Brandenburg starts with 6 provinces in the HRE with only 57 development. Although a fairly small nation, it’s widely popular with EU4 players. The main reason is that forming Prussia from Brandenburg is a natural progression in game. And Prussia is a very strong nation with one of the best militaristic national ideas. The real challenge is early game though. Brandenburg starts fairly weak in close proximity to some bigger nations such as Bohemia, Poland and Denmark. And you are in the HRE, so expansion can get rather slow because of aggressive expansion and demand for unlawful territory by the emperor.
OPENING MOVES
- Get level 1 mil advisor. You can’t afford the other two just yet.
- Don’t set your rivals yet either. Wait till December 1st. In my experience, if you set your rivals early, they tend to seek stronger allies which will slow down your conquests.
- Ally and RM Austria and Saxony.
- Improve relations with Poland. Build spy network on pomerania.
DIPLOMACY
Bohemia
90% of the time Bohemia will rival you, in which case rival them back. But if they haven’t. RM them, don’t ally. There’s a chance they get your dynasty on the throne in which case you can force PU on them. Or you can savescum till they get your dynasty. You will have to take a few loans but having Bohemia under PU early game is well worth it.
Poland
They won’t ally you at the start, but they will RM you. They can be a strong ally, but they want the same provinces which you need to form Prussia. So I recommend you ally them only if they take the decision to PU Lithuania. Because if they don’t, there’s a good chance they will get beat up by Teutonic and livonian orders and Bohemia.
Teutonic Order
Most guides recommend rivaling the teutonic order, but I don’t think its necessary early game, unless you find the right circumstances to attack them very early. You have to take some provinces from them to form Prussia, so you will rival them, just a bit later in game.
Pomerania
Your number 1 war target at start. And that’s why I recommend restarting until they don’t have any strong allies, such as Bohemia, Poland/Lithuania or Denmark. Its a 50-50 chance, with better odds if you don’t rival them at the start. You can still take them on if they have strong allies, but its going to take some time, manpower and ducats. And it will set you back a few decades.
HRE minors
Magdeburg usually rivals you at start. They are not worth rivaling back as they always join the Lubeck trade league which makes them fairly strong early game. Mecklenberg is a good target to rival as they have small allies, which you can take on early. If you don’t ally Poland, I recommend allying another HRE elector. With Saxony already an ally, you will be the next HRE emperor.
Allies
Austria, Saxony and Poland, if they look strong. If not, ally one of the HRE electors to guarantee emperorship.
Rivals
wait till Dec 1st then rival Bohemia, Pomerania and Mecklenberg. Later change to Teutonic order, Brunswick and others depending on how the game progresses.
CONQUEST
Teutonic order
Strategy I
Attack them early, if Poland is willing to help you out. Take Neumark in the first war and give poland bare minimum of provinces so they don’t lose trust in you. Now Poland and your truce with teutonic order is synced, so possibly next time you attack TO, you can call in Poland without promising any land. This strat works very well if Poland is strong and you don’t want to fight them early on.
Strategy II
If TO has a strong ally such as Bohemia at start, let poland fight them alone and drain each others resources. Then attack the teutons when they are vulnerable.
Note- You can also get Neumark via an event for 100 ducats in the first few years, which is really convenient. And you fulfil a mission giving you free claims on Pomerania.
Pomerania
Attack as soon as you have a claim either by event or otherwise. Vassalize them. You should prioritize this war over others. It fulfils a mission and gives you some much needed money and trade power.
Mecklenburg
An opportunistic target. Attack them before pomerania, do it with humiliate CB. It gives you power projection, monarch points and splendor generation. They won’t be a valid rival for long.
Bohemia
Austria will usually help you out with Bohemia. Cut them down bit by bit, there’s no hurry.
Denmark
Start building galleys as soon as you can. Once you have naval superiority over Denmark and its subjects, you can start taking Danish lands. Or you can support Sweden’s independence if you want them as an ally.
HRE
Conquest of HRE minors will be slow early game because of AE. You can speed it up by becoming the emperor. And later in game, by dismantling HRE.
Further conquests– To form Germany, you can play the HRE game and get the required provinces bit by bit.
Decide between Russia and Ottomans mid game, as you will ally one and expand in the other direction. I recommend allying Russia, as Ottomans are always hated by other European powers making them easier to call into wars.
Note- Although Brandenburg starts with Prussian national ideas, the army bonuses don’t kick in till Idea number 3. So your army is very average at the start. But once you get all national ideas done along with couple of military ideas, your armies are basically unbeatable and you will have very high army tradition which means godlike generals too, making wars very easy.
