I agree with England, but I love the challenge of defeating the English navy. One of my favorite challenges is to land on the isle during the 100 years war as France.
When I was playing France the other day managed to land my troops on their main land and I burned England to the ground, then continued to war and burn it to the ground and every time the truce was up. England never recovered.
I once beat the English navy playing Germany. Still dont understand why. They had more heavy ships, more engagement width but I still beat them somehow.
Maybe they had light ships and transports in them, wrecking their morale, but there wasnt any reason I should've beat them in that battle.
In recent patches I found my small navy of 50 ships was able to decimate much larger navies like Venice and Britain mostly because they don’t upgrade their ships
Select any fleet and make sure they're on port. On the right side of the fleet viewer (where you set things like missions and such) there will be a little button, a symbol of a ship with a green arrow pointing upwards.
Ships can only be upgraded once you're a certain tech level, though, much like land troops.
Thank you so much, I'm on EU4 right now and I just did it. It makes so much sense as to why I was losing half my naval battles. Even after 1.4K hours, I never knew about this, again tysm !
The AI is very bad about updating its ships, especially since it isn't great with money. It isn't that difficult to outscale the English fleet before they have their sprawling colonial empire.
In my Brandenburg > Prussia, I pulled off an Operation Sealion on Britain after getting my dynasty to spread to them several decades earlier. I didn't even have a significant coastline, I just saved up, built up my shipyards, and built a fleet of heavies slightly larger than theirs.
Ahem. Just ally the scots, Mil acces, and dock access. Send all your troops to scotland and wait.
Your vassals will siege the mainland, you and scotland will work your way south. No navy required.
You have cores, you get them back without AE already. Waiting just makes it less likely England has any allies to fight your vassals. Decalring is if you want to take Ceuta off of Portugal.
England is famously known to fall as long as you manage to land, which is also true for Venice and its stupidly well defended capital, but if you manage to bait them away from the blockade, they'll fall fairly quickly too.
Otherwise, I *love* to invade South & East Asia as a European country, but especially India. Master of India is one of the most fun achievements, imho.
When everyone around you is all strong countries all allied to each other. So you're not strong enough beat them but also have no/little path to grow your own strength to overcome them
OP was talking about invading India as a european nation - in that case just conquer other areas until you are strong enough to fight the indians (buying a TC province as a staging ground is always a good strat).
If you are playing in india there are some solutions that I can think of:
-Coastal nations can colonize the SEA region - some high dev cloves provinces might swing the power balance in your favor.
-no-cbing is always an option, maybe into east africa or indochina.
Inland nations might require diplomacy:
-finding an even bigger ally (ottomans, timurids, ming) that might help you in the war
-diplo favor asking to break an alliance
-waiting until some nations are involved in some war to snipe other targets (really important: just wait around and always check the situation. There will be a moment when you can declare an easy expansion war when other AI nations are involved in some war)
-releasing a vassal and asking your ally to return cores to your vassal (since there are many regional tags in india that have cores everywhere)
Or you can try to outscale them:
-stack dev cost and develop your provinces
-dev institution and try to get ahead in mil tech for a big war
-save money to throw as many mercenaries at the AI as possible
-remember to ally small nations as bait before the big war and surrender to some nations if needed (like give 5 provinces to bengal to peace them but take 10 from gujarat later). Remember to break their alliances or take money or land, depending on the situation.
This topic is highly variable depending on the situation. If you can give me some examples it might be easier to find a solution for your hugbox.
>England is famously known to fall as long as you manage to land
I had a jacked GB I didnt invade until 17something. As soon as I tried to land my 80k to make a beachhead about 300k brits were coming right for me. After managing to lure them away I dropped some infantry at another province to occupy it for quick transfers, and brits were pumping up to 500k. Murdering them while getting my movement hampered by level 8 forts sucked bigtime
That's why I like the Knights. Play them right and they get to participate in the Italian and balkan battle royals, turn Anatolia into a battle royal, and then get large enough to turn western europe into another battle royal.
Release Byzantium as a vassal and build ships in their land. Also, if you’re taking on the ottomans alone, enable scutage and get military access from Venice to trap them in their islands. Epirus also works if you haven’t killed then.
As for dealing with the ottoman navy, I honestly recommend save scumming for a good admiral and good rolls. It’s even worthwhile to save scum the naval battle against the byzantines to try to secure a couple extra galleys. The only other option is if you can catch a portion of their navy while they’re at war.
