[EU3] Good starting faction

[Maximus_96]

What is a good starting faction for a new player to Europa Universalis 3? Also, should i get any mods for EU3 or should i wait until i have learned to play the game first?

[Zhangir]

My first game was for Burgundy
Don't ask why )

[Darkarbiter]

Get the two expansions, then play for a while, once you are comfortable get eu3 MMP.

[Maximus_96]

ok, ive ordered EU3 complete over amazon and i think it will be here by friday, so would england be a good starting faction?

[Dewy]

ok, ive ordered EU3 complete over amazon and i think it will be here by friday, so would england be a good starting faction?

most likely not, it was my first but France is a and any new player will strangle to not get destroyed by France.

The easiest would be France to play

[Musthavename]

Portugal. Ally with Castille and you're safe from anyone, you're not big enough so you get a feel for handling things on a small scale, you get an introduction to colonisation, and you're free to do what you want.

England is also a good campaign, on the condition that on Day 0, sell Calais to France and then sell off Aquitaine ASAP to Brittany or Castille, even for 0 ducats. If you get off the mainland, you're in a very comfortable position with England, and unlike Portugal you get to see some land combat against the Scots, and opponent you should comfortably beat. One thing to note about England though, build a CoT in East Anglia once you have the money to do so (500 ducats, though ensure you have more as a buffer). Don't build it in London though, as you'll miss out on some extra colonists.

[hellheaven1987]

Portugal with a friendly Castile (50% of chance Castile is unfriendly, which generally means game over).

Japan.

Castile.

All these three need no trick and have a free hand to do most things; I don't recommand England because the troublesome Scotland would sneak attack you with France landing 10k men on England if you don't do some tricks.

[Augustus Lucifer]

You should play on Normal for starters, and never use cheats. If you start using cheats you'll get so you don't have a concept of limitations and develop impractical strategies.

Different nations give different gameplay experiences.

France is a good choice for land combat. As long as you don't get in a spat with England + Castille you're essentially well off from the start economically and can focus on expanding. Play a pure land game with France, try to avoid getting in wars overseas or with nations powerful enough to fully blockade you(you can see Navy sizes from the Ledger). Get used to the combat system, tech sliders, war declarations, badboy, etc.

England is a good choice for naval combat. With England you can experiment with defending access to your mainland with a powerful navy, as well as some land combat in Scotland and Ireland. You can also get used to defending your sea lanes and delve a little into colonizing. Furthermore, England is well positioned to experiment with religion such as a Protestant conversion, and changing of government types. These can hurt your relations with other nations, but the trouble is mitigated by naval supremacy.

Portugal is a good choice for colonization. Play until you can get a good relationship with Castille and preferably an alliance. A Portugese campaign stresses diplomacy not only with Castille, but with England/France/Aragon if you need help against a Castille that just doesn't want any of your lovin'. Take "Quest for the New World" as your first or second national idea and start understanding the nuances of colonialism.

Mecklenburg is a good choice for trade. Aside from Denmark, they're far enough away from the Western powers(France/Castille/England), the Southern powers(Austria/Ottomans), and the Eastern powers(Russia/Lithuania/Poland/Golden Horde) that the diplomatic scene is tolerable. You also own the richest COT in the world for a time, and have good starting policy sliders. This campaign will teach competing in foreign markets to generate disproportionate amounts of money compared to land owned through trade, as well as take off some of the handicaps that may have been relied upon for larger starting nations.

Milan is a good choice for economy. If you can survive the first while without getting in a conflict with France, you can work your way down Italy which is the richest non-colonial region in the game. You can learn more about tech investments, province improvements, trade goods and province worth, etc. with your strong economic base, and on Normal difficulty you're more than a match for most of your neighbors.

[Jaketh]

Byzantium is easy

[Zenith Darksea]

I went with Novgorod myself. Quite good fun, actually, as I rapidly came to dominate all the trade centres in Europe and then annexed Finland in a lighting war with Sweden while they had their armies fighting the Norwegians and the Danes. Novgorod has an interesting start position; on the one hand you are focused on the Baltic Sea and the North-Eastern European scene, but you also have lands stretching away out to the East that bring you into contact with suprisingly dangerous peoples such as Kazan, Sibir and the Nogai.

[Yoda Twin]

I'd say that Portugal with a friendly Castille is not only the best beginning game, its a hell of a lot of fun.

[cenkiss]

Mecklenburg,Brandenburg or Vijaynagara are fine starters for anyone.And with Portugal you will be just standing idle for centuries.What is fun with that?

[Kanaric]

Here is my list on whats a good choice to play in order of probable difficulty.