GAMEPLAY MECHANICS
Ideas
You can choose literally any ideas depending on how you want to play. Try out ideas you have never taken.
Ideal set of ideas for expansion-
Innovative– discount on tech and institution cost is huge all game.
Influence– AE is a major issue early to mid game. Also you will have a fair amount of vassals, so the diplo annex costs help.
Religious– Since you are going to convert to Protestant or Reformed to form Prussia, it makes sense to go religious. You can also go humanist instead, but I prefer religious. If you have a lot of rebel issues, you can always choose the religious unity policy later.
Next ideas you can go whatever you like. Diplo and admin are good to have at some point. I usually go quality, admin, diplo, then offensive, and defensive for those space marines.
HRE
Brandenburg starts as an HRE elector. So once you improve relations or ally couple of more electors, your emperorship is guaranteed once Austrian monarch dies. Once you are emperor, you can take on smaller HRE nations slowly.
-If you take a province from HRE, the emperor will ask for the unlawful land back and if you refuse, it leads to some unrest and negative opinion modifiers. To avoid that, you should start the next small war before ending the first one, for the duration of coring conquered province. Emperor cannot demand land back if you are at war or if you have a core on the province.
-Other way to deal with HRE restrictions is to dismantle it by capturing the electors and emperor’s capital. You will lose the emperorship once you convert to Protestant and reformed anyways, at least until you win the religious war if you are inclined to do that.
-You can always leave the HRE as well, but I wouldn’t recommend it. The only reason you would do it is because you want to form an empire. So if you form Germany which automatically upgrades your government, you will leave the HRE as well
Religious League War
You can become the protestant league leader if you are the first elector to convert to protestant, so always convert on day 1. Look to start the war fairly early before any major nations have joined the catholic side. Once you win the war, it gives you easy emperorship and some neat bonuses.
Events
There are a lot of good events associated with playing as Brandenburg- Prussia.
Neumark– You get nermark for 100 ducats early game from TO. very convenient with no bloodshed.
Ansbach– You get an event where Ansbach becomes your PU. You can expand in Bavaria with them. Later you get an event to end the union. You can choose either option, both have their pros and cons.
Absolutism– You get free +20 max absolutism late game, which is amazing if are playing a blobbing game.
Prutenic Tables– One of my favorites is the prutenic table which gives you 25% tech and idea cost discount. After this event, you should get as many of them as possible while the discount is active.
Enlightened Reforms of Fredrich The Great– Another 25% idea cost discount is huge. You will never be short on monarch points late game.
Some more military events give you army professionalism, tradition and monarch points too.
Form nations–
Prussia– you can form prussia if you have admin tech 10, are protestant or reformed and have these provinces. You will usually get the provinces before getting to admin tech 10. So you can play fairly slow at the start and you’ll still be okay. Once you form Prussia, you get claims on the TO provinces and your government type changes to Prussian monarchy which has some very good modifiers.
There’s another mechanic called militarization of country, it rewards you for playing tall, as having more provinces will decrease the militarization. At full militarization, you get bonus for discipline, manpower recovery and land maintenance cost. Prussia is one of few country where you get incentives for playing tall. You can also buy militarization by spending mil points, but your armies are already unbeatable so its not necessary.
Germany– you can form germany at admin tech 20 with these provinces. Expansion into HRE is usually slow, which is fine too, as you don’t get any perks by forming Germany except for claims in north and south german regions. Once you form Germany, you will leave the HRE. You also keep the prussian gov type and the national ideas with Germany.
ADVANCED MECHANICS
Absolutism- is important if you are playing an expansion game. You get +10 max absolutism from the prussian government and an extra +20 from the event and you can increase you absolutism slowly with strengthening government, harsh treatment and increasing stability plus the age ability. So firing the court and country disaster is not worth it. In fact, you can do world conquest without it as well.
Revolutionary– you can go revolutionary late game, you want some extra perks and a new cool flag.
ACHIEVEMENTS
With this guide you can get at least 2 good achievements.
Early reich– just forming Germany gives you the achievement. Its not that hard once you get over the first few years.
A fine goosestep– Getting a discipline of 125% with Prussia is not hard. You can get discipline by national ideas, quality, offensive, policy, ruler trait, advisor and militarization.
You can also do a couple of HRE achievements by becoming the emperor and later dismantling HRE.
I hope this guides helps out players who are looking to try out as Brandenburg or Prussia.
Here is the video tutorial.
And here is the timelapse.