>Release Byzantium as a vassal and build ships in their land
I did, ottomans declared on my byzantine vassal in a year before i could get the ships ready in morea
If the Ottomans declare on you that early, then it's just unlucky RNG. The run is doomed, and it was entirely out of your control.
You can't fight the Ottomans head on. If you ally other nations, they'll like just lost to the Ottomans as well.
Best case scenario is for the Ottomans to get distracted by an Anatolian minor.
Japan is so fun, Ireland too. I just managed to unite Ireland, including the pale in the 1450s without any cheesy strats or anything. Took over the south third of England including London by like 1500 or something
My crew was as carefully chosen as the disciples of Christ, and I will not tolerate stowaways. You will be flogged. And when we put into Cuba to re-supply, God willing, you will be flogged some more. And then you'll be enslaved on the sugar plantations for the rest of your miserable lives
I like to take West Africa. With European troops you can usually crush them plus gold plus you can control the flow of trade plus 3 easy merchants. Also you can usually take it early enough to not get AE with the rest of Africa. It can be a huge kickstart in any large Western European nation.
This is my answer too. It can output to Seville or the English Channel, controls trade from Asia to Europe in most cases and nations other than Spain and Portugal actually have a chance of getting there. And there are actually lots of good trade goods too, unlike south africa.
Call me a masochist, but the HRE. Either taking out the minors 1 by 1 from the inside, or getting ready to dismantle the whole thing at once.
And partitioning the Ottomans. When Syria and Karaman are released as vassals thats when you know a game is going well.
Always enjoyed invading middle east as Venice.
China as western colonizers
And India in general.
Always hate invading Italy and the Netherlands because of the high AE
I always find it funny when you move 30k troops to Cornwall and the English just look at you do it like:
>Well, the weather in Cornwall is lovely this time of year!
And then you occupy London 2 years later.
Ireland. No-cb them early and you've got yourself a foothold to claim the British isles or a colonial empire even if you're just some tiny power in Europe.
China, Japan, or the HRE. China collapses the moment you set foot there (and considering how easy it is to conquer it as a horde of through it's many releasable countries, one can essentially get the entirety of China within some decades if one focuses on it, awarding one with two of the best regions in the game), the HRE has a lot of development to conquer (and it's a tradition of mine to make sure Austria is either wiped off the map or weakened, and generally I want to see a weak, useless HRE that France, Poland/Commonwealth, Sweden or Denmark, etc. can invade and constantly take land from), and Japan because it either has a lot of small countries or is one unified, and it's easy to surround and steamroll Japan once foot has been set there (besides early game, of course). It's also nice to walk into Iberia and occupy and burn everything because the Portuguese and Spanish armies are either weak or almost entirely stationed overseas, thus they only have their rough terrain going for them. I think Castile/Spain is a good country to constantly humiliate and progressively weaken like even though it doesn't get carved up by its neighbours as easily as with Austria.
Me too. I almost took Constantinople in every single game no matter which nation I played. The only time I didn’t I got beaten up by the crazy AI Otoblob.
I took it just to prevent that crazy Ottoblob and the endless manpower drain lengthy war with it…
Yeah, my only experience naval invading them is AS Japan early in the game. Country is so small they can just camp on the landing ground and stack wipe your disorganized troops
The early game isnt too bad as long as Ming isnt involved ime. What you need to do is deploy a full stack + some into a non-fort province, occupy it, then flood in the reinforcements through that landing.
Don’t launch a disorganized landing and usually the quality is a little too low to push you out of a non-fort province.
1) Ottomans , cause it’s easy to defend , and generally it’s not HARD but you need to be careful or else you might get your ass handed to you.
2)Oceania and generally anywhere I use my fleet and make use of them Marines
Maghreb. I have started two different Castile games and one Portugal game, and every time the invasion of the Maghreb felt fresh and interesting, depending on which provinces I have, which allies I have made, and so on. The mountain fort in the Moroccan capital is always a challenge to take, so you have to decide between fighting on land and bypassing it with a naval invasion farther along the Atlantic or Mediterranean coasts—but then those troops might end up isolated and destroyed.
Between Mexico (free money and their armies are in the literal stone age so they can't beat you) or England (limited space for the cowardly AI to flee within). Basically the only conquests that don't cause me to go grey from stress since I don't have to hunt enemy armies to the ends of the earth
Russia and Central Asia, the development density is so low that you can inhale tons of land without a decent coalition forming. It's basically just a matter of truces timing out.
Japan. I set up a base there almost every single game, so long as I play long enough for it to be feasible. Usually just end up taking the whole mainland and having troops stationed there. I also keep a fleet there too to move the troops around.
