History VideoGame / EuropaUniversalis

** Since 1.31 in 'IV', AI nations release vassals when they are above their governing capacity. This tends to cause absurd situations when a country is at its cap, as it will keep annexing its neighbors, then release them due to a lack of governing capacity, wasting both time and mana over and over again in the process. Castile and Muscovy are particularily bad at this due to their tendancy to respectively release Aragon and Novgorod as vassals, the former wasting the main avantage from forming spain and the latter creating an extremely disloyal and powerful subject.

''Europa Universalis'' is a series of historical [[TurnBasedStrategy turn-based]] / [[RealTimeStrategy real-time]] FourX grand strategy games for the PC and Mac (based [[ArtifactTitle increasingly loosely]] on a licensed French [[BoardGames board game]]). Starting in the Late Middle Ages, it focuses greatly on the Early Modern Period. The games are produced, developed and published by Creator/ParadoxInteractive.

* AlliterativeName: For some reason, Genoa's unique missions in [=EU4=] tend to be named this way.

* ChallengeGamer: These are the guys who do World Conquest with one-province minors. As of ''III's Divine Wind'', the current challenge du jour is to do it with Ryukyu while remaining true to the Animist religion.
* ChallengeRun: Trying to play as a one-province minor (OPM) that is next to a larger neighbor, such as Bar, which is sandwiched between Burgundy and frequently its first call for conquest, or any of the Irish minors. A popular project is to try to take one of these minor states which are generally swallowed up in the first decade or so of gameplay and turn them into world-conquering empires! The biggest example is the "Three Mountains" achievement from [=EU4=]. Your goal is to conquer the entire world--every single province--as Ryukyu, a tiny nation merely consisting of the island chain between Taiwan and Japan. This was possible in earlier patches only through ''extremely'' heavy bug-exploitation pulled off flawlessly (achievements require the game to be in Ironman mode, where one can only have one save file at a time). With recent patching out of these exploits, it may now be literally impossible.

** Calvary start out much stronger than Infantry, but by end game the firepower and low cost of infantry make them much more useful (and the way math is done on flanking helps as well). Both of them also pale before the sheer obliteration wrought by [[GlassCannon Cannons]], so much that you might find your Infantry as merely [[JustForPun Cannon]] [[WeHaveReserves Fodder]].

** A positive Piety as a Muslim nation gives military bonuses.

* TheComputerIsACheatingBastard: depending on difficulty level at least. Some nations in ''EU III'' are also "lucky" and get extra bonuses (though this can be turned off).

* UnfortunateNames: Leader and heir names are taken from a set of names given to a certain culture, barring [[http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1194795691 random events about superstition]]:
** [[https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/878629064258069041/393CD14529FA6B5A646D85F344F26EC730215548/ Burgermeister Assmann, anyone]]?
** How about [[https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/888762797958373400/5E8921C965355D018B36F2672BB5564E1242129F/ Antonius Van Voorst tot Voorst]]?

* GreatOffscreenWar: For ''IV'', the Crusade of Varna is and the major players in eastern Europe all participated and it''s actually like the first domino in a massive chain. The Crusade of Varna was essentially an attempt by Poland and Hungary AND Croatia (all 3 in a Personal Union), Serbia, Lithuania, Moldavia, the HRE, the Pope and the Teutonic Knights to curb the Ottomans' expansion into Europe. The war was lost after the Polish-Hungarian-Croatian King Wladislaw was killed in the Battle of Varna. The Crusade itself practically shaped the political landscape of Eastern Europe for the rest of the game as this list of the after-effects will attest:
** Destruction of the Hungarian-Polish-Croatian Personal Union. King Wladislaw of Poland was granted the Crown of Hungary and Croatia with the Pope supporting him on the condition he joined the Crusade of Varna. The crusade didn't go so well and since Wladislaw died heirless (he died in Varna at age '''18'''), what would've been a PU between Hungary and Poland (Croatia came packaged with Hungary), was gone.
** The Hungarian and Polish being in Interregna at the start of the game.
** Hungary electing Matthias Corvinus and kicking off the rule of House Hunyadi which later culminates in the Austro-Hungarian Union. A Hungarian commander, John Hunyadi, distinguished himself in the Crusade. He later went on to grow powerful in Hungary, eventually getting his son, Matthias Corvinus, elected King of Hungary. Later, Hungary was inherited by 2 Jagiellions (without PU with Poland) for a short while before finally landing in the hands of Austria (because the second Jagiellion king agreed to hand the kingdom to Austria if he died without issue, which he did when he drowned in a river)
** The Polish-Lithuanian Personal Union
** The Truce between the Ottomans and much of Eastern Europe at the start which caused the next after-effect
** The Lack of Eastern European support for Byzantium in the Siege of Constantinople

