EU4 Basics - The Ultimate Guide to Buildings | Which are the best buildings in game | Tutorial

Here is a comprehensive guide to Buildings in EU4. Not an exciting topic per se, but buildings are often misunderstood and players tend to spend disproportionately to what buildings give in return. I hope this guide can help newer players understand the buildings mechanics better!
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Trade Basics Guide- • EU4 Basics | Trade Gui...
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[@RadioRes]

Couple of commenters pointed out a mistake in my calculations (thanks sjoerdo and fabian). Temples ROI won't be 25 years. But the strategy to build them first still stands because- 1. They are the earliest building available and thus have the chance to produce most income over time 2. The game has way more tax efficiency/national tax modifiers compared to production efficiency. So tax is going to be the main source of income till at least mid to late game, and giving it a slight boost early helps. I will reiterate two points from the video, since lot of people seem to be saying otherwise. Trade buildings are VERY situational; most cases they will be a net loss for you. And mercs are literally the best ROI you can get for your money, IF you use them properly.

[@ngoc-vuhoang5273]

Most of your points are right, but you think too much about profits. This is a war game, not a trade game. If you only look at it in turn of money and ROI, you only see half of the picture. The right approach is when playing a specific country, you have to think about how much income and balance that it needs to supply its wars. For example, as Muscovy, if you only build churches that improves more than 0.2 income, you will have a lot of difficulties in supplying your massive army, even if you delete all your forts. To have a comfortable muscovy game, you must continue to build churches until your income is about 30 - 35 and the balance is about 10-15. Basically, every church with 0.1 improvement in income is worth building. Otherwise, a Muscovy game will be quite unfun when you always have a huge deficit when you go to war. You are also right about trade buildings, they are a net loss before the factories become popular in the game. But when a trade value in the node reaches 40, and normally a trade node has about 1000 trade power in total, then 5 trade power gaining from building a market place on a lv 1 trade center is equal to 0.2 income improvement (will be bigger if taking account trade efficiency or trade center at higher lv). So it's basically a church that you recommended to build. This income will even be multiplied much more with trade steering mechanic. You can argue that you are planning to annex the whole node anyway. But that is that reason that trade buildings exist. It gives you the power to make profits from a node without making a costly war for it. And this is very important in MP games when it's hard to have absolute control over a node. Even in SP games you can't annex every node instantly, it's a long process that is limited by ae, manpower and gold. So trade buildings are still a great way to go around these limits to improve your income.

[@willedubber4375]

Your point nr2 here on why to build temples is completely wrong. The tax modifiers are additive, which means that the temple bonus is independent of other bonuses. Your national tax modifiers and whether tax is your main source of income is totally irrelvant. I really like that you've made this video though, thanks a lot!

[@RadioRes]

Only 20% of tradepower propagates. Its still not enough to warrant the initial investment, if you are playing a regular wide game.

[@RadioRes]

As I mentioned in the video, tall play and MP games are different. The reason I chose to mention ROI for evaluating buildings is because its the only viable way to measure their effectiveness for all countries. Your Muscovy example is not ideal. You can play Muscovy that way if you want (but its not how you should). If you wait for your income to grow using temples, its going to take a LONG time before you can get a bigger army. Like I mentioned, the easiest way to get more income is to get more provinces.

[@ArkTolei]

First, as others have mentioned, trade power is an offensive weapon. Any trade power you have is making everyone else poorer, potentially in a massive area. Let's say you're in in SE asia, with your primary trade port in Malacca. You have 2 primary benefits. First, until you take over Bengal you will have a sizable chunk of your trade devoured by countries in the Bengal region. I have over 600 trade power, and yet 9% is still getting taken by just downstream provinces. Nobody has any ships or provinces in Malacca except me. I have over 800 personal development right now. Getting control of Bengal is not a "general gameplay" expectation anytime in the early game for a SE asian country, and more local trade power means more income staying at home. If you don't conveniently start the game at an endpoint for trade, trade power is important to keep trade at home. Next is neighboring regions. If you have control of the provinces in a node like Genoa, the English channel, or Malacca, you propagate upstream to 4-5 regions simultaneously, and those regions are controlled by your most direct rivals. I have 47% of the trade power in Siam, pulling 3.37 trade out of the node (which will then be further multiplied) without a single ship, and the majority of that is coming from downstream centers of trade with marketplaces. Canton only has 3 provinces with centers of trade in them, so even with Ming embargoing me I have over 100 upstreamed trading power stealing over 3 ducats directly from my biggest rival. I then get another big chunk out of Ming from the Hangzhou node which is also adjacent. Stealing those ducats from an enemy has a multiplicative effect, simultaneously benefitting me, and hurting them. Developing Genoan provincial power pulls trade out of Iberia,France, africa, and venice (via ragusa). Given that the English channel also pulls from france, it additionally pulls money away from England. Getting to the point where you aren't directly hurting enemy income by developing genoan provincial power requires annexing most of europe (including england) and northern africa. I think you also undervalued manufactories. Manufactories give income twice, because goods produced directly increases production income, as well as increasing the trade value of the province. Unlike a 40% tax modifier that doesn't benefit from other modifiers (the point you made about the plethora of tax efficiency modifiers is actually a point against the value of temples, not for), a straight bonus to the base goods produced scales with production efficiency, trade efficiency, and trade steering, all of which will be scaling naturally throughout the game making temples less and less significant over time, while base production gets more powerful. Mercs are a very poor return on investment except in the rare cases where you need them. Conquest has very slow returns, and building a single merc that you use for a year does very little to speed up the conquest, in addition to costing 1/3rd of a buildings worth of money. Building a barracks isn't great ROI, but if you're outside europe and need to build up your capital to spawn institutions, a barracks in your capital can give a couple thousand manpower for 100 ducats or less, and that's a way better investment than 3 mercs for 1 year. In the niche case that you need mercs to accomplish some objective, you hire them, but generally you're better off picking more manpower efficient battles, in which case the limiting factor for conquest is admin/diplo power and claim speed.

