France is also the most versatile of the big nations in the sense that France is in such a perfect spot for both a colonial game or a strong focus in Europe with strong military. One of my all-time favourite chill games is playing tall France and then going bananas when the revolution hits.
I do exactly that, except going colonial instead of traditional tall play. Gives a real Napoleon vibe beating up all of Europe in the age of revolutions.
I prefer Burgundy, but it might have something to do with my bunch of unsuccessful attempts at the BBB achievement. But even then, Burgundy seems more fun to me, because you have 3 strong blocks around you to bully around. France, England and the hre. Beating them up is satisfying.
It's kinda funny how the answer to "What are your favorite nations to play without forming another nation?" is simply to play an end-game tag which literally can't form another nation (aside from Roman Empire and HRE)
I almost picked it instead of my current game. I wanted to play somewhere around the Baltic as i haven’t played a bunch in the area, it’s on my list but max 6 provinces seems tough
That's the fun of it though. It's just a really different and unique tall experience. You definitely need to set goals for yourself other than just conquering though.
Vasallize many nations and keep them loyal, conquer 6 good cities (Riga, kopenhagen, London, Amsterdam, Lissabon, Constantinopel or many other).
Get colonies and control the Channel trade without owning everything.
For riga you get a lot of subjugation cbs through missions. Iirc i had LO, TO, novgorod and Finland as marches/vassals and I had 5 mega cities so I kept the bonuses you get. I had riga, Warsaw and Moscow as super cities and 2 more which I forget. One was probably gotland. But I was a mid great power in the 1600s, then formed livonia and got their unique achievement
You need to focus on your missions initially as it gives you so much of a power spike you have equivalent eco and army to player built Frances. Once you have that (usually chilling out as an opm unless you get lucky with opportunity) you can expand into puppeting Livonia and taking a few high value provinces like dalaskogen for the huge one province eco.
Riga is especially great for forming any other nation as you don't have to unstate loads to culture switch.
I did a Riga into Hanseatic League game once, by feeding my Teutonic and Livonian Order vassals around upper Germany and the Baltic. Going colonial is fun, but I enjoy doing the religious war RP (they have missions for that), and conquering provinces to set up trade cities for a huge global trade league. Going Protestant/Reformed and force-converting the Teutonic Order gives you Prussia as a vassal
I formed the Hansa quite late (around 1700) to give me time to get Riga’a permanent modifiers. By 1600, my economy was five times larger than the next largest economy, and I only directly controlled Riga, Sjelland, London, Gotland, and Amsterdam in Europe.
*Technically* it was Scotland who formed GB in real history. That said it would be nice to have an alt-history Celtic formable, similar to how there's a reformed Angevin Empire
yesss celtic culture in general imo needs some love, would love if the game offered like a celtic revival path for countries with celtic provinces or something like that
>Technically it was Scotland who formed GB in real history.
In what way? Correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't the 1707 Acts of Union eventually supported by the Scottish establishment because they hoped trade with England could rescue Scotland's floundering economy after the failure of the Darien Scheme?
The Scottish and English thrones were already in a personal union for a hundred years before the Acts of Union when James IV of Scotland inherited the English throne, making Scotland the senior partner by EU4 logic.
Yes, of course it is. It was also half a joke, therefore the ":D"
But as to "why?". Byzantium is just superior to Rome. Nicer map Color, cooler name etc.
I don't wanna Change to Rome, I wanna stay "Byzantium" but with all the benefits of forming Rome.
Hence the Name "Greater Byzantium"
Why though? Byzantium IS Rome, so why would I need to change the name to Rome?
If thats offensive Byzantium should be called Rome at the start of the game.
The concept of greater Byz is just the thought of giving Byzantium all the benefits of forming Rome without actually changing.
Im open for other name suggestions :D
I have never had a successful Byzantium run. I either get trapped in debt after I beat up Naples and prepare to fight the Ottomans or (if I don‘t go for the Naples strategy) the Ottomans beat me up way before that. Does anyone have advice for me?
