are still 3 times weaker than them
  
• You have to keep up at the military level, try to never use war taxes, save your points for military tech and military ideas.
  
• dont use loans, or very few and repays them as soon as possible

You could have to restart that a few times :

• If you wait too many months and connacht gets an ally before you attack
  
• If you cant vassalize the 3 irish lords before 1500 ( our goal for that is more around 1480 )
  
• If you are very unlucky with france and england anf get very stuck.

Why choosing tyrone or leinster, and not another lord ?

connacht was my first choice, but after a few tries I found you get a better alliance game in the very few months with tyrone ( tyrone and munster have 2 neighbours, leinster have 3, connacht have 4 )
the bad side is that you cant fabricate a claim on munster or leinster until you integrate connacht

leinster have 3 neighbours, but seems to be more irish than other in regards to irish rebels in meath . . .

I m not yet sure which one is the best choice, the number of neighbours you have is changing the starting alliances, and also , the possible rivals you can get at the beginning, choose your lord !

anyway, most of this guide should be ok with another irish lord

now get ready for an agressive start and power projection !

Setting up your irish lord , 1444

immediately after starting, before even removing the pause, you have quite a few things to do :

• Disbanding useless ( for now ) cog to save money
  
• Choosing your rivals
  
• Immediately start protecting london trade node with your 3 light ships
  
• Start getting married ( as leinster, I marry Tyrone and brittany early and hope for alliance offers, remember same rivals help your diplo relations )
  
• Choose your rivals wisely, probably munster and connacht as leinster
  
• Getting a good military leader( better use your king ), restart until good military leader
  
• Getting a good navy leader for your small fleet, restart until good navy leader
  
• Get alliance with one ( or more ) other lord ( but not connacht, your target #1 )
  
• Rivaling connacht immediately
  
• Starting claim fabrication on connaught if you want to annex, not useful if you want to vassalize
  
• Starting building 2-3 infantry mercenaries ( 2 should be enough but well . . . your choice )
  
• if you still have enough money you can build a 4th light ship for protecting trade and optimizing your income
  
• not yet but you will soon want a claim on meat, if you ever have a free diplomat and nothing better to do : claim on meath.

Depending on your playstyle, its better if you can ally with the 2 other lords, even better if one of them wont follow you in the war you get a casus belli against him !
or its better to get 2 rivals right now, and only one onlly, your choice !

I d recommend to restart from scratch until you get decent military leaders ( maneuver for navy and schock or fire for army )

Then you can unpause, and attack connacht within 1-2 months, as soon as your mercenaries are recruited ( or even before the second one is ready if needed ), and _BEFORE_ he gets allies, even if it kills your stability, even if your claim is not ready yet.

Connacht is generally starting to improve relations with england from the start, if you wait too much and he gets allied with england . . . things could get harder soon.
I d recommend to vassalize at least 2 of the 3 irish lords you have to conquer, if you choose to annex one of them, you should probably choose your first target, connacht.
Connacht is the first target because connaught gives you a frontier with all of the irish provinces, and also because he is the most dangerous short term, and willing to ally with england.
One more reason to vassalize Connacht, not annex, is that you most probably dont even have a claim, and need your admin points for stability.
If you annex Connaugh it will cost 43 admin points and 19 months to core, start fearing rebels, harsh treatment probably necessary.

To better choose your first alliances, you can have a look at who is improving relations with who.

Here is a good example of diplomatic setup, with leinster on 19 november 1444, after just a few days :



With that setup you re ready for war already.

beware, here you see scotland, its a good alliance, but you probably dont want to call them to most of your small early wars . . . think of it

Lets be clear , you just have a few months to get one or two allies and attach connacht, BEFORE he gets any ally, if you come too late, better restart.

First and most important war, vassalizing your first irish lord

Vassalizing your first irish lord

you will probably use most of your money to recruit a few fast recruited mercenaries to be sure you will win this war

You will probably go negative income for a few months, not a problem you will soon be able to repay these tiny loans.

for the first years, I recommend spending most of your time either :

• in pause, observing and thinking
  
• at speed 1 most of the time
  
• rarely at speed 2

from the first day, you have to use all the potential of your diplomats, never forget them doing nothing for more than one day !