[@cromagnonac]

The main reason I overbuild is because I have cash just piled up so I want to feel that I'm doing something with my country

[@KC-up7hf]

I'm doing a Milan>Italy game and commandeered the Venice node in like 20 years, so I made it my eternal mission to fill every building slot for this exact reason.

[@joshschilmeister1934]

@@KC-up7hf I mean if you're italy ROI barely matters because you're right next to two end nodes, and are within striking distance of the channel, Constantinople, and sevilla. No wonder they historically merc spammed, they were rolling in dough.

[@Dell-ol6hb]

KC19 yeah as Italy i have so much disposable income that I just spend it on buildings to make even more money. Universities are amazing as Italy because then you don’t need to spend extra monarch points to increase buildings slots.

[@harishsundararaman8495]

Yep and if I have too much money lying around, the game will smell it and give me some shitty spend money event.

[@brianvieane3907]

If you have too much money spend it and keep a treasury when you really need it.

[@WeAreTheSHWE]

I'm still going to build marketplaces because I like seeing the trade power value go really high

[@chrisfederspiel9638]

If I have any sort of functioning navy, I will build one Shipyard in a province I don't care about for the repair speed bonus. It's useful during naval wars and when you upgrade your ships. Decent benefit for little investment.

[@TheAndrew1987]

i like to build it in my trade capital

[@djosjowa8433]

Forts have a lot of other benefits you didn’t mention: reduce your devastation faster to protect prosperity, prevent negative effects from rebels when they occupy a province, make sure enemy armies can’t run around in your country which gets really annoying once you get big.

[@goksir5845]

Fun fact: Native forts can be built in the same province as normal forts. This means you can theoretically achieve a level 10 fort as a native, by conquering a level 8 fort and moving capital there.

[@paxromana1841]

I was trying to imagine how more defensible a Star Fort is with some wooden palisades around lmao

[@Flash4ML]

Every little bit helps :D

[@joujou264]

13:09 Nope, a single mercenary that you keep around for the entire 400 years would cost you more than building a manpower building.

[@KVPMD]

Also it looses you professionalism

[@RadioRes]

Lol you don't just keep the merc around for nothing though. You use it to get more provinces. More provinces >> any building.

[@DaDARKPass]

@@RadioRes Yeah, but what if you run out of provinces to wage war against?

[@abhishekab1]

@@DaDARKPass Also, MP recovers quickly with MP buildings, also just using mercs is not viable early game as they are too costly. So building MP buildings is situational and not completely useless

[@abhishekab1]

@@RadioRes Tagging the champ as well

[@trueblueclue]

I'm going to build a cathedral in choice places for the roleplay.

[@dajayjay7372]

I played over 1000 hours in EU4 and I'm still building way to many buildings, as I learned today. I'm shocked :-) . Thanks for the video

[@ivofena83]

Buildings are very useful.

[@alexeyamosov664]

Well, this is why we love Eu4, doesn’t we?

[@judebreheny3925]

Military buildings are *SO* powerful when you're playing wide. You can increase your force limit by 50 without even owning all the british isles. It's also very nice to have a decent 50k manpower reserve cos running out of manpower can grind a blitzkrieg down to a gruelling slug through mud to finish a simple war.

[@brianvieane3907]

Barracks are better than the forcelimit buildings generally. You gain forcelimit through expansion development, tech, and ideas then you are limited by what you can afford so it doesn't matter when you have 150 forcelimit of you can't afford it, it gets harder when artillery is added to armies as well. For majors it's good but you literally can do what you want as a major so it doesn't really matter it's just easy mode.

[@pgtv14]

Brian Vieane I definitely use barracks more than army fl buildings, but naval fl buildings are sometimes essential if you're going for a naval-focused game. They're also useful for spamming light ships to dominate trade.

[@redhunter8731]

I have been playing 1,400 plus hours and I actually learned a lot from this guide. Which just goes to show that you never stop learning in this game.

[@Nosirrbro]

Yeah I’ve got just over 1000 now and learned quite a bit of useful information from this too

I still do believe it makes a lot of sense to build trade buildings in CoT-Provinces. (That being said I often play trade focused nations.) There is also some value to them even if you are already have very high control of a node. My main three arguments are: 1. Trade power propagates so you will get bonuses in several nodes. 2. Missions based on trade power can be very strong. 3. Trade is a weapon. In contrast to all other forms of income, trade money you make is NOT made by other countries. You can starve nations out, which usually thrive on trade - this softens them up for later.

