Anyone using Court ideas?

[nobodyinparticular]

The bonuses seem a bit so-so, only use case I can think of is for nations where you're not making use of the conventional diplo groups (diplo, influence, espionage) and not using exploration or trade either (or maritime...)

What comes to mind are New World and Subsaharan African nations who need less diplo play, and Ming because of ifs particular playstyle. With a nation like Kongo I find I don't have a specific need for any diplo idea groups so this "filler" idea group can be decent.

Policies aren't that impressive either. I guess Plutocratic is interesting to stack government reform progress? It'd also be an okay idea group for Hordes if it weren't for the fact that Diplomatic has a much stronger policy.

I've been thinking of use cases for the extra splendor, for nations that may specifically benefit from the age bonuses but have less means to meet the objectives. But the ages are already geared to synergize these somewhat - Portugal and Denmark for example have both objectives (provinces on two continents, discover america and having two personal unions respectively) and bonuses that benefit them.

 

[Bouchart]

I haven't used that idea set so far, but I'll go through the ideas one by one and give my impressions of them.

+100% PP from insults: This might be useful if I ever remembered to insult my rivals. That means the super-duper Scornful Insult should give +20PP. Early on that could be enough to get you to +50PP and the +1/+1/+1 monarch point bonus. Still, you have to remember to insult rivals, which can be hard to remember to do.

+10 Estate loyalty equilibrium, +5 estate loyalty on revoking a priviledge: Estate loyalty equilibrium isn't hard to manage unless you are messing around with priviledges a lot. I usually add them in the age of Exploration, then and start revoking them in Absolutism. Might be nice if you swap them around a lot, or as insurance in case negative events bring an estate's loyalty below 30, but otherwise it seems marginal.

+1 yearly prestige: Seems like filler. It's more useful early on, but as the game progresses it's easy to maintain high levels of prestige.

+20% reform progress growth: Since the easier estate management lets you seize crown land more often, you can push up your reform progress really quickly. But I can't think of too many situations where reform progress growth is so high priority I'd give up other things for it.

+1 max privileges per estate, -estate privileges have 20% less impact on absolutism: I can't think of any situation where I have 6 estate privileges and want a 7th. Also, with all those estate privileges your max absoultsm will be close to 0 anyway. This is useful if you want all the estate privilges, or just one or two, with no inbetween. Highly situational.

+2 splendor, -20% estate interaction cooldown: The added splendor is nice if you take this as one of your first idea groups. Beyond maybe the 4th idea group, the splendor won't be as useful. Estate interaction cooldown seems like filler.

+1 diplomatic policy, +1 monarch diplomatic skill: You have to spend 2,800 dip points in total, with normal power costs, to unlock this. That means the +1 monarch diplomatic skill pays itself off in 233 years...assuming you wouldn't get a +6 dip leader naturally in that time frame. That could easily be the case for republics. The +1 policy is sounds nice, but is only useful late game when you have a number of policies available.

+0.5 legitimacy, +0.2 republican tradition, +0.5 devotion, +0.5 horde unity, +0.25 meritocracy, +0.1 mandate growth, +5% imperial authority growth:
This screams Ming, or anyone else who can do a quick Emperor of China play. Pushing through the emperor of China reforms early can have big benefits. The legitimacy is nice, and the republican tradition is good too. +5% imperial authority growth probably isn't worth it. A serious HRE play would be better serveed with either Influence or Diplomatic for the dip rep, dip relations or extra diplomats.

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Overall thoughts: Half of the things here seem to work well early game and the other half seem to work well late game. The whole thing seems uneven. Ming might be the biggest reason to use this. But Ming might also want to take Exploration to get into the Western US, Indonesia and Australia instead. Maybe Ming could take this first and Expansion second for the colonists? Or maybe you could take this idea group early and then remove it some time in the Absolutism Age when you are done revoking estate priviledges. It's tough to find a compelling case for this.

 

[John Smith74]

I recently tried a PU-only game and feel like court should give benefits to that playing for PUs given its name. The PU game is quite stale and hasn’t changed much (if at all?) since EU4 started, and court ideas could be used to bring it to life a bit more

 

[iClipse]

When you have it, it doesn't really feel like it changes anything. It feels very tailor made for HRE or EoC. I feel like the reform progress is the only reason I'd take it. The estate loyalty also means you can ignore that part in your goverment reforms, giving more flexibility there as well as allowing you to add a few more +0 loyalty privileges.