* EndOfAnAge: The end of the medieval ages and feudalism. One of the songs in ''EUIV'' is even titled "The End of an Era".

* OffTheRails: Many [[AfterActionReport AAR]] writers consider it mildly distasteful, even in a gameplay AAR, to make [[{{Munchkin}} blatantly gamey and]] OutOfCharacter moves like converting the Ming to Shintoism or turning the Timurids into a republic. Others, conversely, run with it and pile on the [[ShockingSwerve Shocking Swerves]] for the lulz.

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/europauniversalis_6772.jpg]]

** Tax income vs. trade income. Early game, how much taxation your land puts out is your primary source of wealth, while only a few countries actually have enough control of a trade node to be making any signifiant income from it. However, as you conquer the other nations in your Trade Nodes, take trade benefiting ideas, and get more Merchants, a much larger portion of your money should come from trade. [[TruthInTelevision Especially if you colonize in Asia]].

** Korea is a lesser example, with two mountain provinces separating its peninsula from the Ming to the west and Manchu tribes northeast. Since a unified korea is only a tertiary power at best (without extensive development or colonization) these provinces are often used offensively, baiting the nearby tribes to take penalties for attacking onto mountain terrain and losing their shock bonus from flatland. This allows Korea to more easily expand to the north through its more militarily powerful northern neighbors

* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: ''II'' plays ''significantly'' different than ''III'' and ''IV'', which are far more similar to each other. Rulers are pre-defined, census tax not only is a thing, but provides main source of income early on, there are no advisors, structures are far less numerous or nuanced, regiments aren't even a thing, mercs are pre-definied and only accessible in Europe... the list goes for quite a while. Most importantly however, cultures and cores are fixed and can only be changed via events, while religious conversion takes forever and is by default unlikely. [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking The map is also far less detailed, being adopted from a board game]].

** Republican Dictatorship, while ostentiably a republic, has ruler elected for a life term and, unlike the king in Nobles Republic, having an absolute power, rather than being a figurehead to bend over to demands of the nobility. This makes it a republic solely in it's name and the only thing that differs from actual monarchies is lack of royal marriages. If mishandled, it will devolve into an Absolute Monarchy (which oftentimes is beneficial).

** [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlightened_absolutism Enlightened Despotism]] is a government form in ''III''. You still have an absolute monarchy with all the power, but putting a friendly facade to the regime, along with following the ideas of the Enlightenment... of course the ones approved by the monarch. This allows to [[VillainWithGoodPublicity drastically decrease your infamy]], making it easier to survive on international stage after large conquests.

** It is worth noting this action is also heavily ''discouraged'', especially in ''II'' and ''III'', where native population is added to province pop once the colony turns into a town. In some cases, this can provide a new town with a whooping population of 26 thousands - something that would be otherwise simply impossible to achieve within the timeframe of the game. ''IV'' eventually added a bonus to trade value scaled with native population when colony turns into a province, but in intial release, it wasn't present and extreme measures were the only sensible way of colonising at all, as there was simply no benefit for keeping natives around.

** Governors in ''II'' are those if your country isn't an OPM and thus has to build them in multiple provinces, rather than just a single one. Each governor building provides +1% to population growth (per decade), +1 production income (which in ''II'' is ''a lot'') and the magikarp bit of it: 0.25 decrease of yearly inflation. However, the amount of provinces with governor was compared with total number of provinces in your country, decreasing the anti-inflation value accordingly. But if all of your provinces had a governor, a ''whooping 25% of your total income'' could be put directly into your coffers ''without any ill effect''. This in turn allowed to stop relying on annual tax income, along with massive increase of money reserve, allowing to build military, improve infrastructure, send merchants to far away places and colonise like crazy.