[@GreenDayGA]

René Wuttke as the netherlands i was super rich but really low army force limit and i wanted to defeat france. So i took like 500 trade ships and destroyed france income and from that point i could easily make them bankrupt in one war

[@yeetdeets]

@@GreenDayGA That's why I fill my naval limit with light ships. Piracy in Constantinople is a hell of a weak point for the Ottomans.

[@grzegorzbrzeczyszczykiewic7878]

this was the best tedtalk I've ever heard

[@beanburrito4405]

Courthouses and Town Halls are actually pretty OK now; you need them if you want to curb the recently introduced Governing Capacity mechanic effectively, after all. Always place them in high-State Maintenance provinces if you’re playing wide and are short on Governing Capacity

[@hanneslundin346]

VERY good editing! I love that the channel is growing so much! Best of luck on your great journy of being a youtuber!

[@cyrusthenotsogreat744]

@Hannes Lundin Hey man, I feel really stupid for asking this, but what is your profile pic? I've been seeing it everywhere, and it looks really familiar, but I just can't seem to remember. If you can help me with my blank out that would be great!

[@hanneslundin346]

Just A Guy Named Cy I can understand that you are confused, this icon is the same icon that Maximilianmus, a 2 million sub youtuber, uses. The reason why a lot of people are using it is because Maximilianmus uploaded a video where he said he would take over the internet by making everyone having this icon, and it kind of worked. I mean there is no comment field without a Maximilianmus! Also Maximilianmus made the famous song Oh Yeah Yeah, so if you see someone saying that in comments, that’s also a guy in the Maximilianmus cult! Btw the reason it looks familiar is unknown to me, but I also find it really familiar!

[@cyrusthenotsogreat744]

Thanks, maybe I was thinking of Nero from the Matrix?

[@karolswieboda1781]

@@cyrusthenotsogreat744 The guy on profile pic is a character from old Deus Ex

[@joshuasims5421]

Great guide! Thanks for the attention to the basics.

[@Meander_]

This guide should be simple Don't get any techs so you don't get anything but forts. Which will be featured in another guide ofc.

[@horstschlemmer9578]

Great guide, I learned a lot. Just want to add that while the furnace unlocks at admin tech 21, you only start to get coal provinces once the enlightenment has spread in you country. So it is a very late game mechanic.

[@fawaadathar8837]

Thanks! 5 and a half minutes in and I can tell that this will definitely be helpful

[@wischfulthinking]

Still coming back to this

[@n0nchalanc3]

I think the worth of buildings varies quite a bit depending on play style, which nation you are playing and (in the case of trade buildings and shipyards) whether you are a coastal nation or not, but even taking that into account I disagree with a number of your points and think you neglected to take some things into account. - Marketplaces are better than Temples imo, especially considering that their output can be greatly improved by manufactories - Manufactories are also useful for helping to gain the bonuses obtained for trading in particular goods (i.e. -1 National Unrest for trading in Wine) - Marketplaces are more useful for most nations than you make them sound, especially when your home node is either inland (where trade ships can't be used to boost your trade power) and non end nodes. You also failed to take into account that they propagate trade power upstream. I do agree with you though that they are overbuilt by a lot of newer players (and by the AI) and should only ever be built on provinces with a COT or estuary - Shipyards are useful in that they raise naval forcelimit which is useful in being able to spam out trade ships to make more money

[@RadioRes]

Marketplaces are not useful. You have to understand trade mechanics to get the right idea.

[@lamename2010]

The thing with manufactories is that they bypass the penalty imposed by high autonomy in territories. They directly affect goods produced without autonomy affecting it, so you will make even more money from trade. It's what allows those screenshots of several thousand ducats landing in the genoa trade node to happen. This also makes it worth it to build in colonies, since you can direct trade from there to your home node.

[@1EthanCC]

Courthouse/townhall are useful for playing Prussia or anything else that lowers your governing capacity a lot, the reduced governing cost helps deal with the lowered governing capacity and penalties for going over. Universities are one of the most important buildings if you're planning to convert a save to vic2 since they give literacy after conversion.

[@hadimali6392]

Thank you!

[@ndestr0yr]

Production buildings are useful because they boost returns on trade and can help with acquiring strategic goods modifiers. The trade mechanic in this game is full of odd and complex abstractions, but basically your trade power modifier allows you to pull ducats out of thin air based on your share of trade, the incoming flow of trade ducats, and the amount of goods produced in a given node. I'd say the tier two production building is a worthwhile investment if you use it on the right provinces. As for trade buildings: you're right about not building them, but that's only the case in end nodes. It's totally possible to turn Novgorod into the most valuable node in the game (by making good use of production buildings), however all the downstream nations will suck away a significant portion of that trade money if you don't supplement provincial trade power with trade buildings. Trade buildings may not have the best ROI, but in my opinion it's better than watching your hard earned trade money slip through your fingers and end up in the hands of your enemies (who will gladly build trade buildings in any given province).

[@gibbcharron3469]

I think the thing with forts requiring upgrades to produce Army Tradition is working as designed, as a way to incentivize expansion and reward efficient economic development.

[@grimshark274]

Thanks man i just bought eu4 and the in game tutorial for trade sucks the video was very helpful

[@nashiffuadkhan9817]

I love your guides!

