1.8 and ideas - Religion and Humanism still on top?

[dstarsboy]

They're in no way mutually exclusive, but I can't imagine a scenario where I'd want or need both.

One seems to be directed at quelling unrest via lowering Religious Unity and the other seems to be directed at quelling unrest via achieving Religious Unity...

There's a bit more to it than that but it's obvious that taking them both means you're canceling out some of their usefulness.

 

[FreeSoc]

One seems to be directed at quelling unrest via lowering Religious Unity and the other seems to be directed at quelling unrest via achieving Religious Unity...

There's a bit more to it than that but it's obvious that taking them both means you're canceling out some of their usefulness.

Not really, no. I wouldn't take both because either one would do the job well, but combining them both would lead to very high tolerances for the True Faith, Heretics and Heathens, reduced unrest and reduced stability cost, decreased accepted culture threshold (for the cultures you want to keep) and decreased culture conversion cost (for the ones you don't want to keep), easier expansion (Deus Vult) and an easier time with incorporating new provinces (reduced nationalism). Nothing in them nullifies the bonus from the other, as far as I can see.

 

[dstarsboy]

Not really, no. I wouldn't take both because either one would do the job well, but combining them both would lead to very high tolerances for the True Faith, Heretics and Heathens, reduced unrest and reduced stability cost, decreased accepted culture threshold (for the cultures you want to keep) and decreased culture conversion cost (for the ones you don't want to keep), easier expansion (Deus Vult) and an easier time with incorporating new provinces (reduced nationalism). Nothing in them nullifies the bonus from the other, as far as I can see.

Yes, the items related to what I clearly mentioned nullifies each other.

 

[Alsn]

Not really, no. I wouldn't take both because either one would do the job well, but combining them both would lead to very high tolerances for the True Faith, Heretics and Heathens, reduced unrest and reduced stability cost, decreased accepted culture threshold (for the cultures you want to keep) and decreased culture conversion cost (for the ones you don't want to keep), easier expansion (Deus Vult) and an easier time with incorporating new provinces (reduced nationalism). Nothing in them nullifies the bonus from the other, as far as I can see.

There's one simple fact you are missing though. A province can't be both of the true faith and another faith. So getting tolerance towards your main religion and other religions is kind of a waste, especially since with religious you'd be able to convert everything real fast anyway. You are mostly correct though, having them both doesn't really diminish all the other benefits. It's only really the tolerance which is redundant.

 

[FreeSoc]

There's one simple fact you are missing though. A province can't be both of the true faith and another faith. So getting tolerance towards your main religion and other religions is kind of a waste, especially since with religious you'd be able to convert everything real fast anyway. You are mostly correct though, having them both doesn't really diminish all the other benefits. It's only really the tolerance which is redundant.

Yeah, true, I'll concede on the point about Tolerance. Although as someone like Lithuania (or any rare nation where you've got a great big chunk of provinces not of your religion that would take a long time to convert), hypothetically, you might want to stop your Orthodox provinces from going crazy by taking Humanism and then come back at a later date and convert them with strengthened-by-religious missionaries.

 

[dstarsboy]

My point to FreeSoc is basically this:

As a nation with Religious ideas, you are more or less guaranteed to be at 100% religious unity for 99% of the game... and as a country with 100% religious unity, you don't see anything at all that might be worthless in Humanism? Really?

 

[Lamahorse]

Religious all the way. People can follow the path of peace or die!

 

[FreeSoc]

My point to FreeSoc is basically this:

As a nation with Religious ideas, you are more or less guaranteed to be at 100% religious unity for 99% of the game... and as a country with 100% religious unity, you don't see ANYTHING AT ALL that might be worthless in Humanism? Really?

Even with the Tolerance ideas in Humanism being redundant if you've taken Religious, which I've already admitted is the case, you're still left with 5 pretty great ideas and a good end-group bonus for Humanism.

I've already noted that I personally would never take both, but my argument is that to do so would not actually be a bad idea at all - as long as you had no other major priorities like Administrative or Expansion in the Admin group, at least.

 

[dstarsboy]

Noted, sorry about that, was just combating that nothing was being nullified but it sounds like we're in agreement.

I think Humanism is quite powerful even with the overlap so I'd take it over most "money making" type of admin ideas if I'm pretty well off late game or if I'm trying to role play a nice King, lol.

 

[Squirrelloid]

Administrative is arguably a lot less useful now that vassals are so flexible and conquest requires much less coring (some may still like it, I'd characterize them as the old guard who haven't adapted to vassal feeding).

It's ignorant nonsense like this which convinces me a lot of people never bother to read what the policies do.

Admin + Influence policy (with Influence ability) is almost double the effect of influence alone on vassal annexation. Not adapted to vassal feeding yet? Hardly - optimal vassal annexation requires Administrative.