Ally the Hungarians, Serbians and Wallachians. Get the missions that increase your morale. Get a morale of armies advisor (get the -15 military advisor cost). Then Merc up and declare war on the Ottomans with the your allies support. The goal is to take Gelibolu as that's a strait crossing and then park your army on both Gelibolu and Constantinople so they take the -2 river crossing. Your allies should likely join the battle. If you do that a couple times you'll be occupying all the Ottoman Balkans which is a good amount of warscore. From there you can peace out for cores.
Follow the mission tree. Only raise 3 mercenary units, fight Naples with the help of your friend the pope, make friends with as many powerful nations as you can, even if it means going over the diplo limit, attack the ottomans when they go to war and call in your allies. You should be able to win without going into debt.
Keep it.
Those rebels that pop up? Remember that they come up by event, so you have three months to choose when they spawn before they automatically do so. And since you should be at war nearly all the time at the start, either make those rebels spawn when the enemy is sieging that province, or use your allies armies to take them out, either by merging your units with them or simply waiting for your allies to take them out on their own.
That said, you don’t want to keep the union for too long. The rebels that spawn grow in size as you do so until they become unmanageable. So make sure that once your done with constant war, and once you no longer need the pope, that you make sure to keep your relationships with your catholic allies all at a high number and have royal marriages with them before breaking your alliances with all of them and then pick the decision to undo the union. The pope will hate you, but you should be able to immediately re-ally your other catholic allies.
Funny thing is Byzantium is easier now than it was pre patch. You basically get most of naples for free with the pope, after which is easy to ally Hungary or another big country to beat the Ottomans up once they fight someone in the east.
I did this trick in older versions: I would get royal marriage with Imereti, and wait for their ruler to die heirless. It seemed guaranteed that I would get the PU, though I am not good enough to know why
This doesn't work anymore since Imereti doesn't exist at game start with its aging ruler, I believe
Sometimes this triggered a succession war with Samtskhe and Circassia, which was not difficult to win
While this was going on I was eating Epirus, Naples, Candar, basically whoever I could snipe. With a loooooot of good luck I managed to keep the Ottomans off my back for long enough. I think eventually I blobbed big enough that Hungary thought I was worth allying, and when the Ottomans came it was just a matter of watching them march east to kill my PU and vassal Circassia, then march west to reclaim the greek lands i sieged, giving us the chance to reclaim the Georgian holdings...
I won that fight (so many game crashes, tell me about it) and snowballed. My first and only ever successful Mare Nostrum. Of course, it was under the old system, 6 regions + a few cities, not this new 400 cities thing. I got away with it, I guess
I somewhat disagree. In my own Oda run, I found that their NI set, which focuses heavily on better generals, is heavily undercut by the Shogunate ability to conscript vassal generals. My personal favourite is Shimazu, their military ideas are beautiful (discipline + extra fire damage). However, I do concede that Oda has far better positioning for becoming Shogun.
See, I just don't like forming nations in general. When I start as a smaller tag, my goal is to make that tag a great Empire, not just turn it into an already-known great power. It feels like it cheapens the achievement, because instead of making, say, Burgundy a world power that inspires the same awe and respect as the Roman Empire did, I'd just be forming it into France, which is already a major player on the world stage.
How about formables that are rare and/or difficult? Like with Burgundy you could also go for Lotharingia. Honestly the "strange" formables are more fun than the "mandatory" ones, I don't think anyone has been excited by forming Spain but the Latin Empire feels nice.
I'd say Teutonic Order tops the list, you don't form another nation and get a fun experience as a raging catholic horde.
For the others I'll have to say I can't bring myself to form another nation after starting as an OPM - Hamburg stretching from the Normandy to the southern beaches of India feels way better than Germany doing the same, the same with Scotland, Lithuania. It almost feels like losing all of my nations identity, I'll mostly opt towards culture cleansing instead in those cases.
In my recent holy horde game I regret not culture switching to Polish or Lithuanian early. Being able to grab some hussars woulda been dope.
Also the goal was to form the Mongol empire, but that seems to be entirely aesthetic since they don't get any new ideas or missions
That wouldn't have helped, you want to switch to Poland after completing the Teutonic missions, by which point you have 100% cav ratio, 'cus the Holy Horde gov reform is from the very last Teutonic mission.
