# New Player Guide

This is going to be a very short, barebones guide for players new to EU4 multiplayer

## Discord

Once you have a country you can change your nickname to include the country so people can find you easier. Either by rightclicking on your profile or if you're on mobile, tapping the server icon.

Communication is key, if you don't talk to the other players before and between the sessions, you are likely not going to last long.

The tool we use for this is Discord, where you can message any person you share a server with. If you've made it this far you've noticed that already.

It is important to check out #campaign-info once and #player-info and #eu4-announcements every once in a while, as well as check the pinned messages (though they contain a lot of shitposts as well).

A lot of regions and alliances organise themselves with selfmade discords for more secrecy.

Communication is probably the most important factor in determining your survival, and friendly words can go a long way.

People with 2 or more screens often have EU4 on one screen and Discord on the other to do more live diplo, because the in game chat sucks.

## What's different

There are some key differences between EU4 multiplayer and singleplayer.
* no pause. Your reinforcements wont be as well timed, you cant exploit a time window as well, disasters might fire. Getting used to no pauses is the first thing.
* Humans. Those pesky little lying shits. In SP you have a very good overview how different countries stand to each other and you, with humans that's a little different. Expect to be betrayed or your secrets revealed. Expect to become unnaturally attached to another country. Also expect Humans to fight a lot harder and longer. Expect to feel actual excitement for the game and your heart racing during a player war!
* Warfare. You should generally stay at 100% force limit and not be afraid to go over force limit for a war. If your opponent goes over FL and you don't, you lose.
* Viability of ideas. In singleplayer you might go Influence -> Administrative ideas first but if you do that in multiplayer expect a rude awakening. More on this later.

## What to expect

Curb your expectations.

Generally, half of us won't survive the first two sessions. The first 30mins of the first session are probably the most lethal phase in the game. You should keep your expectations low to not be too disappointed.

If you survive that's good, if you reach 1000 development that's great. Expansion becomes a lot harder than in singleplayer after a certain point as playerwars tend to be more lengthy and costly. Wars against AI are always preferable but you should take care not to expose yourself unnecessarily this way.

If you die you can hang out on the channel to keep up with how the campaign goes, sometimes people no longer have the time to play their country and it becomes free so you might reenter the campaign on a different country. Also sometimes people can't play for a day so they need a substitute for one session, which you can fill in as well.

Also, what often happens is that all those great plans you negotiated during the week fall down and crumble at the start of the session. All plans only last until the first shot.

## Playstyles

Everyone is free to do what they want and how they want to play, roleplay included.

The most common playstyle is to go for a land army focused country, but some people might enjoy other things more (or picked some obscure country to not end up without country, or ended up without country and had to pick an obscure country) but just because your National ideas aren't complimenting a land army doesn't mean you're useless and will die rather sooner than later.

Everyone loves money, so if you have a good ideaset or a good location for it, you could specialise in making the most trade money and pay bigger neighbours subsidies in return for them transferring their trade to you. Also land powers often need a navy to finally shut that country up that keeps sending you Scornful insults from the other end of the world, and for certain countries having a strong navy means becoming nearly invincible.

Espionage ideas have entered the world conquest meta in singleplayer since Dharma but they have always been a choice in multiplayer as specialisation. Supporting rebels and sabotaging enemies through various other ways as well as finally infiltrating their administration can give your side the decisive edge in a war, but this is a very niche build.

Even Diplomatic ideas are now a viable pick in multiplayer due to a new policy. The only idea groups I would not recommend right now are Humanist and Influence ideas, though some ideas certainly are stronger than others.

## Final Words

This is still a work in progress but I will try to keep it short, maybe I'll change to a more formal style.