And of course the implication here is that the reduced core creation cost is the only reason why you'd want to take Administrative, ignoring that 4 of its other 7 ideas and its finisher are also very good. Anyone who uses mercenaries should love administrative, and anyone who doesn't use mercenaries is gimping themselves. -10% admin tech costs and +.1 goods are also both quite useful. (And while it isn't amazing, +1 advisor is nothing to sneer at for one of the less useful ideas). When the only truly lackluster idea is -1 interest, only a fool would write off Administrative as not being exceptionally good.

The admin + influence policy isn't the only great policy with administrative either. Its harder to check quickly now, but I know there are several other great policies with administrative (such as adm + expl), and I would hazard to guess that administrative has the best policy suite of all the idea groups.

 

[Less]

It's ignorant nonsense like this which convinces me a lot of people never bother to read what the policies do.

Admin + Influence policy (with Influence ability) is almost double the effect of influence alone on vassal annexation. Not adapted to vassal feeding yet? Hardly - optimal vassal annexation requires Administrative.

It's ignorant nonsense like this which convince me people don't actually play the game.

Taking a whole 'nother group (one with overwhelmingly underwhelming ideas) + the cost of a policy to take off 2 DIP per BT is a complete waste. DIP is already cheap and vassal annexation is cheaper than coring, you don't need to waste a whole idea group to make it cheaper still. Influence is about far more than just discounting vassal annexation.

And of course the implication here is that the reduced core creation cost is the only reason why you'd want to take Administrative, ignoring that 4 of its other 7 ideas and its finisher are also very good. Anyone who uses mercenaries should love administrative, and anyone who doesn't use mercenaries is gimping themselves. -10% admin tech costs and +.1 goods are also both quite useful. (And while it isn't amazing, +1 advisor is nothing to sneer at for one of the less useful ideas). When the only truly lackluster idea is -1 interest, only a fool would write off Administrative as not being exceptionally good.

The Merc bonuses are 2 complete wastes and 1 very weak bonus.
-10% admin costs isn't great when the rest of the group doesn't justify itself.
+.1 goods is a minor economic bonus.

Altogether absolutely mediocre. The entire idea group would be certifiably junk if not for the discount to coring.

The admin + influence policy isn't the only great policy with administrative either. Its harder to check quickly now, but I know there are several other great policies with administrative (such as adm + expl), and I would hazard to guess that administrative has the best policy suite of all the idea groups.

I can't find any of them, and the admin + influence policy is hardly great. If you want to see a great set of policies that work with a great set of ideas, look at Quantity + Expansion and Quantity + Humanist.

 

[FreeSoc]

It's ignorant nonsense like this which convinces me a lot of people never bother to read what the policies do.

Admin + Influence policy (with Influence ability) is almost double the effect of influence alone on vassal annexation. Not adapted to vassal feeding yet? Hardly - optimal vassal annexation requires Administrative.

And of course the implication here is that the reduced core creation cost is the only reason why you'd want to take Administrative, ignoring that 4 of its other 7 ideas and its finisher are also very good. Anyone who uses mercenaries should love administrative, and anyone who doesn't use mercenaries is gimping themselves. -10% admin tech costs and +.1 goods are also both quite useful. (And while it isn't amazing, +1 advisor is nothing to sneer at for one of the less useful ideas). When the only truly lackluster idea is -1 interest, only a fool would write off Administrative as not being exceptionally good.

The admin + influence policy isn't the only great policy with administrative either. Its harder to check quickly now, but I know there are several other great policies with administrative (such as adm + expl), and I would hazard to guess that administrative has the best policy suite of all the idea groups.

Not to mention that the coring cost idea alone is a ridiculously good idea for any nation, let alone someone like the Ottomans. If you take Admin and claim a province, that's -50% coring cost right there. If you're the Ottomans, take Administrative and then claim a province, then that's -83% coring cost, which is absurdly strong - I'm currently doing an Ottoman game to get Sultan of Rum, and I took Religious first but I can see Admin becoming vital, particularly as I chew through the Mamluks and take North Africa. (I'm currently planning on taking Religious, Offensive, Administrative, Diplo/Influence, Exploration, Expansion, another Mil idea and either a third military or a third diplo idea.)

 

[unmerged(484926)]

And of course the implication here is that the reduced core creation cost is the only reason why you'd want to take Administrative, ignoring that 4 of its other 7 ideas and its finisher are also very good. Anyone who uses mercenaries should love administrative, and anyone who doesn't use mercenaries is gimping themselves.

The merc maintenance reduction only reduces the cost of mercenaries by at most 14%, and the build cost reduction only by at most 18%. Calculated from http://www.eu4wiki.com/Mercenaries#Mercenaries and tested in-game.