** In ''III'', the various basic provincial decisions on their own don't look like anything important or powerful, providing minor, almost invisible bonuses... but those quickly add up together. Most countries start as feudal monarchies, with tiny amount of magistrates provided per year. But with extensive passing of two provincional decisions, "Build post office" and "Expand road network", one keeps gaining +0.01 of ''monthly'' (rather than yearly) increase of magistrates. Pass 8 of those and you gain additional magistrate each year. Pass 50 of those[[note]]And the 25 provinces needed to do that isn't even that much, being roughtly the size of France or Spain[[/note]] and you gain a magistrate ''every other month''. This in turn allows to just ''spam'' decisions of real importance, like "Enact Land Reform" or ones with nation-wide effects. If done early on, this quickly turns into DiscOneNuke. And of course, both post offices and roads provide their own bonuses to production and trade - even if small, they are still a cheap increase of production and trade efficiency.

** The Timurids (once Timur himself dies) are prone to rebellions and other woes even by horde standards. Successfully reform the government into a proper kingdom, however (or better yet, form the Mughal Empire), and you've got a powerful nation with mountainous terrain that can be a nightmare to invade, access to multiple high-value trade zones,''and'' lots of potential for colonization, with Africa and some Pacific islands close by.
** Generally, any large nation in Asia or Africa if you adopt institutions soon enough. By the time european colonizers start knocking on your door, even an intermediate player can easily push back their fleets and armies, and many nations are well positioned for a colonial empire of their very own (Kilwa, Indonesian and Indian tags, China, and Japan can use the Europe-pointing trade nodes in their favor.)

** The Cossacks DLC (released with patch 1.14) was infamously broken. It introduced new, back then paid content - estates. They weren't fully functional until entire string of patches under 1.14.x numeral, until eventually reaching 1.15.1. Estates were behaving randomly and pressing new demands each month, punishing everyone for refusing their demands, while AI was handling out privileges like candy during peace time, ending up criplled economically and military for no real reason. Things were so bad that the titular cossack estate, intended to be limited to steppe provinces, was possible to simply install whenever, while still displaying the tooltip about steppes.

** Release 1.31 (Leviathan) was no better. Just to name a few: horde ideas giving a bonus that gave ''+100% conversion speed'' [[note]] as in, provinces are converted in ''one month''[[/note]], North American natives constantly joining and leaving federations, extremely unbalanced buffs from monuments, crashes when hovering over some native Australian government reforms, one naval battery disabling piracy in the whole world, going over government capacity as a stateless society giving a bonus rather than a malus, broken announcements, placeholder art still being present for the sikh religion and, perhaps most egregiously of all Majapahit, ''which is the name of the free release'', being completely unplayable without the DLC due to having no way of preventing the "Collapse of Majapahit" disaster that will without fail kill you.
*** 1.31.1, coming just a few days after, corrected some of the most major glitches and did some rebalancings... [[DoubleSubverted unfortunately, this hotfix itself introduced new glitches]], including Ming spontaneously exploding, and especially a very dangerous glich capable of wiping out savefiles outright by erasing every single nations in the game.

** Colonisation in general throughout the series. In ''II'' and ''III'', you can easily control and dominate global trade without as much as having your single, starting province[[note]]And it's actually beneficial to stay small, since technology cost is related with your country size[[/note]]. While everyone else is busy settling out wilderness in Americas and Africa, pouring money into it, you are siphoning the profits. All you had to do was discovering the location of [=CoT=] for that part of the world. ''IV'' tried to shake things up, but the end result is that all you really need is dominating in European trade nodes to steer the trade into your home node and you don't even need to explore for that. If this wasn't enough, colonies are easy to conquer and low value in peace talks, so [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch-Portuguese_War pulling Dutch]] is very easy to do.

** Whoever is colonising Hudson Bay in ''IV'', it shouldn't be the player. This is a starting node in trade and has only a single outlet. Any country tying resources there, including a potential colonial nation, will end up having only one choice with generated trade: send it forward. Hudson Bay is predominately a frozen, barren rock populated by angry natives, so thanks a lot, [=England/France/Scotland/Sweden=], for doing the hard work of setting up trading posts there!
*** Similarly, Australia and New Zealand are best left to the AI. The only exception would be playing as a nation from the Malacca strait area and gearing for maximum profit from as early as possible, rather than waiting two centuries for European colonisers, but that's about it.