England is by far the easiest if you can accept losses in france, however you can win there if you are decent. If you dont care about your mainland territories Scotland and ireland are cake to destroy, make a colonial empire. Fun game.

France has lots of money and high manpower, you can dominate all your neighbors.

Castille usually has to deal with french hostility in my games though if you become friendly with them early it wont be so much of a problem. This game is similar to england, conquer port and aragon and make a colonial empire. Eventually you can defeat france or go for coastal minors in north germany or italy.

Denmark, some may disagree with this however I think they are incredibly easy. You have personal unions led with norway and sweden, they will lose relations with you. However a trick is to ally with poland/moscow/novgorod and constantly declare war on islamic nations constantly they will not lose relations with you and you can quickly inherit both. As scandinavia you will have hanseatic league trade bonuses, absolutely awesome, you will get incredible trade, have iceland as a stepping stone for colonies, and be surrounded by weak minors. Novgorod/Russia will be your primary enemy for most of the early game and they can be tough though you can easily defeat them given time. This country has france like potential.

Other northern europe hanseatic league potential nations. Lots of trade bring novgorod, prussia, north germans, etc to an easy nation to play as. You can easily dominate trade in all of europe with sliders towards free trade, hanseatic league, shrewd commerce practices, and later east india company.

Timurids, with your excellent leader to start you can easily modernize the government. You get VAST territory and can constantly attack india without penalties since most of it is hindu. Easy game, late game can be difficult againt europeons however.

Poland, keep relations with lithuania and inherit them. You can gain a lot of territory on golden horde. Ally with sweden or russians. Fun game. To get a colonial empire DOW on african minors or morocco. This strategy works for anyone obviously. This game can be especially fun if you utterly defeat the russians to where you get the siberian colonial border and you can be a polish "russia" type country.

Ottomans, easy nation to play. Straightforward strategies. Enemies will probably require you to focus on land instead of colonies.

Naples - no threatoning neighbors, easy northern conquests. Only problem is that ottomans, france, austria, like to blob and you will eventually have borders with all of those.

Those are the nations I would suggest to beginning players.

[D.B. Cooper]

Portugal. You can go anywhere and your hardest enemies will be Indians and other tribal factions.

[Kanaric]

The thing with portugal that I dont agree with is that whenever I played them I end up with an early enemy in spain more often than not. If not at the beginning of the game then within the first 150 years when they are still more powerful than you.

[Yoda Twin]

If i go Portugal I do nothing that will unplease Castile, always go to wars that will favour them and doing this I find its easy to keep a content Castile. Getting them to hate Aragon helps as well.

[dr.Metus]

Hungary - You have plenty of time while the ottomans fight their wars in Anatolia and take their vassals (serbia and bosnia) with them (Whole World mod here btw) You get Poland in a personal union (if you are lucky) success the throne and you have a great empire already. Annex Transylvania ,and get ready for the expansion to the south.

Mameluke Sultanate - No one really cares about them,even tho. they got many provinces,and can get a high manpower to star building an army. Get advantage of the Ottoman - Timurid wars and pwn them both. You are already a super power in the middle east.

Norway - Build your economy and advance your government and other technology's while under a personal union,but also get ready for the greedy Swedish "friends" if you survive their very possible invasion you can start the colonization of north America without even caring whats going on in Europe so later you ll have a deceived continent back at home to take with a power full economy and technology.

I pick these because I find the usual France,Milan,England,etc boring and too easy to go on with,they are like always lucky nations.

[Frederich Barbarossa]

It depends what your looking for.


If you want to dominate western/central Europe choose France. They have a godly manpower modifier.

If you want to conquer central Europe I'd say Bohemia/Austria/Bavaria. Three have the potencial of both becoming HRE empires frequently and having good armies for such small places.

If you want to conquer Russia choose Moscuvy or Novgorod.

If you want to colonizee I'd say Castille or maybe someone else.

Someone should do challenges. Maybe I can give a couple of scenarios for people?

[Vernalagnia]

I ended up playing Portugal for my first, mostly because I love Portugal. Contrary to what most people suggest I ended up going to war with Castile rather than kowtowing to them I declared war based off of a diplomatic insult, and with England's help I conquered all of southern Iberia. About five short wars later Castile only has one province left, but England has long since given up on being my friend, as has most of the rest of the world since I ended up with about 35 infamy for destroying them on such a flimsy basis. As of 1570 or so I've colonized most of Mexico and all of the Caribbean, working on Brazil, but I'm up to my neck in a war with Great Britain over Alabama and Georgia. It's been a fun campaign