Think somewhat overlooked are the Russian minors. Have to fight multiple hard wars vs. Muscovy and little income to recover inbetween, no possibility to raid for income, and whilst you may be able to opportunistically get some horde land when some of them die, it's not a lot and is low development. I would imagine the hardest of them is Beloozero, Pskov or maybbe Oka.

Granada is actually fairly easy, even compared to some other countries in this video. Yaroslavl/Beloozero is where the real difficult starts are

Granada is pretty easy nowadays. It's still RNG dependent compared to Byzantium but the new mechanics, estate privileges, and Castilian starting disaster(s) helps them a ton.

Manipur, Avaria, Dahomey and the Russian opm or 2pm vassals are also valid contenders for the list. Id say the kongolese vassals are the toughest start in eu4 though. You need so much rng and lucky battle rolls to even get started.

Back in the old days, Albania was the hardest start because you started at war with the Ottomans.

I got over 2000 hours played in this game and I like to play mostly outside Europe. My favorite campaign ever was the Granada into Andalusia campaign. The start was awful and everything that could go wrong, went wrong. I managed just barely to escape Iberia into Africa and little by little built my powerbase expanding to the south while Spain conquered my provinces in the north war after war. it took until 1600s that I was strong enough to fight back the spanish and start taking back my provinces. Once I finally completed the re-reconquista, the feeling of victory was immense. I realise I'm not the best player and I dont follow any guides, but that's exactly what makes playing these challenging nations fun. I would absolutely recommend avoiding any guides and just try it out yourself when playing these hard nations.

Note about Mzab- there is a naval doctrine which just straight up lets you raid coasts. If you get that when you only have a few ships and then build a fleet, you will be able to pay of a lot of your loans by raiding your rich neighbors (after you beat Tunis though lol)

Hisn kayfa is Kurdish (which is part of the iranian culture group) all non-endgame tags that have an Iranian culture as their primary culture can form persia or mughals.

Think you should add that this is hardest nations you would want to play, otherwise this list would just be all the Australian minors. Certainly they’re the hardest to stay sane with.

Played as Mzab before, and honestly isn't that hard once you conquer Tlemcen - can usually expand into Morocco or Tunis with the help of an ally (although harder with being Ibadi)

byz being that high is insane imo

As a chill game I like to play the Siberian Minors and just do colonisation. Recently did one to form Cascadia as Chavchuveny and formed a trade league with a bunch of the native american nations, which is something I didn't know you could actually do.

Solid list, especially the part with the Sukhothai blunder. Always with the classic Laith L, dont forget that one 😄

A few things about mzab, since I played them recently: 1. They can actually raid while keeping feudal theocracy with the north African naval doctrine, which helps make conversion and expansion more feasible. 2. Opening with a war against tlemcen is actually pretty feasible. Build to force limit, hire the free company to go 4 over, give out the free 5% morale from clergy, and invite a scholar for 10% shock damage taken/received, and suddenly your troops are able to punch pretty damn far above their weight. They were allied to one of the desert minors in my game, but I had enough time to separate peace them and then win against tlemcen, after which point the run becomes more or less reasonable if you ignore the loans.

Theodoro has a pretty nasty start from what I recall, though it's been a while since I've seen a Theodoro playthrough.

I think it's funny that i'm currently playing every nation A to Z like Redhawk does, but instead I'm even playing the ones without custom ideas too. Not to mention I don't have any of the DLC's. No migration for me when I play natives lol.

trebizond is pretty hard and got harder with the last patch.

Anizah sounds like it's a hard start.. the mamluk's vassal has a core on you and will usually dow you within the first few months.

Been a while since I watched one of your videos. Was kind of surpised by your new hair, it's got a certain kind of Elvis vibe to it. Nice.

I think anizah the Arabian minor that borders the mamluks is super hard as fadl the mamluks subject has a core and nearly every time on the 11th of December they declare war on you and being so weak next to no one wants to ally you

How did you manage to avoid mentioning North American West Coast natives? They have the greatest challenge ahead of them: death by boredom. Also Navarra has access to so many PU's early game, so if you survive it Navarra into Spain picks up France, England, Portugal, Aragon and Austria as PU's from missions... a run I would genuinely recommend!

