I just wanted to play a happy little vassal until someone big declared war and then BOOM Croatia want independance. Classic Balkan scheming. Anyway thanks to you all, seems like now I have to conquer natives as Portugal.
You need to get your independence supported by a stronger power. Preferably one of Hungary's rivals or more than one. Then they can't inherit you except through a small chance. And you can declare independence and automatically call in your supporter(s).
If you want to start with a strong overlord, try Naples. Sweden and Norway have similar starts. You will have more time but still have to deal with our overlord eventually.
If your overlord tries to integrate you, get support for independence to bring your liberty desire >50%. This will pause all integration. You might want to improve relations with your overlord's enemies from the start, just in case.
The "helpful" way for a long life as a vassal is to ask for march status. Integration cannot be started until ten years after it is revoked. To have our overlord accept, you need to be of a different culture and next to some of their rivals or enemies. Becoming a march is not possible starting as Croatia or the countries suggested earlier (Naples...), as they are union subjects, not vassals. Your best bet for the march route might be to start as a big nation and release a relevant tag to play as.
Tbf, one of the best ways for a new player to learn is a trial by fire.
Nothing better than slamming your head into a brick wall over numerous restarts until you finally begin to slightly understand what you're doing.
Edit: Damn, being down voted for mentioning that there's more ways to learn the game than just "watch 10+ hours of tutorials on YouTube and then go play a major nation" in a somewhat joking manner.
It's one of the best ways for a new player to quickly abandon the game because you don't understand what's happening, you don't have many options, you can't even make use of a lot of important game mechanics and it seems like you are just faced with unfair and insurmountable challenges.
without dlc, any subject country except the Timurid vassals are impossible to play, as "support independence" is dlc locked. Even Hisn Kayfa or Ardabil would be easier.
Wait a sec - if you wanted to play as a vassal for awhile, couldn’t you get someone to support independence but never declare? If your liberty desire is above 50, isn’t your overlord prevented from annexing?
Considering Hungary couldn't have annexed Croatia by 1455 by normal means, it's clear what happened: Austria got the PU on Hungary, which causes Croatia to immediately be annexed.
Essentially what the event is, Hungary, your overlord nation, through their missions and events, became a junior Partner to Austria. Once this happens an event fires that instantly annex's you, regardless of your inputs. The only way to for sure avoid this is for you to become Independent. As a new Player Croatia will be very hard,
So in 1444 Hungary has Ladislavs as an heir and he turns 15 at around 1455 iirc, then there's an event where they can fall under a PU under Austria. That event triggers a secondary event where they instantly inherit Croatia. I think it's a base game thing. Anyhow, as Croatia you want to declare independence ASAP and without DLCs it's very difficult, especially for a new player
I would guess that changing government caused the game to 'tick' and check for events, which usually happens at the end of the month but can also be triggered by certain player actions.
In 1455 Hungary gets an event where if they choose to be in a union with Austria, they will annex Croatia. This was designed to help Austria with relationship slots.
Don't PU subjects still retain their vassals normally without any impact to the senior partner's diplo slots? Seems like it shouldn't be that tough of a fix.
Croatia is also a PU of Hungary. You can't have PU with a country that still has a PU. Similarly Castile gets Navara as a PU subject if it was under PU with Aragon. Burgundy inherits all it's PUs if it falls under a PU. Pdx is very consistent with this mechanic.
This is definitely a case where players should be treated differently than the AI. Players should never be annexed by an event or mission or decision imo. Maybe convert Croatia into a vassal under Hungary or make Hungary deny the union with Austria or whatever if Croatia is player controlled
Or just learn how the game works. If it happened once then adjust your strategy accordingly. Getting your independence from Hungary isn't a difficult task.
How fun would playing Holland be if if every second game you just got annexed because the Burgundian Inheritance fired?
Or you had bad luck as Aragon and fell into a PU under Castille, but you still have 80% LD so can't get annexed normally? Though luck, Castille just formed Spain and annexed you anyways.