[@Lehmuska]

Something to consider in regards to manpower buildings. What if you're at merc cap? Or just play wide, but mostly in trade company land. In both these cases you might run into a problem with basic reinforcement from attrition even if you only use your own manpower for cav & cannons. But that's a highly specific example that's not really the case for most campaigns.

[@jakal1988]

First i need to say i really do enjoy your videos and the DLC popups now are really great even i have all DLC's i really do understand the value for those who don't have all and how much work it costs you to do that. Even you are a much better EU4 player than i am i still have to disagree in some points as long as you are not playing very wide. When playing wide or even going for world conquest indeed you are right better keep money for merchs and get new provinces to increse your income when you don't get short time ROI on the buildings. Otherwise you gonna fall behind more and more over time as everything get more expensive (advisers, fleet army) but i agree on tier 2 tax and production builds even i usually have so much spare money that time of the game so i build them anyway. You say trade buildings are very situational and yeah i agree that it depends on your plans with the trade node (conquer or not) and the location (end node or not an endnode and how many nodes it can steer to and from how many nodes it recieves trade) So it's actually just a few different ways. If you are not sitting on an end node even you own all provinces in my point of view you want to get as much trade power as you can get (of course just in provinces with modifiers) and aswell don't forget some of the trade power get steered upstream aswell. That don't just increase the percentage you can keep aswell it helps you to increase the money going into that node and so the total trade value.

[@waxerproductions9340]

I would love guide to genoa, though ik you already have one on venice. Great vids btw, love em.

[@RadioRes]

Thanks! Genoa has been on my list for sometime now. Will get to it sometime soon!

[@martinchernev]

bro i was so wrong with my buildings ;=: tnx for the help :D

[@decorn2542]

Thanks

[@Donnerbalken28]

I have a minor, debatable nitpick to make: In the case of counting houses, you don't take into account that by the time you can build them, not only you usually have a ot of production efficiency modifiers and manufactories, as well as more overall development in the provinces where you want to build them, plus they are cheaper in the provinces where you can build them where you already should have built workshops. They usuall still make their money back by 1820 and turn a decent profit.

[@raphaelmauny3945]

What you say on market places is true but only when you have total control over the node which is not the case early. So i definitely think your advice is wrong because you usualy don't have trade hegemony over a node until mid game. You miss a lot of ducats early by not building them in trade center provinces, 3 market places on trade centers or estuaries are way more valuable than 3 +0.2 taxe in most of the situations.

[@redhunter8731]

Depending on play style and nation it is pretty easy to gain control of trade node. Expanding is easy if you do it correctly. It is a question of ROI as he said, and when the buildings unlock. Will you not have control long enough for them to make you a profit? I doubt it if you are playing aggressive. If however you are playing tall, then I could see it.

[@raphaelmauny3945]

​@@redhunter8731 It's not a building you build in every provinces, if the province have a trade bonus then it's worth in almost every case because you will gain way more from trade. There are only few provinces with trade modifier per node so the cost of a lvl 1 building is meaningless and provide way more income than any other lvl 1 building. If you build market place every where obviously it's a mistake but not building any is also a waste. Plus it's not about being worth on 100 years it's about increasing your income, and most of the wealth on EU4 is trade.

[@RadioRes]

Nope. You have to understand that trade works only in percentages. The absolute value doesn't matter. So once you have high enough % trade power in a node, adding more absolute value trade power won't make much difference. And if you are playing a SP game, you will expand quick enough that ROI for marketplaces will be negative.

[@redhunter8731]

@@raphaelmauny3945 the point is you have to make your money back or it isn't worth building the building. And you typically don't.

[@MDP1702]

@@RadioRes I don't know, I often am blocked from controlling a node by an ally, hre, very strong nation, ... Especially the good european nodes. In these cases the first trade building can be definitely worth it.

[@Spawnofktulu007]

Do any buildings have any impact on Grand Campaign saves? I wasn't sure what exactly gets ported to Victoria II. I know the University helps Literacy but I wasn't sure if that was it.

[@RadioRes]

That's an excellent question! I've never tried it myself but I don't think buildings will make any impact when converting saves between games. IIRC province dev is the only thing that matters.

[@RobsRedHotSpot]

Great video as usual! I disagree about trade buildings. Not all players blob in EU4. When I play as England, for example, I might play until 1820 and never take a province on mainland Europe. Your assessment makes sense if you're going for a World Conquest, but if you're going for a historical outcome, roleplaying or simply want to play without conquering all your neighbours, trade buildings plus expanding centres of trade will make you very powerful in the medium and long-term.

[@lord6617]

If you have a very active naval game and don't want to invest in any of the naval ideas, both of the naval buildings are pretty useful. It doesn't take long to push your naval force limit, and if I take coastline provinces before the AI builds docks for me I generally start to hurt with sailors.

[@arulshankarum2512]

Radio Res.. can we have a proper complete guide on 1)how to completely prevent the religious war 2) how to actually expand as Brandenburg.. I'm seriously struggling as everytime I play, they ally the Danes

[@bjornsalz8022]

Arul Shankar as Brandenburg you can just ally the Danes yourself, then Attack someone who is not allied with the Danes and then Attack the guy you wanted to attack

[@sandman8115]

Dismantle the HRE and form Prussia :D, there wont even be a league to join

[@matthewmcneany]

​@@bjornsalz8022 Option 1 - Kill Poland. Just like in real history there should be no shortage of people willing to help. Option 2: Take diplo and Humanist for your first two ideas and just feast on German OPMs, with +80% to improved relations your AE will melt away. Still don't try to grow too fast in the HRE if you're a newish player Just get some decent allies and wait for a chance to strike.

