How To Form Tuscany in EU4 (Complete Guide)

You can form Tuscany using any Tuscan nation. There are three of them at the start, with Florence being the best.

In fact, Florence and Tuscany are functionally the same. They share the same national ideas and missions. Only their color and flag will change.

Florence also owns almost all of the requirements for forming Tuscany:

• Has at least Admin Tech 10
• Has never been an end-game tag
• Has the following core provinces:
• Arezzo
• Firenze
• Pisa
• Lucca or Siena

Note: Italy is an end-game tag, but Tuscany isn’t. This means that the order in which you can form them goes only one way: Florence → Tuscany → Italy.

That said, Florence/Tuscany aren’t the best choices for forming Italy. Instead, they have a different destiny across the Mediterranean. If you start as Florence, you can get an achievement by forming Egypt. You can do that after you’ve consolidated and formed Tuscany.

Strategy

I. “Personal Diplomacy” Mission

One of your starting missions requires you to have a monthly income of 12 diplomatic power (dip). You also mustn’t have any debt, so do this mission first if you plan to take loans.

You can finish it even before you unpause the game.

You already have an amazing 6/5/5 ruler, which means you’re earning 8 monthly dip.

To get the required 12 dip, do these things:

1. TGrant the “Land of Commerce” privilege to the Burghers estate

2. Set national focus to Diplomacy

3. Hire a diplomatic advisor, preferably one for diplomatic reputation or improve relations

II. “The Italian League” Mission

This mission unlocks after completing the previous one. It only requires you to have two Italian allies.

In most cases, there’s a couple of willing one-province minors (OPMs):

• Saluzzo
• Mantua

Note: After sending an alliance offer, you must unpause and let a day pass before you can send another offer.

They’re both really weak, hence why they’re always willing to be your ally.

Sometimes Savoy is available, but their capital is in the France region. Allying them won’t count towards this mission.

For the rest of the Italians, either they don’t like you or they’re your targets in the next step.

III. Conquering Your Claims

You only need either Lucca or Siena to form Tuscany. But you still need to wait for Admin Tech 10, which you’ll get around the early 1500s.

With your claims, it’s recommended that you start conquering as soon as it’s December 11, 1444.

Your army is strong enough to stack-wipe Lucca, Siena, Bologna, or Ferrara if they’re on their own. The first three don’t have forts either. Only Ferrara has a castle on top of their capital. Even then, they’re quite easy to defeat.

In your playthrough, your first target should be the one who hasn’t allied anyone yet. Usually, it’s Bologna and Ferrara. Annexing the latter will get you within the crosshairs of Venice.

But that’s okay, as they can be your jumping point later on for reaching Egypt.

After your initial conquests, you should try to get better allies.

Austria and Hungary are good examples, as they often see Venice as a rival. With their help, you can easily defeat the rest of your Italian neighbors.

Challenges to Expect as Florence/Tuscany

Risk of an Early Excommunication

You need to be careful with your relationship to the Pope. You’re always in danger of getting excommunicated throughout the early game. That’s because the Papal State usually rivals you at the start. If they haven’t, then they’ll still be hostile to you as they covet your lands.

There are two ways you can work around this:

1. Keep growing your nation past the point where the Papal State can no longer rival you
2. Go to war with the Papal State and demand that they stop rivaling you

Option 1 may take a long time and may need you to own most of Northern Italy. In contrast, you’ve lots of opportunities to do Option 2.

For example, they can be allied to one of your targets. So when you declare war against the latter, the Pope has to join in their defense.

Use that chance to besiege him in Roma, and get him to sign a separate peace deal. During the negotiations, select “End Rivalry” under the Annul Treaties section.

Lastly, be careful with your aggressive expansion (AE).

As the Pope’s your neighbor, they get the full impact of your AE every time you annex provinces. You can mitigate that by having the Papal State as your ally.

Statute in Restraint of Appeals Decision

You should avoid declaring the “Statute in Restraint of Appeals”.

This decision’s available to you at the start because of your negative relations with the Pope. It gives you a number of good permanent modifiers. But in exchange, it’ll further harm your relationship with the Papal State.

It also penalizes you with -10 yearly papal influence.

This effectively cuts you off from accessing curia modifiers. Besides that, one of your later missions also requires you to become the Curia Controller. You need papal influence to make that happen.

“Bonfire of the Vanities” Disaster

This is a disaster unique to Florence/Tuscany.

It involves a controversial preacher named Savonarola, who will rise to power as your ruler. If you allow it to happen, you’ll get excommunicated within 3 months after the disaster begins.

It’s a scripted event, so your relations with the Pope won’t matter.

Prevention

You can prevent the disaster by keeping your republican tradition (RT) above 80.

This means not re-electing your ruler nor their family, no matter how capable they may be.

There are also random events that may affect your RT. Those always give you a choice between losing 10–15 RT or something else, like your stability.

Republican tradition regenerates by 1 per year, without factoring in any modifier. So as Florence/Tuscany, you must be prudent with how you manage this stat.

Resolution

Should the disaster break out, then the only thing you can do is to wait it out. It’ll end if at least 6 months have passed and if either of these happen:

1. Savonarola dies and your former ruler returns
2. Savonarola turns your country into a theocracy

Ending B is an easy way to be a theocracy without having to go through your government reforms.

Just note that you’ll still be excommunicated. It’ll only be lifted when Savonarola dies.

You’ll be able to influence which ending you’ll get via the monthly events related to the disaster. These events always give you two choices:

• Make Savonarola lose followers if you want to stay as a republic
• Give Savonarola more followers if you want to become a theocracy

After several of these events, the disaster will eventually end. Savonarola will either burn at a bonfire or become a prophet for your new theocracy.

There’s also a chance that he’ll die prematurely from natural causes. If that happens before the disaster’s climax, then you’ll remain a republic.