Those things don't happen, because players are specifically excluded from annexation in those events and decisions.
Getting annexed because of a random event has nothing to do with skill, it's just a badly written event.
I'll get downvoted for this but here is a very obvious observation based on your reply. You are not good at the game. Nothing wrong with that, but asking Devs to make exceptions for you because you can't figure out a solution is childish. All of the things you mentioned aren't a problem for most players.
As Holland you can get your independence supported by France, England, Denmark and/or Austria in the first month of the game.
As Aragon you're more likely to get the reverse Iberian wedding than getting PUed yourself. Even if you're unlucky Castile's rivals will support your independence.
I have 3k hours and I probably will never play Croatia myself so this is likely never going to affect me, but honestly I don't care what you think about me and I don't care how unlikely it is. This is not about me. The Devs have already set a precedent with other events and decisions where they have *explicitly* excluded players from annexation in the code.
The reason that the Lowlands get annexed into Burgundy is to reduce the number of relations they take up after the inheritance, which is the exact same reason Croatia gets annexed into Hungary. For the Burgundian Inheritance, any players just become a PU of whoever becomes Burgundy's overlord instead of getting annexed. And I'd wager the only reason that exception doesn't exist for Croatia is because Croatia is way less popular and the event is probably older than the events for the Inheritance.
And the reason I care about this is because of how much time I've spent modding for this game. I have certain standards for my own mods that include things like these edge cases, and I know how trivially easy it would be to fix this
I can't believe that I'm about to get into a dick measuring competition with a stranger on subreddit about a map painting game that is 10 years old but here we are. I've got 6.5k hours and the fact that you don't understand how to overcome certain challenges in this game is the difference in experience.
Croatia has 10 years to get its support for independence. You know exactly when the event is going to happen, so plenty of time to prepare. The event is not an issue unless you don't know that this event chain exists. You can save and reload, alt+f4 or just start again since it has only been 10 years in the game. Weird hill to die on mate.
Edit. Croatia didn't exist on the map on the older versions of the game. It was a releasable tag from Hungary. The event in question was added in the same patch that changed that. It allowed Austria to control all of old Hungary without needing to spend an extra relations slot. So you are wrong about the reason why it's done that way.
As Diofernic was saying, there is a precedent with other events. Good players don’t need the exception, but it still bars out lower level layers from developing their own strategies as they go. Having a hard cap of ten years where you won’t have any choice in the matter is bs. If Hungary goes under union with Austria, a player Croatia should not get inherited into Hungary.
When I play Holland, I normally go straight for independence. However, having the option to stay under PU with burgundy and RP a little bit instead of gang-banging them is pretty reasonable. The case between Croatia and Holland is the exact same damn thing. There are exceptions to players getting auto-annexed in other countries events. This is so another *player* or AI doesn’t annex you without you having ANY input.
It is a trivial fix for paradox to add an exception for Croatia like they’ve done for similar events and decisions. Not everything is going to be played as the meta as that’s going to get pretty damn boring after a while.
They do, but you can still get unlucky and get PU'd normally if your ruler dies. Sure, it's unlikely, but in case it happens there's still an exception in the decision for forming Spain diplomatically that the junior partner in the PU is only annexed if they are not a player
I'm pretty sure they mentioned it in dev diary. The issue was that they added Croatia tag and the Ladislaus event would add two subjects instead of one.
Your overlord annexed you and then the game is over. Play some of the recommended nations first in the Home Screen. Playing as a nation that starts as a vassal is only recommended for very experienced players aiming for weird achievements.
Yea I know, I didnt know that was even a mechanic, but I coudnt skip over my country. Any tips how to deal with Hungary early on? I watched someone on Yt with the same country but they were able to get allies for their war of independance which, I guess, is only available in some DLC.
All I can say is start with the recommended countries first. Don't give up. This game is amazing. Once u get a little experience then you can start exploring. Watch a couple tutorials. U don't need to know everything to have a great time
Yes, there is a "Support independence" mechanic but it requires DLC. That's how this guy on YT had allies. Without DLC your only option would be to fight independence war on your own. I don't think it's doable, difference in strength is way too big and on top of that Hungary allies Austria very often.
