The transition from a small regional power to a globe-spanning empire in Europa Universalis 5 involves an overwhelming number of detailed decisions across production, trade, and military logistics. Acknowledging this immense scale, EU5 introduces an extensive Automation system that allows players to delegate entire departments – such as Trade, Building, and the Cabinet – to AI. This delegation frees you to focus on grand strategy, such as warfare or diplomacy.
Automation offers a reliable floor for your nation’s performance, but convenience inevitably comes at the cost of optimal efficiency. This guide will examine every major automation feature in the game, providing clear recommendations on when to turn it on (and off), the true cost of that inefficiency, and the effort saved versus the optimisation lost.
All Systematic Automations
Automation is accessed via a menu selectable on the top-right corner of the screen. Here, you’ll be provided with a large list of automations that cover entire swathes of the game, with brief descriptions of what they do.
In the table below, we’ll provide more details for each automation and our judgment on when and how to use the automation, especially if you are a player new to the game or genre of grand strategy – our focus is to save time and effort with micromanagement, but still have the game be an engaging experience.
Economy Automations
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Automation |
Description |
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Balance |
This option covers everything accessible in the Balance section of your Economy menu. The AI is very good at making sure you’re in the green, but will also spend more to keep things like your Stability and Legitimacy healthy. We would recommend using this and checking in on what changes it actually makes as your country develops, as this is a good way to learn how to maximise your economy. |
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Trade |
Automating trade will have the AI picking the best trades when possible to trade. This is almost a crucial automation to have, as trading can require a lot of micromanagement to maximise. Notably, on the Trading section of the Economy menu, you’ll see that there is a separate Market Automation section. This is accessible when you have not turned Trade Automation on via the Automation menu, and allows you to allocate a certain amount of your Trade Capacity to the AI. This allows you to take advantage of the AI while also making some specific, manual trades in case you wish to get better at the system or make specific trades for construction plans that the AI wouldn’t know about. |
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Production Methods |
Most buildings in the game have various Production Methods to use, which will vary their inputs and outputs. We’d recommend leaving the AI to sort this out, as it’s another incredibly minute part of the game that would take up far too much time to efficiently organise, especially with larger countries. |
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Buildings |
Automating the construction of buildings can be very helpful at certain times – the AI makes sensible decisions as to the development of a country, and you can also limit its spending in the Automation menu to make sure you have a healthy cash reserve. This is one that I found useful in times of peace or passivity, but I turn it off whenever I have troubles or specific plans I wish to meet. |
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Close and Open Buildings |
This automation simply handles a task that would be practically automatic based on notifications; we recommend leaving this on. |
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Subsidise Building |
This automation is useful if you’re playing an economically healthy country. In times of struggle, turning this off can help in the short term to get you out of a hole, but in the long run, the AI does make good decisions with this turned on. |
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Destroy Buildings |
As the game warns, these are only worth turning on if you have Building automated. These are handier in the late game, but it’s worth learning how and when buildings should be destroyed for yourself, so we’d recommend not turning this on until you’re sure you know what it would be doing for you. |
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Destroy Estate Buildings |
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R.G.O. |
This automation handles your Raw Goods, whether through building or trade. This one is handy to leave on, but like Balance, it is one that is handy to keep an eye on with the Outliner to see what decisions it makes to make you a more educated player. |
Diplomatic Automations
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Automation |
Description |
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Research |
We would not recommend automating your Research. Choosing which directions to go in with Research is key to many strategies, and the AI will not know which strategies you’re hoping to employ. |
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Laws |
Similarly, we would not recommend automating your Laws, as some Laws can have drastic effects on the way your country operates, and the cost for changing an unwanted Law is significant. |
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Government Reforms |
Government Reforms are significant and important, so we would not recommend automating them. |
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Cabinet |
Automating the Cabinet is actually a very good idea – the AI makes sensible decisions based on the current situation in your country, will pivot quickly when the situation changes, and generally hires very good candidates for the roles. Automating the Cabinet cuts down on a lot of micromanagement, and it’s a simple task to temporarily turn the automation off for specific player-driven plans. |
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Parliament |
Whether or not you automate Parliament will be mostly based on how engaging you find the mechanic and whether or not your country is healthy in terms of Stability. Failing a Parliament action only costs a minor amount of Stability, but if you’re already in the red, you’ll want to make sure it’s picking the easiest wins. |
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Estates |
The AI is quite good at handling Estates, but this is one that we’d recommend using only in times of peace and safety. |
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Culture Acceptance |
Whether or not this is useful will largely depend on how expansionist you are within your game. It can be handy to delegate this to the AI if you’re often busy with military or economic goals. |
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Religious Doctrines |
This is mostly relevant and useful in games where you’re conquering lands of different religions. |
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Diplomacy Interactions |
Automating your diplomacy is a risky thing – the AI will use your diplomats freely and quickly, which will curb how often you can pick and choose your own actions when a personal plan arises, but the AI is also quite good at handling nasty situations (such as when you take a bit too much land in a peace deal and need to make ammends). This is an automation that should be used only when times are tough. |
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Rivals |
The AI will generally pick suitable Rivals, but we’d still recommend that this be something you handle yourself. |
Military Automations
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Automation |
Description |
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Exploration |
If you are playing a country that colonises but doesn’t have very specific goals with your colonisation, using these automations will cut down on a significant amount of the work required. We’d recommend not using them so that you learn how these mechanics work, but once you know everything you need to know, the AI can handle things well enough. |
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Colonies |
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Army Construction |
These automations can be handy at times of peace, where you feel secure and your manpower/sailor values are healthy, but should be turned off and handled manually during times of war (unless you are relying on the AI for everything militaristic). |
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Navy Construction |
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Replace Generals |
This is one of the easiest automations to turn on and leave on. It makes sensible decisions and this prevents any accidental unled armies heading to their doom. The only time you might want to turn this off is if you want to turn a specific character into a general or admiral in order to risk their lives. |
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Replace Admirals |
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Your armies and navies can also be automated! There are two ways to do this:
- By clicking on an army or navy and opening its individual menu, you can access the ‘military objective’ screen by clicking on the button next to the army’s name.
- By opening the Military menu, you can pick a military objective for every army or navy at once by clicking the same button at the top of the menus in this tab.
How much you rely on the AI to do battle for you will depend on how much you enjoy engaging with the combat mechanics. I’ve personally found that the automatic objectives can be useful for particular goals, such as Carpet Sieges in relatively safe zones or Focus Sieges when dealing with far weaker opponents, but in tougher wars, micromanaging your armies and being more reactive than the AI leads to better success.