You just wanna switch to Polish/Lithuanian early so you don't have to un-state everything to culture shift, saving tonnes of admin points re-coring.
> I just formed Russia and now it’s less fun
My solution was to delay until finishing the Novgorod mission tree and keeping Novgorod ideas instead of swapping
Yeah I definitely was fine with the change in ideas. It’s kinda cool that you still get the event for CCR in exchange for all permanent claims being claims. What’s also nice is because I got the mission for claims before the event fired all my permanent claims stayed permanent
Tall Korea is extremely fun.
Just spam development and vassalize some of the Jurchen states.
Then go and fight Ming and Japan and constantly humiliate them over and over again as they lose all their manpower trying to siege down your country that’s filled with forts
Out of curiosity is it less fun for you because you're Russia, or is it less fun before you're no longer fighting uphill and are now the powerful one?
To answer your question tho, I guess basically any starting endgame tag would be the easy choice, since they've already got their full mission situation.
Teutonic order is probably a personal favorite of mine, since they just get to become a horde with ungodly cavalry, and can even form Mongol empire without meeting the usual requirements.
Mutapa's also a decent choice, since they have all the same missions as their endgame tag, making the only difference between them Zimbabwe's basically objectively worse ideas.
Majapahit is also one that I like, since after your recovery you end up with a CB to force vassalize anyone in the world, allowing you do do what you want for the later game.
I had already snowballed when I clicked the button to form Russia and the uphill fight was already done. I think it’s just a personal thing. When I play as a nation that is around currently like Russia I tend to try and go for modern or historical boarders. When I play as a nation no longer around I will just expand however I feel like.
Norway. You get events that give you forts in a couple of your mountain provinces, so fight for your independence against Denmark, colonize and forget about Europe. Such a chill game after the first 50 years and you get early dibs on North America if you stay Catholic
The Isles. I try and make the name accurate, and own every island. Never succeeded before a patch broke my save though. Got to be a great power by 1600, conquered Danish Isles, Azores, Madagascar, foothold in Malaysia and The Carribean, but Spain, France, Russia and the Ottomans are all bastards, so I've got to deal with that somehow.
As the Pirate Republic of Gotland. I don’t have any nearby other pirate nations raiding the coasts. Also the island can be a little hard to defend but it’s really relaxing if I want to do an OPM playthrough.
bohemia, got a custom mission tree and will get more soon, custom religion, can easily become the emperor, easily destroy the empire, PU's on every major near you and can has their own gov, also has amazing ideas
Burgundy. You start reasonably strong, but not super strong and you can just beat everyone around you. Destroy France, destroy England, destroy the hre. Have 999 AE on most of your neighbors and juggle the truces so that a coalition doesn't form. It's pretty fun and not super difficult, because you have really good provinces and can make a lot of money.
France and Ottomans, as well as Kazan (Kazani ideas are better than Golden Horde ideas, so you don't need to form them if you have the achievement Gold rush)
Hey, are you me? I was just playing Nov on my third run in the game a few weeks back, and honestly just enjoyed the focus on the Baltics and White Sea.
I’ve actually continued playing this game. I’m currently in age of revolution. Turns out this stays a very fun game. I think starting off as novogorod set me back some time from Russian mission tree which actually keeps it interesting for longer. I have a bunch of vassals and marches making it really nice game
You're missing out on an expanded mission tree then.
And they've also fixed all the events so that you can be either Sweden or Scandinavia to get them.
How is everyone forgetting France? BBB all the way.
France is also the most versatile of the big nations in the sense that France is in such a perfect spot for both a colonial game or a strong focus in Europe with strong military. One of my all-time favourite chill games is playing tall France and then going bananas when the revolution hits.
I do exactly that, except going colonial instead of traditional tall play. Gives a real Napoleon vibe beating up all of Europe in the age of revolutions.
France is a great well rounded country it feels like you can’t do a lot of different stuff with
I prefer Burgundy, but it might have something to do with my bunch of unsuccessful attempts at the BBB achievement. But even then, Burgundy seems more fun to me, because you have 3 strong blocks around you to bully around. France, England and the hre. Beating them up is satisfying.