[@psychic_beth]

There's a guide on Reddit that's pretty good, go to /r/eu4's Imperial Council thread and you'll see a Brandenburg guide for 1.27 (still works in 1.28 though)

[@matpl8769]

You can stop religious war in HRE if there is not a single elector that changed his religion to Protestant or if you had already passed Proclaim Erbkaisertum reform (of course you need to be HRE Emperor to do that, I wouldn't count on AI Austria ;) ). You have to do this before 1550. I haven't try to do this as Brandenburg, it can be rather hard. It's quite easy as an Austria, you should probably try Austria first to learn HRE mechanics.

[@fuzzygenius]

I'm glad to see someone else who understands trade buildings! They are so situational and rarely truly the best option. Thanks for the great video!

[@shantanugodane4654]

Keep it up 👍 !!!

[@matthewmcneany]

If you have the modifier Sufi shrine then building a courthouse is a decent idea as the autonomy in those provinces might never fall if you're always at war.

[@petergama6074]

Well I like to mix 40% merchs and normal in mid game and also improving economy with workshops manufactories and churches it all goes well together when ae is a issue

[@unovasfinest2623]

I like doing the workshop + manufactuary to get the modifiers from dominating production. Like gemstones to take down the inflation i get from taking your ducats in war

[@vicentereacts1304]

I always go for the triple threat: church - workshop - manufactory. And, when the province is a center of trade, marketplace - workshop - manufactory

[@jankaufmann1174]

Hey could you make a guide on mercaneries?

[@user-xo9ig8kc3u]

What guide? Literally just spam the undead merc hordes whilst timing your bankruptcies for truces. EU4 is the most complicated brainlet game ever.

[@dnjj1845]

owning all the provinces in a trade node may not be enough for trade power, esp late game. Countries with high trade power downstream with a lot of modifiers can still significantly interfere. If you own a province with natural base 10 or more trade power, I think it's always solid strategy to build a trade building there.

[@TheSpanishDon1]

It's not about profit it's about potential. When u buy a temple it means u can maintain 1 more infantry unit which could be very useful early on and because of that 1 extra infantry u could conquer more land improving ur economy even more.

[@charliebainbridge5852]

but if you saved the 100 ducats you could go to war build a merc instead then disband after the war

[@Vincrand]

What about the faster global trade institution spawn from marketplaces? Also if you don't own large parts of the downstream trade notes, then the AI will be able to pull a lot of trade value out of your notes. For example: in a a game where I owned every province of the Ragusa and Venice trade note. I only had about 52% trade power in the Ragusa trade note because countries in the Genoa node were pulling trade and a lot of the HRE were pulling to the Wien trade note. Aside from this you can also look at additional trade income as income that isn't going to your (trade-)rivals. I do agree that churches of a better ROI than workshops in the early game, but manufactories + workshops generate a lot more income. So I usually only build churches if I have at least 3 building slots or if the trade good is bad and the base tax is high. The church will give your money back earlier than the workshop, but the workshop will generate more over time. Aside from that if you develop your small provinces that have like 7-9 development you can make them in provinces worth building stuff in. I often end with a lot f 4-5-1, 5-4-1, 1-4-5 and 1-5-4 provinces. I give those to the clergy and nobility. In these nobility provinces you can get enough manpower to make it worth in my opinion.

[@banosisbest4976]

Were you playing venice or serbia or ottomans? I could explain it to you

[@charliebainbridge5852]

What about trade company buildings? and trade centre levels? also wouldn't trade buildings be the only building to deprive nearby nations of their trade by taking their trade power?

[@trueblueclue]

The way I see it is if you're going tall or inland/HRE or in TC regions you won't expand into marketplaces are fine. But outside of that they're weak. If you're blobbing out you'll eventually control the trade nodes anyways and all you need is a merchant to steer.

[@marcustulliuscicero5443]

The best use for cathedrals is to built them in high dev/high autonomy provinces. For example, in a recent game I hold still disgustingly heretical Erz, which sits at a lofty 35 development. In those they even hit RoI within a few months. It would take me 33 months (at 3.0% missionary strength) to convert them, at a cost of 120.52 ducats a month. By building a cathedral loyal missionary strength rises to 6%, converting the province in 17 months. Meaning that 16 months of missionary work is saved, equalling 1928.32 ducats. That's an extreme RoI. Also, you'll always build 5 Universities for Age of Absolutism as it's one of the easier requirements to fulfill.

[@nestooooor]

Nice vid man, can you do a guide on Serbia (the Lazarus achievement)?

[@RadioRes]

Its on the list! Thanks!

[@icedogg111]

Hey, could you do a video about edicts? Thanks

[@RadioRes]

That would be very short video. I'll see if I can get enough material on it.