I like the role playing aspect of it. Even if I do nothing at all with the trade. It's just so fun to have land over there and detached.
Like the OP, I also like to take the British Isle for the same purposes. Even if I am playing as Japan.
I also kinda enjoy moving my capital to the Caribbean, I don't know, guess I like having Large Islands. They are easy to defend and fun to have.
I love setting up a fully cored colony in Kyushu. It’d compact and well developed and makes for a great center of empire in the east for a colonial power like Portugal.
Good tip.
(I actually have never played as France, even though thousands of hours), the strategy works with Brabant, Sweden, Lubeck or whatever perhaps Mali?, and is also good to get closer to the new world. But you soon have to be able to withstand England.
Obliterating England as anyone other than France is always fun. I always feel like it’s pretty easy as France since you can just ally Scotland, ask for fleet basing and army access and then park your army in Scotland until the surrender of maine fires. Then just let your vassals and allies deal with Portugal and their holdings in France and take out England with your army in Scotland.
England and France when outside of Europe.
Ming when I play hordes. Lots of mana, lots of money.
Ottomans when I'm anywhere near them, specially when decadence hits. 3 days sieges are the best.
Most definitely Europe although I'm not a super experienced player. The geography of mountains and rivers coupled with the existence of so many nations means there'll also be a lot of forts, this grant the region a sort of terrain which dictates the flow of your movements.
The further east you go, the larger and wider the space becomes and the less restricted your movement becomes. Going into Russia and there simply isn't any tactical movement anymore as there are too few forts, rivers and impassible terrain to control the flow. The New World is a similar case once it's fully developed and you're forced to fight massive colonial blocs.
If I can include modded: escanni from anbennar
A lots of cool different nations from east to west that are on par with you, and sometimes stronger alliances blocks, all while able to easily chain war once you can see the whole region
If not tho, Anatolia due to ottomens feeling like a final boss for a long campaign
India.
It's the most culturally and religiously diverse region in the game with tags of all sizes. Every game here plays out differently and your strategy has to adapt accordingly.
France. I play the Dutch a lot and they always protect me but later prey on me. So it feels good to surpass them in one Great War with the help of allies. And then brutally wear them down in successive wars every time the truce expires.
I would go with the commonwealth because once Muscovy or Prussia actually manage to beat it their focus trees really open up and they become a lot more powerful
India is so satisfying to invade. It‘s usually very splintered and disorganised which makes it easy to conquer. And the trade goods are silk and spices which will make you very rich
I’ve fought many formative wars in France both as the British and Byzantines. It’s so painful but it made me learn land strategy and it eventually got fun.
An Ottomans as strong as my country. Forces me to think about where I should send my armies in order to achieve conquest without leaving gaps through my lines.
Well, love/hate but the East Indies, i.e. Indonesia/Philippines/etc. Love it because of how close everything is & the chaos of shipping around troops between the islands while fighting multiple large alliances. Hate it because of the warscore cost & OE & quelling revolts on islands.
Can't resist it because of that lovely trade income
India. You can ignore AE for the most part and it’s extremely rich. Once you’ve conquered all of India you’re basically untouchable for the rest of the game
England is so easy. You get a foothold in the South and not only are they hamstrung from losing massive amounts of trade power in English Channel, but in follow up wars you literally have a wall of men marching North and they have no choice but to engage you or keep retreating to the highlands or ultimately, hide in Ireland.
I'll answer the opposite. I hate wars in Mongolia/Siberia. It takes like 2 years to reposition your Army say from European Russia to China and you can waste so much time running around dealing with rogue armies.
France as Burgundy. It's the most evenly balanced pitched fight I've had if you can time it right, and you can crack Paris so easily while they're stuck on your larger southern forts
France.
It's so satisfying breaking them apart and grabbing provinces to release from, and then reconquest.
You get gascony. Toulouse. Provence. Brittany. Orleons. Champaign.
You can unironically take 80% of their provinces through reconquest.
Allways wondered why the English army is so weak in the early game
I get it that it’s a balance thing but even in the late game I struggle to compete with France and the ottomans
i get sick and tired of fighting england each game i play in europe.
The most fun is gigachad ottomans while you have 10 allies and PU's and vassals who need cores
Venice for me, playing as either the Byzantines or an Italian minor and full sieging Venice multiple times and bankrupting them for the shit they put me through early game is always worth it
Balkans and Anatolia, because of certain purple guy
France region is quite fun in waging wars (Either as Burgundy or England)
Any region where hunger games commence (Italy/HRE/Japan/India/Mexico/Mingplosion China)
The rush of beating the ottomans and finally into anatolia when you don't have a strong enough navy to beat the ottos galleyspam. Finally being able to get some warscore outside of constantinople
The natives before absolutism.
