Kongo also starts out at tech level 2 across the board, as opposed to 3 like the Europeans. Meaning that 6 years into the game you're already down by two institutions with the attendant tech penalties (without Feudalism you have a 50% tech cost malus even before the Renaissance spawns), and no quick access to either one without spawning it through development. Not only do they have easier access to most of the Institutions, but they also start with Feudalism, which Kongo does not. Plus at least two of the provinces that are required are held by Portugal at the beginning of the game.Įurope is much stronger than Kongo. And you will almost certainly come into conflict with the European colonizers since they will inevitably make a play for some African provinces on the way to Indonesia and Australia. That means that you will be guaranteed to come into conflict with at the very least the North African nations, including the Mamluks (or the Ottomans if they follow their normal pattern of conquering Egypt). However the goal of the campaign is to conquer or colonize every province on the African continent and several islands that are off the coast a bit, including the entire island of Madagascar. So, the African Power requires that you start as Kongo, which isn't too bad as they are probably the strongest of the lower Africa nations at the start of the game, owing to having a decent territory, access to the Ivory Coast, and two small vassals.

My current game is at around 1615 as I type this, and going much better.

This AAR is actually based on my second attempt as my first one ended very early when I misjudged the strength of a defensive alliance around 1460 or so. They aren't kidding, but it's going well so far. I decided to try to see if I could grab the African Power achievement, which is listed as 'very hard'. I've been out sick the past few days with nothing else to do so I started up a game, and hey, EU4 is fun again. They're up to 1.25 now with a couple more expansions, as well as the 1.26 patch and Dharma DLC scheduled to drop in a few weeks, so it's definitely been a while. I think the last patch I played a game on was 1.19, which was pre- Mandate of Heaven DLC. It's been a while since the last time I played EU4 at all, with an AAR in mind or otherwise. Okay so I wasn't intending to make this an AAR originally, and I don't have many pics (none before 1600 and I'll have to add them later as they're on a different computer), but I figured I'd get some info down on it.

Eu4 colonialism institution spawn