What about a list of "Surprisingly easy OPM" Nations?

I really like Ainu and in this time they were in a very interesting position, I wish Paradox had a mission tree or something which allowed them to join the sengoku jidai with paths like: Integrating Japanese Culture(Easier to conquer and remain stable) or Ainu Cultural Superiority(cheap Culture/religious conversion). Anything really.

Yaroslavl/Beloozero/Rostov are the hardest starts in the game.

Swear on everything just started a new France playthrough and got through the "first war" taking a break to watch this 😂

the fact beloozero isn't the hardest is a crime

im (partially) ainu so ive given them a try on more than one occasion, i feel like more than anything people just dont care about it-- there are enough expansion routes in manchuria i think its pretty doable if youre ok at the game

I enjoyed it but I think this kind of vid fits better in short form (10 minutes)

My secret kink is Laith using Arab words in his sentences. Idk why, I unironically just love hearing Laith's native Arabic pronunciation.

I have two close contenders: Ladakh & baluchistan

laith, you forgot the native tribe (i forget which one, but i believe alzabo covered it at some point) that literally locks itself out of being playable as one of its missions requires both you to get this government reform but also still be a native government.

The list also differs heavily if you change to hard or very hard. for example athens is not playable on very hard. since the reworks of the ai handeling oppinion the ottomans always hate you and desire your land. you pretty much always die against the ottomans and you dont have enough time to escape. *edit: as naxos you have at least more time to fight for your independance.

Also a Question SS: How do you use development points during the beginning? I usually dump a bunch in the capital to get the renaissance and build a force that can compete with my bigger neighbours but if you have a different strat, im all ears.

The Kongo vassals I believe are usually regarded as some of the absolute hardest to play as in the game, as there's generally nobody to support independence and almost no way therefore to win the independence war.

you put Byz on the list but Athens is not? Another one i've never heard my brother curse as much as trying to survive as Trebizond (making it an empire for achievement)

Everyone's going 'oh, grenada is easy' and like, I don't buy that. I've not found a single way of reliably winning that first war. The alliance situation is generally fucked and in the current version castille basically has no disaster, or at least I've never seen them have even a little trouble easily managing it, certainly they don't lose any significant amount of troops.

I don't think Navarra is as hard as people think it is. When I play as Navarra I alway get vassalised by castille or pu:d by Aragorn(one whith bigger rivals) and then declare independence war whith 2 or 3 strong allies. I personally find Navarra less difficult campain than Scotland. This can be caused only by two different thing either I'm very good at playing as Navarra or I'm extremely bad at playing as Scotland

I don’t think byzantium should even be on the list of hardest nations anymore. If you have a strong fleet of galleys and you barrage the fort in Gelibolu with mercs you can take all of your cores back and then some. I would’ve replaced them w Epirus or Athens.

About maldives, i would assume its as hard as playing kandy, which i did for my kotton kandy and buddhists strike back achievements, which is to say, you need to take what you can then instantly no cb an indonesian country, then expand there (quite easily if i may add, since everyone is different religion to eachother no coalitions will form) while trying to ally someone, which usually will be easy. only issue was manpower due to constant rebels from the 30 or so tags you'll have under you but religious + humanist will be enough to stop that.

We're bringing back Top 10 vids

I am surprised that Theodoro wasn't on this list. Sure, you have Crimea as a relatively easy target for initial expansion, but then what? You're not beating Lithuania, The Great Horde and definitely not the Ottomans. You have a hard time getting any useful allies too. You may get Muscovy, Serbia or even Genoa, but after their war with Novgorod, Muscovy will be useless for at least a few years. And the other two will be mostly useless when the aformentioned three enemies decide they want your land. If you don't ally Genoa, they will usually come for you as well, though they're not as big of a threat. Oh and if you take as much as you can from a 100% war against Crimea at the start, you'll be coalitioned imemdiately with the Ottomans and the Great Horde being a likely member. So you can't even do that. P.S.: Laith, you need a haircut :)

Red Hawk's reaction to this video : "Aight, bet."