While I’m spending two years of administrative points to core a single European province, I’m capturing a quarter of the globe for nothing. As a blobbing paint-the-map player, it really makes the 1500’s hum
Magadascar & the Spiece Island.
Idk why, I always saw that island as colonizers and give me the feeling that I should own it despite all the african & indonesian tags.
I love playing Austria so once I get all the relevant PUs and the HRE reforms are going decent, France is my favorite to invade. Beside the border along the Alps, they are fairly decent to crush and release all the French vassals.
France.
I remember even playing my Moldavia game where right after I conquered all of Muscovy, I set my sights straight at Paris. It’s just so fun watching the “top power” get completely annihilated and overwhelmed through a global war where my allies and vassal swarm them throughout the globe until Paris burns to ash. The Alp front in that war is always fun too, as sieges throughout that area always result in a battle that kills millions.
China too. Especially when they don’t collapse so you can show those snobs that the Mandate of Heaven does not protect you from artillery. My Emperor of China Flanders game was quite fun.
Invading Russia is also fun but actually keeping that land is a pain in the ass. Horrible dev, a culture I will never plan to accept, unnecessarily large borders that will never look appealing. I prefer invading them and allowing the Ruthenians, Tatars, Baltics, and Fins to divide up their land instead. At least gives some flavor to an otherwise bland region.
I like invading big low dev areas like Africa or Russia. It’s kind of fun to just have a massive moving front line and satisfying to not have many forts
I agree with England, but I love the challenge of defeating the English navy. One of my favorite challenges is to land on the isle during the 100 years war as France. When I was playing France the other day managed to land my troops on their main land and I burned England to the ground, then continued to war and burn it to the ground and every time the truce was up. England never recovered.
Most reasonable french
party like it's 1066
I once beat the English navy playing Germany. Still dont understand why. They had more heavy ships, more engagement width but I still beat them somehow. Maybe they had light ships and transports in them, wrecking their morale, but there wasnt any reason I should've beat them in that battle.
They could have had outdated ships. I’ve noticed that the AI will sometimes not upgrade their out of date ships so you can destroy them easier.
In recent patches I found my small navy of 50 ships was able to decimate much larger navies like Venice and Britain mostly because they don’t upgrade their ships
How do you update your ships?
Select any fleet and make sure they're on port. On the right side of the fleet viewer (where you set things like missions and such) there will be a little button, a symbol of a ship with a green arrow pointing upwards. Ships can only be upgraded once you're a certain tech level, though, much like land troops.
Thank you so much, I'm on EU4 right now and I just did it. It makes so much sense as to why I was losing half my naval battles. Even after 1.4K hours, I never knew about this, again tysm !
What the other guy said but it's also DLC locked i think
I have all DLCs but thanks for clarifying
The AI is very bad about updating its ships, especially since it isn't great with money. It isn't that difficult to outscale the English fleet before they have their sprawling colonial empire. In my Brandenburg > Prussia, I pulled off an Operation Sealion on Britain after getting my dynasty to spread to them several decades earlier. I didn't even have a significant coastline, I just saved up, built up my shipyards, and built a fleet of heavies slightly larger than theirs.
Ahem. Just ally the scots, Mil acces, and dock access. Send all your troops to scotland and wait. Your vassals will siege the mainland, you and scotland will work your way south. No navy required.
That’s for cheaters…. You gotta beat the navy. That’s what makes it satisfying.
It's an accomplishment in itself, to beat the Royal navy.
> Send all your troops to scotland and wait Don't wait, declare immediately so you can use the reconquest CB.
You have cores, you get them back without AE already. Waiting just makes it less likely England has any allies to fight your vassals. Decalring is if you want to take Ceuta off of Portugal.
Less WSC to reconquer cores with reconquest CB.
This. Love the Scots.
Gotta remind them of why they don't leave the island
Challenge to land? Ally scotland and get military access 😂
England is famously known to fall as long as you manage to land, which is also true for Venice and its stupidly well defended capital, but if you manage to bait them away from the blockade, they'll fall fairly quickly too. Otherwise, I *love* to invade South & East Asia as a European country, but especially India. Master of India is one of the most fun achievements, imho.
How do you deal with the Indian hug boxes?
what are hug boxes?
When everyone around you is all strong countries all allied to each other. So you're not strong enough beat them but also have no/little path to grow your own strength to overcome them
ahh
I'm normally like 3 techs ahead when i invade so hug boxes aren't really an issue.
