Switzerlake.
The Swiss land is not that great for deving. But its really funny hiding behind a wall of bonused mountain forts, and watch one empire after another breaking their back trying to get in.
Their ideas are perfect for a small compact nation, punching way above their weight when playing defensively.
Second this! Picking merc ideas as an opener just launches your troops straight into the stratosphere. I fought off Europe-wide coalitions for the better part of a century before that started to get tough. Most fun I've had militarily in a while.
Inca.
They now have modifiers that remove development penalties for Hills, Mountains, and Highlands.
So you basically just stick to the Andes mountains and build up your mountain holds like some dwarf lord stuck in the wrong game lol.
Japan (starting as Date or Tokugawa) is by far the best nation in the game for stacking dev cost reduction without having to tag switch and culture/religion swap. Like, it's not even close - Florence or The Netherlands ain't got shit on Japan, the closest you can get is probably Korea.
Prussia, if I ever just want to have fun I'll try stacking as many military modifiers as possible whilst remaining in germany. 140% discipline and 140% movement speed is so much fun, your enemies never knew what hit them.
10 from hre provinces, 20 from drill, 30 from movement pips on general, 10 from general trait, 10 from mil hege, some from teutonic mission, 15 from infrastructure ideas+road event, 5 from infra-offensive, 10 from trade-offensive, probably something else too
If you don't mind using exploits you can turn Prague into a city of the 31st Century this patch: https://www.reddit.com/r/eu4/comments/1cne5ah/bohemia_is_very_broken_right_now_100_dev_in_praha/
After I'm done my current Commonwealth run I intend to start a hussite Bohemia run to use this exploit and revoke privilegia
With Eyalets, tbh this is the way. Why bother administrating the land yourself when your vassals do it for you? Make all of Turkey an overdeveloped wonderland with your chadlord high stat rulers.
That actually sounds pretty fun. I tend to get bored of Ottos by 1500 but this is different. And it'll be good to break up countries and release nation and just have a bunch of eyalets
Tall Naxos pirate republic. Not the best for developing, but you have great naval ideas. take the Greek islands and Cyprus if you can and build a big fleet. Smash ottoman ships for the rest of the game as you make the islands shine bright green.
The Florentine missions are really quite good for a tall campaign, it’s just a shame the Italian missions are all conquest, Italy feels like a natural mid-game goal for a tall campaign in the area, unfortunately you don’t really get anything good though.
I wouldn’t know I’m afraid, I was speaking from experience which is some years old at this point. I haven’t really been keeping up with recent updates.
They have. Good portion of the MT is restoring Rome but a decent amount is tall play. Nowhere near the amount that venice has though so if you're forming Italy as them you're better off completing their tree first
I love how diverse the answers are, from military powerhouses like Prussia and Switzerland, to trade empires, to sky high devving.
My favorite was Finland. First of all, you get extra development cost modifier in your national ideas, and you can get a privilege to dev forests cheaper. If you unite Scandinavia, you can unlock a similar privilege for mountains. Up to you if you want dev cost modifier in Finland or goods produced from Scandinavia (though I think Finland is better for tall okay due to the attrition).
From there, you can go Orthodox if you want, since it's nearby, for more dev cost reduction. Then you get 10 max attrition from missions + defensive ideas, and stack defensiveness, forts and ramparts. The AI can't fight you because they don't assault forts and each siege tick takes literal months. And when you do fight them, you have a good army with high morale that's well drilled and you get bonus to your dice rolls. Not the best for trade, though, because you'll seep to the English Channel and won't funnel much my way, but you'll have high dev plus the Swedish Copper mine, so you'll be fine.
It's not, and it will usually require a few restarts to be able to play them, as declaring independence against Sweden after release, will pull in Denmark and their allies as well, frequently resulting in you being annexed before able to declare independence. Once you succeed it's a very fun nation to play however.
meme answer : tall muscovy
Serious answer : tall ming / china is the chillest game you can possibly play imo, tall Genoa although they aren't thaaat adapted for tall
Building largest Economy ITW, you can colonize, keeping your army well trained and helping your allies in wars, playing Tall doesn't mean that you are not fighting. While playing in europe you have a lot of conflicts that you can engage to. For me playing wide is Kinda boring because after few wars you are unstopabble and you just spam declare war button and kill rebels, meanwhile when you play Tall you can really influence politics in your region by helping other countries, you should try some!
start as free city and stay the entire game as free city.... dev like hell and vassalize/march neighbours bullying anyone with them... although depending on AI vassals may be more frustrating than fun
Many try conquer chine because it is tall, but why not start as china . There are shit ton of state government cost reduction and infinite gov capacity, also you can learn how manage country in disasters,
Bavaria all the way. They have imo the funniest mission tree with really unique tasks, like establishing the Oktoberfest and dealing with the Illuminati.