Now, declaring war, better if you can wait for your claim to be ready, but most of the time you will prefer to attack connacht before he gets a powerful ally like england or scotland . . .

The time is short, and you will probably have to attack before your claim is ready, once he gets allied to scotland, england or worst , its probably too late and time to restart.
Getting a perfect start is necessary here, restart it until you get it all ok.

you should have your 2 mercenaries before 1445 , and GO!



I generally launch the attack on connacht january 1st 1445, before my claim is ready, and take the -2 stability hit.

now :



dont forget to blockade connacht if you want a faster siege, you need a fast war, you cant afford those mercenaries for too long !



as you can see I wouldnt even have needed my irish allies, but anyway those allies can be useful ( or diplo vassalized ) later :

here another start ( same strategy ), but with leinster and only one ally :

( I m not yet sure which one is the best start , between leinster and tyrone )



You just earned +5 army tradition and +6.2 prestige, useful . . .



You can disband your mercenaries, and lower your military maintenance slider, as soon as you crushed connacht and started sieging, nothing else should happen and those damn mercenaries are too expensive for your tiny income.
Imo better not use war taxes, this war will be very short 8 the time of one siege ), and you need to save your precious military points as much as you can.

at this point england will probably warn you , and the neutral lord will possibly create a coalition against you, you dont really care, and you re happy you attacked before being warned by england.

you can even lower your army maintenance slider, while you will be sieging, to save a few cents every month.

while you wait for your siege to finish, you can start improving relations with scotland , your next ally.

remember you are probably still fabricating your claim on connaught, you ll have to wait for the claim to be ready before suing for peace, if you want to annex, but I recommend vassalization.

If you had a loan , repay it as soon as possible after disbanding the mercs.

Dont forget to get your stability back up as soon as you have enough monarch points to do it ! you are probably at -2 stability now if you attacked connacht very fast.
-2 stability means you have an income problem and you could get huge rebels problems.

Ok we won the siege of connaugh, dont forget to finish their navy ( and earn a very useful +5 navy tradition ) before you sue for peace.



We will vassalize them to take all their money, you cant take money on full annexation, in this case their whole treasury will just vanishes in the air !

1446, vassalizing connacht and getting 56 gold



you just earned 56 gold, this is more or less 10-20 years of your basic income . . .worth it no ?
time to repay your loans if you still have some.

dont forget to immediately send your light ships on protecting london trade node, you badly need this trade income and navy tradition.

spend your hard earned money, I d recommend 2 light ships right now, and then progressively buying some more infantry to reach your forcelimit, and possible even reaching forcelimit +1

take back your army maintenance to the maximum . . .or take the risk to be crushed by rebels to save a little bit more income.

Ok, you have your first irish vassal, now its time to ally with scotland, then france, and take out those irish allies.

You can also start to fabricate a claim on meath ( first ) and then on your next irish lord target.

Ah also dont forget you need to try and improve your relations with the papal state when you get the chance to have a free diplomat and nothing more urgent to do.

Be happy if you reach this point ( more or less 1448 with connacht vassalized ( even if not happy like -50 relation for now lol )
Be happy if you reach this point with 30-50 PP, 20 ou 25 army tradition and 300 army points, you re on the good path and probably passed one of the most dangerous instants of this game.

Also be happy if you already have france married and allied ! :
( here a great alliance France/Leinster, 1448 )


and this leinster have even more :



( even too many alliances, we ll jump on any opportunity hehe )

The other irish lords, England, Scotland and France

1447, The other irish lords

Lets take a look at the current income, rival, and PP situation



Not great yet, we badly need to improve income and PP as fast as possible.
Concerning income, you will probably want to recruit at least one more light ship to maximize your vital trade income.

As you can see, we are already supporting rebels in england to care our PP, yes its expensive but we want to reach 50, then 100 PP ASAP, and if we get lucky we ll have wales and/or cornwall released, so we can vassalize them next.
As soon as you rival england, start supporting rebels in england with as much money as you can afford.

Now you have a problem, you re probably allied with the remaining irish lords and the only rival available is :



and, no, you dont want england as a rival . . . yet, but I ll let you see if you want to add them as a rival right now . . . or not.