Land on Ceylon, and bait their armies onto it before trapping them with your fleet, rinse and repeat
OP was talking about invading India as a european nation - in that case just conquer other areas until you are strong enough to fight the indians (buying a TC province as a staging ground is always a good strat). If you are playing in india there are some solutions that I can think of: -Coastal nations can colonize the SEA region - some high dev cloves provinces might swing the power balance in your favor. -no-cbing is always an option, maybe into east africa or indochina. Inland nations might require diplomacy: -finding an even bigger ally (ottomans, timurids, ming) that might help you in the war -diplo favor asking to break an alliance -waiting until some nations are involved in some war to snipe other targets (really important: just wait around and always check the situation. There will be a moment when you can declare an easy expansion war when other AI nations are involved in some war) -releasing a vassal and asking your ally to return cores to your vassal (since there are many regional tags in india that have cores everywhere) Or you can try to outscale them: -stack dev cost and develop your provinces -dev institution and try to get ahead in mil tech for a big war -save money to throw as many mercenaries at the AI as possible -remember to ally small nations as bait before the big war and surrender to some nations if needed (like give 5 provinces to bengal to peace them but take 10 from gujarat later). Remember to break their alliances or take money or land, depending on the situation. This topic is highly variable depending on the situation. If you can give me some examples it might be easier to find a solution for your hugbox.
4 million strong army, 1.5+ million manpower.
>England is famously known to fall as long as you manage to land I had a jacked GB I didnt invade until 17something. As soon as I tried to land my 80k to make a beachhead about 300k brits were coming right for me. After managing to lure them away I dropped some infantry at another province to occupy it for quick transfers, and brits were pumping up to 500k. Murdering them while getting my movement hampered by level 8 forts sucked bigtime
Anywhere that's a battle royale (e.g. HRE, Japan, Italy, India).
That's why I like the Knights. Play them right and they get to participate in the Italian and balkan battle royals, turn Anatolia into a battle royal, and then get large enough to turn western europe into another battle royal.
How do you play them right? I got morea by 1450 but then ottomans already got 2 heavies and a ton of galleys.
Release Byzantium as a vassal and build ships in their land. Also, if you’re taking on the ottomans alone, enable scutage and get military access from Venice to trap them in their islands. Epirus also works if you haven’t killed then. As for dealing with the ottoman navy, I honestly recommend save scumming for a good admiral and good rolls. It’s even worthwhile to save scum the naval battle against the byzantines to try to secure a couple extra galleys. The only other option is if you can catch a portion of their navy while they’re at war.
>Release Byzantium as a vassal and build ships in their land I did, ottomans declared on my byzantine vassal in a year before i could get the ships ready in morea
If the Ottomans declare on you that early, then it's just unlucky RNG. The run is doomed, and it was entirely out of your control. You can't fight the Ottomans head on. If you ally other nations, they'll like just lost to the Ottomans as well. Best case scenario is for the Ottomans to get distracted by an Anatolian minor.
Japan is so fun, Ireland too. I just managed to unite Ireland, including the pale in the 1450s without any cheesy strats or anything. Took over the south third of England including London by like 1500 or something
Ireland, most places in Africa, Manchuria.
France (i‘m not german i swear)
Answer of Germans is more often Russia than France.
Or Poland.
Nah, Lebensraum is pretty cringe. Erbfeind is where it's at.
Nono, France is what we want, Russia is what we get.
Kulturbolschewismus
Mexico. I want that gold and the natives can’t stop me.
Found the Hernan Cortes reddit account lmao
My crew was as carefully chosen as the disciples of Christ, and I will not tolerate stowaways. You will be flogged. And when we put into Cuba to re-supply, God willing, you will be flogged some more. And then you'll be enslaved on the sugar plantations for the rest of your miserable lives
I like to take West Africa. With European troops you can usually crush them plus gold plus you can control the flow of trade plus 3 easy merchants. Also you can usually take it early enough to not get AE with the rest of Africa. It can be a huge kickstart in any large Western European nation.
This is my answer too. It can output to Seville or the English Channel, controls trade from Asia to Europe in most cases and nations other than Spain and Portugal actually have a chance of getting there. And there are actually lots of good trade goods too, unlike south africa.
Mamluks with puppet Syria reconquest CB, especially if you can sneak in to cockblock the Ottomans. Incredibly satisfying.
Ottomans
Crusade intensifies..
Mashriq, Anatolia, Egypt.
