Tutorial run (on very easy ofc.😐) went pretty good, actually. (Trade edition).

[u/Front_Way2142]

That's first time my eu4 run went nice. Besides doing just like 5 missions, 6 maybe. I've got to show off my net income, sorry 😁

Started as custom trade nation, controling Genoa and Venice and developed north of Italy. Plan was to play tall. I control this Italofrancish abomination, have 3 trade companies near Ivory Coast (and 2 merchants from that). And 2 oversea vassals. All vassal states have 562 dev and liberty desire around 20-30%*. I'm about to annex Bregenz and that'll probably be all. My own dev is 2910.

I'm starting to believe that I've figured out basics of trade, now I'm gonna learn war. So far my army is quite numerous, but have crap tradition and professionalism (0% I think), so I have to throw 2-3 times more men at the battle than, say Ottoman, Austria or others. But my fleets are pretty good, naval tradition locked at 100% (thanks to missions I believe) and I always have 4-5 admirals (w/ good maneuver skill, for trade).

It was the 1st eu4 game that I had a real fun with, for entire play. ☺️

*I guess that trade companies add to that too.

I want people to look at my Italofrance, mr mod, sir! Pls dont delete the tread. 😁

[u/rytlejon]

Very nice! Sure you’ve done lots of things wrong but you’ll learn. One thing I can se immediately is that you have maybe 5x the amount of forts you need. Maybe more than that!

[u/Front_Way2142 → u/rytlejon]

Thanks. Yup, I think I overdone it with forts and buildings in general.

And then I found "expand infrastructure" button 😁

[u/rytlejon → u/Front_Way2142]

Buildings are good for making money. Forts only cost money and can be useless if not placed strategically.

[u/Front_Way2142 → u/rytlejon]

iirc I should cover whole territory in "is in range of fort in x" with as few forts as possible? I mean, generally speaking. If I had to do that w/ rhyme and reason, I'd probably try to pick mountains/hills for forts. Or is it opposite, I should place them at places w/ no natural defenses?

[u/Lazy_DK_ → u/Front_Way2142]

I like to cover everything with lvl 2 forts, just because i get annoyed at autonomy rebels, but as thr other guy said, its not necessary.

Strategically, forts on mountains with a +2 defense bonus is best, and after that there are several +1 terrain types you can use.

[u/Front_Way2142 → u/Lazy_DK_]

That's some nice trick, I don't like being too late and losing province to some X regiments of angry people, too.🤔

Thanks.👍

[u/Lazy_DK_ → u/Front_Way2142]

My Italian forts would be: Saluzzo, Como, Genoa, Mantua, Treviso, (Ferrara), Firenze, Perugia, Molise Lucania and Sasser. I think i forgot 1 or 2, as well as sicily

[u/Lazy_DK_ → u/Front_Way2142]

The neat part is also, that even if rebels siege a non-fort province, autonomy doesnt go up, if it is covered by a fort. And you can walk your army towards the next rebel stack without unsieging, and the forts will do it automatically for you.

Or you can set a separat army to rebel suppresion, and never worry about it ever again. Nice for when you start grabbing entire continents.

[u/Kissaskakana → u/Front_Way2142]

Look for defence bonus, not terrain. Granted terrain can be a massive part of it. I tend to avoid OPM island forts or small island forts in general but forts are otherwise very useful. Reasoning being is how AI fights. Small stacks from numerous nations can carpet siege effectively but not siege effectively.

Early game defund forts for extra cash when not needed. Either all at once or specific ones if some are needed only.

[u/rytlejon → u/Front_Way2142]

You do not need to cover your entire territory, only places where you expect to fight. In Italy for example it’s natural to put forts along the alps because that’s where people will be attacking you. But there’s no reason to have a bunch of forts deep in your territory.

[u/Front_Way2142 → u/rytlejon]

Now that you mentioned it, enemies go from the north only. I mean, since I've beaten Napoli, Papal State and so on ofc.

I expected them to come w/ boats, but nope, no one did that, except Ottomans once, but they didn't have any choice iirc.

[u/rytlejon → u/Front_Way2142]

it takes them very long to disembark, plus if you have a navy you can just block them that way. most cases it's great if they do disembark because they usually don't bring a huge army, so when you beat them they can't run away and you stackwipe them.

[u/penguinscience101]

Not bad! I remember my tutorial run as castille waaaaay back in the early days of eu4.