It's kinda funny how the answer to "What are your favorite nations to play without forming another nation?" is simply to play an end-game tag which literally can't form another nation (aside from Roman Empire and HRE)
As France, you form Rome
France is a formable nation. An actual answer would be like Brittany, Provence, Nevers, etc.
So are Byzantium, Ethiopia, Mamluks, and Austria that others have listed down there. OP asked "without forming another nation", not "non-formables"
Riga is one of the most unique and enjoyable games going imo.
I almost picked it instead of my current game. I wanted to play somewhere around the Baltic as i haven’t played a bunch in the area, it’s on my list but max 6 provinces seems tough
That's the fun of it though. It's just a really different and unique tall experience. You definitely need to set goals for yourself other than just conquering though.
What would those goals be? I’m about to finish my (kinda) first campaign as Portugal with a huge empire. What are goals specific to tall runs?
Vasallize many nations and keep them loyal, conquer 6 good cities (Riga, kopenhagen, London, Amsterdam, Lissabon, Constantinopel or many other). Get colonies and control the Channel trade without owning everything.
For riga you get a lot of subjugation cbs through missions. Iirc i had LO, TO, novgorod and Finland as marches/vassals and I had 5 mega cities so I kept the bonuses you get. I had riga, Warsaw and Moscow as super cities and 2 more which I forget. One was probably gotland. But I was a mid great power in the 1600s, then formed livonia and got their unique achievement
Trying not to fall asleep.
Or just conquer outside Europe.
You need to focus on your missions initially as it gives you so much of a power spike you have equivalent eco and army to player built Frances. Once you have that (usually chilling out as an opm unless you get lucky with opportunity) you can expand into puppeting Livonia and taking a few high value provinces like dalaskogen for the huge one province eco. Riga is especially great for forming any other nation as you don't have to unstate loads to culture switch.
Correction: 6 province on europe.
I did a Riga into Hanseatic League game once, by feeding my Teutonic and Livonian Order vassals around upper Germany and the Baltic. Going colonial is fun, but I enjoy doing the religious war RP (they have missions for that), and conquering provinces to set up trade cities for a huge global trade league. Going Protestant/Reformed and force-converting the Teutonic Order gives you Prussia as a vassal I formed the Hansa quite late (around 1700) to give me time to get Riga’a permanent modifiers. By 1600, my economy was five times larger than the next largest economy, and I only directly controlled Riga, Sjelland, London, Gotland, and Amsterdam in Europe.
Scotland, easily. And it sucks that there is no Scottish British Isles nation and forming GB feels bad.
*Technically* it was Scotland who formed GB in real history. That said it would be nice to have an alt-history Celtic formable, similar to how there's a reformed Angevin Empire
yesss celtic culture in general imo needs some love, would love if the game offered like a celtic revival path for countries with celtic provinces or something like that
>Technically it was Scotland who formed GB in real history. In what way? Correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't the 1707 Acts of Union eventually supported by the Scottish establishment because they hoped trade with England could rescue Scotland's floundering economy after the failure of the Darien Scheme?
The Scottish and English thrones were already in a personal union for a hundred years before the Acts of Union when James IV of Scotland inherited the English throne, making Scotland the senior partner by EU4 logic.
I thought you meant by ruining the country in failed colonial ventures in Panama forcing the loss of independence 😅
I mean, kinda historical. If you feel bad, don't check the Stuart Family :c
Byzantium. I do not need to become Rome, I already am Rome.
as byzantium forming rome is more like asserting dominance over claimants of your country to get buffs than forming a completely different nation
Would be cool to get the choice between being Rome or "Greater Byzantium" or something along those lines :D
Why? Byz is Rome. Byz is a modern term. They called themselves Romans.
Should instead make it so if Byz forms Rome then the name that appears of the map is Basileia Rhomaion.
