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A “tag” refers to a nation’s unique three-letter ID in EU4’s source code. The game checks these tags to find out which nations are eligible for things such as events and decisions.
Endgame tags are nations that are not allowed to form other nations (with a few exceptions). Most of them are formables themselves, which is why they have the “endgame” label. They’re designed that way to prevent players from abusing the system.
You receive new mission trees and events when you become a new nation. Some of them have permanent modifiers and rewards.
Without endgame tags, it’d be possible to continuously cycle through all the formables and stack their modifiers. You could become ridiculously powerful if that were allowed.
Note: You can turn off endgame tags by toggling the “Limited Country Forming” option before starting a campaign. However, this also disables achievements.
Endgame Tags in 1444
A few endgame tags already exist in 1444:
Byzantium
Ethiopia
Mali
Ming
The Ottomans
The Papal State
Formable Endgame Tags
And these are the rest of the endgame tags in the game:
There are actually seven formables that ignore this rule for endgame tags:
Aksum can be formed by Ethiopia via their missions.
The Mongol Empire can be formed by Yuan.
The Holy Roman Empire can be unified by becoming its Emperor and passing its final imperial reform. All nations can do this except for the Papal State.
The Roman Empire, Aotearoa, Hawai’i, and Viti can be formed by any nation that meets their requirements. Only the Papal State and the HRE can’t do this.
As a frustrated otter who dreams of getting published, Louie instead wastes his life cuddling his cats. He spent his childhood playing Suikoden, grew up with Total War, and matured (somewhat) with EU4. He hopes to someday find a geopolitical JRPG with the 4X systems of a Paradox game.