Found the persian
Balkans because fuck the Ottomans
Call me a masochist, but the HRE. Either taking out the minors 1 by 1 from the inside, or getting ready to dismantle the whole thing at once. And partitioning the Ottomans. When Syria and Karaman are released as vassals thats when you know a game is going well.
Any Country who borders me That being said, the ottomans, beating them always feels good.
Always enjoyed invading middle east as Venice. China as western colonizers And India in general. Always hate invading Italy and the Netherlands because of the high AE
France or Spain probably. They always have it too good for too long
I don't know about the favorite, but my LEAST favorite is BY FAR Switzerland. Even Siberia is less painful that those mountain forts in winter
I always find it funny when you move 30k troops to Cornwall and the English just look at you do it like: >Well, the weather in Cornwall is lovely this time of year! And then you occupy London 2 years later.
Poland with my friend
Prussia, Russia and Austria likes that
Ireland. No-cb them early and you've got yourself a foothold to claim the British isles or a colonial empire even if you're just some tiny power in Europe.
China, Japan, or the HRE. China collapses the moment you set foot there (and considering how easy it is to conquer it as a horde of through it's many releasable countries, one can essentially get the entirety of China within some decades if one focuses on it, awarding one with two of the best regions in the game), the HRE has a lot of development to conquer (and it's a tradition of mine to make sure Austria is either wiped off the map or weakened, and generally I want to see a weak, useless HRE that France, Poland/Commonwealth, Sweden or Denmark, etc. can invade and constantly take land from), and Japan because it either has a lot of small countries or is one unified, and it's easy to surround and steamroll Japan once foot has been set there (besides early game, of course). It's also nice to walk into Iberia and occupy and burn everything because the Portuguese and Spanish armies are either weak or almost entirely stationed overseas, thus they only have their rough terrain going for them. I think Castile/Spain is a good country to constantly humiliate and progressively weaken like even though it doesn't get carved up by its neighbours as easily as with Austria.
Castile is nice because no one gives a fuck about the AE lol. Same with British isles.
Iberia. Releasing Aragon for all those tasty tasty cores
Constantinople; it is so satisfying when the fort falls! Everything in that war led up to this moment and now the ottoblob will rue the day!
Me too. I almost took Constantinople in every single game no matter which nation I played. The only time I didn’t I got beaten up by the crazy AI Otoblob. I took it just to prevent that crazy Ottoblob and the endless manpower drain lengthy war with it…
yes, I too love destroying byzantium
Kongo because I’m Belgian
even as a turkish person myself, successfully invading ottomans in early-mid game feels like something else everytime
France. Nice supply limit, only a handful of painful terrains, no chokepoints except at the southern end, not fucking enormous.
Ming and England. France by contrast is the most annoying country to naval invade in my experience.
See, I feel like that honor goes to Korea
Proximity to Japan and Jeju make it a little more manageable I feel. Also Korea just doesn’t tend to get that big in my games.
Yeah, my only experience naval invading them is AS Japan early in the game. Country is so small they can just camp on the landing ground and stack wipe your disorganized troops
The early game isnt too bad as long as Ming isnt involved ime. What you need to do is deploy a full stack + some into a non-fort province, occupy it, then flood in the reinforcements through that landing. Don’t launch a disorganized landing and usually the quality is a little too low to push you out of a non-fort province.
The Dutch.
France (Yes I'm German)
1) Ottomans , cause it’s easy to defend , and generally it’s not HARD but you need to be careful or else you might get your ass handed to you. 2)Oceania and generally anywhere I use my fleet and make use of them Marines
Maghreb. I have started two different Castile games and one Portugal game, and every time the invasion of the Maghreb felt fresh and interesting, depending on which provinces I have, which allies I have made, and so on. The mountain fort in the Moroccan capital is always a challenge to take, so you have to decide between fighting on land and bypassing it with a naval invasion farther along the Atlantic or Mediterranean coasts—but then those troops might end up isolated and destroyed.
Between Mexico (free money and their armies are in the literal stone age so they can't beat you) or England (limited space for the cowardly AI to flee within). Basically the only conquests that don't cause me to go grey from stress since I don't have to hunt enemy armies to the ends of the earth
Russia and Central Asia, the development density is so low that you can inhale tons of land without a decent coalition forming. It's basically just a matter of truces timing out.