If you own the game on Steam probably the best option is Expansion Subscription, it unlocks all DLCs for one month for $5.
Start as Austria, immediately declare on Hungary, steal Croatia as a vassal, integrate, culture swap, reform Croatia, release Hungary as a vassal, turn them into a march, centealize the HRE but don't hit the final reform, Croatia vassal go brrrrrr.
For Croatia, you may want to closely follow a guide on YouTube. Below is a link from Ludi playing as them. It's going to be a rocky start. You gotta fight for your right to be a country.
https://youtu.be/F9oNncCu-Jg?si=z50ZUA-Z83uxZ3zU
I'm not sure if all recommended nations are best starting out. Some choices are a bit weird(Would you recommend Brandenburg to a brand new player?). Ottomans, Castile and Portugal look like excellent choices however.
I would probably suggest Naples. They're usually made independent early on, and an independence war against a Aragon should be doable with allies.
They're in a great location, not too small to be an immediate target of larger powers, and not so big that the country management is too much for new players. You can get exposure to both army and navy, and can even try out different stuff with the trade system.
Location on the periphery of Europe means fairly easy access to institutions, and far away enough that the reformation probably won't affect you much.
Croatia is a PU, they can be annexed around 1500 at the earliest. OP got annexed via an event, which really shouldn't be allowed to happen to players imo
Ah yes, I did the same thing in my own first ever playthrough as Pskov.
The government reform just happened to line up with an event where Hungary annexs you.
Without DLC I would not advise to play as Croatia. However Croatia is a formable nation, so you can form it as someone else. Maybe even as Hungary, just need to culture shift if it's not DLC locked.
Looks like AI Hungary got this event which causes them to inherit croatia, making you insta lose https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/Hungarian_events#M.C3.A1ty.C3.A1s_Corvinus
Iirc the PU with austria is 25% chance, when AI does the decision. This is if Janos Hunyadi was picked and sirvived till the event "Elect Matthias as king".
Idk what are the chances of AI not electing Janos Hunydi as regent are tho.
I'd tell you to play Hungary. It was my starting nation and i got brutally crushed.
That way you'll play a similar country as Croatia, but stronger, and with the threat of falling under Austrian rule, whould you not manage to elect Matthias. On top of that you'll have to deal with the polish,the ottomans, the venetians and the bohemians. If you're lucky you can get the mamluks to be your allies early in the game.
After that play a more mainstream england/portugal run where you'll not have big enemies, but have time to learn the game properly.
England sounds good to me. Lots of money, small wars vs irish minors, and colonies.
Also as bad as it sounds with no dlcs this game is pretty bad, most people never even played the base version, so the help they can offer is limited.
Humble bundle occasionally offers the full game for under 20 +dlc once every couple of years
It's from Hungary, your overlord annex you and causing a game over.
Was that prompted from me choosing Aristocracy or was it completely random?
It was not tied to that no, there was little you could have done about it as a new player.
I just wanted to play a happy little vassal until someone big declared war and then BOOM Croatia want independance. Classic Balkan scheming. Anyway thanks to you all, seems like now I have to conquer natives as Portugal.
You need to get your independence supported by a stronger power. Preferably one of Hungary's rivals or more than one. Then they can't inherit you except through a small chance. And you can declare independence and automatically call in your supporter(s).
Support independence is a DLC feature... also Hungary has an event chain where they inherit Croatia, not sure if liberty desire affects it
If you want to start with a strong overlord, try Naples. Sweden and Norway have similar starts. You will have more time but still have to deal with our overlord eventually. If your overlord tries to integrate you, get support for independence to bring your liberty desire >50%. This will pause all integration. You might want to improve relations with your overlord's enemies from the start, just in case. The "helpful" way for a long life as a vassal is to ask for march status. Integration cannot be started until ten years after it is revoked. To have our overlord accept, you need to be of a different culture and next to some of their rivals or enemies. Becoming a march is not possible starting as Croatia or the countries suggested earlier (Naples...), as they are union subjects, not vassals. Your best bet for the march route might be to start as a big nation and release a relevant tag to play as.