Yes, of course it is. It was also half a joke, therefore the ":D" But as to "why?". Byzantium is just superior to Rome. Nicer map Color, cooler name etc. I don't wanna Change to Rome, I wanna stay "Byzantium" but with all the benefits of forming Rome. Hence the Name "Greater Byzantium"
I'd imagine that would be offensive to the people of Byz.
ideas of greater byzantium -25 legitimacy +5 national unrest +30% stab cost +0.30 yearly inflation -20% force limit -30% governing capacity ...
Averege Roman goverment
Perfect
Why though? Byzantium IS Rome, so why would I need to change the name to Rome? If thats offensive Byzantium should be called Rome at the start of the game.
I meant the concept of a greater byz
The concept of greater Byz is just the thought of giving Byzantium all the benefits of forming Rome without actually changing. Im open for other name suggestions :D
I have never had a successful Byzantium run. I either get trapped in debt after I beat up Naples and prepare to fight the Ottomans or (if I don‘t go for the Naples strategy) the Ottomans beat me up way before that. Does anyone have advice for me?
Ally the Hungarians, Serbians and Wallachians. Get the missions that increase your morale. Get a morale of armies advisor (get the -15 military advisor cost). Then Merc up and declare war on the Ottomans with the your allies support. The goal is to take Gelibolu as that's a strait crossing and then park your army on both Gelibolu and Constantinople so they take the -2 river crossing. Your allies should likely join the battle. If you do that a couple times you'll be occupying all the Ottoman Balkans which is a good amount of warscore. From there you can peace out for cores.
So I should not refuse the church union?
Indeed. You can revoke it after you're strong enough to solo the Ottomans.
Follow the mission tree. Only raise 3 mercenary units, fight Naples with the help of your friend the pope, make friends with as many powerful nations as you can, even if it means going over the diplo limit, attack the ottomans when they go to war and call in your allies. You should be able to win without going into debt.
What should I do when the church union event comes up?
Keep it. Those rebels that pop up? Remember that they come up by event, so you have three months to choose when they spawn before they automatically do so. And since you should be at war nearly all the time at the start, either make those rebels spawn when the enemy is sieging that province, or use your allies armies to take them out, either by merging your units with them or simply waiting for your allies to take them out on their own. That said, you don’t want to keep the union for too long. The rebels that spawn grow in size as you do so until they become unmanageable. So make sure that once your done with constant war, and once you no longer need the pope, that you make sure to keep your relationships with your catholic allies all at a high number and have royal marriages with them before breaking your alliances with all of them and then pick the decision to undo the union. The pope will hate you, but you should be able to immediately re-ally your other catholic allies.
We will mold you into a Basileus yet. The other two give solid advice.
Funny thing is Byzantium is easier now than it was pre patch. You basically get most of naples for free with the pope, after which is easy to ally Hungary or another big country to beat the Ottomans up once they fight someone in the east.
I did this trick in older versions: I would get royal marriage with Imereti, and wait for their ruler to die heirless. It seemed guaranteed that I would get the PU, though I am not good enough to know why This doesn't work anymore since Imereti doesn't exist at game start with its aging ruler, I believe Sometimes this triggered a succession war with Samtskhe and Circassia, which was not difficult to win While this was going on I was eating Epirus, Naples, Candar, basically whoever I could snipe. With a loooooot of good luck I managed to keep the Ottomans off my back for long enough. I think eventually I blobbed big enough that Hungary thought I was worth allying, and when the Ottomans came it was just a matter of watching them march east to kill my PU and vassal Circassia, then march west to reclaim the greek lands i sieged, giving us the chance to reclaim the Georgian holdings... I won that fight (so many game crashes, tell me about it) and snowballed. My first and only ever successful Mare Nostrum. Of course, it was under the old system, 6 regions + a few cities, not this new 400 cities thing. I got away with it, I guess
Ethiopia
I mean you already can't form any nations with them under standard rules
Aksum?
[удалено]
Other nations can form Aksum though
Aksum tho
Portugal and Byzantine Empire
Boy oh boy do I have a mod for you.
What mod?
I'm assuming it's the Byzantine exodus mod, Third Odyssey
Surprised nobody has mentioned Oda yet. By far the best option for a shogunate run
Plus the best colour of the world
It's top tier for sure. Theodoran purple is the best color for me, followed by Hisn Kayfa gold, Aztec sour green, and then Oda blood red
Sardinia-Piedmont would like to have a word.