One time I played as a Siberian Minor & just colonized Alaska, and used the legendary tactics of "Waiting for the nearby colonizers to fight" and "Savescumming" to survive until 1600 before I got attacked by 2 GPs

wallachia should've been in the list, way harder than either albania or byz

I would like to see a pirate republic game, that sounds fun.

Its wild to me that the armenian rump state of karabakh didnt make the list

I hoped Karabakh would be in there. Sure. I was able to break free from Qara Quyunlu pretty easily and even took two provinces but after that I kinda couldn't do anything because QQ was still strong and I couldn't keep an army three times of my force limit. Also the Ottomans were coming closer and my buddy Ajam abandoned me

Ainu world conquest when

The hardest start. Will be Laiths barber

Mzab is kinda easy, you can declare on 11.12.1444 other minors. Then Tlemcen and later just form Tunis and you're good. National ideas are good

Belozeroo: Am I a joke to you?

I feel like you should have given Athens an honorary shout out with Naxos for all the same reasons. A vassal, opm, who can ally the ottomans to break free only to be immediately murdered by said ally. A Byzantine start with none of the advantages of being Byzantium.

"Top 10 least fun nations in EU4" or how Laith's viewer call it "Laith's next 10 videos"

I think some of these are quite a lot off. I personally do not think Mzab, Granada and Hisn Kayfa was that bad. Granada can get a 3 starred general through the mission tree, which can help you defeat Castille in the beginning. If you conquer the Maghreb you also get a power base. With Mzab it is a bit tricky in the beginning but it should be possible to either ally Morocco or Tunis and use one to beat up the other. Hisn Kayfa was not even hard in previous patches as you could give the Ulemma the religious diplomats with +25 opionion and ally Ottomans and they would curbstomp your enemies for you. Personally i think Perm is one of the hardest starts even if you start with a bit more development, it is in the arctic region it is forest and you are a subject of Muscovy. It is difficult to get support for independence, only Novgorod is easy to get, but Novgorod will not be enough, Lithuania is hard to get to support you, and then you can get fucked over by Poland choosing the union. I think there is also a Congo Basin minor that starts surrounded by Congo and its vassals, Tyo or something like that. That one is supposed to be horrible as well. Candar is another absolutely horrible one, where the only way i have made them work was to do an exodus run. There was no possibility of allying Ottomans or fighting them together with allies, at least with my skill level. Lastly i would imagine that the Ethiopian vassals could also be a pain, as you start in the Horn of Africa, you have to beat the primary regional power in the beginning, then you will need to fight Adal with would be second regional power, and to expand further you either need to fight Kilwa or Mamluks, and you do not start with any good leaders, and you are basically Ethiopia but the extreme poor version of it.

You explained how Mzab is harder than Byzantium, yet you placed Byzantium higher... you said it yourself, so why is Byzantium higher? Also some advantages Albania has over Byzantium is more options to expand, and Skanderbeg. I don't necessarily disagree with you about Albania (you're way more experienced than me), but they are slightly better off in terms of not being encircled Enjoyed the video though, glad to see you're still going strong

24:25 ......well...red hawk did just disagree with that, hard XD

Most of these countries are actually fairly easy. 1-2 restarts until you have the right diplo setup

Remember when Albania started out at war with the Ottomans? Pepperidge Farms remembers.

I miss the old albania now without start date war with ottobros it's just not the same

I’ve played Mzab several times and found it relatively non-rng based. Ally Morocco, use government to get claims on all neighboring provinces, if Touggort has Tlemcen promise Morocco land, if not then just as easy. Could even declare on Tlemcen itself with Morocco if they ally Touggort as you can get the provinces more cheaply, and still full annex Touggort anyway as the land is shit

Should totally play as Ainu lol

Laith, you've no room to say someones an expert in that condescending tone. Granted they dont know their bad.