[@andriyfadyeyenko4907]

@@RadioRes I beg to differ, I use edicts all the time and I can verify that they could easily be the subject of a 10-min video

[@banosisbest4976]

@@andriyfadyeyenko4907 Not really man, many of them are occasional, and having an edict allways on a state is a bad idea unless its the tradepower one only on some centers of trade or the manpower one if you play VERY TALL and make whole states designed for manpower (which i do for tall prussia, or as i call it 1810 germany)

[@andriyfadyeyenko4907]

@@banosisbest4976 manpower everywhere while slackening recruitment standards or in a big MP war, autonomy in an area with multiple gold mines (couple of those in Africa and the Americas), institution spread for a good 30 years if an institution is being particularly slow, trade as you said. The age-specific ones can be amazing as well: -5 unrest is pretty great when expanding, and the devastation reduction is really useful when trying to play tall in India.

[@trueblueclue]

My rule for temple building is .1 ducats and above in the early game and mid game. Only taking into account base values, it pays itself off in just over 80 years.

[@Giganfan2k1]

Question: Playing in Ethopia campain I usually go Economic > Quality so I can play a little tallish so I can spawn my own instutions. Most of my provinces are... Low dev. But I get lots of Ivory, gems, coffee the good good. I always assumed temples are good for places with high tax base. But workshops are good for low dev high ticket items. Am I wrong?

[@yeetdeets]

Hes talking out of his ass on the Temple vs. Workshop thing. Both are just straight up income, where workshops scale with Manufactories and some events which raise or (rarely) lower the value of trade goods. The Temples don't improve unless you develop with admin points. I'd buy workshops if they give 0.2 ducats a month, same as temples. That's about a 40 year ROI. You can check out the Trade Goods page of the eu4 wiki for the events I mentioned.

[@oktayozdemir2617]

You say that you will probably replace these buildings, but there is no building to replace them.

[@aidantonk4099]

Now that courthouses affect governing capacity as well in the new update, how good are they now? When should they be built?

[@hubeargreat7212]

To a degree I feel that using self sufficient ROI as a measuring stick to determine whether to build a building is partially flawed. There are other factors to consider when determining a what building to use your slots for. You also left out the fact that a manufactory is a good idea in high autonomy provinces since goods produced is not affect by local autonomy.

[@KY-dg8gp]

production building > tax building, why? Production efficiency rises with your tech level, Tax efficiency is flat. So if you have to choose, build a workshop first because the income rises with the tech level.

[@Ensivion]

I think the buildings don't necessarily need to return their investments to be useful but in general, I do agree with most tier 2 buildings being nearly useless. In tall campaigns, the number of ducats PER MONTH is important, you can sustain a larger military while still netting ducats. They also allow you to do something about too many ducats in the short term, so that stuff like really expensive conversions/rooting out corruption becomes easier.

[@TheRealOnlineAcc]

Trade building are useful, because it helps you to get global trade faster. Without trade builiding it takes a lot of time, because your provinces don't hav enough trade power to trigger more powerful growth modifiers.

[@Kazyumi]

Can you consider the Trade Company 'buildings' (introduced with Dharma) in a follow-up vid?

[@RadioRes]

I did a short one when Dharma came out, check out the portugal guide!

[@Kazyumi]

@@RadioRes must have missed it thanks for pointing it out!

[@Wright1331]

I disagree with you on a few things in this video, especially the buildings that give manpower versus hiring mercs... If it gives over 500 manpower build it!

[@brianvieane3907]

I didn't really start making barracks until 1000 hrs into the game. And used to merc spam and be low on manpower too often. Even if you are wide they are still good because you generally are rolling in ducats after 1650 no matter where you are in the world. So it's just good

[@cacetao53]

@@brianvieane3907 I'm never rolling on ducats, what I'm doing wrong?

[@brianvieane3907]

@@cacetao53 trade and economy booms in the 1600s

[@brianvieane3907]

@@cacetao53 workshop+manufactury is King. Then you have to steer trade to your home trade node and send light ships to protect trade from where u are transferring

[@brianvieane3907]

@@cacetao53 think of investing as how much can it support your army. Think of a 0.2 gain can support 1 inf. So for example in .y early Moldavia game for Dracula's revenge achievement. I'm in truce with people. I'm struggling for money have like 4 total gross income. I'll give a territory with a bad trade good like cattle/grapes to clergy make a church and develop once or twice in tax. That literally gives O.3 ducats. Which is good early game. Also arumba says that light ships actually make their money back the fastest. Like 3 to 5 years

[@HermesHall]

Getting a market in your home node COTs still makes a lot of sense even at 100%, due to trade power propagation: It might be only 20% of trade power, but it gets propagated to multiple feeding nodes which are probably not under your full control, so the benefit is 0.2*#Direct Feeding Nodes in the first step. Just looking at direct feeding nodes this means between 100% (5*20% for Channel) to 60% (3*20% for Venice) in end nodes. This propagated trade power would otherwise have to be bought by buying and maintaining(!) light ships, which cannot be sent to nodes further downstream instead, reducing the number of dominated nodes (and thus extra merchants).

[@RadioRes]

Propagated trade power does not transfer to multiple nodes. Only immediate nodes.

[@HermesHall]

@@RadioRes Right, thanks for the correction. So there is only the first step - however the examples are still correct since i only looked at the immediate nodes there...

[@jjerich3]

Speaking of mercs, could you do a guide on how to efficiently use mercenaries? I always feel like they are too expensive or that I don’t know when I should be buying them. Usually by the time I run out of manpower, I’m already broke so I can’t afford them.

