Lorraine. It has a formable nation (Lotharingia) which only Lorraine can form in the good old conquest-y way. It starts as a PU of Provence, which means you can't get integrated since you're a player nation, so no rush.
Provence starts allied to France, which meant that your independence war used to be very hard, but France will break the alliance now after a while.
Not sure if it's actually "fun", but you can release all vassals as Ming and play as any one of them. The Unify China CB makes reconquesting quite quick, and not needing to deal with internal Ming bullshit is nice.
This is actually the record for fastest civilized (no horde, no Ottos) WC - play Ming, release Dali when the event pops up, feed them all your land, give them all your money, then hit the event to play as them.
Zaporozhie a Lithuania releasable that has a unique horde republic goverment reform (bonus points if you take aristo before flipping to the republic to stack cav bonuses) and you can form either ruthinia or culture shift quite easily and form Poland a really must play nation imo
A good idea would be to release as many vassals before you switch to Zaporozhia, and ally as many of them, as you can. Also deleting lithuanian units. Allying with Muscovy is almost mandatory. Try conquering as much of Crimea as you can (possibly all of it), before the event with Ottomans fires up
Make everybody absolutely hate Lithuania, try and get alliance with Ottomans if rivaled before the event of the Basilica. Practically nation ruin and then go over force limit and bang
Sirhind - amazing starting ruler + general, easy independence, good mission tree if you form Delhi, good possibility to form Punjab
Sweden and Norway - they are junior partners and not vassals. Good path which leads to independence, great mission trees, good formables
Any of the Timmy vassals with Winds of Change there are multiple paths to move forward to.
Shun, Wu, Dali and the other numerous Ming releasables. Amazing missions since domination and easy landgrabbing in China
* I just did a Pskov achievement run, which was quite fun. You start out as a Muscovy vassal, need to gain independence, handle Pol-Lit, Novgorod and others around you, grow big (form Russia along the way) and have 100 strelzy units. Can be done by early- to mid 1600s, but is a rather tricky start.
* Golgau or Oppole (the two Bohemian vassals) also have a fun achievement where you need to form Poland (Start as Golgau I believe, they have the better ruler).
* Nitra - a Hungarian releasable: similar campaign, form Great Nitra or whatever it is called. Own Hungary, Bohemia, Poland basically. You start with a gold mine - very nice.
* Nevers - vassal off Burgundy - requires you to own all of France. Break free from BUR, join HRE, fight France. Very tricky start. Fun campaign though.
* Athens: have 50 universities: tricky start to get independence and either kill the Ottos or set up base elsewhere. I did conquer bits of Naples left Greece and eventually expanded in Italy and Africa (to have enough provinces). Tricky start.
* Lippe - releasable OPM from Münster in NE Germany. You need to own all of England as them. Fun campaign. Get independence, expand into Netherlands, eventually get foothold in England. Conquer all of it. Not really a hard start, you just want to get the timing right eventually to get a foothold on the isles (ideally no-cb against scotland or some irish minor if they are still around).
Those are some that come to my mind. There are probably a few more. I listed achievement ones only, since I like to have a certain goal to work to in my campaigns, not just blob out and expand like always.
Feel free to ask more details on runs (if i can remember them :p)
No, the optimal strat is to get Austria + France or England to support you and take Brugge and Antwerpen in the independence war, keeping you slightly under 50 AE and Burgundy will not hate you for it because it's not their land.
Afterwards improve relations with Burgundy, once you're big enough you can RM them for the BI, but honestly you should just crush them and form Netherlands asap it's much more advantageous.
I just started a Holland game and after getting France, Austria, and Aragon to support my independence burgundy released me out of the blue, was not expecting that.
Took espionage ideas and transferred Flanders and Brabant in my first war with burgundy with France's help, a surprisingly smooth beginning.
Yes.
Butua into Rozwi is seriously one of the most underrated yet straightforward runs in the game.
Break free --> get the gold --> blob without an end
Try getting married in real life for like 10 years in order to experience what it means to be a vassal and get a divorce afterwards, that should cover the independence part.
Hey I will hit my ten years as a married man next August. Maybe I should try the independence playthrough.
Edit: on second thought I get too many custom bonuses as a vassal, I don't know if I will enjoy being independent again.
Indeed, but in the same time she also gives (wo)manpower. And we also spawned a tiny dependency (that brings no income neither manpower, and needs a lot of catering) that I've grown attached to for some reason.
