r/eu4 • u/Kloiper Habsburg Enthusiast • 9d ago

Help Thread The Imperial Council - /r/eu4 Weekly General Help Thread: October 5 2026

Please check our previous Imperial Council thread for any questions left unanswered

 

Welcome to the Imperial Council of r/eu4, where your trusted and most knowledgeable advisors stand ready to help you in matters of state and conquest.

This thread is for any small questions that don't warrant their own post, or continued discussions for your next moves in your Ironman game. If you'd like to channel the wisdom and knowledge of the master tacticians of this subreddit, and more importantly not ruin your Ironman save, then you've found the right place!

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Below is a list of resources that are helpful to players of all skill levels, meant to assist both those asking questions as well as those answering questions. This list is updated as mechanics change, including new strategies as they arise and retiring old strategies that have been left in the dust. You can help me maintain the list by sending me new guides and notifying me when old guides are no longer relevant!

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Calling all imperial councillors! Many of our linked guides pre-Dharma (1.26) are missing strategy regarding mission trees. Any help in putting together updated guides is greatly appreciated! Further, if you're answering a question in this thread, chances are you've used the EU4 wiki and know how valuable a resource it can be. When you answer a question, consider checking whether the wiki has that information where you would expect to find it, and adding to the wiki if it does not. In fact, anybody can help contribute to the wiki - a good starting point is the work needed page. Before editing the wiki, please read the style guidelines for posting.

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u/Locutus-of-Borges 7d ago

What's the fastest way to get "Where am I?" Not really interested in a full campaign in a random new world, but I've restarted a bunch of times and am yet to choose a tribe that sees anything close to the whole New World map. Tried doing it the long way once, but I got destroyed by the Spanish before I got feudalism.

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u/CueCueQQ 9d ago

I have a question about pacing for those who do WCs often. Playing 1.30.6 because I just never swapped off of that patch after Levithan's buggy mess at launch. I know that later patches made this easier, but I just find it too comfortable to switch now.

I'm working my way through a WC and One Faith attempt. I figured Ethiopia was a good pick given their religious NIs. What kind of dev do I need around say 1650, 1700, 1750 to be on track for the one faith? I guess to some extent it's less about dev, more about number of provs because of missionary numbers. Just looking to mark out where I should be, I have made a few big mistakes on this run already, so I'd like to know if I should just restart before I get to late game.

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u/grotaclas2 9d ago

As you said, dev is not the relevant factor for a one-faith. You can estimate if you are on the right track by counting how many provinces you convert per year on average and summing the number of provinces of other religions from the ledger. Then you can calculate how many years it will take you to finish the one-faith on that pace(assuming you can conquer fast enough so that you always have provinces to convert). If you want to be safe with the one-faith, you need to finish a one-tag WC before 1790 so that you can wait out 30 years of religious zeal. Though you can reduce that chance by making sure that all remaining countries only have provinces of their faith, so that they can't convert anything. But they could still be eligible for events which convert provinces to other religions.

If you need subjects to convert as well, you should give yourself a big buffer, because they will probably be less reliable near the end. e.g. because some subjects stop converting because they did not make enough profit(in some patches it helped to give them huge subsidies, but I'm not sure if 1.30 was one of them), or because they got no penalties for wrong-religion provinces(or only little penalties, because they already got 100% religious unity), or because they get their missionaries stuck in provinces which they can't convert quickly, or because they are doing something which takes a long time and which prevents you from sending your missionary(e.g. a canal(luckily you don't have monuments yet), or promote settlement growth(I think you can only stop it in 1.30 by using the subject interaction "block settlement growth" before they started doing that)).

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u/CueCueQQ 9d ago

You can estimate if you are on the right track by counting how many provinces you convert per year on average and summing the number of provinces of other religions from the ledger. Then you can calculate how many years it will take you to finish the one-faith on that pace(assuming you can conquer fast enough so that you always have provinces to convert).

Oh wow, I hadn't thought of that. Number of provinces with a different religion has always just been one of those "oh cool" kind of stats in the ledger in my mind.

If you want to be safe with the one-faith, you need to finish a one-tag WC before 1790 so that you can wait out 30 years of religious zeal. Though you can reduce that chance by making sure that all remaining countries only have provinces of their faith, so that they can't convert anything. But they could still be eligible for events which convert provinces to other religions.

Also good info that I wouldn't have considered, thanks.

If you need subjects to convert as well, you should give yourself a big buffer, because they will probably be less reliable near the end. e.g. because some subjects stop converting because they did not make enough profit(in some patches it helped to give them huge subsidies, but I'm not sure if 1.30 was one of them), or because they got no penalties for wrong-religion provinces(or only little penalties, because they already got 100% religious unity), or because they get their missionaries stuck in provinces which they can't convert quickly, or because they are doing something which takes a long time and which prevents you from sending your missionary(e.g. a canal(luckily you don't have monuments yet), or promote settlement growth(I think you can only stop it in 1.30 by using the subject interaction "block settlement growth" before they started doing that)).

I usually use subjects quite a lot to decrease AE, and to make use of their armies to siege down non-fort provinces(1.30.6 lacks the carpet siege option). I will annex them all by 1750 or so based upon this advice.