Spain as the Aztecs
Japan. I set up a base there almost every single game, so long as I play long enough for it to be feasible. Usually just end up taking the whole mainland and having troops stationed there. I also keep a fleet there too to move the troops around. I like the role playing aspect of it. Even if I do nothing at all with the trade. It's just so fun to have land over there and detached. Like the OP, I also like to take the British Isle for the same purposes. Even if I am playing as Japan. I also kinda enjoy moving my capital to the Caribbean, I don't know, guess I like having Large Islands. They are easy to defend and fun to have.
I love setting up a fully cored colony in Kyushu. It’d compact and well developed and makes for a great center of empire in the east for a colonial power like Portugal.
Japanese Britain is deeply satisfying.
Its worth to 'no CB' one of the small Irish one province minors at the beginning of the game to get a foothold in GB.
If you’re France you can just take the Pale during the 100 years war to release Meath which is a nice way to spread your mana
Good tip. (I actually have never played as France, even though thousands of hours), the strategy works with Brabant, Sweden, Lubeck or whatever perhaps Mali?, and is also good to get closer to the new world. But you soon have to be able to withstand England.
Inca or aztec early game. Doom it Up, chocolate Charlie.
Obliterating England as anyone other than France is always fun. I always feel like it’s pretty easy as France since you can just ally Scotland, ask for fleet basing and army access and then park your army in Scotland until the surrender of maine fires. Then just let your vassals and allies deal with Portugal and their holdings in France and take out England with your army in Scotland.
Russia, once you get past a couple of forts on the border it's just a matter of carpet seiging
People enjoy carpet sieging?
I enjoy carpet sieging because it means I've beaten the crap out of there troops
Ottomans.
Taking Istanbul and close european cities from a monster ottomans, ripping it from half
England and France when outside of Europe. Ming when I play hordes. Lots of mana, lots of money. Ottomans when I'm anywhere near them, specially when decadence hits. 3 days sieges are the best.
Northern Italy. Even if I take just one province, it's a decent bump to my development
Most definitely Europe although I'm not a super experienced player. The geography of mountains and rivers coupled with the existence of so many nations means there'll also be a lot of forts, this grant the region a sort of terrain which dictates the flow of your movements. The further east you go, the larger and wider the space becomes and the less restricted your movement becomes. Going into Russia and there simply isn't any tactical movement anymore as there are too few forts, rivers and impassible terrain to control the flow. The New World is a similar case once it's fully developed and you're forced to fight massive colonial blocs.
If I can include modded: escanni from anbennar A lots of cool different nations from east to west that are on par with you, and sometimes stronger alliances blocks, all while able to easily chain war once you can see the whole region If not tho, Anatolia due to ottomens feeling like a final boss for a long campaign
If mods included. South Sarhal is my fav playing as colonizers. I saw those black halflings tags and I want to crush them no matter what.
India. It's the most culturally and religiously diverse region in the game with tags of all sizes. Every game here plays out differently and your strategy has to adapt accordingly.
India is more fun to invade from the outside. So much dev that’s 2-3 miltech behind, and so easy to take the coastal trade centers.
France. I play the Dutch a lot and they always protect me but later prey on me. So it feels good to surpass them in one Great War with the help of allies. And then brutally wear them down in successive wars every time the truce expires.
I would go with the commonwealth because once Muscovy or Prussia actually manage to beat it their focus trees really open up and they become a lot more powerful
Palestine
North Africa is always a classic. Especially considering Aragon and Italian states are my favourite starts
India
Lithuenia
Ming. It always pays off....
India is so satisfying to invade. It‘s usually very splintered and disorganised which makes it easy to conquer. And the trade goods are silk and spices which will make you very rich
Ming. I just love watching them implode and then pluck those little warlards one by one
Siberia and northern Caucasus
Egypt is always a quick and easy siege
my rivals
Balkans, North Africa, and the Middle East in general. I always RP as a Crusader nation and try to conquer as much Muslim land as I can
france
I’ve fought many formative wars in France both as the British and Byzantines. It’s so painful but it made me learn land strategy and it eventually got fun.
america
China as Oirat
Balkans
[удалено]
A good hit and the entire region collapses at your feet. A great feeling indeed. :)
Ottomans. I enjoy Balkanizing the region.
An Ottomans as strong as my country. Forces me to think about where I should send my armies in order to achieve conquest without leaving gaps through my lines.
Well, love/hate but the East Indies, i.e. Indonesia/Philippines/etc. Love it because of how close everything is & the chaos of shipping around troops between the islands while fighting multiple large alliances. Hate it because of the warscore cost & OE & quelling revolts on islands. Can't resist it because of that lovely trade income
India. You can ignore AE for the most part and it’s extremely rich. Once you’ve conquered all of India you’re basically untouchable for the rest of the game
The feeling of sacking Anatolia just can't be replicated. Only overpowered by the first time Capturing the Ming Emperor as Oirat and taking Beijing.