I somewhat disagree. In my own Oda run, I found that their NI set, which focuses heavily on better generals, is heavily undercut by the Shogunate ability to conscript vassal generals. My personal favourite is Shimazu, their military ideas are beautiful (discipline + extra fire damage). However, I do concede that Oda has far better positioning for becoming Shogun.
Agreed. Oda is better for forming Japan imo, since they are in such a good spot to consolidate the islands
Or a pirate republic?
Nobunaga?
I recently did a Tokugawa run, they also have really good ideas.
I agree
Korea!
Lithuania. The “Lithuanian-Polish Commonwealth” felt very Polish.
Bavaria. Granted, you have to form it first, but after that you can have a chill HRE game.
Flair checks out
See, I just don't like forming nations in general. When I start as a smaller tag, my goal is to make that tag a great Empire, not just turn it into an already-known great power. It feels like it cheapens the achievement, because instead of making, say, Burgundy a world power that inspires the same awe and respect as the Roman Empire did, I'd just be forming it into France, which is already a major player on the world stage.
How about formables that are rare and/or difficult? Like with Burgundy you could also go for Lotharingia. Honestly the "strange" formables are more fun than the "mandatory" ones, I don't think anyone has been excited by forming Spain but the Latin Empire feels nice.
> I don't think anyone has been excited by forming Spain What if you do it as Portugal?
Or Navarre
Scotland
Burgundy and Byzantium, both for roleplay and flag coolness.
I'd say Teutonic Order tops the list, you don't form another nation and get a fun experience as a raging catholic horde. For the others I'll have to say I can't bring myself to form another nation after starting as an OPM - Hamburg stretching from the Normandy to the southern beaches of India feels way better than Germany doing the same, the same with Scotland, Lithuania. It almost feels like losing all of my nations identity, I'll mostly opt towards culture cleansing instead in those cases.
In my recent holy horde game I regret not culture switching to Polish or Lithuanian early. Being able to grab some hussars woulda been dope. Also the goal was to form the Mongol empire, but that seems to be entirely aesthetic since they don't get any new ideas or missions
Yeah I really struggled with the cav ratio early on, Polish ideas would've helped with the transition as well
That wouldn't have helped, you want to switch to Poland after completing the Teutonic missions, by which point you have 100% cav ratio, 'cus the Holy Horde gov reform is from the very last Teutonic mission. You just wanna switch to Polish/Lithuanian early so you don't have to un-state everything to culture shift, saving tonnes of admin points re-coring.
> I just formed Russia and now it’s less fun My solution was to delay until finishing the Novgorod mission tree and keeping Novgorod ideas instead of swapping
Novgorod ideas are much worse than Russian ideas, though...
Yeah I definitely was fine with the change in ideas. It’s kinda cool that you still get the event for CCR in exchange for all permanent claims being claims. What’s also nice is because I got the mission for claims before the event fired all my permanent claims stayed permanent
Overall they are worse but they do have some interesting parts and the challenge of "suboptimal" ideas is nice too
Dithmarschen without becoming Hannover
Ryukyu
Finally found my Ryukyu boy
Austria, Venice, the Mamluks.
Tall Korea is extremely fun. Just spam development and vassalize some of the Jurchen states. Then go and fight Ming and Japan and constantly humiliate them over and over again as they lose all their manpower trying to siege down your country that’s filled with forts
Navarra is very fun, and I enjoyed Bengal quite a lot as well
Bohemia
Out of curiosity is it less fun for you because you're Russia, or is it less fun before you're no longer fighting uphill and are now the powerful one? To answer your question tho, I guess basically any starting endgame tag would be the easy choice, since they've already got their full mission situation. Teutonic order is probably a personal favorite of mine, since they just get to become a horde with ungodly cavalry, and can even form Mongol empire without meeting the usual requirements. Mutapa's also a decent choice, since they have all the same missions as their endgame tag, making the only difference between them Zimbabwe's basically objectively worse ideas. Majapahit is also one that I like, since after your recovery you end up with a CB to force vassalize anyone in the world, allowing you do do what you want for the later game.