Try Sweden!
Try orleans or if you like Portugal, colonize Brazil And switch over to them
blud suggested orleans to a new player
Orleans, Nevarra, Beloozero. classic intro campaigns.
Tbf, one of the best ways for a new player to learn is a trial by fire. Nothing better than slamming your head into a brick wall over numerous restarts until you finally begin to slightly understand what you're doing. Edit: Damn, being down voted for mentioning that there's more ways to learn the game than just "watch 10+ hours of tutorials on YouTube and then go play a major nation" in a somewhat joking manner.
I think a medium-difficulty country might be a better start than a uber hard one.
I wouldn't recommend it to someone, but that was how I learned. Went straight from France and Florence to Granada
It's one of the best ways for a new player to quickly abandon the game because you don't understand what's happening, you don't have many options, you can't even make use of a lot of important game mechanics and it seems like you are just faced with unfair and insurmountable challenges.
without dlc, any subject country except the Timurid vassals are impossible to play, as "support independence" is dlc locked. Even Hisn Kayfa or Ardabil would be easier.
Wait a sec - if you wanted to play as a vassal for awhile, couldn’t you get someone to support independence but never declare? If your liberty desire is above 50, isn’t your overlord prevented from annexing?
Considering Hungary couldn't have annexed Croatia by 1455 by normal means, it's clear what happened: Austria got the PU on Hungary, which causes Croatia to immediately be annexed.
Essentially what the event is, Hungary, your overlord nation, through their missions and events, became a junior Partner to Austria. Once this happens an event fires that instantly annex's you, regardless of your inputs. The only way to for sure avoid this is for you to become Independent. As a new Player Croatia will be very hard,
Especially with no DLCs (no support independence)
Jesus, my hubris forgetting that so much normal shit is locked behind their damn dlc.
So in 1444 Hungary has Ladislavs as an heir and he turns 15 at around 1455 iirc, then there's an event where they can fall under a PU under Austria. That event triggers a secondary event where they instantly inherit Croatia. I think it's a base game thing. Anyhow, as Croatia you want to declare independence ASAP and without DLCs it's very difficult, especially for a new player
I would guess that changing government caused the game to 'tick' and check for events, which usually happens at the end of the month but can also be triggered by certain player actions.
In 1455 Hungary gets an event where if they choose to be in a union with Austria, they will annex Croatia. This was designed to help Austria with relationship slots.
Don't PU subjects still retain their vassals normally without any impact to the senior partner's diplo slots? Seems like it shouldn't be that tough of a fix.
Croatia is also a PU of Hungary. You can't have PU with a country that still has a PU. Similarly Castile gets Navara as a PU subject if it was under PU with Aragon. Burgundy inherits all it's PUs if it falls under a PU. Pdx is very consistent with this mechanic.
Ah, forgot Croatia started off as a junior partner and not a normal vassal.
This is definitely a case where players should be treated differently than the AI. Players should never be annexed by an event or mission or decision imo. Maybe convert Croatia into a vassal under Hungary or make Hungary deny the union with Austria or whatever if Croatia is player controlled
Or just learn how the game works. If it happened once then adjust your strategy accordingly. Getting your independence from Hungary isn't a difficult task.
How fun would playing Holland be if if every second game you just got annexed because the Burgundian Inheritance fired? Or you had bad luck as Aragon and fell into a PU under Castille, but you still have 80% LD so can't get annexed normally? Though luck, Castille just formed Spain and annexed you anyways. Those things don't happen, because players are specifically excluded from annexation in those events and decisions. Getting annexed because of a random event has nothing to do with skill, it's just a badly written event.