Lets have a look at one diplomatic setup in 1448 :



Yes I m already allied to Britany, Scotland, and will soon get France too.

you will have to drop at least one irish alliance, you will choose the one that is not allied with scotland ( or england ) yet ( if theres one ), or wait for a good opportunity, but dont do it right now

the irish lords and meath are not in a defined order, you have to take opportunities, and one opportunity now is that england is very very very weak with france and possibly even more if your rebels were lucky.
so meath could come first, before england can grow.

As soon as you drop alliance and rival him, attack immediately, so wait a little bit for your WE ( war exhaustion) and AE ( agressive expansion ) to go down a little bit, take a few months to be ready, have enough monarch points and troops, allies . . .
You also need to recruit to reach you max forcelimit, and even a little bit more, infantry only and no mercs at all. you will also wait for your manpower to reach the maximum.
Now that connacht is your vassal , I recommend stationing your troups in connaught ( access to all irish provinces from here ).

For now, get married, then allied with scotland, then improve relations with france until you can get a marriage/alliance with them.

in my case, leinster is allied with scotland, I ll improve relations with leinster and scotland, and soon rival/vassalize munster.

in some cases both will ally with scotland, you ll get stuck some time until you get an opportunity to attack one of them while scotland cant join ( typically when fighting with you against england )

If you have a free diplomat, and a little bit of money, you can already start to support rebels in england, that will help boost your PP ( power projection ).
Remember england is still at war with france ( and most probably loosing ), rebels are available.
I will generally choose the welsh rebels, and support them with a few monthly cents. they have a better chance of popping out and I plan to vassalize wales later if I get the opportunity.
Also , as soon as your alliances are OK and you have a free diplomat, you can start making clains on both irish lords and on meath, to be ready for when the opportunity to attack will appear.
If you re stuck with the two lords being allied to scotland, your first claim will be meath, england is probably badly loosing the war against france ( in 1448, englans is generally around -50 % warscore ), and with enough good allies, you should be able to take meath soon.



Dont forget you also have to improve relations with your ( very unhappy ) vassal connacht.

Now, if both of the other irish lords are allied with scotland, you want to wait a little bit for a good opportunity to attack them, you will also hope scotland ( or france ) could bring you into interesting wars and opportunistic separate peaces.
you re not yet rich enough to get an advisor, but as soon as I can I take the statesman for +5 diplomatic reputation, taking control of a war allows you many more interesting opportunities.

Speaking of interesting opportunities, every once in a while, when a diplomat is back home you can check the "declare war" screen against england and / or the irish lords, to see who could join or not :

From 1444 to now, your diplomats should have been working all the time, getting no rest at all; never let them rest even one day, you have so many things to do you could use 4 diplomats easily.

Now this guide will let you conquer the rest or ireland , depending on the diplomatic situation and opportunities, you will attack england first, or the other irish lords. Anyway you should attack england before they end their war with france, or just after.

In my case I m stuck with the irish lords, and I ll attack engand for meat, with my allies, as soon as my claim on meath is ready.

Strategics and diplomatics : England and France 1448-????

* you dont have much of a choice you ll have to rival england soon, probably between 1448 and 1450

* since england probably warned you before 1448 you dont have much of a choice, if you want to expand you have to backstab england at the oerfect moment and take everything you can ( something like meath, gwyned, glanmorgan annexed and cornwall released free nation is the perfect goal, in one or two wars, no more !

* if you have an opportunity to vassalize another irish lord before you have to backstab england, its perfect, but, even if you cant, you HAVE to try and backstab england when the opportunity seems good.

* "when the opportunity seems good" : not so easy to decide seriously ! .