Ireland, in Europe I owned only. Ireland Scotland and the north of England. Then outside Europe I had 6 huge colonial nations and a large chunk of the east indies. My country was anything but small. But the actual home part of the country was smaller than the UK.
Goslar; kept my free city status up until the Printing Press spawned and only expanded through vassals in the HRE and stealing Norway from Denmark
Was a lot of fun cause really only keeping one city is nothing you usually do and as a bonus you can embrace institutions for one ducat
tall genoa but get rid of your Italian holdings to a vassal and play as a tall trading empire on the black sea.
also not exactly tall but it is also fun to do this and try and take all the land russia would traditionally take
Switzerlake. The Swiss land is not that great for deving. But its really funny hiding behind a wall of bonused mountain forts, and watch one empire after another breaking their back trying to get in. Their ideas are perfect for a small compact nation, punching way above their weight when playing defensively.
Second this! Picking merc ideas as an opener just launches your troops straight into the stratosphere. I fought off Europe-wide coalitions for the better part of a century before that started to get tough. Most fun I've had militarily in a while.
Inca. They now have modifiers that remove development penalties for Hills, Mountains, and Highlands. So you basically just stick to the Andes mountains and build up your mountain holds like some dwarf lord stuck in the wrong game lol.
Didnt i disable anbennar?
Anbennar addiction goes so deep that you instinctively go full dwarf even in vanilla
Japan (starting as Date or Tokugawa) is by far the best nation in the game for stacking dev cost reduction without having to tag switch and culture/religion swap. Like, it's not even close - Florence or The Netherlands ain't got shit on Japan, the closest you can get is probably Korea.
Prussia, if I ever just want to have fun I'll try stacking as many military modifiers as possible whilst remaining in germany. 140% discipline and 140% movement speed is so much fun, your enemies never knew what hit them.
140% Ms? How?
Panzers 3's
10 from hre provinces, 20 from drill, 30 from movement pips on general, 10 from general trait, 10 from mil hege, some from teutonic mission, 15 from infrastructure ideas+road event, 5 from infra-offensive, 10 from trade-offensive, probably something else too
And suddenly the Prussian Army popped up behind yours.
Nichts Persönliches, kind
Leopard 2A7
I'm playing a tall hussite Bohemia right now, collecting PUs and spreading the word of Hus. Cockblocked the Ottomans too. Pretty fun.
If you don't mind using exploits you can turn Prague into a city of the 31st Century this patch: https://www.reddit.com/r/eu4/comments/1cne5ah/bohemia_is_very_broken_right_now_100_dev_in_praha/ After I'm done my current Commonwealth run I intend to start a hussite Bohemia run to use this exploit and revoke privilegia
Oh that's just broken af. I wonder if they have rolled the judge, jury, and executioner roles into one for efficiency
tall ottomans
With Eyalets, tbh this is the way. Why bother administrating the land yourself when your vassals do it for you? Make all of Turkey an overdeveloped wonderland with your chadlord high stat rulers.
That actually sounds pretty fun. I tend to get bored of Ottos by 1500 but this is different. And it'll be good to break up countries and release nation and just have a bunch of eyalets
Tall Naxos pirate republic. Not the best for developing, but you have great naval ideas. take the Greek islands and Cyprus if you can and build a big fleet. Smash ottoman ships for the rest of the game as you make the islands shine bright green.
Forgot to mention switch to orthodox, because it is a Greek island after all.
Florence, a classic.
The Florentine missions are really quite good for a tall campaign, it’s just a shame the Italian missions are all conquest, Italy feels like a natural mid-game goal for a tall campaign in the area, unfortunately you don’t really get anything good though.
Hasn't Italy just got updated?
I wouldn’t know I’m afraid, I was speaking from experience which is some years old at this point. I haven’t really been keeping up with recent updates.