 

[Squirrelloid]

The merc maintenance reduction only reduces the cost of mercenaries by at most 14%, and the build cost reduction only by at most 18%. Calculated from http://www.eu4wiki.com/Mercenaries#Mercenaries and tested in-game.

err.. no?

At least the maintenance reduction is the full -33% it claims.

 

[unmerged(484926)]

Why do people like Defensive (over Quality) and is Innovative any good?

 

[Less]

err.. no?

At least the maintenance reduction is the full -33% it claims.

Mercs have +150% maintenance costs over regular units. The admin bonus takes it from 250% of normal -> 217% of normal.

In effect, assuming you entirely use mercs for all infantry and keep your cannons as non-merc, the Admin bonus will reduce your overall troop costs by something like 5%. At the same time, -merc cost doesn't change the maintenance and is therefore mostly useless. And this is 5% in absolute best case, if you use any normal infantry you'll make substantially less.

In comparison, -land maintenance applies to all unit maintenance (regular and merc) and reduces them all by 10% (actually 10%, not the way the merc bonus works). -regiment cost works on both recruitment cost AND maintenance costs, of all units (regular and merc). Quantity's two bonuses will reduce overall troop costs by ~19%, and it works the same whether you use mercs or regular units.

Why do people like Defensive (over Quality) and is Innovative any good?

Defensive's +army tradition is very powerful early on when everyone starts at low tradition, and +morale is incredibly OP early game when combined with NIs that boost morale (FRANCE).

Quality's problem is that it is strictly inferior to Offensive so long as you use generals (you should) and as long as you aren't too worried about the navy (which you shouldn't, except maybe in MP if you are playing England vs. a France or something). It is useful to stack more bonuses after you have taken Offensive, but otherwise plays second rung.

Innovative is a pretty good all-rounder that has really nice policies w/ Offensive and Quality.

 

[Gaamel]

Why do people like Defensive (over Quality) and is Innovative any good?

Because defensive gives +1 yearly army tradition, +33% faster reinforcement (huge bonus) and +15% MORALE. Better generals and better morale win battles, you suffer more casualties than with quality but if you can afford the manpower loss it's very powerful. If you field large stacks of mercenaries it's especially good, because you don't care about the manpower issue. Morale also boosts fort assaults.

Quality has become a niche idea, chewing through enemy manpower and preserving your numbers might be the key to win attrition wars but in 1.8 great powers hire so much mercenaries that this strat has become almost irrelevant...I won't deny that the idea is useful later in the game, after defensive/offensive.

Innovative is still great in 1.8 (as it has always been) if you plan to wage endless wars against your neighbours. Take it early though, or the tech discount will be wasted.

 

[hauptman]

Granted I havent been very active lately, but apparently everyone forgot everything I have ever said...

The idea of this game is still, stack bonuses (bonii?).

Are you Italy, or the turk? Then yes get administrative. It's completely pointless to take it as anyone else. -25% Core cost alone is useless if it isnt being stacked with a useful NI. You'd be better off taking Economic and being able to afford better advisors (thus create more ADM, instead of spend less).

Are you Prussia? Then buy all the military ideas. Stack those bonuses and watch 40k prussian troops destroy 200k austrians.

Austria? Well now diplo, influence, expansion, and let your bajillion allies do all the work for you.

Your choices for idea sets should be custome tailored to fit your nations NIs. I would not get the same ideas as Prussia, or Saxony, or Italy. They are all played differently, and your idea sets are there to enhance that particular strength.

Also defensive is still hands down the BEST military set. +1 miltrad = better generals. -10% maintenance cost = 10% bigger armies. Better generals with bigger armies that have more morale will win every battle in every game. The end.

(also, do not ignore the reduced attrition for you, but hightened for enemies. Manpower is everyone's weakness. Defensive is as powerful as Quantity {if not more} when it comes to manpower.)

 

[SeraphLance]

Also defensive is still hands down the BEST military set. +1 miltrad = better generals. -10% maintenance cost = 10% bigger armies. Better generals with bigger armies that have more morale will win every battle in every game. The end.

I still have difficulty believing defensive could be better than offensive. Maintenance cost doesn't translate that well to bigger armies if you're already at your forcelimit, and it doesn't even come close to a straight +20% forcelimit bonus. +1 AT certainly doesn't feel superior to +1 shock/fire either, but I could be wrong. Morale and Discipline both have advantages over eachother at different stages of the game, and I'd trade a lot more attrition buffs than defensive gets for a straight +20% siege ability. That doesn't even account for forced march, which is still incredibly useful.

 

[unmerged(484926)]

So with Quantity, Defensive and Offensive all being good, what are the circumstances in which you should get one over another? I can see Quantity being better in a colonial game (settler policy) and worse if you're rich enough to afford lots of mercs, and the reinforce from Defensive being better if you have more mercs.