At the very least that means BEFORE england finishes their huge war with france, when they have -65% warscore and +12 war exhaustion, praying to see already a bunch of rebels you can choose and help for later vassalisation

rebels in england , time to plan early attack ? :



one more reason to want many fast lightships is that you see what is happening in england, waiting for their apocalypse

now if you plan to attack england soon, you could think of saving a few ducats for the coming expensive war

also, if you sved your military points you should soon get your military tech 4

an example of early easy meath conquest ( 1449 )

do you have enough allies ?



getting a free casus belli against another irish lord :





save your navy before attacking, the english have 40 ships at the very least to crush you at war !


that was an easy meath battle, and +5 army tradition ! :



England is already exhausted by their war against france :



11.42 war exhaustion, no more tropps, but you fear their navy
their allies could try to send a few troops, but you should be able to crush them.

a hard war against england ? dont fear to loose !

here is a good example of a war with england that I will probably loose .



but . . .in this war I already vassalized munster ( allied to england ) and i attacked tyrone( on dishonored call ) while scotland fights with me against england.

I l now vassalize tyrone, then try to find a decent peace with england ( they want scottish land )



at this point you give take peace now with england giving too much scottish land and gold, or wait, you can probably defend your land with 3 irish lord vassals now , and more than 100 gold

a good diplomatic setup at this point :

you wont take meath this time, but you got the 3 irish lords !

Checkpoint Lords, 1452-1470

if you reach this point you could either :

• Vassalized all the irish lords
  
• Full annex one lord and vassalize the two other lords.

You should also :

• Already be annexing connacht ( or real soon )
  
• Have decent relations with your 2 other vassals
  
• Improving relations with the two other lords to be soon ready for annexation.
  
• Still have some decent allies ( like france ;)
  
• Have technology 4/4/4 now or real soon

All the Irish Lords should be annexed before 1470.

By 1470 you should already have reached you max navy forcelimit with mostly light ships protecting the london trade node ( I ll often use 100% lightships ) and your trade income is already half of your total monthly income.

When you annex your vassals, think of checking their armies, disbanding mercenaries and staying at your forcelimit, you cant yet afford to grow above army forcelimit.

and with a little bit more luck you could even already have one of those :

• you already get the same dinasty as france ( valois )
  
• you could also take meath ( or even more ) in the process of vassalizing the lords
  
• you got a foothold already in continental europe, something like britanny or calais for example.
  
• you were successful with rebels and have a pretty cornwall or wales ready for vassalization.

France wont help you in your offensive wars, but its a strong ally, few powers will attack you now.
also if you made it well, France will probably offer you subsidies :



Scotland possibly disappeared if you gave their land to england, or could be very weak; anyway you should have some interesting ( scottish or not ) rebels in england.

Never forget to care your PP, supporting rebels is now much more interesting than before !

We reached the Lords checkpoint, and we will enter an era of peace and opportunities.
( peace means here that you will probaly not declare ar yourself, but hop for interesting Call to arms )

You just want to grow and consolidate your income and power, but you will jump in any opportunity to get land in separate peace in your allies call you to something interesting.

France will probably come back on england ( great for you ) , and you could even ally with britanny ( or someone else ) in the hope to be drained into a random silly war and get more opportunities.

This peace and opportunities period could last up to 50 years and , well, sorry guys to tell you that now your main medium term goal is to kill or vassalize england.

Build your navy up to 170%-200% your forcelimit, and build mostly light ships to overgrow your trade power.

Try to dominate london trade node as fast as possible, and have a look at the best opportunities around ( bordeaux, and antwerpen, but also North sea ), but keep most of your fleet protecting london trade node.

Concerning advisors, its too early to get some until you get a big light ship fleet and trade income.
Try to get those as soon as you can.
You will also need a few transports one of these days for england or britany, but nothing urgent yet.

What if england is too powerful ( again ? )?

An example of hard england :



Strong england, strong france, strong austria, britany already dead, but in this game my leader is a . . . De Valois, same dinasty as france, and this could be interesting.

In this game france is way too powerful, already integrted britany, england is also way too powerful, I had to give them all of scotland and they never got the war of roses event ;(
I continued this game just to see if my De Valois dinasty could bring me something ( inheriting France early as leinster could be cool, after so much bad luck in this game, I m allowed to hope for some luck ); but . . . you probably want to restart if you re so much stucked.
In this case you re not even sure France will follow in your future ( and much needed ) wars against england ), and taking meath could take ages.

Well you can alays hope for rebels ( and/or France ) to crush them , so you get an opportunity

French campaign of england

If you re allied with france and wait long enough growing your power, france will most probably declare war on en gland and call you :

Great opportunity to get a great separate peace with england and take meath, or even more if you could fabricate some claims on wales.