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u/grotaclas2 9d ago

I will annex them all by 1750 or so based upon this advice.

That's not what I wanted to suggest. You can keep them till 1790 or later if you want to take the low risk that they get an event which adds religious zeal to a province of the wrong religion(that they convert is not a risk as long as they have your religion) or if you allow savescumming in case this happens.

My point was: If you include the provinces, which your subjects convert, in your calculation, you will overestimate how fast you can finish the one-faith. But you will probably need subjects unless I misremember how much missionaries+strength Ethiopia gets in 1.30.6(you are coptic, right?). There are some countries which can convert a decent number of provinces for you. E.g. Najd which has 2 missionaries and +2 missionary strength in their NI and will have religious ideas when released as a subject(if they exist and you vassalize them, you have to check if they have religious ideas. If not, you can annex them instead of vassalizing and then release them as a subject so that they get their default ideas). There are probably some one-faith guides from 1.30 which list other good countries. But if they are small, you might need to give them huge subsidies to get them to convert

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u/CueCueQQ 9d ago

Ahh ok. I am not certain because I'm not able to load my save up right now, but I believe Ethiopia's NI bonuses are strong enough to give me quite a bit of time buffer for conversions; so my current thinking is that I can just keep converting and conquering at a casual pace(well, casual for a 3k hour player I guess), without needing a fully minmax approach. That lead me to think that I should just annex before something becomes a problem. Plus, Njad was dead by like 1450, and I went south instead of east towards them, leading me to believe they've long since lost their cores.

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u/grotaclas2 9d ago

Najd was just an example. There are several other tags which have one missionary and missionary strength in their ideas and which get religious ideas when released. E.g. Bremen, Teutonic Order, Utrecht(religious maybe only when released with all idea groups), Verden, Asturias, Castile, Sindh, Ajuuraan, Sokoto(religious maybe only when released with 7 idea groups).

That lead me to think that I should just annex before something becomes a problem.

Most of the problems which I mentioned only stop a vassal from converting themselves. The ones which also prevent you from converting will only be temporary(constructing a building) or affect very few provinces(promote settlement growth) which you can easily convert yourself in the 31 year buffer which you need to wait out the possible religious zeal. I just saw on the wiki that there can be a 50 year -300% missionary strength modifier from expelling minorities. If the AI still does this in your version, it could be a problem if there are still uncolonized provinces in colonial regions 50 years before the end of the game.

I believe Ethiopia's NI bonuses are strong enough to give me quite a bit of time buffer for conversions

Does Ethiopia have something beyond the +1 missionary from their national ideas?

I guess the buffer depends on how fast you unlocked additional missionaries(you have 8 in total, right?) and missionary strength modifiers. If I see it correctly, there are 3137 provinces in 1.30.6 and 28 are coptic at the start, so you need to convert 3109 provinces in 377 years which are 8.2 provinces per year.

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u/CueCueQQ 9d ago

Najd was just an example.

Njad was a good example though, given that they get such strong religious ideas. It's a good thought, thanks for bringing it up.

Does Ethiopia have something beyond the +1 missionary from their national ideas?

+1.5% Missionary strength from Coptic religious bonus, +1 Missionary from Coptic holding Alexandria, and then the proximity to Mecca. I believe assuming I have counted right, I can max out at 11 missionaries, but I could be wrong. I currently have 8.

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u/grotaclas2 8d ago

I believe assuming I have counted right, I can max out at 11 missionaries, but I could be wrong. I currently have 8.

Which ones do you have and which ones do you plan to get? I counted again and I found 9 for a coptic monarchy:

  1. base
  2. religious ideas
  3. ethiopian ideas
  4. defender of the faith
  5. mecca
  6. jerusalem
  7. rome
  8. alexandria
  9. Parliament issue “Propagation of State Religion”

As a theocracy, you could also get the tier 7 reform "God and Man".

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u/CueCueQQ 7d ago

Well, I'd love to answer, but when I went to load up my save last night it was corrupted, so I guess I'm restarting anyway.

I had Base, Religious, Ethiopian, DotF, Mecca, Jerusalem, Alexandria, and one from events I believe, which is what was throwing off my count.

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u/grotaclas2 7d ago

Is save corruption something which you have encountered before? I don't remember any eu4 bug from 1.30.6 which caused it(1.31 on the other hand, had a very common save game corruption bug, but those saves can be recovered if they were not overwritten by fully loading them)

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u/MedievaI_Peasant 4d ago

Playing Oirat and my ruler keeps dying early it's so unbelievably annoying. I've destroyed Ming like 4 times this morning and each time my ruler either dies halfway through or shortly after. AAAAAAAAAAAAH

Am I going insane? Am I doing something wrong?

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u/Royranibanaw Trader 4d ago

Rulers that are generals have an increased risk of dying. That's increased further if they are in command of an army and if they participate in sieges or battles.

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u/Deusvult_omnipotenti 4d ago

Does anyone know if the AI going into crippling debt is still an issue? I’m a new player but my biggest ally is in crushing debt that keeps compounding. Most forums discussing this issue are from at least a few years back and I couldn’t find a very recent update. Thanks

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u/drywallgremblin 3d ago

The worst offenders are usually large tags like France and Russia, it is still an issue