1. Playing as a faction that is in the corner of the map can be easily defended and reduces chance of being attacked by multiple players compered to factions that are in the middle of the map. (examples: Celts and Slavs in the Rise of Rome)

2. Make alliances with players you really want to team up with (especialy the really powerful ones) and make peace with players you want to attack later but are not yet prepared

3. Exception to Nr.2 can be if a player you wanted to attack just send you an alliance request, if you declide his request he will be suspicion of you and might think you want to attack him so don't be suprised if after you declided his request he will attack you

4. Don't be a lone wolf! If you decide to play a game without making a single ally your chances of at least making it to top 3 will drop dramatically. Alliances are often very beneficial for both players. Whenever it is to team up againt another player or to fund him with money in his war

5. Know a good ally from a bad ally!

Bad allies: never join your wars if they can, don't give you support money even tho they are rich, are building defences/troops on your borders (basicly are about to attack you), funding your enemies, can't speak the same language as you (I'm not trying to be racist or anything but if 2 players can't communicate then making plans with him is gonna be alot more difficult)



Good allies: will always try to help you no matter what, will send you money, join your war, try to negotiate peace for you with your enemy, will go as far as selling a province to you so you can at least survive to the top 3 even tho he is gonna lose alot of happines



6. Watch your happines! I have seen some players with most populated factions go down within few turns for declaring war on someone and going into debt for too many negative happines then losing too many territories before fixing the problem

7. Calculate your action points! Always check how many AP you have and always do most important tasks first! I lost some wars because I spend all of my AP on offense and when I realised that my key provinces don't have any defenses I didn't had any AP left or I build defenses in not important provinces and realised i could have attacked his undefended key provinces but i was out of AP.

8. Go on a rampage if you are about to lose! So you are losing the againt a player with 10 times more population then you and you see no way you can possibly defend yourself againt him? Just pilage your most populated provinces, build 1 huge army and break throgh his defences. Pilage every province of his you can your hands on and use the moeny to buy more troops. By using that strategy you will definetly frustrate your enemie and possibly buy enough time for another player to out grow your enemie, once a player was so frustrated by this strategy that he left the game and i was able to capture all his provinces without a resistance. IF YOU GONNA GO DOWN AT LEAST GO DOWN WITH A FIGHT!!!

9. Try to gain Naval supremacy near your borders! By having good but not too large navy you will ensure that before someone tries to naval invade you he will be engaged by your navy first. Even if you lose the navy battle they will at least buy you 1 turn time before he can naval attack you (NOTE: each time you lose naval battle you lose a small amount of happines, If you have too many navies in the sea and you know that each one of the will lose and will corrupt your happines, you better disband the most useless ones)

10. Keep your happines above 50%
less the 50% > population won't pay taxes > no money > can't pay for upkeeps and administration > going into debt > player attacks you

11. Don't attack unnecceserly! If a player has a powerfull army but provinces that are not worthy going to war for, DON'T ATTACK!
If a player has alot of land and population and is already in a war or isnt prepared for one ... SHOW NO MERCY!



This is my first guide ever and I'm not english speaker so I apologize for grammatical mistakes. Thx for reading and I hope this guide helped you.