Most of the time you ll have to wait a long time until rebels or france are successfull enough in england, so you can occupy more than just meath, this war could be long and is probably worth war taxes.

Checkpoint England, before 1570

So you could crush england, congrats !

England is now dead or very weak, or even better, your vassal.

If you could vassalize england, dont integrate too fast, wait for them to colonize north america and get at least a foothold of 2-3 dvelopped colonies, you couldnt take exploration ideas, you english vassal will do it for you

Options to consider against england:
***********************************************

* if you play the fast lane and want to crush england fast you will most probably need france to take care of castille and portugal south while you re mostly alone north with possibly the help of scotland and brittany

* at the very least you united all the irish lords and its much better if brittany is already your vassal ; you possibly own finistere too before daring to attack england ?.

* If you can take one province to england, you choose to NOT take meath, take something inside the main island, all the west of england is opened to your culture group.

* you decide you dont need meath before you can form ireland ad ADMIN TECH 10 ( which is silly since you can own allof ireland before 1460 . . .then wait such a long time.

* what the **** why dont you want meath ?
with the new silly system of rialing, you will loose england as a rival ! and get in a very silly rivaling situation !


* turning early against france and scotland is a very bad idea most of the time.

* turning spain and/or portugal away from their alliance with england would be great but seems nearly impossible to achieve most of the time.

work in progress

work in progress, more soon

The brittany path, scary but useful

Britanny, northwest of France, the atlntic frontier, one of the greatest places in the world

And a great place to expand as an irish lord who already controls at the very least all of ireland, annexed or vassalized, and probably at least one of the southwestern england provinces ( cornwall, glamorgan and /or gwynedd )

you probably made that already before 1500, and you need expansion places by 1510.

screenshot

both bretons and welsh people are cool, just like you , they love beer and build life around this important truth, great places to expand !
easy acceptedcultures

but France is on steroids
*********************************

In this game, just like in most of my irish games, I ve been the best ally of france as long as i could, . .
which means . . . until you ( or your vassal ) get a borter with them (france ) and they suddenly hate you badly,
.
particularly since the silly latest 1.6 patch ( breaking all of the fine enough ) starting game tuning, overpowering france and assassinating burgundy

"hate you badly will mean somerthing like -180 want your provinces and rival you, een if those breton provinces are NOT their core , and not even an accepted culture !, just because you took finisterre and vassalized brittany !

good luck with that, you ll need to find the good powerful ally fast now

More agressive: Early annexing connacht

Early annexing Tyrone before 1450

easy and useful, much faster but dangerous
early second lord and more PP

optimize diplomacy even more

a good setup , already allied with britany and tyrone, connacht still no ally, already improved relations with france

go even faster ?

diplo

have you secured an alliance with france ?

you know. . .scotland is not really powerful right now
also scotland is possibly stuck in . . . muscovy

--
if you early annexed connacht, the two other lords will probably attack you soon, its what we want, dont even try to have a marriage or good relations with them, next war will be hard , against the two other lords and with no allies or nearly.

Munster attack ( or another lord depending on your setup ), probably not alone

if you can win this war alone ( or not ) against two other lords . . . annexing connacht was a good choice.

Here i can annex or vassalize both lords, tyrone first on separate peace

All of that before 1450, thats great, and it was worth it annexing connacht early, but this path is much harder than the peaceful way .

Now that both lords are vassalized, your only available rival is england . . . time to support rebels in england, embargo them too, and hope you ve been able to secure marriage and alliance with France.

1449: ready for england ?

If you couldnt get a scottish alliance yet, it will be easier no england is your rival.

hum those welsh nationalists are cool, you can even help them with blockade

england getting broke without even using your manpower.

france will probably give you subsidies if you attack england now

Meath the hard way

long war against england, scotland crushed and separate peace, then you have positive warscore with meath and can even try to send troops in england, make separate peaces with england allies




1450 : back to stability, meath and connacht cored !

good time to build light ships
time to annex the two lords

1463 troop checkup

just for the army tradition


1465 ireland owned

But scotland early allied connacht !

you can still win this war if you get allied and married with the two other lords.

but well , you possibly want a restart where connacht wont ally to scotland before december.

on a restart, sometimes you need to wait a few hours to get a different starting diplomatic setup.

before 1490 : Getting a small vassal in Europe

use whatever war you re called in and can get a vasal in a separate peace

small 1 or 2 provinces countries can be vassalized

here aachen who tried to kill burgundy ( loosing their war against france ), I saved burgundy and vassalized aachen.

getting a small vassal in europe will open new Rival opportunities, and you need decent sized rivals !