[@crocworks]

I build Courthouses and Statehouses for the governing capacity help when I'm going super wide trying for a World Conquest. Going over governing capacity means increased core-creation cost (among other penalties), so once I'm in the mid/late game and money is not a priority, I start spamming these buildings to try and keep my governing cost low. (idk if governing capacity was a thing back when this video was first made)

[@Skikdii]

How to build church

[@benry007]

When playing tall is a courthouse worth it so that you can have edicts in all your provinces?

[@vejolta]

i just look at what gives the higher green number. i always build manufacturies when i have the money too.

[@lampshade87]

Bro I love your videos, but can I ask why you never play with achievements in your guides? Is it a mod or are you changing the difficulty level?

[@RadioRes]

Its so I can use the camera panning console command. Also its way more easier to go back to a save and grab footage and screenshots in a normal game. I did a ironman video for Granada when 1.28 came out if you are curious. Thanks :)

[@WinnieTehPoop]

This is nice to know. Can you do guide for achievement "animal kingdom" for Manipur?

[@RadioRes]

That one is interesting! I will take a look. Thanks.

[@JonnyQuest4000]

I prefer not to use mercs because I like to build up professionalism over time. Probably sub-optimal, but I like having an army that punches above its weight. The reason I will spend early on the game on buildings that aren't quite as optimal is that they game seems to generate events that punish you for carrying a large balance. Early game those events don't seem to spawn if you keep a balance below 500. Late game you can get away with a bit more it seems. Or maybe it's my imagination?

[@chomes8048]

If you are blobbing and planning to play late game, you definitely want a courthouse in every single province to lower the governing capacity and allow you to state most provinces on your subcontinent. The difference between no courthouses and all courthouses is huge. We are talking 20+ provinces with 0% autonomy instead of 90% and all of the income, manpower and force limit that comes along with that.

[@vhhawk]

Cannot wrap my head around the column to the left of the +.20 ducats column (your example at 2:26 timestamp). For temples, Romagna row, this reads 0.45+0.20. What does the 0.45 signify?

[@KVPMD]

How much it currently earns. And the +0.20 is what it will earn additionally by building the church

[@abrvalg321]

4:38 you do as part of it flows up. So even if you have 100% control you can get more and make neighbours more poor. 7:20 counting houses are good if combined with manufactories as bonus multiplies and you get the value twice (production + trade) don't prioritize temples over workshops unless it's grain/fish/wool. With time production becomes better and better as you accumulate bonuses. While taxes just suck.

[@mex_I.M]

Temple in gem provinces are great. Also u will build it in some gold provinces too. Also dont forget that +3 for great temples MS.

[@IvanIvanov-gb5zx]

if i build a church in cibola does it incrise the 5 ducats

[@theRealJohnWayneGacy]

When I click the buildings tab I only see the building options for that province. Is this a dlc where you can see all possible locations and the best ones in one menu?

[@spatrk6634]

probably paradox is notorious from putting quality of life updates behind a paywall.

[@knifepony]

Can you make a building guide for MEIOU and Taxes?

[@alexekelmans1945]

Could you make a guide for the Sons of Carthage? I had to restart 4 times to get the achievement.

[@nox5555]

Eat north africa and eygpt and let ottoblob or france beat up spain for you.

[@metehanberattukmen3278]

Radio res Can you make a guide for Savoy to Sardunia-Piedemont?

[@RadioRes]

I want to do that one! Someday soon :)

[@eniotanaka2229]

Well, i haven't done the maths but: Markets are good in TC, you will often need that power as you can't declare on anyone Barracks are good if they give like 1k more manpower Temples are rarely profitable in my games. Hardly i can get more than 0.13 ducats from a medium province

[@trueblueclue]

.13 starts to pay for itself at around 65 years (100 base/.13 divide that number by 12. This includes the time it takes to build the Temple.) Ofc that isn't counting any modifiers you may have that boost the income further. That isn't too shabby. My rule is .1 ducats and above if I have more then 100 years left in game.

[@XsaraPL]

I have a different point of view at buildings - for example, they give me more monthly income, which translates into ability to upkeep more troops/ships without going into a debt. You can take 1000 ducats as peace deal and lose it moment later when some stupid event pops up, monthly income stays. Also roleplaying - I like to be a world producing leader of some goods :) it gives bonuses too.

[@RadioRes]

Winning wars don't just give you 1000 ducats. It gives you more provinces which means MORE monthly income. More than you can get from any buildings.

[@ttoh4uk994]

Which version do you use?

[@tinpham6413]

OMG New lesson to study

[@RadioRes]

pop quiz next week

[@decorn2542]

Please could you do a Hungary video

[@tigrecito48]

so if mercs are much better than most buildings is it better then to have mercs raised for war and no standing army at all to save money for those mercs?

[@samrobertson7535]

Implying I won't have infinite ducats by like 1600

[@bertbauer2631]

You can see how many dukats per month a building will give you if you build from the left side menu. A courthouse in a high dev province can pay off more than a temple in a lesser dev province.