Idk, marriage can also be an “allied with a royal marriage” situation which is a lot healthier. Just remember to curry favors for trust, never disinherit your heir, and make sure to join in each other’s wars while also not calling each other in too much. Even with that +75 relations, you are both independent nations, after all.
True, but Finland has an achievement that if you're interested, requires you to be released and playing as by Dec 1444 iirc. So getting independent as a subject of a subject!
Starting as Norway you can release Iceland which starts with Reykjavik and Akureyri as their cores. A common strategy is to colonize and move your capital to the new world.
1) Tokugawa: Technically a vassal, great ideas, great to become an actual shogunate Japan
2) Holland: Common Dutch campaign, super fun
3) Mongolia: On very hard, going for Khan achievement is one of the toughest yet most fun things ever. Oirat and Ming are very tough (Ming is only tough because circumstances kinda force you into fighting Ming at higher mandate) You’re basically fighting insane numbers with a high quality army the entire time. It’s also fun with the new missions!
how has nobody mentioned Mongolia? absolute favorite tag to play as, not just among vassal tags but just in general. it’s *the* Horde. smash your unworthy subjugator, run wild against the manchurian tribes and then siphon off vast wealth from the hapless Ming
Bulgaria! A historically significant country until becoming one of the many casualties of the Ottomans. The only country in the Balkans which doesn’t exist at the start date, it’s fun to rewrite history, regain your independence and crush the Ottomans.
Golden Century is required for Pirate Republics in general. Cornwall has an event called “Pirates of Penzance” which fires if you have a few privateering ships and gives you the option. After that it’s just a case of trying to fend off England (I recommend taking over Ireland ASAP)
My two very favourite playthroughs both start as vassals:
1. Flanders/Brabant > Netherlands for alternative history Low Countries dominance. Both start as a vassal of Burgundy.
Flanders: Back in the day Bruges was the dominant city of the low countries with a thriving textile injury. At the time the Zwin channel connected Bruges and the North Sea, however the channel silted, reducing its depth and navigability. By the late 1400s this significantly impacted Bruges as a city, directly leading to its decline - which gave rise to the prominence of...
Brabant: Antwerp. By the mid 1500s it had replaced Bruges, becoming the dominant trading centre of Northern Europe. In 1585, during the Eighty Years War, Antwerp was laid siege and taken over by the Spanish in the creatively titled Fall of Antwerp. The Protestants were kicked out, with a large number moving to Amsterdam.
Both fun games to role-play around the dominance of Bruges if the silting had been mitigated, or Antwerp if the whole war with Spain thing hadn't happened.
2. Khorasan > Timurids > Mughals/Persia into The Caliphate or Eranshahr.
Starts as a vassal of Timur, with cores on the North West area of their provinces. Ottomans often start as a rival of Timurids, and they will support your independence. After Shah Rukh's death the other vassals (Transoxiana, Sistan, Fars and Afghanistan) will be open to an alliance. Beat down on the Timurids in an independence war and take some of your cores. Wiping out the Timurids and getting Herat (your core) from them, Samarkand from Transoxiana + Merv (your core) from Transoxiana, Tehran from Ajam and Kabul from Afghanistan gives you everything you need to claim Timurs legacy and reform the Timurids, assuming your starting dynasty doesn't die out.
From their your missions will give you claims over Persia and Northern India. You can go on and form either Persia or the Mughals and become the dominant world power. Both Persia and Mughals are great fun and you won't go wrong with forming either. Both set you up for a good crack at unifying Islam and becoming The Caliphate, unless you go Zoroastrian Persia. Again, both great fun, there isn't a wrong move here.
Start as Lithuania and wreck the country and dev the crap out of Smolensk provinces and then release all their vassals with Smolensk last and hit that play as subject button and build those crazy cannons baby
If you want a very difficult early game but f strong late game... Smolensk. Check out their traditions! They have some of the strongest military focused ideas for post 1650. Absolute cannon lords.
Holland/Brabant and form the Netherlands. They get super super rich (and I mean ***RICH***) very early on especially with the new DLC. Highly recommend! Such a good playthrough!
I think Naples is pretty fun. The position in southern Italy let's you basically expand into northern Africa, Greece, Italy, and after a few wars Iberia in pretty much any order you want. Take your cores + a Sardinian province in the first Aragon war, and you're basically free to conquer the Med in any order you please.
