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About innovative/narrowminded - Is the increase in colonial growth really worth the decrease in tech research when going narrowminded? I have always choosen sliders according to be able to tech fast.
If you go full innovative, your colonies will take much longer to develop, and you'll also have lots of wrong-religion provinces because you won't get any missionaries, meaning -30% income and more revolts. The penalties from all of those things can actually outweigh the benefits of going innovative, especially if you have to mint to pay for all your colonies and the larger army you'll need to crush religious rebels.

Remember the bonus for going to maximum -5 Innovative is +15% tech speed; but if you use National Bank to mint 10% of your income, that's effectively a -10% penalty to tech speed. If you avoid minting, you can stay narrowminded and still advance quickly in tech.

A good strategy is actually to go narrow-minded in the mid-game, when you're colonising and the Reformation is in progress. Once that's mostly over, use your next slider moves to head back to Innovative.

Would it be best to balance spending evenly on them, or should you always prioritize. I tend to favour land and naval.. often falling a bit behind behind in the economy ones.
Depends. If you're advanced enough to be running into ahead-of-time penalties it's best to spread research out evenly. If you're a country that is normally lagging behind in tech then yes, you should prioritise the most important ones.


Many people rave about it, some think it's not worth the tax hit.
Bear in mind that the cultural tradition from Gilded Icons lets you hire 5-star advisors. If you're making 10 ducats per month from tax and 100 per month from trade, then a 5-star Collector will bring in 5 ducats extra per month, more than offsetting the 0.8 ducat cost of Gilded Iconography.
 
Bear in mind that the cultural tradition from Gilded Icons lets you hire 5-star advisors. If you're making 10 ducats per month from tax and 100 per month from trade, then a 5-star Collector will bring in 5 ducats extra per month, more than offsetting the 0.8 ducat cost of Gilded Iconography.
Yes, but it's quite easy to get 5-star advisors by spamming Commision Painting anyway.
 
GI is useful for the period from when you start spending all your magistrates on buildings till you can afford to build a couple of fine art acadamies. It is mostly a handicap after then.

However most of my games tail off by about 1600 so I generally like it.
 
Why is Church Attendance Day so great? I've heard a lot of people praising this when you're a catholic country, but im not impressed by -33% stability cost and +5% papal influence. I'd rather have National bank, Military Drill or Grand army as my first idea, but im surely missing the point about it!

Also, what is Gilded Iconography? Never heard of it.
CAD is amazing for large empires or during the reformation, but it also has another, less obvious purpose: there is a good cultural decision called Gilded Iconography (described in Junuxx's post) which requires at least one church and the CAD NI to get. Notice how I suggest picking CAD, enacting Gilded Iconography, and then swapping CAD for Press Gangs or Military Drill for Portugal or Castille respectively.

Yes, but it's quite easy to get 5-star advisors by spamming Commision Painting anyway.
GI is mostly for the ~100+ year window after you are spending every magistrate on buildings and before you have enough Fine Arts Academies to not need paintings. The reason most people get it so early is because that's when the stab hit will be the least important, and when the ducat cost of enacting it will be lowest (since it's calculated in relation to your income).

In addition, Austere Religiosity (the effect from Iconoclasm) is great once you have a bunch of Fine Arts Academies. GI is a very solid all-around long term investment at a slight cost in the short term.
 
If you go full innovative, your colonies will take much longer to develop, and you'll also have lots of wrong-religion provinces because you won't get any missionaries, meaning -30% income and more revolts. The penalties from all of those things can actually outweigh the benefits of going innovative, especially if you have to mint to pay for all your colonies and the larger army you'll need to crush religious rebels.

Remember the bonus for going to maximum -5 Innovative is +15% tech speed; but if you use National Bank to mint 10% of your income, that's effectively a -10% penalty to tech speed. If you avoid minting, you can stay narrowminded and still advance quickly in tech.

A good strategy is actually to go narrow-minded in the mid-game, when you're colonising and the Reformation is in progress. Once that's mostly over, use your next slider moves to head back to Innovative.

That makes sense. I'll definitely be staying narrowminded untill my colonial empire is well up and running then.
Thanks mate!
 
CAD is amazing for large empires or during the reformation, but it also has another, less obvious purpose: there is a good cultural decision called Gilded Iconography (described in Junuxx's post) which requires at least one church and the CAD NI to get. Notice how I suggest picking CAD, enacting Gilded Iconography, and then swapping CAD for Press Gangs or Military Drill for Portugal or Castille respectively.

Okay, so are you suggesting I swap CAD right away after i enact Gilded Iconography, or is it useful untill after the reformation?
You mention Press Gangs and Military Drill as the replacements, but isn't National Bank a slightly better first idea?
 
Okay, so are you suggesting I swap CAD right away after i enact Gilded Iconography, or is it useful untill after the reformation?
You mention Press Gangs and Military Drill as the replacements, but isn't National Bank a slightly better first idea?
No, later during the reformation take Divine Supremacy if you have conversion issues; CAD is more of an eastern Europe/western Asia thing.

