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MirEgal

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Feb 23, 2013
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With the upcoming estate changes, I'd like to revisit the granting of provinces to estates.

In the past, I have had a rather simple (and sub-optimal) strategy:
  • Only grant the minimum number of provinces as granting increases influence which also increases the probability of a disaster if one of those influence-increasing events pop up
  • This also minimizes the provinces which can spawn rebels if there are problems with estates (revoke and so on)
  • When distributing, give high-autonomy provinces to minimize autonomy effects; ideally those with minimal development so I can profit from 0 % autonomy after a few decades (I mostly play peaceful with wars of opportunity once I reached a certain size)
  • When distributing, prefer connected areas so I have single red and yellow (seldom blue) blobs in the estate view
Essentially, I minimize my estate interaction (I also forget to collect my free monarch points most of the time).

What is your estate strategy? Will you adapt it with the upcoming changes? If yes, how and why?
 
What I can see you can take three way on this.
First one is completely ignore it. Up side is, no mirco involved and all stated province will be 0% autonomy. Well the downside is you can't get any estates interaction and high autonomy stated provinces are less valuable.
Second one is minimum usage. Mostly use estates on high autonomy provinces so it gives some benefits, but rarely uses estates abilities. It's a bit more micro, but you'll get more out of autonomious provinces. By rarely using the abilities you'll rarely upset the estates or have too many influences.
Third one is max usage. Pretty much in min-maxing way. Placing estates in high autonomy and move it other provinces when needed. Milking the estates ablity to get the max out of it. Downside is the loyalty and influence will change a lot. So there will be cases that you'll get some very pissed off or very influencing estates.

Personally I'm in the third group with the focus on getting the free 150 admin/dip/mil points. The way I don't forget get do it is by syncing with the abilities you'll use. The ability to get extra loyaty for prestige cost has the exact same cooldown as the one asking for points. So if you set your messages right you know exactly when you can farm your next batch of free points. But in the next patch the start of the disaster tick is at 100 influence instead of 80. I might even try to get 200 instead 150. Need to experiment with that first.
 
I am not a massive micromanager, but when I do use them its:

  • To placate the Burgher's when an institution spawns to get the development cost reduction bonus they give
  • The cheaper advisers, esp relations improvement and the missionary strength guy
  • Using the Burgher's to increase colonisation speed. Sometimes, I'll use the Clergy version of this
  • The Nobility to grant a free general
I won't go for the 150 points as it does tend to lead to various disasters if you get back luck events - but will instead pick up 100 when I remember to do it.
 
I want to see if going for the generals is as dangerous as it was before now that the disaster triggers at 100%. But I like the estates and Im a roleplayer so Ill keep minmaxing them and using them a lot for the bonuses and I love the risk. Also, the burghers on the many new centers of trade there are with the sweet 50% trade power is going to be KEY.
 
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In the current patch, I just grant centers of trade (in nodes where I don't have 100%) to Burghers for the +50% Trade Power boost. Then I grant the bare minimum to the other estates. I prioritize provinces with relatively poor trade goods like Grain and Livestock, so that the production/trade malus from autonomy doesn't hurt as much. Also, if the estates' demands are only like 1% short, I'll just develop their provinces to meet the requirement rather than grant them new ones.

In the next patch, I'm not sure if there will be much of a point to granting the nobles/clergy land at all. I'm not the type to meticulously milk the estates for MP even though that's the "optimal" thing to do, so I'll probably just let the Clergy and Nobles rot.
 
I usually tries to keep them powerful and loyal, giving them all newly conquered land and revoking it from them only when needed. Typically I don't cash in monarch points when I can, instead making use of the passive bonuses given by loyal estates until their loyalty had dropped to 60% (I have estates in the sidebar menu). 40 or 60 doesn't matter as neither will give a bonus nor a penalty and both decays towards 50 as fast.

Burghers get CoTs, clergy a fair bit due to facilitating conversions and decreasing unrest while nobles tends to get provinces/states with grain that I plan to develop for manpower. I'm a bit less hesitant to grab points from them too unless my manpower is critical.

Influence is usually kept between 60-80, with the disasters ticking frequently - which is harmless if a timed influence modifier like an event or advisor ends before the disaster actually triggers.
 
+5 unrest for 15 years for revoking an estate...oww

If you giving newly acquired land to estates to mitigate high autonomy, the provinces may still have separatism on top of this new unrest bonus when your ready to move the estate to new high autonomy land.
 
I do hope though that they've better taught the AI to assign estates, especially burghers. It pains me deeply seeing Portugal's estuary without burghers. Same for other centers of trade and estuaries where the AI doesn't place burghers, making it easier for the player to rip them off on trade, as if it wasnt easy enough as it is. So I hope @DDRJake and @Groogy fix that. Also would appriciate it that now that estates are optional you coul place burghers in your capital for countries like Portugal or the netherlands who are at a disadvantage since they cannot place their burghers on their centers of trade. Which doesn't make much sense.
 
I do hope though that they've better taught the AI to assign estates, especially burghers. It pains me deeply seeing Portugal's estuary without burghers. Same for other centers of trade and estuaries where the AI doesn't place burghers, making it easier for the player to rip them off on trade, as if it wasnt easy enough as it is. So I hope @DDRJake and @Groogy fix that. Also would appriciate it that now that estates are optional you coul place burghers in your capital for countries like Portugal or the netherlands who are at a disadvantage since they cannot place their burghers on their centers of trade. Which doesn't make much sense.
And revoking the land. My heart hates to see Nobility controlling the gems with bonus goods produced in Bahmanis.
 
And revoking the land. My heart hates to see Nobility controlling the gems with bonus goods produced in Bahmanis.

Ah yes, they didn't even teach the AI to revoke land. I dont think it should be so hard. Lets hope they have so the AI can avoid cases like the one you point out and thus become more economically efficient and competent.