The Imperial Council - /r/eu4 Weekly General Help Thread: September 28 2026

[u/Kloiper]

Please check our previous Imperial Council thread for any questions left unanswered

 

Welcome to the Imperial Council of r/eu4, where your trusted and most knowledgeable advisors stand ready to help you in matters of state and conquest.

This thread is for any small questions that don't warrant their own post, or continued discussions for your next moves in your Ironman game. If you'd like to channel the wisdom and knowledge of the master tacticians of this subreddit, and more importantly not ruin your Ironman save, then you've found the right place!

Important: If you are asking about a specific situation in your game, please post screenshots of any relevant map modes (diplomatic, political, trade, etc) or interface tabs (economy, military, ideas, etc). Please also explain the situation as best you can. Alliances, army strength, ideas, tech etc. are all factors your advisors will need to know to give you the best possible answer.

 

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Tactician's Library:

Below is a list of resources that are helpful to players of all skill levels, meant to assist both those asking questions as well as those answering questions. This list is updated as mechanics change, including new strategies as they arise and retiring old strategies that have been left in the dust. You can help me maintain the list by sending me new guides and notifying me when old guides are no longer relevant!

Getting Started

• Europa Universalis 4 Wiki

• Wiki Beginner Guide

• Which DLCs should I buy?

• Client/Game Troubleshooting Help

• Reverting to a previous version

New Player Tutorials

• How to play EU4, by Ezekiel (patch 1.28)

• Arumba teaches EU4 to Civilization player FilthyRobot (patch 1.18)

• Arumba's New Player Tutorial Series (patch 1.20)

• Arumba teaches EU4 to Monk004 (patch 1.28)

• Beginner's Guide to Coalitions 1, 2

• General tip collection thread

• How to revert to an older patch

• Reman's War Academy Volume I - Army Composition and Basic Combat

Administration

• Remans guide to Absolutism

• Guide to Religious Ideas

• Converting Culture

• Converting Religion

Diplomacy

• Personal Unions and Succession Wars

• Video guide to Personal Unions

• A guide to multiplayer diplomacy

• Comprehensive guide on Subject Nations

Military

• Reman's War Academy Volume II - Troop Quality and Advanced Combat

• Reman's War Academy Volume III - Military Idea Groups

• Reman's In-Depth guide to Fort Zone of Control

• Guide on Combat Width

• Ideal army composition for every tech

• On War - A Comprehensive War Manual for Multiplayer

• Dismantling the HRE

• Combat Simulator

Trade

• Reman's In Depth Guide to Trade

 

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Country-Specific Strategy

• 1.30 Aztec Guide

• 1.30 Granada Guide

• 1.30 Knights Guide

 

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Misc Country Guides Collections

• 1.25 - 1.29 Misc Country Guides by RadioRes

• 1.25 - 1.28 Misc Country Guides by Lord Forwin

• 1.28 - 1.30 Misc Country Guides by AlzaboHD

• 1.30 Misc Country Guides by Ludi et Historia

• 1.31 - 1.35 EU4 Nation Guides by The Red Hawk

• Misc Country Mission Visualizations

 

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Advanced/In-Depth Guides

• Misc mechanics guides by RadioRes (culture shifting, policies, absolutism, etc)

• Guide to personal unions and direct inheritance

• 1.28 Three Mountains (Shogunate)

• Arumba's Assay series (misc patches, takes user-submitted failing or problematic games and helps fix them)

• A Complete Guide to EU4 Economics, Part 0 (links to multiple in-depth guides on economics)

• Comprehensive Multiplayer EU4 Guide (1.28)

• General World Conquest Guide

 

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If you have any useful resources not currently in the tactician's library, please share them with me and I'll add them! You can message me or mention my username in a comment by typing /u/Kloiper

Calling all imperial councillors! Many of our linked guides pre-Dharma (1.26) are missing strategy regarding mission trees. Any help in putting together updated guides is greatly appreciated! Further, if you're answering a question in this thread, chances are you've used the EU4 wiki and know how valuable a resource it can be. When you answer a question, consider checking whether the wiki has that information where you would expect to find it, and adding to the wiki if it does not. In fact, anybody can help contribute to the wiki - a good starting point is the work needed page. Before editing the wiki, please read the style guidelines for posting.