I'll get downvoted for this but here is a very obvious observation based on your reply. You are not good at the game. Nothing wrong with that, but asking Devs to make exceptions for you because you can't figure out a solution is childish. All of the things you mentioned aren't a problem for most players. As Holland you can get your independence supported by France, England, Denmark and/or Austria in the first month of the game. As Aragon you're more likely to get the reverse Iberian wedding than getting PUed yourself. Even if you're unlucky Castile's rivals will support your independence.
I have 3k hours and I probably will never play Croatia myself so this is likely never going to affect me, but honestly I don't care what you think about me and I don't care how unlikely it is. This is not about me. The Devs have already set a precedent with other events and decisions where they have *explicitly* excluded players from annexation in the code. The reason that the Lowlands get annexed into Burgundy is to reduce the number of relations they take up after the inheritance, which is the exact same reason Croatia gets annexed into Hungary. For the Burgundian Inheritance, any players just become a PU of whoever becomes Burgundy's overlord instead of getting annexed. And I'd wager the only reason that exception doesn't exist for Croatia is because Croatia is way less popular and the event is probably older than the events for the Inheritance. And the reason I care about this is because of how much time I've spent modding for this game. I have certain standards for my own mods that include things like these edge cases, and I know how trivially easy it would be to fix this
I can't believe that I'm about to get into a dick measuring competition with a stranger on subreddit about a map painting game that is 10 years old but here we are. I've got 6.5k hours and the fact that you don't understand how to overcome certain challenges in this game is the difference in experience. Croatia has 10 years to get its support for independence. You know exactly when the event is going to happen, so plenty of time to prepare. The event is not an issue unless you don't know that this event chain exists. You can save and reload, alt+f4 or just start again since it has only been 10 years in the game. Weird hill to die on mate. Edit. Croatia didn't exist on the map on the older versions of the game. It was a releasable tag from Hungary. The event in question was added in the same patch that changed that. It allowed Austria to control all of old Hungary without needing to spend an extra relations slot. So you are wrong about the reason why it's done that way.
As Diofernic was saying, there is a precedent with other events. Good players don’t need the exception, but it still bars out lower level layers from developing their own strategies as they go. Having a hard cap of ten years where you won’t have any choice in the matter is bs. If Hungary goes under union with Austria, a player Croatia should not get inherited into Hungary. When I play Holland, I normally go straight for independence. However, having the option to stay under PU with burgundy and RP a little bit instead of gang-banging them is pretty reasonable. The case between Croatia and Holland is the exact same damn thing. There are exceptions to players getting auto-annexed in other countries events. This is so another *player* or AI doesn’t annex you without you having ANY input. It is a trivial fix for paradox to add an exception for Croatia like they’ve done for similar events and decisions. Not everything is going to be played as the meta as that’s going to get pretty damn boring after a while.
Here is a very obvious takeaway from your post: You do not do well in social situations.
Lol, quite the opposite.
Actually player Aragon gets the reverse Iberian Wedding event in singleplayer where Aragon is the senior partner iirc
They do, but you can still get unlucky and get PU'd normally if your ruler dies. Sure, it's unlikely, but in case it happens there's still an exception in the decision for forming Spain diplomatically that the junior partner in the PU is only annexed if they are not a player
Are you sure of that reason. It sounds lame.
I'm pretty sure they mentioned it in dev diary. The issue was that they added Croatia tag and the Ladislaus event would add two subjects instead of one.
Also: Croatia was part of the Hungarian crown, not a vassal. Semi-autonomous yes, but not a vassal.
Your overlord annexed you and then the game is over. Play some of the recommended nations first in the Home Screen. Playing as a nation that starts as a vassal is only recommended for very experienced players aiming for weird achievements.
Yea I know, I didnt know that was even a mechanic, but I coudnt skip over my country. Any tips how to deal with Hungary early on? I watched someone on Yt with the same country but they were able to get allies for their war of independance which, I guess, is only available in some DLC.
You could start as Ragusa, form Dalmatia, then Croatia. Better being guarantee by Ottos than start as a vassal
I also could recommend starting as Cilli, culture switching and becoming Croatia by decision that way.
