You picked Huron for your first country ever in EU3? That's like picking Brad Pitt to pop your cherry, you have no chance in hell.

If you need help with EU3, ask anything. I'm a junky.

Vanilla EUIII is an arcade game for pussies, you'll do fine.

Ask me too, I love that game, though as ulytau says it can be manipulated to a certain extent, yes.

I'm currently playing one as Muscowy, and I can say that scorched earth policies do indeed work at kicking out the pesky French.....and the Castillians....and the British....and the Lithuanians, Ottomans, Georgians, Mamluks, Swedes, Bohemians and Austrians....and I'm not even to 1600 :( Good news is I just westernized :)

But seriously, you're nuts to pick Huron. Start out with the tutorials and then go to an easy country, such as Castille, France, England, or Portugal. (but easy isn't cookie cutter easy, because England and France go to war almost immediately. France always wins that one)

Magna Mundi makes EU3 much deeper and more enjoyable yes, there are plenty of mods to make it more realistic. But vanilla is still great fun when you just want to fuck the entire world.

Wait, what's Magna Mundi? I have Divine Wind...

Also, I'm looking into acquiring Hearts of Iron or Victoria this summer. Which is better?

What's Magna Mundi, oh boy, you have much to learn...

White & Sea ;)

Victoria, as long as it's Revolutions and you don't feel bad about cheating for money. I also cheat to keep the map from getting to ahistorical. Sorry, but Britain would not have annexed the Baltic states after the Crimean War. I haven't gotten Victoria 2 mostly because I heard that the AI doesn't follow a historical script. It would bug me to no end to ALWAYS still not have a Germany in 1900.

But yeah, get Victoria: Revolutions and use the cheat to sell hundreds of thousands of aeroplanes in the 1830s. You'll have funds for 70 years easy.

Yes, cheating makes everything better. What?

I've played Victoria 2, and it's fun. I never got into Victoria 1 so I can't comment on that. HoI2 was not my cup of tea, mostly because I'm more interested in pre-modern history and World War 2 games bore me. Haven't played HoI3 yet. I just recently bought Crusader Kings 2 though, and I'm having a lot of fun with it. It's pretty much exactly like th first installment, with minor adjustments. But who cares when I have my Irish homosexual arbitrary spouse-murdering crusader.

HOI3 is more microoriented than HOI2, with the dramatic increase in province count and whatnot (unless you delegate some power to AI; it can handle theatres, economy etc. for you if you wish) but I enjoyed playing HOI2 as some medium power. The spinoffs (Darkest Hour, Arsenal of Democracy, Iron Cross) are interesting as well but only DH is worth buying instead of the original IMO.

Vicky is more about managing the economy, which could interest you if only it wasn't quite fucked up :) But it's a game so who cares. Vicky is probably the hardest main series of PI to get into (I'd say it's EU->CK->HOI->Vicky).

And Magna Mundi is a soon-to-be-released spirtitual successor to the most popular mod for EUIII, Magna Mundi. It tries to make the gameplay interesting no matter your size, because all countries big or small face their own problems, unlike blobs in EUIII, so no World Conquests in Magna Mundi.

I feel the single most important innovation in Magna Mundi is the administrative capability, and why this hasn't been implemented in some way in vanilla is baffling. The basic idea is that the larger your country, the better your monarch and government needs to be, and if you do a Djingis and take over the known world without having the infrastructure to back it up, you're gonna implode.

And yes, I know that they've added "Overextended" in later expansion, but come on. It's a joke.

They also added a wannabe Sengoku in Japan, which was also a joke compared to Magna Mundi the Mod. But frankly, there's so little to do in vanilla apart from conquering that a truly punishing AE system would make the game much less enjoyable to the majority of players. I hope Magna Mundi the Game will make the non-conquering parts of the game much more interesting. And good news for PE: rebel whack-a-hole won't be there!