** Most major powers at the game start are highly balkanizable, and even medium nations like the Teutonic Order (can have the highly valuable trade port of Danzig released as independent) and the Livonian Order (can lose almost a third of its land if Estonia rebels or is forcibly released) are not immune. Furthermore, as the game goes on, almost any nation that becomes a major power will inevitably wind up with cores of conquered nations that can be released in war or rebellion.

** In ''II'' and ''III'' had a slider for how innovative your country was. The more narrow-minded and orthodox things were, the more missionaries and [[CultColony colonists]] you get while easily placating the masses with relgion and tradition, but all of that at a ''steep'' research penalty, which easily outweighted the benefits of being narrow-minded. Further pronounced in various non-English releases, where the narrow-mindness is most often featured as [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obscurantism obscurantism]], suggesting actively going against any sort of inquiry, particularly the scientific one.
** Claiming the title of the Defender of the Faith in both of those games allowed to easily and effortlessly go on "defensive" wars against "invading" heathens and heretics... at just as massive research penalty. In fact, combining even moderate narrow-mindness with [=DotF=] meant a research penalty in range of -25%, up to maximum of -30 (in ''II'') or ''-45'' (in ''III''). Any culture group that wasn't Latin had own, innate research penalty, which when combined with religious factors could go as far as outright ''prevent any technological progress'', while a Latin country going full into religion had research on par with some backwater in the steppes of Central Asia - if not ''worse''.
** Muslim countries in ''IV'' face a choice that may seem strange: gain negative piety (representing sufi mysticism) and gain military bonuses and missionary conversion strength... or gain positive piety (representing strict adherence to islamic religious texts) and gain research, tax, and technology bonuses. Declaring war on neighbors of the same branch of Islam as you increases your mysticism, and declaring on others increases your legalism. It's often beneficial for countries to start off with mysticism to strengthen their early conquests and assist in conversions, and then move towards legalism once most conquests are completed and the bonuses suited towards running/centralizing a state are more useful. There are a variety of events that shift your piety in either direction along with other bonuses/penalties, and anyone reading them will quickly realize that the 'best' choice from the players moral perspective can easily lie on the mystic or legalist side.

* BribingYourWayToVictory: Some gameplay [=DLCs=] in ''IV'' make it much easier to obtain certain nation-specific achievements. [[note]] ''Mandate of Heaven'' allows Ming to have tributaries, which is the easiest way of having subjects; the ''Kow-Tow'' achievement for Ming is to have a subject from each of the 5 religion groups. ''Third Rome'' allows Russian culture nations to slowly colonize uninhabited border regions; the ''Relentless Push East'' achievement is to own the East Siberian Coastline as a Russian culture nation by 1600. [[/note]]

* ChallengeRun: Trying to play as a one-province minor (OPM) that is next to a larger neighbour, such as Bar, which is sandwiched between Burgundy and frequently its first call for conquest, or any of the Irish minors. A popular project is to try to take one of these minor states which are generally swallowed up in the first decade or so of gameplay and turn them into world-conquering empires! The biggest example is the "Three Mountains" achievement from [=EU4=]. Your goal is to conquer the entire world--every single province--as Ryukyu, a tiny nation merely consisting of the island chain between Taiwan and Japan. This was possible in earlier patches only through ''extremely'' heavy bug-exploitation pulled off flawlessly (achievements require the game to be in Ironman mode, where one can only have one save file at a time). With recent patching out of these exploits, it may now be literally impossible.