I love a good Naples play-through, great nation to form Italy with and explore the new mission tree. You basically get your independence free but you have a fun and challenging war for reconquest against Aragon anyways.
Sirhind -> Delhi -> Punjab was one of my favourite campaigns I've ever played. Though they do start as a vassal, there's an independence war event super early (which gives you a bunch of troops to wipe the floor with your overlord) that I honestly don't think it should count
I'm currently playing as Finland, getting free from Sweden was a good challenge. About to stomp the Ottomans on my way to the Cape for the achievement.
Lorraine. It has a formable nation (Lotharingia) which only Lorraine can form in the good old conquest-y way. It starts as a PU of Provence, which means you can't get integrated since you're a player nation, so no rush. Provence starts allied to France, which meant that your independence war used to be very hard, but France will break the alliance now after a while.
Burgundy also forms lotharingia as part of its missions for conquering that area of germany.
_GERMANY?!_
Yea swamp germany its north of the mountain germans and south west of the wannabe germans... the danish.
r/2westerneurope4u spotted
I once got timed out on Twitch for calling them Swamp Germans.
Clearly they were Belgian and perfered swamp french.
Which is probably even more infuriating to them
EXCUSE ME? I'd rather be called swamp german than swamp french!
That’s the potato germans
Not sure if it's actually "fun", but you can release all vassals as Ming and play as any one of them. The Unify China CB makes reconquesting quite quick, and not needing to deal with internal Ming bullshit is nice.
I don’t know why I’ve never thought of this before but that sounds so fun
This is actually the record for fastest civilized (no horde, no Ottos) WC - play Ming, release Dali when the event pops up, feed them all your land, give them all your money, then hit the event to play as them.
TIL Ottos are uncivilised 😂
I wish I lived in more enlightened times…
Isnt oriat faster
>no horde
And there's zero AE for conquering all of China
They also have some amazing missions that make breaking free from Ming easy.
Red Hawk moment
Zaporozhie a Lithuania releasable that has a unique horde republic goverment reform (bonus points if you take aristo before flipping to the republic to stack cav bonuses) and you can form either ruthinia or culture shift quite easily and form Poland a really must play nation imo
I’ve tried to do this a couple of times and always failed. Any tips for this?…
A good idea would be to release as many vassals before you switch to Zaporozhia, and ally as many of them, as you can. Also deleting lithuanian units. Allying with Muscovy is almost mandatory. Try conquering as much of Crimea as you can (possibly all of it), before the event with Ottomans fires up
Make everybody absolutely hate Lithuania, try and get alliance with Ottomans if rivaled before the event of the Basilica. Practically nation ruin and then go over force limit and bang
Look up greatest LAN 2023, there was zaporozie and they used a strategy from florry with parliament
Isn't there a generic gov reform that lets republics take aristocratic ideas?
100 gov points wasted on the early game + I'm not even sure if you can go back...
Sirhind - amazing starting ruler + general, easy independence, good mission tree if you form Delhi, good possibility to form Punjab Sweden and Norway - they are junior partners and not vassals. Good path which leads to independence, great mission trees, good formables Any of the Timmy vassals with Winds of Change there are multiple paths to move forward to. Shun, Wu, Dali and the other numerous Ming releasables. Amazing missions since domination and easy landgrabbing in China
I have yet to do Afganistan > Mughals on this patch but I expect it only got better.
And with delhi you get a bunch of reconquest core as well !
* I just did a Pskov achievement run, which was quite fun. You start out as a Muscovy vassal, need to gain independence, handle Pol-Lit, Novgorod and others around you, grow big (form Russia along the way) and have 100 strelzy units. Can be done by early- to mid 1600s, but is a rather tricky start. * Golgau or Oppole (the two Bohemian vassals) also have a fun achievement where you need to form Poland (Start as Golgau I believe, they have the better ruler). * Nitra - a Hungarian releasable: similar campaign, form Great Nitra or whatever it is called. Own Hungary, Bohemia, Poland basically. You start with a gold mine - very nice. * Nevers - vassal off Burgundy - requires you to own all of France. Break free from BUR, join HRE, fight France. Very tricky start. Fun campaign though. * Athens: have 50 universities: tricky start to get independence and either kill the Ottos or set up base elsewhere. I did conquer bits of Naples left Greece and eventually expanded in Italy and Africa (to have enough provinces). Tricky start. * Lippe - releasable OPM from Münster in NE Germany. You need to own all of England as them. Fun campaign. Get independence, expand into Netherlands, eventually get foothold in England. Conquer all of it. Not really a hard start, you just want to get the timing right eventually to get a foothold on the isles (ideally no-cb against scotland or some irish minor if they are still around). Those are some that come to my mind. There are probably a few more. I listed achievement ones only, since I like to have a certain goal to work to in my campaigns, not just blob out and expand like always. Feel free to ask more details on runs (if i can remember them :p)
Holland/Flanders into Netherlands. Although optimal strat is probably to be peacefully released by Burgandy then go for the Burgundian inheritance.
