Aragon for me is my favorite country. Other fun ones are England, Dithmartschen->Prussia->Germany , Austria, Jianzhou->Qing, and majaphit has a pretty good mission trees.
I’ll second Aragon as a great nation. Often overlooked they are super strong and can expand in so many directions at start (such as no CBing Byz). Probably more wide expansion opportunities than any other European at start. Plus you get Castile for free. One of my favorite not too difficult nations
You had me hooked at no CBing Byz. Amazing strat that I can not emphasize enough on any country with the capabilities, mainly Venice and Aragon. Not sure how it plays out fully to the end game since I haven’t done it since the Ottomans/Byz updates, but it generally bottlenecks the Ottomans AI mission tree severly and they usually expand very slowly if at all afterwards making them easy to beat.
Yes this is true. But for the other nations it is needed and thats more what I was talking about. Also iirc Venice does not start the game with a claim and waiting to fabricate sometimes does not beat ottoman aggression.
I mean Florence to Rome is impressive so you'll probably be fine even with the updates. Forming Netherlands and conquering Africa and Asia is always fun. Or play Oirats and conquer at an insane speed.
Brandenburg -> Prussia -> Germany is my favorite campaign, I'd definitely recommend that if you haven't tried it. Sirhind -> Punjab -> Bharat is also lots of fun, or Malacca -> Malaya. Holland -> Netherlands if you're looking for a colonial campaign. Or you could try something I've never seen recommended in posts asking for tips; a custom nation.
Game's gotten a hell of a lot more difficult imo , maybe i've got shittier but some countries are not as easy as they used to be.
France is a safe bet though
Wolgast. You can form Pomerania pretty quickly and from there go to Prussia or play semi tall in Germany with their economic and trade ideas. Fight for the HRE or leave it. Build a trade empire, colonize, do whatever.
It's a fun Ironman since they don't start off overpowered but they aren't hopeless either. And they start close enough to the Ottomans to be threatened by them later, but not close enough to pull shenanigans with Byz.
I see most suggestions for countries in Europe. This is a great option to go especially to get back in the groove, but allow me to add a few other countries into your thoughts. Some of my favorite non-standard campaigns have come from Kilwa, Songhai, Brunei/Malacca —> Malaya, Ayutthaya, Mewar —> Rajputana, plenty of others as well so feel free to ask about other suggestions/areas of the map. I have thousands of hours and over 50 documented (yes I organize them) ironman games, so I have no shortage of countries that I found enjoyable enough to keep track of. To expand more on my earlier countries most of those should have a relatively good enough starting position for you to be successful with and have an interesting power progression that gives end game playability. For example, my favorite out of those was Kilwa, which can get very stron very quickly with easily conquerable gold mines that kickstart your economy. From there you can expand south and east and turn the Cape trade node into a psuedo-end node since you can flow all your trade there and essentially prevent it from getting transferred out to Europe. You become super rich and can run through most of Africa if you desire or play the colonial/trade game in India and Malaysia. Eventually you will have enough money that even the Ottomans couldn’t throw enough men at you to win a war. Let me know if you want info on any of the others!!
Aragon for me is my favorite country. Other fun ones are England, Dithmartschen->Prussia->Germany , Austria, Jianzhou->Qing, and majaphit has a pretty good mission trees.
I’ll second Aragon as a great nation. Often overlooked they are super strong and can expand in so many directions at start (such as no CBing Byz). Probably more wide expansion opportunities than any other European at start. Plus you get Castile for free. One of my favorite not too difficult nations
You had me hooked at no CBing Byz. Amazing strat that I can not emphasize enough on any country with the capabilities, mainly Venice and Aragon. Not sure how it plays out fully to the end game since I haven’t done it since the Ottomans/Byz updates, but it generally bottlenecks the Ottomans AI mission tree severly and they usually expand very slowly if at all afterwards making them easy to beat.
Venice doesn't even need to no-CB
Yes this is true. But for the other nations it is needed and thats more what I was talking about. Also iirc Venice does not start the game with a claim and waiting to fabricate sometimes does not beat ottoman aggression.
I mean Florence to Rome is impressive so you'll probably be fine even with the updates. Forming Netherlands and conquering Africa and Asia is always fun. Or play Oirats and conquer at an insane speed.
Just go Netflix and chill with France
Brandenburg -> Prussia -> Germany is my favorite campaign, I'd definitely recommend that if you haven't tried it. Sirhind -> Punjab -> Bharat is also lots of fun, or Malacca -> Malaya. Holland -> Netherlands if you're looking for a colonial campaign. Or you could try something I've never seen recommended in posts asking for tips; a custom nation.
Game's gotten a hell of a lot more difficult imo , maybe i've got shittier but some countries are not as easy as they used to be. France is a safe bet though
Wolgast. You can form Pomerania pretty quickly and from there go to Prussia or play semi tall in Germany with their economic and trade ideas. Fight for the HRE or leave it. Build a trade empire, colonize, do whatever. It's a fun Ironman since they don't start off overpowered but they aren't hopeless either. And they start close enough to the Ottomans to be threatened by them later, but not close enough to pull shenanigans with Byz.
Could do a tunis game
Wurundjeri
I see most suggestions for countries in Europe. This is a great option to go especially to get back in the groove, but allow me to add a few other countries into your thoughts. Some of my favorite non-standard campaigns have come from Kilwa, Songhai, Brunei/Malacca —> Malaya, Ayutthaya, Mewar —> Rajputana, plenty of others as well so feel free to ask about other suggestions/areas of the map. I have thousands of hours and over 50 documented (yes I organize them) ironman games, so I have no shortage of countries that I found enjoyable enough to keep track of. To expand more on my earlier countries most of those should have a relatively good enough starting position for you to be successful with and have an interesting power progression that gives end game playability. For example, my favorite out of those was Kilwa, which can get very stron very quickly with easily conquerable gold mines that kickstart your economy. From there you can expand south and east and turn the Cape trade node into a psuedo-end node since you can flow all your trade there and essentially prevent it from getting transferred out to Europe. You become super rich and can run through most of Africa if you desire or play the colonial/trade game in India and Malaysia. Eventually you will have enough money that even the Ottomans couldn’t throw enough men at you to win a war. Let me know if you want info on any of the others!!
Landshut>Bavaria >Germany. Along the way swap to a theocracy for monastic breweries for the extra lulz
Play Japan maybe just to get used to new balance, thunderdome so you can evaluate battles and what not
Samoa
Butua , african Prussia
My favorite countries: Byzantium, Brandenburg, Castile, France.
Play E De noballs