** Discipline determines how much damage you take and receive, while Morale acts as a meter until your break and lose the battle. In the early game, breaking a units morale (rather than killing them all outright) is much more common. By end game the sheer damage of high Discipline armies (such as Prussia and their [[TabletopGame/Warhammer40000 Space Marines]]) means that battles are over before either side breaks morale.
** Tax income vs. trade income. Early game, how much taxation your land puts out is your primary source of wealth, while only a few countries actually have enough control of a trade node to be making any signifiant income from it. However as you conquer the other nations in your Trade Nodes, take trade benefiting ideas ideas, and get more Merchants, a much larger portion of your money should come from trade. [[TruthInTelevision Especially if you colonize in Asia]].
*** In more recent patches (1.30) of ''IV'' the above dichotomy continues but Production income has been shaken up quite a bit. New monopoly estate privileges can be granted on specific trade goods. You receive 80% of the income those goods would have generated over the next 10 years up front and gain 1% mercantilism. These deals can be renewed every 10 years as well for more ducats and mercantalism. Since mercantilism is an extremely good modifier as it helps increase trade income, it's common to issue monopolies on up to 6 trade goods early game and keep them going until your mercantilism is maxed or nearly maxed. This makes production income less important but still worth upgrading if it's right before a new monopoly, as you'll get all the benefits from the upgrade right up front.
*** This was an even bigger issue in ''II'' and ''III'', where tax was collected ''annually'', rather than monthly - you had to manage your budget for a whole year, with income generated only on 1st of January of the new year. All while cores and local culture (which were event-spawned or result of costly, decades-long investments) played big role in the percentage of collected tax, often reducing it to nothing. Trade, on the other hand, was accounted monthly, while unaffected by cores, ownership or cultures, all while being the only meaningfully way to fund research. However, in early game most of the map remains unexplored, so you are stuck with a small handful of centers of trade (or even just one) and have to compete with your neighbours over them, making profits often below expenses of sending and then maintaining merchants, all while lucrative monopolies are both tech-locked ''and'' quickly destroyed by fierce competition. This means focusing on taxing at least provides you a solid source of income that can't be removed from your coffers short from being conquered. But the more of the map gets explored and the more trade you could access, the less important land taxes become.

** PlayedWith in ''Heir to the Throne''. A severely weakened France gets frequently eaten by Burgundy or by its minor vassals. However, since the Burgungians are French as well, and the FinalBoss tends to end up either France or Burgundy (and sometimes Burgundy changes into France after taking all the French provinces)... ''Divine Wind'' seems to try for more of a middle ground.

** For military leaders, it's movement. Explorers can spend longer periods at sea (and thus explore more or even shrug off effects of a storm), conquistadors become almost entirely immune to attrition, admirals have easier time positioning their ships or escaping pursuit, while generals can easily overcome low support value of the enemy province, preventing attrition damage even during winter and allowing bigger armies to operate. For comparison, shock and fire are just a flat bonus to a dice roll and technology matters far more during combat, while siege bonus is only revelant before introduction of artillery, aka very early game.

* ObviousBeta: New patches often have some things that can be exploited or minor bugs, but some have stood out as almost completely broken.
** The Cossacks DLC (released with patch 1.14) was infamously broken. It introduced new, back then paid content - estates. They weren't fully functional until entire string of patches under 1.14.x numeral, until eventually reaching 1.15.1. Estates were behaving randomly and pressing new demands each month, while AI was handling out privileges like candy during peace time, ending up criplled economically and military for no real reason. Things were so bad that the titular cossack estate, intended to be limited to steppe provinces, was possible to simply install whenever, while still displaying the tooltip about steppes.

* AlwaysSecondBest: In ''IV'', the Mamluk sultanate is this to the Ottomans, due to the Ottomans having several mechanical advantages. [[note]]The Ottomans can gain Empire rank simply by conquering Constantinople, while the Mamluks have to either form another nation with Empire rank (usually Arabia) or gain enough land to reach 1000 development ''and'' accumulate enough prestige. By forming Arabia, Mamluks also lose their unique Mamluk government type, while the Ottomans' government type gives them substantial bonuses, including an additional maximum of 3 states, the best bonus in this category after the Russians' unique Tsardom government. In addition, the Ottomans only have to worry about the Mediterranean when it comes to ruling the seas, while Mamluks have to split their fleets between the Med and the Red and Arabian Seas.[[/note]] Ironically, they start 1444 as the world's second-ranked Great Power, while the Ottomans are third.

** Muslim countries in ''IV'' face a choice: go pious and gain military bonuses... or go inpious and gain research ''bonus'' for being secular.
* BewareTheNiceOnes: Several peaceful minor countries at the beginning of the game can become world powers by the end. For example, Portugal, even under the AI, can become a force to be reckoned with due to their [[BystanderSyndrome unwillingness to get involved in Europe]] and their [[TruthInTelevision proclivity towards colonisation]].