That said, it has some very nice policies with stuff you'd otherwise also take regardless. I'm often eyeing the -5% CCR along with admin (you'll be taking admin anyway) as well as the -5% warscore cost with religious.

 

[nuurori]

Korea has some issues with estates, so it's been nice. Obviously none of the other diplo groups were that good. Considered Espionage though, because if you really want to control your estates, Espionages with the Puppeteer the Nobility reform (ability to revoke privilegies always) is superior compared to Court, which is a bit of a bummer.

Ability to pick 7th idea is great because monopolies take a lot of slots and now only gives 5% loyalty. (that loyalty is important if you ever want to revoke anything without puppeteering nobility, in addition to mercantilism generation.) Many of the privileges are great but only grant influence and generally make estates more troublesome than before.

Also monarch diplo skill idea costs only 300. For other points you spent, you got other benefits. (Some of them not that good though.)

Best policy is -33 mercenary cost with merc ideas and -10AE and +10 morale damage with def comes to second place, so it goes nicely with militaristic playstyle, but, with that you would probably still prefer diplomatic, influence and espionage.

 

[Shinkuro Yukinari]

Ming greatly benefits from Court ideas due to estate management being crucial for succeeding. Otherwise...hard to recommend compared to others tbh.

 

[Bouchart]

On further consideration I'd think maybe the Papal State could make good use of this, since they have a lot of government reforms and many of them look pretty good.

 

[HypnoSkales]

yeah, i do

 

[txaggie1209]

I had a game where even after taking the full idea group my ruler still ended up with a 0 dip. So I'm not sure the +1 dip for ruler part actually works.

 

[Zaddy]

Court Ideas are like Espionage or Aristocratic to me: they give some really nice-to-have bonuses, but it's hard for me to pick it over stuff like Diplomatic, Influence, Offensive, etc.

 

[Terixis]

Useless unless you're EoC, which makes them very good. The free restoration of union CB from the event is cool but getting it is like winning the lottery. It does have some nifty policies like -5% CCR with admin but it's still not worth taking up a valuable idea group slot, imo.

 

[Naughtius Maximus]

I had a game where even after taking the full idea group my ruler still ended up with a 0 dip. So I'm not sure the +1 dip for ruler part actually works.

Hover over the diplo numbers at the advisor tab.

And yes, it's tailor made for Ming. Power projection from insults is extremely important for Ming as you get few rivals early. The one or two times you get one you should scornfully insult to get over the 50 PP hump.

Reform progress is pretty important as you would want to get to the 10th reform as fast as possible for one of the end missions.

+1 estate privilege after the last expansion is very useful before absolutism, and after if you don't care for absolutism. Some of those privileges are very nice.

+2 spendor is useful for Ming, which can't meet some of the Europe specific age requirements. -20% shorter interaction rate is also great for seizing land and calling diet more often. Very useful as you'll be wanting to get to 100% land for the reform progress while at the same time granting land rights, -5% land share each, for the mission and governing capacity.

 

[heroes133]

So far i didin't pick it once, always going for Espionage or Diplo. I guess it has to be a very specific nation / situation to pick it, it is not universally great like the best idea groups.

 

[noldorin]

As long as the idea selection limit is 8, these ideas are less likely to be selected. In my opinion, the idea selection slot should be increased, and the necessary condition for selecting the first idea group should be set as admin technology 4. or every 2 idea groups completed should unlock +1 idea group. Thus, the game is completed with 12 idea groups. I think that something like this is needed, this is my personal opinion.

 

[iClipse]

As long as the idea selection limit is 8, these ideas are less likely to be selected. In my opinion, the idea selection slot should be increased, and the necessary condition for selecting the first idea group should be set as admin technology 4. or every 2 idea groups completed should unlock +1 idea group. Thus, the game is completed with 12 idea groups. I think that something like this is needed, this is my personal opinion.

There are mods that change that.

I wouldn't like changing it. Making hard choices is one of the appeals of EU4 and what makes it replayable.

 

[necro84]

More ideas early game would be huge bonus for the hordes with their mana generation or nations that start with good monarch like Ottomans or Korea.

 

[nuurori]

Not all idea groups need to be universally good, actually, none preferably should. All should have their situatiotional uses. Otherwise there would be no choice.

Diplo group is not a no brainer if you are not expanding rapidly and don't need diplomatic benefits either. Same goes to espionage, its for spying and aggro reduction, and again, if you are not spying much, or dont need to worry about AE, you could go with others.