I have 1500 hours, ive done albania or iberia and the re reconquista, some pretty wild shit, but ive never been able to do anything with mzab, i was tryng to do the third way, but after 50/100 years, even with some luck in diplo and war, either spain or the mamaluks dunk on me really really hard. The only good run, with a unified north africa was stopped by a very very angry ottomans so....😅 the worst for me

For me, i would say, Albania is really easy, but Ardabil is really hard start, specilay becouse qq attack you usually moment they get claim and you can ally only 1 or 2 weak country

where manipur and maldives is fairly easy, just go colonial

Ahh, I don’t know the isles had such a unique and cultured flag

When new Czech Train video

I was with you up until the end, but there's no way Granada rates harder than literally any other nation on this list. You have 3-4 solid routes of expansion, it's usually pretty easy to ally the Otto's. You start with (relatively) high dev and two mountain forts. How in the heck is this harder than Ainu?

Day 164 of asking for an Oranje Free State Playthrough of Vicky 3...It's surprising how long it's been now in retrospect.

idk if byzantium should even be ON here, I'd also say epirus and athens are just byzantium but harder

Pretty sure novgorod, moscuvite princes and anatolian minors gotta be harder than granada, as granada u can just no cb tlemcen and get powerbaye in north afrika

Day 8 asking for a Mega Campaign with Koifish

you forgot rostov you're an opm, vassal of muscovy, have no real route to independence besides a vain hope that poland or denmark will for some reason support your independence (and even then its unlikely you'll get independent) and even if you do get independent you are in the heart of russia which means both that muscovy is going to be aiming for a rematch and that you'll probably still be surrounded either entirely or mostly by muscovy since they've probably eaten up novgorod tver and some of the golden horde by now. and past muscovy, you don't really want to fight anyone else you could be around either.

Where's Tiwi?

Mzab is actually pretty easy. You only need Morcooco and Tunis as rivals and you are good to go. Ally Tlemcen (You can do this on decemer 12 even on hard difficulty) Declare on Touggourt (Use you goverment interaction to instantly get claims on them) Once you've conquered Touggourt and improved relations with Morocco to 100 they should flip friendly, ally them and declare on Tunis calling in Tlemcen and Morocco = easy war. No mercs necessary!

I feel like Ryukyu is the hardest nation in EU4

Please play Sukhothai then make this video again. Getting victory against both Ayuthayya and Ming is ridiculous. Other nominees: Karabakh, Karaman, The Knights, Ardalan, etc

*sad Trebizond noises*

What about Walachia?

When ireland victoria 3 thanks x

Hisn Kafya to Mughals video when

9:10 I would watch that video

I would replace Byzantium with Beloozero.

I played albania once and found it super easy, much easier than byzantium. being catholic I could easily get allies, then call them in to dog pile the ottomans.

Navarra imo is definetly not that hard. You just wait to get under the Aragonese PU (or castilian Vassal) and then ask their bigass rivals for support independence. To me Basque in glory didn't feel that hard just annoying cause you have to fight the same two/three nations over and over again. Plus you get a PU on France down the line and can then just form spain to go gigaPU with Austria etc.

what about Epirus?

Athens?

Hisn kaifa probably shouldn’t be here, allying the Mamluks or ottomans is a cheat code. Haven’t played them, but I would think the little nations next to the timurids would be very hard?

Navarra can get PU over france through missions

Play them all now

You forgot trebizond, theodoro, odoyev and perm

Georgia is way harder than byz. Everybody that neighbors you wants to destroy you, horrible relig unity when trying to expand until you can scrape together enough patriarch auth and relig ideas. Currently working on my 3 georgia ironman and have barely been defeating ottodorks with 30 percent wars with russia, mamluks, and hungary as war allies. Its brutal

Odoyev

What happened to tom

I don't think Siberian minors are harder than the Isles or Navarra. You have no immediate threats and a plenty of time to think of a strategy. I, for example, played colonial Chukchi and formed Alaska. It was quite interesting and not hard. And NO, migrating to Jurchen tribes is definitely NOT the only option.

With Maldives you colonize to survive

So fsr in my experience it is yas and not close.

Yas imo

What? Dude ligor has to be the hardest start😭 why didnt u put it in the vid

Hisn Kayfa can for Mughals because of it's Iranian culture, not really much else to it.