** As of the release of ''EU IV'', the Big Blue Blob is back with a vengeance. Due to the variable nature of the game, they can still get beaten up on occasionally, but they're one of the games most consistently powerful nations.
* ChokepointGeography: When appropriate. Terrain and the layout of provinces tends to channel armies into certain paths...

* CorruptChurch: All religions provide events where you can increase your piety at a cost to your wallet, your dynasty or your subjects. Catholic and to a lesser extent, Orthodox Christianity provide events which imply outright corrupt acts. "Reformation Desire" is a sort of {{Karma Meter}} based on how corrupt the Catholic Church is - and the higher the score, the more dissidents start to form Protestant and Reformed Christianity.

* CursedWithAwesome: A border with any Horde state means they automatically declare war on you every five years. An inexperienced player would see this as a significant challenge (especially when considering the War Exhaustion mechanic and its tendency to cause massive revolts). An expert player sees this as a great opportunity to gain land, prestige, Imperial authority, or similar. A popular tactic is to acquire a border with Golden Horde as an HRE state (the easiest is Bradenburg/Prussia), and since winning a war as the Emperor gains authority, it's a surefire means of instituting the reforms needed to eventually unite the Empire.

** In ''IV'' monarch points are veryimportant, but diplomatic is definitely the least important stat. Administrative and military points are both very important to expanding and is used for useful technologies, while diplomatic is neither (except integrating vassals, who are typically situational).
* DystopiaIsHard: Suprisingly averted in ''II''. Going full narrow-minded, with harshest serfdom possible and actively using religion to back-up your goals, be them on domestic matters or against your enemies, is the easiest and most efficient way to go for global conquest and heavy colonisation. Add to that going fully decentralised state, where the ruler is a figurehead and every province does what it feels like doing... and it's even ''easier'' to conquer and maintain global domination. Your own population at large is too stupid, too beaten-down and too indoctrinated to know better, while nobody can oppose a country that can churm-up dirty cheap infantry in droves. Stability and war exhaustion are both non-issues, despite normally killing dead any conquering force, while the sheer number of troops possible to command means anyone stupid enough to declare war to oppose your evil empire is just making it easier for your own conquest, as technically, it was them attacking you, so everyone is content with defending their horrible homeland against would-be invaders.

* ImperialChina: The Ming dynasty. The foremost world power in the game's start date of 1444, with more provinces and a higher population than any other nation in the world. Make sure to keep the Mandate of Heaven though, [[ThisIsGonnaSuck or you'll]] [[BalkaniseMe go the way of Yugoslavia]].

* LandOfOneCity: Commonly called One Province Minors, or [=OPMs=] (strictly speaking, all [=OPMs=] aren't ''actually'' lands of one cities -- many provinces are large enough to in reality have several cities in them, ''but'' all one-city lands are one-province minors, and in game terms one province=one city).

** Germany starts out divided into [[UsefulNotes/HolyRomanEmpire dozens and dozens of mostly one province little countries]]. Conquer the right ones and you can gain the option to form Germany which can quickly become one of the most powerful countries in the game. Do this early in the game before Spain, France, Russia, and Great Britain have formed and you easily have THE most powerful country in the game.

** Generally, any large nation in Asia or Africa if you adopt institutions soon enough. By the time european colonizers start knocking on your day, even an intermediate player can easily push back their fleets and armies, and many nations are well positioned for a colonial empire of their very own (Kilwa, Indonesian and Indian tags,China, and Japan can use the european-pointing trade nodes in their favor too.)

*** Coptic Christians get to select a new Blessing for every holy site (out of a possible five) under their religion's control. The Ottomans [[GameBreaker take the "difficult start" aspect out of the equation entirely,]] though; they can deliberately spark a religious rebellion early on to convert over, then stomp the Mamluks to recover the holy sites not already in Ethiopian hands, subsequently becoming much more powerful than they would be if they stayed Sunni.