[@brianvieane3907]

I feel like early game/mid game instead of roi thinking it's better to think about how good is it to support an army. So 1 inf costs 0.2 ducats a month so even a church and an admin dev once helps support that. I do it when I'm boxed in as a smaller nation first 50/100 years like wallachia/Moldavia/some hre minors until you can make you big moves. Like it's good too have a treasury but if you have 300 ducats lying around the first 50 years just buy a church. Shit even take loans. For them at time some nations starting income is like 3 ducats. So have to start somewhere.

[@MrCLUTCHPANTS]

Thanks for less math. Genuinely. Can’t watch a eu4 guide without feeling like Zach galifinakis counting cards in hangover

[@GaladorLP]

when you said buying mercs instead of manpowerbuilding you missed, that thy can be 1. more xpensive and 2. lower your army proffessionality. as i try to get that up to 100% early on i never take mercs until really needed

[@RadioRes]

Professionalism isn't that strong mechanic. You can just win wars easily and earlier with mercs.

[@letsplayleo]

Well now i get why my Persia trade note is so weak even though i have a level 3 trade building in every province... I really thought the trade buildings would actually increse the trade value of my node in Persia, not the amount of influence i have in it... FML, i could have been swimming in money and probably have done a world conquest... If i just build some more manufacturies + workshops (only build them as 3rd or even 4th/5th buildings which means many provinces dont get them)...

[@Damo2690]

Wait...you built them in Every province not just CoT?????!?

[@bruce285]

I'm new and I'm a bit confused by the fact that states versus territories was not discussed at all. 90% local autonomy seems to make all buildings useless - except for workshops and markets where the province is in a trade node you want to steer upstream somewhere you're collecting, especially (perhaps only) if the local trade good has a decent value and the province has trade power bonuses. Where possible, these areas should be given to trade companies. In any other case, the only reason for spending AE and MP on annexing and coring territories would be to form land bridges to more lucrative provinces which you actually want to make states (or for WC/border porn). Am I roughly correct or is there more to it?

[@danielbylund8937]

TLDR; why build buildings when you can blob? but seriously, I´ve put in about 1000 hours atm and boy have I wasted a lot of ducats. Seems like almost all of the existing buildings need some kind of rework if they are basically only worth building if you are playing tall. You earned my sub with this one btw :)

[@rikpien2925]

Do not forget that having just that little more market share or production couls give you a trade bonus But yes, there is not much of a redeeming factor otherwise...

[@ZaoJin]

I’m sorry but I have to disagree on a couple things: - you 100% build a marketplace on estuaries or CoTs unless you already have like 80-90% power in that node, or somehow have no need for trade propagation - manpower buildings that give ~500 are worth the cash when taken early or when manpower is otherwise an issue - you forgot to mention that the upgrade to tier 2 buildings only costs half as much in provinces with the tier 1 variant already present. by the time you get the tier 2 upgrades the base level building has more than paid for itself and the upgrade. The argument about how the lateness of actually get those tier 2s sort of debuffs their effective earnings is a fair point, however One more thing: it is extremely worth taking loans for manufactories if you’re playing steppe hordes or other brokeass nations that can only eat trash lands. The classic “florrynomics” strat of taking out a ton of loans and constantly restructuring debt you never actually plan on paying off may not be as OD as it used to be because of the interest reduction cap change, but it’s still very much a thing, and in this scenario taking loans to build manufactories to give more money to buy more troops to steal more land to raise more dev to take more loans is just.. beautiful.. :’)

[@Fuerto203]

Hey RR, could you make a guide on Wallachia?

[@RadioRes]

Dracula achievement is on the list!

[@alekbeloff]

Production and trade in late game is used for “trade in” bonuses for specific goods (like I often use +2 dip rep for ivory and chinaware for increase in republican traditions etc). Also you can kick out your enemies from trading nodes like I always try to control Aleppo, Crimea and Samarkand to fuck annoying Ottomans. I even don’t have to turn the trade towards my home node, just outwards Istanbul. Then, the more trade control you have, the more money you collect. Up to early 18th century I collect up to 600-700 with trade only and up to 1200-1500 to my late game. Same time I don’t let the others to collect, like I rushed in Ragusa node to prevent the trade going further to Venice

[@alexandergorlitz4862]

Thank you for that tutorial. I don't think you get the value of Tier 2 buildings quite right. They are desgined to boost your highly developed provinces that already have a tier 1 building. - Thus you must invest a lot of money to gain a slight advancement over your enemies in the late game.

[@justycekh832]

Great video but I woulda liked to see a little more effort put into the trade buildings. To make the assumption that every players playstyle is to 100% own a home node is far fetched.

[@RobsRedHotSpot]

Yeah I would say I conquer my home node in about 10% of my games.I usually don't grow much beyond the borders of my culture group. I realize this guide is a minmax style guide and well done for that purpose, but I would still like to see more detail on the mechanics for buildings that don't fit the "optimal" wide single-player style.

[@theimperium9818]

Hey mate I'm trying to play as Scotland and get absolutely annihilated by England do you have a guide on how to play as scotland as I'm completely stumped at how to do that

[@KV_zacc]

Ever moved your European capital into the New World? I love doing it. :)

[@theimperium9818]

@@KV_zacc nah i keep dieing in the french british war

[@RadioRes]

Scotland is on my to-do list. Will get to it soon!

[@gilgameschvonuruk4982]

Trade buildings are good for istitution spread