What are people's favorite countries to play in EUIII or one of the other series? I particularly want to try out Brandenburg in EUIII, as well as Burgundy (I really haven't played too many grand campaigns)

Hordes are fun for a while in Divine Wind, I had a great campaign where I formed a sunni Russia as Golden Horde. Indian nations are always frustrating but fun. I made it a goal to complete as many achievements as possible in EU3, so I replayed good ol' Najd but nearly choked to death when finally I had managed to convert all of Africa, Asia and Europe to sunni and the fucking achievement was bugged and didn't fire. The one I can't finish is the World Conquest with Ryukyu one. I've managed to become a rather large Ryukyu, but not a world conqueror.

I'd recommend Sweden for beginners who don't want the full on kindergarten of France or Castille. Brandenburg is also a good country to learn from.

Brandenburg->Prussia->Germany is one of the most popular routes but since I always play my first real campaign as Bohemia, engaging in the same region is kinda bland. Burgundy is fun since you can do virtually everything, you have rich provinces and an immediately worthy opponent in France. Hordes are fun as well, as Vaft said.

Funny, I would recommend Bohemia for beginners, I think I see a pattern here ;)

Would it be a complete mistake to guess that you might be Czech? ;)

PE if you want to coast your first game in EU3 play France. Virtually impossible to die.

A bit more challenging is Spain, Austria, England, Sweden.

Poland/Russia is getting a bit more difficult...

German microstates are a good gameif you are patient and careful.

I find playing any of the East Indian nations are a lot of fun.

West Indian nations are suicide.

I never got into Victoria2. My list of gripes is long. HOI3 is really quite good.

No, it wouldn't. It would be completely true, actually :)

Actually, Sweden might be an irritating first country if you don't know the game, because you start in a personal union under Denmark (bah!) and have to insult the Dane until he dies to gain freedom. Bohemia starts as emperors if I'm not mistaken? That's probably also a good place to start. Go the czech!

Although I've never actually played them, only taken great pleasure in invading Bohemia...

Yup, 1399 is a great date in this regard, especially since the Bohemian king was dethroned from the position in Empire in 1400 IRL. You can get involved in naval matters later if you wish and you have more venues for expansion.

I don't appreciate your reenactment of 30YW :) Stick to the Baltic and then hooray to China! I always enjoyed when Swedish_Steel! posted his stories of invading China on the PI forums!

I've never heard of this game before but it sounds really interesting! It sounds like Civilization only broader in every sense minus the combat? How can you describe it?
I really enjoyed Civilization - do you think I'd enjoy this game?

It's certainly inspired by Civilization, but has a different approach. It starts anywhere from 1399 to 1820, with a historically correct map. You pick a country and you guide it until the game ends in 1820, with a mix of warfare, colonisation, economical management, infrastructure, tehnology, etc. It's not extremely detailed, but there are plenty of mods that add a lot of extra content. Also, there's already been four (I think?) expansions for EU3 and every single one has improved it in some way, so get them all if you get the game. They're not expensive. Also, EU3 is made in Sweden. Fuck yeah.

Oh ok - cool. When you say warfare, does that include moving units across the map to explore and attack, etc? Technology: is that similar to tech tree advances that you have to research, like in Civ?

The Sweden does inspire me to buy it. I feel like, in a way, buying Swedish products will benefit you - as the wealth trickles down.

Technology is more linear, but every culture has its own tree of military advances.

Yes, you move units over the map. As your technology progresses, your units do too, but the battles themselves are mostly numbers. It does take a lot of strategy to win a war, but there's not a lot of tactics.

The warfare is grand-scale, you form armies by recruiting infantry/cavalry/artillery, choose their preffered type (Hussars/Cuirassiers, nothing major), assign general according to four attributes (shock/fire/maneuver/siege) and that's all, you do not form any formation or command the battle, you can only order retreat once the battle commences (two enemy armies meet in the province).

There is no tech tree, just lineary accruing tech levels. You can prioritoze your investments between government/trade/production/land/naval techs but there's no choosing in the each branch (that's what Vicky has, though).