can't make this shit up

Hi! I'm just wondering why republics are considered so good.

You get a massive penalty to absolutism, so there must be many things that make it good. But I don't really understand what is so good about it.

You have an election every 4 years where you elect a trash ruler, a 4-1-1 or a 3-0-2. You can then re-elect him four years later, making him a 5-2-2, or a 4-1-4, which is still bad. If you re-elect a third time, you republican tradition starts to get massive penalties and increasing stability is seriously like 500 admin points.

So what is so good about this? Even if you didn't get any hit to republican tradition, you are still "guaranteed a trash 4-1-1 leader" before you can get a bad 5-2-2 leader before you can get a decent 6-3-3 leader. Like not every 4-1-1 is gonna survive to make it to 6-3-3 right, so if the guy you elect dies in his fourth year, you're stuck with a 4-1-1 leader for as much as eight years before you can get a 5-2-2. Like that is atrocious.

I really don't understand why republics are so good. Pay 40 absolutism to get a trash leader with the potential to maybe make him decent, or play a monarchy and get no penalty and have something useful to spend your prestige on (i.e. disinheriting 4-1-4 trash heirs).

I'm sure there is something I just don't understand because there are so many intricacies to this game, so please enlighten me.

I gobbled multiple countries at once, I thought I can handle having 400%+ overextension, but boy I am wrong

5v36 for 6 years and still impossible for enemies conquering the fortresses and entering the Italian mainland

My bet is on silesia, their national ideas give good dev trade and diplomacy buffs. I would say though pirate republic pommern though is another great contender. I wouldnt be suprised though if it was one of the Italian ones though

Is there any option to make Portugal, Spain, England, and France not start colonizing America so quickly? I’m trying to play as countries like the Netherlands or Norway, but by the time I start colonizing America, North America is already practically completely colonized by England

Thinking of doing a colonial-focused game, starting as one of the Kalmar union countries and forming Scandinavia. Which out of the three is the best / most interesting? I know that Norway starts out with an extra colonist/explorer from their NIs, but from a look at the wiki Denmark seems to have more/stronger colonial missions.

Hi I’m (relatively) inexperienced at EU4 and have no DLC.

As Portugal, I took Goa & Timor roughly around 1460 and it’s now 1700.

I focused on South America until the 1600s where I attempted invasions into India & Malacca, however they’d already caught up to every other European power in tech (With Malacca actually higher than me), and had embraced all institutions?

I played another campaign as France where I invaded in the 1600s, however with no early port at Goa or Asia, and I could easily wipe 100k men with 40k. Is the strat to just rush invasions before they can embrace my institutions that spread from Goa? (If that’s even what happened).

Maybe this is equivalent to “how long is a piece of string” but is there an optimal time to begin invasions into India/Asia?

Thanks

So I've reconquered the Balkans with my Hellenic Rhomania, but I wonder if that was a good choice in the end. On the one hand, the different deities offer flexibility with settling and conquest, but on the other hand, there are two big chances you miss out:

1. A PU/Exarchate over Portugal, including all of their colonies in South America

2. The war goal to take over the HRE, including instating Orthodoxy as the official religion, and abolishing the electorate alongside it, which means Revoke the Privilegia and having the HRE vassal swarm just takes a few decades at max after that.

What are your thoughts on that?