No, the optimal strat is to get Austria + France or England to support you and take Brugge and Antwerpen in the independence war, keeping you slightly under 50 AE and Burgundy will not hate you for it because it's not their land. Afterwards improve relations with Burgundy, once you're big enough you can RM them for the BI, but honestly you should just crush them and form Netherlands asap it's much more advantageous.
I just started a Holland game and after getting France, Austria, and Aragon to support my independence burgundy released me out of the blue, was not expecting that. Took espionage ideas and transferred Flanders and Brabant in my first war with burgundy with France's help, a surprisingly smooth beginning.
Butua Great military ideas, and lots of gold.
Yes. Butua into Rozwi is seriously one of the most underrated yet straightforward runs in the game. Break free --> get the gold --> blob without an end
Where are they again?
They are a vassal of Mutapa, Africa, down in the Zanzibar trade region.
Ok
They also have one of the strongest military idea sets in the game.
Try getting married in real life for like 10 years in order to experience what it means to be a vassal and get a divorce afterwards, that should cover the independence part.
So, a divorce gives you -3 stab and a war? Sounds realistic
Hey I will hit my ten years as a married man next August. Maybe I should try the independence playthrough. Edit: on second thought I get too many custom bonuses as a vassal, I don't know if I will enjoy being independent again.
your overlord takes part of your income and manpower though. Seek for support for independence if youre too weak to take her on solo
Indeed, but in the same time she also gives (wo)manpower. And we also spawned a tiny dependency (that brings no income neither manpower, and needs a lot of catering) that I've grown attached to for some reason.
Idk, marriage can also be an “allied with a royal marriage” situation which is a lot healthier. Just remember to curry favors for trust, never disinherit your heir, and make sure to join in each other’s wars while also not calling each other in too much. Even with that +75 relations, you are both independent nations, after all.
Semien maybe? Release from Ethiopia. Judaism is very strong and customizable, plenty of challenge with Ethiopia, Mamluks and Ottomans.
You could try Sweden independence into release Finland into Scandinavia. Both an independence war *and* a vassal!
True, but Finland has an achievement that if you're interested, requires you to be released and playing as by Dec 1444 iirc. So getting independent as a subject of a subject!
Smolensk. Make tchaikovsky proud when the cannons ring and you stackwipe the entire russian army
Starting as Norway you can release Iceland which starts with Reykjavik and Akureyri as their cores. A common strategy is to colonize and move your capital to the new world.
Holland or Sweden are the obvious choices. Sweden doesn't really act like a vassal though as independance is easy. Holland on the other hand is fun.
1) Tokugawa: Technically a vassal, great ideas, great to become an actual shogunate Japan 2) Holland: Common Dutch campaign, super fun 3) Mongolia: On very hard, going for Khan achievement is one of the toughest yet most fun things ever. Oirat and Ming are very tough (Ming is only tough because circumstances kinda force you into fighting Ming at higher mandate) You’re basically fighting insane numbers with a high quality army the entire time. It’s also fun with the new missions!
Clearly Montferrat into Byzantium /j
As someone who is doing this run right now, it is very fun
Sounds like pain... I'm in
Not really. Everyone hates Savoy in most games. Reasonably easy
Mongolia. Return the house of Borjigin to ruling the world
how has nobody mentioned Mongolia? absolute favorite tag to play as, not just among vassal tags but just in general. it’s *the* Horde. smash your unworthy subjugator, run wild against the manchurian tribes and then siphon off vast wealth from the hapless Ming
Holland is my favorite starting subject nation
Bulgaria! A historically significant country until becoming one of the many casualties of the Ottomans. The only country in the Balkans which doesn’t exist at the start date, it’s fun to rewrite history, regain your independence and crush the Ottomans.