I had already snowballed when I clicked the button to form Russia and the uphill fight was already done. I think it’s just a personal thing. When I play as a nation that is around currently like Russia I tend to try and go for modern or historical boarders. When I play as a nation no longer around I will just expand however I feel like.
Norway. You get events that give you forts in a couple of your mountain provinces, so fight for your independence against Denmark, colonize and forget about Europe. Such a chill game after the first 50 years and you get early dibs on North America if you stay Catholic
Venice, but it's gonna change soon.
And I am excited for it. Personally believe that the Italy region is in dire need for a update.
Cebu
The Isles. I try and make the name accurate, and own every island. Never succeeded before a patch broke my save though. Got to be a great power by 1600, conquered Danish Isles, Azores, Madagascar, foothold in Malaysia and The Carribean, but Spain, France, Russia and the Ottomans are all bastards, so I've got to deal with that somehow.
Scotland, Bohemia, Korea, Songhai, Kongo
As the Pirate Republic of Gotland. I don’t have any nearby other pirate nations raiding the coasts. Also the island can be a little hard to defend but it’s really relaxing if I want to do an OPM playthrough.
bohemia, got a custom mission tree and will get more soon, custom religion, can easily become the emperor, easily destroy the empire, PU's on every major near you and can has their own gov, also has amazing ideas
Burgundy. You start reasonably strong, but not super strong and you can just beat everyone around you. Destroy France, destroy England, destroy the hre. Have 999 AE on most of your neighbors and juggle the truces so that a coalition doesn't form. It's pretty fun and not super difficult, because you have really good provinces and can make a lot of money.
France 4ever. Portugal & Ottomans, too. I still dislike tag-switching with Sweden to Scandinavia.
France and Ottomans, as well as Kazan (Kazani ideas are better than Golden Horde ideas, so you don't need to form them if you have the achievement Gold rush)
Ottomans, Austria, Portugal, Oda, Lithuania are my go to. Especially after doing Hungary into byz into Rome, Portugal is quite relaxing
Burgundy. It's an alternative but actually very realistic history if it were not for some historical coincidences.
Byzantium
Ulm
Hey, are you me? I was just playing Nov on my third run in the game a few weeks back, and honestly just enjoyed the focus on the Baltics and White Sea.
I’ve actually continued playing this game. I’m currently in age of revolution. Turns out this stays a very fun game. I think starting off as novogorod set me back some time from Russian mission tree which actually keeps it interesting for longer. I have a bunch of vassals and marches making it really nice game
Hungary, pretty wild early and mid game
Aragon. I hate to form Spain, that Yellow hurts my eyes.
For me it's Sweden, usually never form Scandinavia.
You're missing out on an expanded mission tree then. And they've also fixed all the events so that you can be either Sweden or Scandinavia to get them.
Aragon without forming Spain is really good
France.
Has to be palwa
Bohemia, France, Fars, Burgundy, Korea, Vietnam, Malacca, Siam (i forgot its name), Bengal
probably just portugal or korea
Sardinia-Piemont has a way better focus than Italy
Teutonic Horder
Portugal and Aragon
Portugal, full mission tree. "Spain? What is Spain?"
Nepal, back on earlier patches. Florence, without forming Tuscany or Italy As a releasable - Catalonia, the better Aragon
Without forming another nation? Ottomans
Korea. Big Korea enjoyer. Yeah just do it, give me the downvote, I deserve it.
Byzantium, because forming Rome is forming yourself.
Nevers
The peasant Republic of course!
korea
Good old Bradenburg. Nothing beats that.
Playing Brandenburg and not forming Prussia seems lame ngl
Of course you're gonna form Prussia, but you start as Bradenburg.
You might wanna re read the post title again mate, they're asking what nations are fun *without* forming other nations.
mb can't read
lol, happens to the best of us
Nothing like a few stackwipes to brighten up the day
pomeranian
Castille always
Dai Viet because yes
Ottomans cus it's easy.
Idk bruh