1475-1499 Your second war of England

This early war against england is no fun

1453 : wtf had this idea ?

So you tried to early attack england for meath, just before or after the end of their french wars ?

So your allies ( lets say britany and scotland ) have been crushed.

France wont come back against england before ages, and burgundy just gives you small subsidies.

All of that looks like a bad idea, but you can defend your island pretty well, you already earned some good army tradition ( lets say around 40 ), perhaps you can get a good peace after scotland finally resigns, handing much oif their lands to england.

See the good side of that, if you can get an exit . . . you earned a bunch of cool army tradition.

Well perhaps you need a restart too . . .

At the very beginning , its probably better not to attack england before you got the 3 irish lords ( ne annexed and 2 vassalized, and not before france is ready to go with you.
Unless you re lucky and england is completely crushed by a bunch of rebels.

But feel free to try again !

The fast lane: Ireland owned, before 1470

to reach that :

* You early annexed connacht.
* You survived AE and a war probably alone against the 2 other lords.
* Much more than surviving this war you early vassalized the thwo lords in this very same war
* You early attacked Meath; Scotland probably got crushed, but you won the war againt england with time and separate peaces.
* You early took meath and got france allied.
* You already secured a good trading income.
and if you re lucky you got drained into a silly war in europe and already got a small one or two provinces vassal there, like utrecht or aachen

Now you can think of 20-30 years of relative peace, you wont declare peace anytime soon, but . . .
You want to be drained into wars that could bring you more small vassals, you can ally with burgundy or britany in the hope to get opportunities.

Scotland or France will probably attack england again soon, be sure to be called, you can even warn england.

One of the good sides of getting a small vassal in europe is that it can open up more options for rivalry ( you need interesting rivals ).

Look at those after vassalizing aachen :

about the author

The trading stuff

Trade, merchants, mercantilism and other trade events

if you make it well, you will get a bunch of events about trade and mercantilism, you will always choose the options to increase your mercantilism and trade power, whatever the price, and yes, even if it gets you into debts.

mercantilism

trade related events

fleet size

light ships

merchants

trade ideas

Screenshot Vault

Manhattan is Irish !

well

[Fantastic Fwoosh]

England usually rushes for scotland to improve its economy in the new Persia patch, then Denmark flies in to secure the western isles, its strange seeing two shades of red destroy yellow nearly every single time.

Playing as England [smallbrain.png] playing as Scotland [normalbrain.png] playing as Irish minors [expandedbrain.png] playing as Wales & Northumbria [geniusbrain.png] playing as Cornwall [ascended.png]

Honestly all of the Irish minors (specially since they added some more a while back) & releasable british nations have great ideasets (except cornwall & galedom with rubbish generic)

[neofutur]

its a bunch of things, including silly colonial nations, silly vassals and allies behaviour, new rivaling system, no load button in ironman and more

[gytten1921]

It's the cost for diplo to annex isn't is?

[neofutur]

thanks, I planned to make it better and add more , but i mostly stopped playing EU4 since the recent patches . . . its no more the same game ;(

[s1mp_nation]

Just wanna say I just got this as Tyrone - This guide helped push me over! Thanks for writing this up, favourited and five stars

[neofutur]

yes, not the hardest part ;) but the achievement should really state it

[gytten1921]

So it's wars against Denmark if Norway isn't free

[neofutur]

you also need the orkney island, thats why i also dont have the achievement, ragequitted the game when I didnt get the achievement, learnt later you also need the small orkney island

[gytten1921]

Did you have it on Ironman? You need ironman for achievements

[Azazel]

thanks for the guide.i played agresive with leinster.its 1574 and im alone on the british islands :-) but the 'luck of the irish' archievement did not pop up....?