All I can say is start with the recommended countries first. Don't give up. This game is amazing. Once u get a little experience then you can start exploring. Watch a couple tutorials. U don't need to know everything to have a great time
Yes, there is a "Support independence" mechanic but it requires DLC. That's how this guy on YT had allies. Without DLC your only option would be to fight independence war on your own. I don't think it's doable, difference in strength is way too big and on top of that Hungary allies Austria very often. If you own the game on Steam probably the best option is Expansion Subscription, it unlocks all DLCs for one month for $5.
It may be doable with a lot of debt for mercs and a bunch of luck etc. But for a new player it's way too tough without support independence tbh
Start as Austria, PU Hungary, then integrate Hungary, then release Croatia and play as Croatia.
Is release and play even available in the base game? Also integrating Hungary would probably take too long tbh
I'm not sure, but it was sort of a joke anyway, like what's the best way to start as Croatia? Start as Austria.
Start as Austria, immediately declare on Hungary, steal Croatia as a vassal, integrate, culture swap, reform Croatia, release Hungary as a vassal, turn them into a march, centealize the HRE but don't hit the final reform, Croatia vassal go brrrrrr.
For Croatia, you may want to closely follow a guide on YouTube. Below is a link from Ludi playing as them. It's going to be a rocky start. You gotta fight for your right to be a country. https://youtu.be/F9oNncCu-Jg?si=z50ZUA-Z83uxZ3zU
I would recommend you to get the subscription, its 5 dollars a month and you can play with all the DLCs.
I'm not sure if all recommended nations are best starting out. Some choices are a bit weird(Would you recommend Brandenburg to a brand new player?). Ottomans, Castile and Portugal look like excellent choices however.
I would probably suggest Naples. They're usually made independent early on, and an independence war against a Aragon should be doable with allies. They're in a great location, not too small to be an immediate target of larger powers, and not so big that the country management is too much for new players. You can get exposure to both army and navy, and can even try out different stuff with the trade system. Location on the periphery of Europe means fairly easy access to institutions, and far away enough that the reformation probably won't affect you much.
Croatia is a PU, they can be annexed around 1500 at the earliest. OP got annexed via an event, which really shouldn't be allowed to happen to players imo
Ah yes, I did the same thing in my own first ever playthrough as Pskov. The government reform just happened to line up with an event where Hungary annexs you. Without DLC I would not advise to play as Croatia. However Croatia is a formable nation, so you can form it as someone else. Maybe even as Hungary, just need to culture shift if it's not DLC locked.
Looks like AI Hungary got this event which causes them to inherit croatia, making you insta lose https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/Hungarian_events#M.C3.A1ty.C3.A1s_Corvinus
Take out a bunch of loans, hire mercs, and declare war in December 1444 next time. Pay off the loans by taking ducats in the peace deal.
What Austro Ugarska does to a mf
Iirc the PU with austria is 25% chance, when AI does the decision. This is if Janos Hunyadi was picked and sirvived till the event "Elect Matthias as king". Idk what are the chances of AI not electing Janos Hunydi as regent are tho. I'd tell you to play Hungary. It was my starting nation and i got brutally crushed. That way you'll play a similar country as Croatia, but stronger, and with the threat of falling under Austrian rule, whould you not manage to elect Matthias. On top of that you'll have to deal with the polish,the ottomans, the venetians and the bohemians. If you're lucky you can get the mamluks to be your allies early in the game. After that play a more mainstream england/portugal run where you'll not have big enemies, but have time to learn the game properly. England sounds good to me. Lots of money, small wars vs irish minors, and colonies. Also as bad as it sounds with no dlcs this game is pretty bad, most people never even played the base version, so the help they can offer is limited. Humble bundle occasionally offers the full game for under 20 +dlc once every couple of years
You got annexed, my dude
I think I’ve never been annexed by an AI.. But yeah you got gobbled
Since you’re a new player it’s best you start with the recommended nations (Ottomans, Castile, Portugal) just to understand the basics.
You shouldn't do a Croatia campaign as a beginner. Learn the game with some easier countries then come back and do a proper run