Jargon

Europa Universalis V, and communities surrounding it, has its own jargon, including slang terms and acronyms.

Acronyms

Here are some of the common acronyms in the game and in discussions surrounding it:

AAR

After action report - a player's recounting of their EU5 game. For more detail, see the AAR section

AE

Aggressive Expansion, the current amount of hatred towards your nation for expanding, this number varies per nation. For more detail, see Antagonism

AI

Artificial intelligence - What controls all nations that are not being played by humans

BYZ

Byzantine Empire - also referred to as the ERE (Eastern Roman Empire) or BZE. Played mainly for a challenge.

CB

Casus belli - Latin for "case for war", these justify war demands, reducing the cost or consequences of declaring war and making demands in a peace treaty.

CTD

Crash To Desktop - Frequently used in patch notes

DHE

Dynamic Historical Events (events tied to specific tags).

DLC

Downloadable content - A package made available by Paradox that adds more game mechanics, music, and other features to the game. Compare with mod.

DOTF

Defender of the Faith - a nation that is the defender of other countries sharing its national religion

DOW

Declaration of war; can be used as a verb ("I'm going to DOW you, Otto!")

EoC

Emperor of China

EU5

Europa Universalis 5 - The game this wiki is about

FOW

Fog of War - Prevents nations from seeing parts of the map they do not either border, or have an army or navy adjacent to

GB

Great Britain - A formable country in the British Isles

GH

Golden Horde - A steppe horde

GM

Game-master - A leader or organizer of a multiplayer game.

HRE

Holy Roman Empire - An international organization in Central Europe

MP

Manpower or multiplayer

OOS

Out of Sync - A notorious desynchronisation error that occurs in multiplayer, requires the game to be loaded again. Occurs frequently in patch notes

OP

Overpowered or, on the forums, the Original Post(er) of a thread

OPM

One province minor - Term carried over from earlier games where the smallest territorial unit was a province; still used to describe very small countries, even though the smallest unit is now a location.

PC

Personal computer, or, more specific to EU5, papal controller

PLC

Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

PTI

Permanent terra incognita; also called Wasteland; areas that cannot be explored or colonized. e.g., deserts, dense jungles, tundra, mountains and glacial expanses

PU

Personal union - A union between two nations due to having the same monarch on both thrones; can be used as a verb ("Don't know how I did it, but I PU'd Ming!")

RM

Royal marriage - A Marriage between notable characters.

RNG

Random number generator - a mathematical subsystem that generates a random number. Used to determine chances for events, battle results, and other game features that use randomization of results to any degree.

ROTW

Rest of the world - Generally refers to all areas outside Europe

TI

Terra incognita - Parts of the world that a nation has no knowledge of. An example would be the New World prior to Western exploration

TO

Teutonic Order

TPM

Two/three province minor - Small countries in the game, consisting of only two or three provinces

ULM

Unique location minor - The smallest countries in the game, consisting of only a single location. Also a reference to the city of Ulm, which is jokingly considered the strongest country in the community.

WAD

Works/working as designed - this acronym means that the thing in question is wrongly considered a bug and is actually intentional

WC

World conquest - Taking over every inhabitable province on the map; often a goal for players; for others, an ahistorical outcome

WE

War exhaustion - How tired your nation is of its recent conflicts

Slang

Here are some of the common slang terms in the game and in discussions surrounding it:

ADM

Character's administrative skill

Arty

Artillery

Badboy

The accumulation of antagonism

Bird

Force-closing the game. If done in Ironman mode this closes the game without saving it, allowing the player to savescum anything since the last auto save. From jokingly pretending to distract the game into not noticing that you're cheating ("Look, a bird!").

Blob

A large nation that tends to get larger over time unless checked. Named after how such large nations' expansions can leave them with irregular borders, resembling blobs of paint.

Carpet siege

Detaching small armies from the main army to occupy a huge number of enemy provinces and end wars faster.

Cav

Cavalry

Core

Used as a verb, to make a province a core province. ("How did France core Venice?")

Also used to reference a nations fully incorporated territory. ("Paris is a Core of France.")

A nation can have cores on unowned provinces, granting the Reconquest CB ("France has a core on Maine.")