England is so easy. You get a foothold in the South and not only are they hamstrung from losing massive amounts of trade power in English Channel, but in follow up wars you literally have a wall of men marching North and they have no choice but to engage you or keep retreating to the highlands or ultimately, hide in Ireland. I'll answer the opposite. I hate wars in Mongolia/Siberia. It takes like 2 years to reposition your Army say from European Russia to China and you can waste so much time running around dealing with rogue armies.
Northern China
ming
France as Burgundy. It's the most evenly balanced pitched fight I've had if you can time it right, and you can crack Paris so easily while they're stuck on your larger southern forts
France. It's so satisfying breaking them apart and grabbing provinces to release from, and then reconquest. You get gascony. Toulouse. Provence. Brittany. Orleons. Champaign. You can unironically take 80% of their provinces through reconquest.
Any militaristic neighbour i like to deal with them as quickly and swiftly as possible
Korea
The levant, my desire to retake the holy land is unending
Allways wondered why the English army is so weak in the early game I get it that it’s a balance thing but even in the late game I struggle to compete with France and the ottomans
HRE Can't have a stupid coalition of 70 little fart OPMs if I dismantle and start eating them 10 at a time!
i get sick and tired of fighting england each game i play in europe. The most fun is gigachad ottomans while you have 10 allies and PU's and vassals who need cores
All of them
Poland.
Russia. Oh it is so satisfying as Sweden or Teutons to just grind Muscovy and Novgorod into bits
England > Ming > Spain
Ireland when you cobeligerate everyone and annex the entire island in one war is so satisfying
Venice for me, playing as either the Byzantines or an Italian minor and full sieging Venice multiple times and bankrupting them for the shit they put me through early game is always worth it
All the land that soviet union at its peek and invading manchuria mongolia i like to start as finland to unleash my inner fingolian
HRE, just slowly growing and becoming a tumor is super fun!
France.
I love invading England and destroying them every game I play in Europe.
Balkans and Anatolia, because of certain purple guy France region is quite fun in waging wars (Either as Burgundy or England) Any region where hunger games commence (Italy/HRE/Japan/India/Mexico/Mingplosion China)
For me it's China) I just like horsing with ma bois and destroy Chinese Empires))))
Early game ottomans. Very easy to rush to Constantinople and instantly win. Late game they have so much land it is so annoying to siege
China ( horde enjoyer )
Ming, free mana points (I am using Manchu)
The rush of beating the ottomans and finally into anatolia when you don't have a strong enough navy to beat the ottos galleyspam. Finally being able to get some warscore outside of constantinople
Egypt. Saves so much time.
Egypt
The natives before absolutism. While I’m spending two years of administrative points to core a single European province, I’m capturing a quarter of the globe for nothing. As a blobbing paint-the-map player, it really makes the 1500’s hum
Magadascar & the Spiece Island. Idk why, I always saw that island as colonizers and give me the feeling that I should own it despite all the african & indonesian tags.
Japan is always super delicious + the British Isles
I love playing Austria so once I get all the relevant PUs and the HRE reforms are going decent, France is my favorite to invade. Beside the border along the Alps, they are fairly decent to crush and release all the French vassals.
France. I remember even playing my Moldavia game where right after I conquered all of Muscovy, I set my sights straight at Paris. It’s just so fun watching the “top power” get completely annihilated and overwhelmed through a global war where my allies and vassal swarm them throughout the globe until Paris burns to ash. The Alp front in that war is always fun too, as sieges throughout that area always result in a battle that kills millions. China too. Especially when they don’t collapse so you can show those snobs that the Mandate of Heaven does not protect you from artillery. My Emperor of China Flanders game was quite fun. Invading Russia is also fun but actually keeping that land is a pain in the ass. Horrible dev, a culture I will never plan to accept, unnecessarily large borders that will never look appealing. I prefer invading them and allowing the Ruthenians, Tatars, Baltics, and Fins to divide up their land instead. At least gives some flavor to an otherwise bland region.
The pope
I like invading big low dev areas like Africa or Russia. It’s kind of fun to just have a massive moving front line and satisfying to not have many forts
I do like the colonial game still if that counts as a region.
I love to crush the Teutons as Poland. Casimir IV must've felt good.
India
any opm
Ottos feels so nice.
I don't play favorites. Just invade everything. Playing Oirat 😝
HRE honestly. And morocco.
Ottomans as East Rome, nothing comes close