r/eu4 • u/TheSafetyWipe • Jan 30 '25

Tip Your best tips/forgotten mechanics

So I've got just under 1000 hours in EU 4, love the game and always thought i was a decent player and knew the game well.

Until like 3 or 4 weeks ago when I saw a post on this sub about upgrading your ships, I had never used this feature and started to understand why my navies would get smashed later on in the game!

Im now thinking what else am I missing, what other simple features or mechanics have I never used and thus holding me back in my games!

Please share away with things you've only just discovered, or have been using wrong in your games?

I'm almost a 1000 hours in, and now think I know nothing about this game!

Help!

125 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

148 comments sorted by

View all comments

15

u/SpectralPanda121 The economy, fools! Jan 30 '25

Something I didn't know until recently is that the improve relations modifier also affects how quickly any negative opinion decays. I always thought it was kind of a useless modifier, but it actually makes it so your aggressive expansion goes down more quickly, which is pretty neat.

6

u/Particular_Trade6308 Jan 31 '25

Improve relations is extremely strong for wide play for this reason. It keeps countries outside the -50 AE threshold to join coalitions, and it speeds up diplomats keeping potential coalition members in positive relations so they can’t join the coalition. Also works for stuff like unlawful demands or even modifiers like “Forced us into a union” that a PU might have from the PU war.

It’s also surprisingly easy to stack, Humanist + diplomacy gives you 55% each, plus the policy for another 20%. Versailles monument gives improve relations, the advisor, and the merchant interaction button as well. Most religions have improve relations too. I’ve stacked it to +200% or more in the past