(Country) Can Into Space

to make a country succeed far beyond expectations. Applied to the AI when it turns OPM countries into blobs. One of the achievements, "Poland Can Into Space", is earned by completing all the tech levels as Poland. (A takeoff on the Polandball meme.)

Clay

Territory, often a country's "rightful" land. Also a takeoff from Polandball.

DIP

Character's diplomatic skill

Dip Rep

Diplomatic reputation

Daycare

Refers to the Holy Roman Empire. Usually from the emperor's perspective, it refers to constantly having to look after the small Germanic states in the empire and trying to keep them in order.

Diplo-annex

Diplomatic annexation – A way to peacefully incorporate a vassal state

Doomstack/Deathstack

An extremely large enemy force

Feeding

Short for vassal feeding.

God King/Sultan/Emperor etc.

A monarch with very good stats. This is considering that people do not get such high numbers too often.

Hugbox

Large or unbreaking multiplayer alliances that tend to stagnate games. Can also be used as a verb "Hugboxing"

Inf

Infantry

MIL

Character's military skill

Min/Maxing

more or less marked tendency for a player to optimize every aspect of its runs. Can involve use of "birding" as well as pausing to think while playing, or even strategical plannification, information collection with test runs or community resources studying before actually playing.

Mod

A software package that modifies the game, written by the player community. Compare with DLC.

Nuke

The use of an exploit. ("My nuke for this playthrough is the mission exploit.")

Otto

The Ottoman Empire

Savescumming

Reloading earlier saves when something goes wrong in order to set things right. Often considered a negative trait; impossible to do if Ironman is activated (except by birding, q.v.).

Shell

Short for vassal shelling, which involves surrounding a nation with an outer shell of vassals.

Snake

An elongated and sinuously shaped nation, usually only one province wide

Stab

Short for stability

Stab hit

A drop in stability.

Stack

An army, a group of regiments

Stackwipe

Situation where all remaining regiments of an army are killed instantly. Can either happen at the start of the battle if the army has no morale or is outnumbered 10:1 or during the battle if their morale reaches 0 before they can retreat and they are outnumbered 2:1 or after the battle if there is nowhere for them to retreat.

Timmy

The Timurids

Vassal swarm

A large number of subjects of one country that must be fought through in addition to their overlord. Often refers to the massive amount of troops produced by the members of the HRE. Allow to wage wars without doing anything by oneself.

Vulture

Another word for scavenging

Wardec

The act of declaring war / being declared war upon.

Warmonger

Describes players (rarely AI-controlled countries) that constantly declare wars, sometimes even several at once, for the sole purpose of conquering even more land. These countries are rarely at peace.

Whack-a-mole

Dealing with constant rebellions.

Yuansplosion

Yuan releasing a lot of countries through rebels

AAR

After Action Reports (AARs) are threads posted to the EU5 forums or a personal web site or blog written by players about their ongoing games. They can be written from the game player's personal point of view, or can be written from a fictitious narrative perspective, like a serialized novel. Some writers also blend the two elements, going from a metagame discussion to a fictitious narrative set in their game's alternate history world.

• Player Point of View: "I had a rough time as Austria this last session. It started when Ulm, that darned OPM, suddenly brought in half the HRE against me when I declared war on it. In all my playthroughs, this was the first time I ever was faced with such a nasty coalition. Before I knew it, not only was I facing the coalition, but the Ottoman Empire decided to make a DOW on me while I was in the thick of it!"

• Fictitious Narrative: "The Emperor sniffed offendedly at the ambassador of Ulm, who stood resolutely defiant regardless of the withering glance directed at him, 'What do you mean that the Archbishop refuses to accede to my demands? You realize that I shall have to invoke my powers to have him removed as an Elector!' Yet the ambassador shocked the court with his retort, 'If that is the sort of tyranny Your Imperial Majesty wishes to promulgate upon his vassals, then perhaps it is time for another Prince to rule in his stead!' He further shocked the court with this revelation, 'Know this: that Bohemia stands with us. As does Saxony, and Bavaria, and Brandenburg and more! If you dare so much as move against our borders, the entire continent shall rise against you!' And yet, it was too late. For the regiments had already crossed the Ulm frontier. War, a great war indeed, was now inevitable."

Players can include screen shots from their games, maps, period art, and other elements to add depth to their reports.