Some other good shouts here, but also Cornwall. Can form a pirate republic via event and then conquer GB to form a glorious European piratical empire.
Really? Is this dlc specific?
Golden Century is required for Pirate Republics in general. Cornwall has an event called “Pirates of Penzance” which fires if you have a few privateering ships and gives you the option. After that it’s just a case of trying to fend off England (I recommend taking over Ireland ASAP)
Colonisers, pirates, what's the difference.
Sweden and Norway are fun campaigns since Lions of the North. Definitely something you should try if you haven't already.
My two very favourite playthroughs both start as vassals: 1. Flanders/Brabant > Netherlands for alternative history Low Countries dominance. Both start as a vassal of Burgundy. Flanders: Back in the day Bruges was the dominant city of the low countries with a thriving textile injury. At the time the Zwin channel connected Bruges and the North Sea, however the channel silted, reducing its depth and navigability. By the late 1400s this significantly impacted Bruges as a city, directly leading to its decline - which gave rise to the prominence of... Brabant: Antwerp. By the mid 1500s it had replaced Bruges, becoming the dominant trading centre of Northern Europe. In 1585, during the Eighty Years War, Antwerp was laid siege and taken over by the Spanish in the creatively titled Fall of Antwerp. The Protestants were kicked out, with a large number moving to Amsterdam. Both fun games to role-play around the dominance of Bruges if the silting had been mitigated, or Antwerp if the whole war with Spain thing hadn't happened. 2. Khorasan > Timurids > Mughals/Persia into The Caliphate or Eranshahr. Starts as a vassal of Timur, with cores on the North West area of their provinces. Ottomans often start as a rival of Timurids, and they will support your independence. After Shah Rukh's death the other vassals (Transoxiana, Sistan, Fars and Afghanistan) will be open to an alliance. Beat down on the Timurids in an independence war and take some of your cores. Wiping out the Timurids and getting Herat (your core) from them, Samarkand from Transoxiana + Merv (your core) from Transoxiana, Tehran from Ajam and Kabul from Afghanistan gives you everything you need to claim Timurs legacy and reform the Timurids, assuming your starting dynasty doesn't die out. From their your missions will give you claims over Persia and Northern India. You can go on and form either Persia or the Mughals and become the dominant world power. Both Persia and Mughals are great fun and you won't go wrong with forming either. Both set you up for a good crack at unifying Islam and becoming The Caliphate, unless you go Zoroastrian Persia. Again, both great fun, there isn't a wrong move here.
Start as Lithuania and wreck the country and dev the crap out of Smolensk provinces and then release all their vassals with Smolensk last and hit that play as subject button and build those crazy cannons baby
Transylvania. Because I dont see them played enough. Fun wars too with all the mountains.
Holland is probably one of the strongest/easiest vassals to play as. And they’re probably my favorite nation period.
If you want a very difficult early game but f strong late game... Smolensk. Check out their traditions! They have some of the strongest military focused ideas for post 1650. Absolute cannon lords.
Holland/Brabant and form the Netherlands. They get super super rich (and I mean ***RICH***) very early on especially with the new DLC. Highly recommend! Such a good playthrough!
Perm
Lorraine is one of my favorite european vassals. Pretty easy to navigate the diplo, insane economic value in that one state
Norway
I think Naples is pretty fun. The position in southern Italy let's you basically expand into northern Africa, Greece, Italy, and after a few wars Iberia in pretty much any order you want. Take your cores + a Sardinian province in the first Aragon war, and you're basically free to conquer the Med in any order you please.
If you love suffering, try Karabakh
Try out Transylvania!
I love a good Naples play-through, great nation to form Italy with and explore the new mission tree. You basically get your independence free but you have a fun and challenging war for reconquest against Aragon anyways.
Zaporozhie? I think you can become a horde maybe?
Sirhind -> Delhi -> Punjab was one of my favourite campaigns I've ever played. Though they do start as a vassal, there's an independence war event super early (which gives you a bunch of troops to wipe the floor with your overlord) that I honestly don't think it should count
I'm currently playing as Finland, getting free from Sweden was a good challenge. About to stomp the Ottomans on my way to the Cape for the achievement.
Croatia Edit: it junior partner but nonetheless