*** Ibadism is much less present on the map than its sister faiths Sunnism and Shiism, with as few as 3 nations practicizing it in 1444. However, if you get past the inevitable EarlyGameHell, it comes with a powerful economical bonus that will allow you to snowball faster in the midgame, and it can invite scholars from any school of islam. Since all three Ibadi nations are often annexed within the first 40 years of game time, you can also become the defender of the Ibadi faith with no penalties beyond the initial cost. While bonuses are minor when there are only 1-4 ibadi countries, they are decent with 5-9 and quite nice with more than that. Since you likely be spreading the ibadi faith to your vassals and buffer states, you won't mind being called in to defensive wars where they get attacked either.
** The ''EU IV'' achievement "Ideas Guy" is based on deliberately invoking this with a custom nation: You get to create a custom nation using 800 points (the maximum allowed) but can not start with more than 3 total development (the least possible), which means that the vast majority of those points can be spent on getting incredibly overpowered national ideas. But since nearly all of those national ideas only get unlocked later on in the game, your nation will initially be among the weakest in the world and you need to manage to survive the first 100 years or so before you really start to reap the benefits of your powerful ideas.

* MustHaveCaffeine: controlling 20% of the world's output of Coffee gives you the benefit "Trading in Coffee", which greatly speeds up how quickly new Institutions (the Renaissance, Colonialism, Printing Press, etc…) spread throughout your land. Coffeehouse philosophers and all that.

** In ''IV'', Muslims get bonuses for being very pious ([[TheFundamentalist determined armies]], easier conversion of infidels) or very impious ([[BeliefMakesYouStupid faster technology research]], more manpower), but not for being in between. There is a 'consolation event' giving you a free stability if you remain in the middle, however.

* DumpStat: In ''II'', diplomacy skill of your ruler is virtually meaningless, especially if below 7 (on 1-9 scale). The only thing it truly affects is the amount of badboy decrease per month, at -0.05 per point. In ''III'' and especially ''IV'' the stat is far more important.

** Generally, any large nation in Asia or Africa if you adopt institutions soon enough.

*** Ibadism is much less present on the map than its sister faiths Sunnism and Shiism, with as few as 3 nations practicizing it in 1444. However, if you get past the inevitable EarlyGameHell, it comes with a powerful economical bonus that will allow you to snowball faster in the midgame, and it can invite scholars from any school of islam.

** In ''IV'', Muslims get bonuses for being very pious ([[TheFundamentalist determined armies]], easier conversion of infidels) or very impious ([[BeliefMakesYouStupid faster technology research]], more manpower), but not for being in between.

** Generally, any large nation in Asia or Africa if you westernize soon enough.

* NoPointsForNeutrality: In ''IV'', Muslims get bonuses for being very pious ([[TheFundamentalist determined armies]], easier conversion of infidels) or very impious ([[BeliefMakesYouStupid faster technology research]], more manpower), but not for being in between.

* HeartIsAnAwesomePower: Diplomatic reputation in ''IV'' represent how earnest and competent your diplomats are. This in turn translates into increased chances of AI joining your cause, be it call to arms, forming an alliance or becoming your vassal (and being integrated ''a lot'' faster and cheaper). High enough, diplomatic reputation might make a nation immune to disloyality of subjects and makes staging uprisings and rebellions against senior impossible. [[TruthInTelevision Unsuprisingly]], Austria excels at this, as not only does it have a ton of diplomatic national ideas which can be combined with Diplomatic and Influence ideas, but it starts out as Emperor of the HRE and is very easily able to stay that way. You can end up with a personal union over Bohemia and Hungary in the first 30 years of the game, and later have the same with Castile and Poland while also reforming and unifying the HRE to become ''the'' superpower of Europe without even conquering any of your neighbours.

** Similarly, Trade Depot is '''the''' most sought after building in the game[[note]]to the point of people cheating just to provide AI with it[[/note]], that also shows up with low tech requirements. Trade depot adds +1 to trade value of the province, at price of 75 ducats. ''Per province''. This means an entire Center of Trade can greatly increase its value, especially in sparsely populated areas that produce low-value goods, suddenly making trade lucrative.

** For military leaders, it's movement. Explorers can spend longer periods at sea (and thus explore more), conquistadors become almost entirely immune to attrition, admirals have easier time positioning their ships or escaping pursuit, while generals can easily overcome low support value of the enemy province, preventing attrition damage even during winter and allowing bigger armies to operate. For comparison, shock and fire are just a flat bonus to a dice roll and technology matters far more during combat, while siege bonus is only revelant before introduction of artillery, aka very early game.