Euiv is easiest. CkII is more rng, so more stuff for you to get "annoyed" a little more. But - seriously its easy. I dont even know why trade is such a difficult topic for part of the playerbase.

i had to put in 200hs before i could do an ottoman run

I remember going through several youtube tutorials just to understand the game

I feel like Hoi4 should be higher than CK, but then you also need to add Stellaris to the bottom difficulty rung

for some reason CK2 and partly eu4 are made in some obscure way that generally stops people from learning anything, like of mechanics that matter

ck2 can be stupidly cheesed tho

and eu4 IS some challenge to start out and survive, but if you do survive and expand a bunch, the "world conquest" is actually only tedious, but also doesn't accept silly mistakes and ignorance

sometimes some dense HRE may seem horrible though, while there's tiny pagan Manipur? absolutely doable, towards 1550s or era of absolutism - you should have 1500 development if you expanded well and india is a good place for that

but starting out as manipur is a gamble, often otherwise rivalry gamble + combat system is literally random dice throws as well (Dominions 5 has smart dice-counters for hundreds of units and attacks and everything tho - that becomes simply balanced and predictable, while combat could still be extra deadly)

Eu4 is kinda mix of a game, if you know how the game works you can reduce the difficulty in effect but, eu4 can do something unexpected and thus make you lose the game. Event, Ai that sort of thing. Of course I could be wrong.

EU4 is the hardest. CK2 is the easiest.

I agree, Eu4 is hard.

Easiest to hardest:
hoi4 ~ ck2 ~ eu4 ~ vic2
debate me

Finland stronk :)