Editing Europa Universalis (section)

===Picking your State===
So have booted up your game and are overwhelmed by the world map with its myriad of nations. The game reflects the political situation of the world in the closing days of the year 1444 AD. From here you can choose any one of the nations that are on the map, doesn't matter if it is a fiefdom in the Holy Roman Empire roughly the size of a stamp or the (at the start at least) gigantic Chinese Empire of the Ming Dynasty. Every Nation has a primary culture, state religion and technology group assigned to it. The first two can be changed (although it is usually not the best of ideas for beginners), the third cannot. Your technology group determines what technology level you start at and if you get penalties for institutions (more on those later). The "beginner-friendly" nations that you get presented with when you look at the world map is deceptive; only Castile, Portugal and France would reasonably qualify for that label. What you really look for when starting a new game is not that important, as your starting monarch will likely be already be pretty old and the game itself tends to favor very heavy snowbally gamestyles anyway. More on recommended nations later.