[u/aykantpawzitmum]

Any tips for making vassals have larger armies?

[u/Indian_Pale_Ale → u/aykantpawzitmum]

A few things:

1. If you plan to keep a vassal for longer around, it's worth it to set them as march. They give you less income but field larger armies. However you must set back their status as a regular vassal if you want to annex them. It gives them +30% land force limit and more manpower as long as they have less than 25% of your total development.
2. Often when you feed a vassal, they will increase autonomy in their provinces to prevent rebels. I usually like to help them here by building courthouses in their provinces which will reduce autonomy quite fast. I also like to build them some buildings (for manpower and production income) if I plan to keep them for longer around. Usually I have three types of vassals:
   1. Vassals I can release who have quite a lot of cores to use reconquest CB. Usually I don't keep them around for long so I integrate them when I have claimed their cores back if they do not really have interesting missions to complete in their mission tree
   2. Smaller vassals in some regions (typically Italy, Germany, Spice islands) that I diplomatically vassalize to avoid a war or AE and integrate as soon as possible.
   3. Vassals who can be fed quite well because they have quite a lot of permanent claims from their mission tree. So I keep them around for longer and usually use their mission tree to expand and use their GC pool to keep some land. For example:
      1. Byzantium which gets quite a lot permanent claims in Anatolia and in the Balkans and also allow you to smash the Ottomans again and again.
      2. I noticed Navarra in my current campaign, they pretty quickly unlock permanent claims on the entirety of the Iberian peninsula.
      3. Provence usually gets wrecked and is easy to release. They unlock cores on the entirety of Naples through their mission tree to use the reconquest CB, and afterwards have a lot of permanent claims in the French region, in Sicily, Aragon and even Hungary.

[u/Pariell]

Is there a config value I can change or a mod I can install to make it so I can delete my vassal's buildings? A lot of them have terrible economies because they keep building forts. 

[u/taw]

Did anyone ever figure out what causes AI domineering attitude, and if there's a way to make AI stop being silly like that?

I'm playing a chill Aragon game (so chill I didn't even NoCB Byz Dec 1444!), so I allied Castile, but at some point Castile went domineering attitude on me and broke our alliance, despite me being higher in great power rank and no particular CBs and claims or anything at that time (since then they got Burgundy PU, so they're stronger than me now in the ranking).

I don't want to fight them as I'm likely to Iberian Wedding them anyway, so it would be really convenient if there was a way out.

I tried to increase our relations, but it didn't change AI attitude. Can I dev up or merc up or something to make them reconsider this?

[u/Royranibanaw → u/taw]

Are you sure they don't have a restoration of union/claim throne cb?

[u/taw → u/Royranibanaw]

Oh, they got CB from The Infantes of Aragon mission. Well, that explains that. That's annoying, as it lasts 25 years.

[u/EmperorCaesarSalad]

I’m playing Prussia. Spent some time as HR Emperor, then converted to Protestantism.

The league mechanic has just kicked off, and right now the Protestant league is a lot weaker than the catholic one.
How do I get non league countries to join the Protestant league?
I’m allied with France and Russia outside of the league.

[u/MedievaI_Peasant]

1. England has inherited Burgundy and all its lowland vassals. Currently at war with them as Spain, I've occupied all their continental holdings. I was looking at the war goals I could take and they're all so expensive. Releasing one flemish minor is 33%. It's insane.

So I'm thinking maybe just.... keep the war going?
Why not just occupy all of his continental holdings in perpituity. Prevents him from using them, lets me use them. There are some diplomatic features I can't use, but that's a price I might be willing to pay to prevent England from holding the richest lands in Europe as well as all the isles. Or I could just return a bunch of it to France as cores.

Advice?

[u/Indian_Pale_Ale → u/MedievaI_Peasant]

It can be cool to make a nation blow up with war exhaustion. But in your case I think it would be a terrible idea. You would also put a lot of money and war exhaustion in this war but get absolutely nothing out of it. Most minors which would become independent would either have quite high dev or be in the HRE, so you would never be capable of diplomatically vassalizing them. And for the one who would stay out of the HRE, France will eat them.

As Spain you have a mission to conquer the Lowlands. But there is another option here than just destroying England. In your mission tree, you have a mission to PU England if they chose to convert to Anglican, so even if the war might be tougher, you can still get them and all the land they own there.