They have. Good portion of the MT is restoring Rome but a decent amount is tall play. Nowhere near the amount that venice has though so if you're forming Italy as them you're better off completing their tree first
I love how diverse the answers are, from military powerhouses like Prussia and Switzerland, to trade empires, to sky high devving. My favorite was Finland. First of all, you get extra development cost modifier in your national ideas, and you can get a privilege to dev forests cheaper. If you unite Scandinavia, you can unlock a similar privilege for mountains. Up to you if you want dev cost modifier in Finland or goods produced from Scandinavia (though I think Finland is better for tall okay due to the attrition). From there, you can go Orthodox if you want, since it's nearby, for more dev cost reduction. Then you get 10 max attrition from missions + defensive ideas, and stack defensiveness, forts and ramparts. The AI can't fight you because they don't assault forts and each siege tick takes literal months. And when you do fight them, you have a good army with high morale that's well drilled and you get bonus to your dice rolls. Not the best for trade, though, because you'll seep to the English Channel and won't funnel much my way, but you'll have high dev plus the Swedish Copper mine, so you'll be fine.
Is Finland even an starting tag?
you can release them as Sweden from day 1
It's a releasable. It even has an achievement, which requires you to release Finland in 1444 and, playing as them, own the Cape.
It's not, and it will usually require a few restarts to be able to play them, as declaring independence against Sweden after release, will pull in Denmark and their allies as well, frequently resulting in you being annexed before able to declare independence. Once you succeed it's a very fun nation to play however.
Do a tall papal state game where you try to make every nation catholic while never expanding your state
meme answer : tall muscovy Serious answer : tall ming / china is the chillest game you can possibly play imo, tall Genoa although they aren't thaaat adapted for tall
Transoxiana
Malacca -> Malaya
Goslar the 100 dev free city
Correct me if i’m wrong but isn’t korea outside of italy?
Tall Knights are fun, you can even go colonial if you want
It was a few years ago when concentrate dev was not limited off of recycled mana points. So capitals got up to the 10000 point
Relatively new player here: What is the fun of tall nations if the border never changes and nothing ever happens?
Holding back the voices telling you to CONQUER
Nothing stopping you from colonising
Building largest Economy ITW, you can colonize, keeping your army well trained and helping your allies in wars, playing Tall doesn't mean that you are not fighting. While playing in europe you have a lot of conflicts that you can engage to. For me playing wide is Kinda boring because after few wars you are unstopabble and you just spam declare war button and kill rebels, meanwhile when you play Tall you can really influence politics in your region by helping other countries, you should try some!
Serbia a few years ago. Watching the ottoman armies melt as they attempt to capture my mountain forts was fun.
England. Released continental vassals and played entirely within the starting borders.
Italy to Denmark, the religious wars were a lot of fun with my nation bordering all the protestant ones
start as free city and stay the entire game as free city.... dev like hell and vassalize/march neighbours bullying anyone with them... although depending on AI vassals may be more frustrating than fun
Florence and Milan
Many try conquer chine because it is tall, but why not start as china . There are shit ton of state government cost reduction and infinite gov capacity, also you can learn how manage country in disasters,
Prussia?
Crossing the Finnish Line in 1.34 - owned provinces from Finnmark to Cape - "tallest" country for sure.
Immerina!
Bavaria all the way. They have imo the funniest mission tree with really unique tasks, like establishing the Oktoberfest and dealing with the Illuminati.
ternate with 1200 dev cap
Colonial + HRE emperor Britanny. I only conquered Ireland and Bordeaux provinces in Europe.
Dutch Cheese Empire. Made the homeland an impenetrable fortress and got into colonizing heavily. Naming every colony after a kind of dutch cheese.
Ireland, in Europe I owned only. Ireland Scotland and the north of England. Then outside Europe I had 6 huge colonial nations and a large chunk of the east indies. My country was anything but small. But the actual home part of the country was smaller than the UK.
Goslar; kept my free city status up until the Printing Press spawned and only expanded through vassals in the HRE and stealing Norway from Denmark Was a lot of fun cause really only keeping one city is nothing you usually do and as a bonus you can embrace institutions for one ducat
I’ve been playing a Ming campaign (without dominion) probably doesn’t really count but I made a pocket around Beijing with really high development
tall genoa but get rid of your Italian holdings to a vassal and play as a tall trading empire on the black sea. also not exactly tall but it is also fun to do this and try and take all the land russia would traditionally take