National Bank is a really terrible first idea as most countries. You can pay a level 6 master of the mint to do basically the same thing, National Bank has that horrible -200 ducats event which is really crippling that early in the game, and your tech will be hurt enough when minting 12% (ie master of the mint) and mass colonizing without needing to hurt it further with an extra 10% minting. Press Gangs will fulfill more or less the same function (but without hurting tech) by making your ships and maintenance far less expensive, while Military Drill lets you engage in the inevitable continental wars that Castille has to involve themselves in.
 
No, later during the reformation take Divine Supremacy if you have conversion issues; CAD is more of an eastern Europe/western Asia thing.

National Bank is a really terrible first idea as most countries. You can pay a level 6 master of the mint to do basically the same thing, National Bank has that horrible -200 ducats event which is really crippling that early in the game, and your tech will be hurt enough when minting 12% (ie master of the mint) and mass colonizing without needing to hurt it further with an extra 10% minting. Press Gangs will fulfill more or less the same function (but without hurting tech) by making your ships and maintenance far less expensive, while Military Drill lets you engage in the inevitable continental wars that Castille has to involve themselves in.

Was that a "Yes, swap CAD right away" or not? :)

Oh okay.. I see your point, better pick Military Drill then.. and eventually, playing as Castille, Press Gangs could be usefull too!
 
1. When starting as Castille/Portugal (Upcoming catholic colonial empire) in 1399, what national ideas would be wise to pick and in which order?
Portugal, QfTNW (before it is available, it doesn't really matter, but something that gives you money somehow - change as soon as you get to Trade 7), followed by either Viceroys, Press Gangs (the one who lowers your ships costs) or the one giving +33% colonial growth.

2. Sliders - what should I go for?
Centralisation, Free Subjects, Naval. After that, Innovative, better after the religious changes in Europe. The rest doesn't really matter, either Free Trade or Mercantilism depending on how many big (and how big) CoTs do you own.
 
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Should I move to noble republic for the higher heretic/heathen tolerance since I'm going to go through reformation in the early 1500's (at 1481 right now)? I'm worried about increased RR from the min cent/decent limit of -1 (I'm at -4 right now with Empire), and the hit to magistrates per year. So is the benefit of tolerance and elections worth the hit to RR and magistrates?

Edit: My plan either way is to go Nobel Republic => Admin Republic => Constitutional Republic. Just not sure if I should pull the trigger early on Nobel Republic, or wait till I hit gov 19.
 
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A few questions:
1. I've been playing various iterations of Death and Taxes mod for the last month and I wanted to change to a newer version. I boot up EU3 from Steam (the only way I seem to be capable of doing so) and change the launch options, and even though it saves my entry (Death and Taxes (v3.4), for instance) it just loads up vanilla. I can't remember changing anything - is there an easy way to troubleshoot this?
2. In my Germany game post-reformation I ended up with negative toleration (about -0.1) for Catholicism, my state religion, and something like 2.1 toleration for heretics. I can't remember/load up my game to remember which NIs I took regarding toleration but I know I took a few to tolerate heretics. Either way how can I get Catholic toleration back up? My population is about 50% Catholic and 25% Reformed and Protestant each, so I don't see converting helping. Thanks!
 
Should I move to noble republic for the higher heretic/heathen tolerance since I'm going to go through reformation in the early 1500's (at 1481 right now)? I'm worried about increased RR from the min cent/decent limit of -1 (I'm at -4 right now with Empire), and the hit to magistrates per year. So is the benefit of tolerance and elections worth the hit to RR and magistrates?

Edit: My plan either way is to go Nobel Republic => Admin Republic => Constitutional Republic. Just not sure if I should pull the trigger early on Nobel Republic, or wait till I hit gov 19.

Tolerance-wise, 100% legitimacy gives you just as good results. Revolt-risk wise, 100% legitimacy is better.
 
Is there some way to change at which zoom levels the game shows pseudo-counter flags instead of annoying sprites?
If not, does anyone know of a IN-compatible graphics mod that replaces sprites with counters?
 
pwestern -> no, you would not lose the settlement policy. settlement policies remain until revoked or successful.
however, the MTTH for settlement policies is about 25% lower if the national focus is on it
 
Doing a 1399 Byzantine run, and while I've successfully eaten all the Turkish minors and Trebizond, I'm wondering where to go next. Everything in Greece is either Venetian-owned or a Venetian vassal, while the Ottomans own pretty much everything else that I have cores on. The Ottomans currently are fighting the Golden Horde, but still manage to keep a bigger-than-my-entire-army stack across from Constantinople, while the spread-out nature of my Byzantine reconquista makes me vulnerable to the Ottomans and Venetians' superior fleets. With Trebizond reintegrated, I share a border with the Timurids, but my economy's enough that it can handle the tribute. But more worringly, Qara Koynulu seems quite content with gobbling up Georgia, which would give me another horde neighbor, and another payout would start seriously suffocating my economy.

I'm guessing my best bet is to wait for the Ottomans and the Timurids to go at each other again and try and take advantage of the Ottomans' horde wars to better connect my Asia minor holdings and shift the relationship in my favor - once I can take out the Ottomans, I think I'd be strong enough to take on the Venetians. But any further advice would be appreciated.