Im playng Korea with a bit troublesome estates, while also being capped in goverment capacity. I dont want territories to slow down my goverment reform progress, so Im not expanding much anyway. Diplo group, as awesome it is, would be completely useless. I dont even have real jobs for all my diplomats!

Kind of surprisingly only alternative worth considering would have been exploration ideas

 

[Insomnia126]

I haven't used that idea set so far, but I'll go through the ideas one by one and give my impressions of them.

+100% PP from insults: This might be useful if I ever remembered to insult my rivals. That means the super-duper Scornful Insult should give +20PP. Early on that could be enough to get you to +50PP and the +1/+1/+1 monarch point bonus. Still, you have to remember to insult rivals, which can be hard to remember to do.

+10 Estate loyalty equilibrium, +5 estate loyalty on revoking a priviledge: Estate loyalty equilibrium isn't hard to manage unless you are messing around with priviledges a lot. I usually add them in the age of Exploration, then and start revoking them in Absolutism. Might be nice if you swap them around a lot, or as insurance in case negative events bring an estate's loyalty below 30, but otherwise it seems marginal.

+1 yearly prestige: Seems like filler. It's more useful early on, but as the game progresses it's easy to maintain high levels of prestige.

+20% reform progress growth: Since the easier estate management lets you seize crown land more often, you can push up your reform progress really quickly. But I can't think of too many situations where reform progress growth is so high priority I'd give up other things for it.

+1 max privileges per estate, -estate privileges have 20% less impact on absolutism: I can't think of any situation where I have 6 estate privileges and want a 7th. Also, with all those estate privileges your max absoultsm will be close to 0 anyway. This is useful if you want all the estate privilges, or just one or two, with no inbetween. Highly situational.

+2 splendor, -20% estate interaction cooldown: The added splendor is nice if you take this as one of your first idea groups. Beyond maybe the 4th idea group, the splendor won't be as useful. Estate interaction cooldown seems like filler.

+1 diplomatic policy, +1 monarch diplomatic skill: You have to spend 2,800 dip points in total, with normal power costs, to unlock this. That means the +1 monarch diplomatic skill pays itself off in 233 years...assuming you wouldn't get a +6 dip leader naturally in that time frame. That could easily be the case for republics. The +1 policy is sounds nice, but is only useful late game when you have a number of policies available.

+0.5 legitimacy, +0.2 republican tradition, +0.5 devotion, +0.5 horde unity, +0.25 meritocracy, +0.1 mandate growth, +5% imperial authority growth:
This screams Ming, or anyone else who can do a quick Emperor of China play. Pushing through the emperor of China reforms early can have big benefits. The legitimacy is nice, and the republican tradition is good too. +5% imperial authority growth probably isn't worth it. A serious HRE play would be better serveed with either Influence or Diplomatic for the dip rep, dip relations or extra diplomats.

--------------
Overall thoughts: Half of the things here seem to work well early game and the other half seem to work well late game. The whole thing seems uneven. Ming might be the biggest reason to use this. But Ming might also want to take Exploration to get into the Western US, Indonesia and Australia instead. Maybe Ming could take this first and Expansion second for the colonists? Or maybe you could take this idea group early and then remove it some time in the Absolutism Age when you are done revoking estate priviledges. It's tough to find a compelling case for this.

This is a high effort post.

But the problem is that it fights for other, and better, idea groups:

Diplo > Esp > POWER GAP > Influ > Maritime = Trade > Court > POWER GAP > Explo

 

[iClipse]

Diplo > Esp > POWER GAP > Influ > Maritime = Trade > Court > POWER GAP > Explo

Stating opinions as fact are really bad for discussion.

Influence ideas might not be the best, unless you'r in a situation where they're useful and suddenly they become indespensible. The other idea groups serve similar purposes.

My single One Faith that I've done (never again) had influence at its core, stacking diplo annexation cost to its maximum (-98,75% cost, lowered further by admin efficiency). Something that's only reachable with influence ideas. Does it mean that it's a set I always take. God no. Does it mean it can be very powerful? Absolutely.

Maritime is another one that is useless in many use cases, but can be pretty powerful in the right situation (how does -25% CCR in all coastal provinces sound?)

I feel most groups have some merit. Some obviously more useful than others.

 

[Elminster12]

Yeah, DIP ideas are mostly in a good place. Diplomatic and Espionage are the obvious stand-outs, but Influence and even Trade have powerful and solid niches respectively. Maritime is situationally useful.
It's really just Court and Exploration that need a some help to be useful outside of really specific situations.