1.8 and ideas - Religion and Humanism still on top?

[hauptman]

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.

When is 20% forcelimit that great really? Sure it's good. But great? No.

Early game, what good is 20% FL when you only have 10... 2 more infantry units isnt going to do much for you. Late game, I'm rarely even at my forcelimit, let alone above it. And if I am above it, it's because I'm fabulously wealthy and could care less what my actual FL is.

+1 shock/fire? Ok these I'd call great... but greater than 15% more morale? Nope.
20% siege ability isnt 20% faster seiges. Nope. Guns have more impact than that idea. And guns are expensive without things to reduce that cost.

I'm not saying take ONLY defensive... you should still take offensive as well. But get defensive first (as your second idea set). It's bonuses are more helpfull early game, when you really need them. Offensive's power is more useful when your big and powerful and simply want to take on other big powers quicker. Defensive in the early game (when seiges take 3 or 4 years) is a must have or your manpower pool will never recover from the constant attrition.

 

[hauptman]

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.

Depends on who you are playing mainly, and what your early goals are... two examples, Brandenburg/Prussia and Hansa.

Bb starts weak. You will need constant warfare against more powerful neighbors in order to grow rapidly. So in this case Defensive first. Asuming you took it as your second idea set, defensives morale unlocks Prussian morale. Boom now you are nearly unbeatable. Again my manpower pools suffer from seiges more than battle. So that reduced attrition is a godsend for me. By the time you form prussia, you should be getting offensive to make taking on Poland, denmark, and austria with greater ease. Then quality will round out your supermen late game.

Hansa plays differently. So as a small but wealthy nation, money is rarely a real issue. You have much more time before you need to take on any big powers, other than denmark, who you always have austria to defend you against. And all you need to defeat Denmark is a few dozen galleys. So as the Hansa, I take plutocratic first, then Quantity. Hansa has manpower recovery as an NI. So taking quantity to stack that recovery speed means after you blow your wad in a difficult war, you'll be ready for the next before your enemy has recovered. Also, huge trade income with high tax base provinces, stack well with really cheap troops. Your forcelimits will never matter again. You can easily double the size of a rivals army with much fewer provinces of your own. After economic as your third idea, you can get defensive to match your reformed morale boost. This will keep you even with most nations in that department, and better than the majority, as 10% pluto, 15% defensive, and 20% reformed stack well. Then if you toss in aristocratic if you happen to go monarchy, your techs will become so cheap you'll be ahead of the curve with ease.

Quantity -20%. Economic -10%. Defensive -10%. Buildings -20%. Troops only cost 40% maintenance with all those combined and when you're rich to boot. Yeh who cares if your troops arent quality like Prussia.

 

[Less]

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.

I consider Quantity the best to take early on provided you take Humanist as well (and who isn't taking either Humanist or Religious as one of their first 3 or so ideas?). Reason being that Quantity + Humanist = +1 shock +0.5 army tradition policy, and since Shock is king early on your Quantity is now nearly fighting on equal terms with Offensive.

Also it should be noted that Quantity is still really good with mercs. +50% forcelimit is huge, and -20% maintenance work for all units and effectively lets you go to ~85% over your original force limit before your units cost what they did before. So that's a lot of room to really flex your economic muscle and pump out a big army.

 

[Incompetent]

I don't like taking military ideas first with a country that starts weak, as it's competing with military tech, and getting the first few military techs ASAP is far more important than any of the idea bonuses. In the long run it will make your military tech cheaper, but in the short run it can force some awkward compromises, especially if you are a monarchy and can't choose to have a great military king. So my preferred 'military' opening idea would probably be Innovative or Administrative. You can then follow it up with a mil points idea second or third depending on monarch points, and possibly unlock an interesting policy.

 

[swm]

I have learned to love Quantity and I am quite partial to Religious. These two will probably be my first two ideas unless I'm stuck somewhere where I can't use the Holy War CB, in which case switch Religious with Humanist.

Humanism is an awesome idea group, yes, but Quantity is the greatest thing in the game and Religious is slightly better (in my humble opinion). Stacking both Humanism and Religious is usually overkill and really heavy on the ADM so I'd advise against it.

 

[hauptman]

Just wanted to add I have played 2 games in 1.8. Both as Bb to get a feel for the new stuff.

First game I went with my old idea set line up, with 1 minor change. Aristocratic, defensive, Innovative, quality, religious, then offensive. Normally I take religious as my 3rd, but the recent changes make me think that it wasnt as important. I changed my mind for the second game... Even with 2 mil sets right off the bat I was still first to gunpowder. I love those cheap techs. Also i think it was Aristocratic + Quality that gave me yet another 20% infantry combat ability. God troops.

Second was Influence, defensive, religious, offensive, innovative, (not there yet, but next will be quality, then perhaps economic or trade). Side note; I was still miltech 10 when gunpowder happened... I missed aristocratic right then.

The lack of diprep in the first game really hurt on vassal annexations. And a few of the influence ideas are really nice. Think I like it much better than diplomatic.

 

[Gaamel]

Also i think it was Aristocratic + Quality that gave me yet another 20% infantry combat ability. God troops.

Humanist+Quantity is definitely powerful (+1 shock +0.5 trad) but the +20% inf ability comes from quality+innovative. With Prussia this means 150% infantry ability...

You were talking about stacking bonuses : Prussia has -10% AE from its NIs, stack that with influence and you end up with -30%. Add the policy innovative+influence and you reach -40% AE

 

[Sachko]

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

Hm.. Some.. Radical buddhist sort of state ? Or some weird stuff like that ?

 

[Zwirbaum]

Humanist+Quantity is definitely powerful (+1 shock +0.5 trad) but the +20% inf ability comes from quality+innovative. With Prussia this means 150% infantry ability...

You were talking about stacking bonuses : Prussia has -10% AE from its NIs, stack that with influence and you end up with -30%. Add the policy innovative+influence and you reach -40% AE

Add also prestige effect (up to 10%). Which would cut in half AE.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I don't like taking military ideas first with a country that starts weak, as it's competing with military tech, and getting the first few military techs ASAP is far more important than any of the idea bonuses. In the long run it will make your military tech cheaper, but in the short run it can force some awkward compromises, especially if you are a monarchy and can't choose to have a great military king. So my preferred 'military' opening idea would probably be Innovative or Administrative. You can then follow it up with a mil points idea second or third depending on monarch points, and possibly unlock an interesting policy.

I opened 3 straight mil ideas as Tabarestan and was almost never behind Europe due to nf. I didn't become a republic until recently.

The Otto discipline still gave me hell, but a military tech lead and ideas let me blast Timmy to pieces after the early store money and release Persia gambit to attack qq. I'd have liked a more balanced opening but for that kind of situation survival wins.

 

[Sorellis]

Espionage is actually good now I think. With the policy you can get to +8 unrest in provinces from supporting rebels and since a rebellion is a lot more important than it used to be this can really cripple some nations. It's still not as good as other idea groups I think but I find it pretty hilarious.

 

[Tzumao]

Espionage is actually good now I think. With the policy you can get to +8 unrest in provinces from supporting rebels and since a rebellion is a lot more important than it used to be this can really cripple some nations. It's still not as good as other idea groups I think but I find it pretty hilarious.

Don't forget that province warscore cost is tied to autonomy, which is increased by 10 every time peasant rebels win a siege. At 100% autonomy almost all provinces will cost just 1% WS. Espionage isn't just fun, with rebel abuse you can one shot any country in the world unless they're strong enough to face millions of rebels (the AI usually isn't).

 

[unmerged(484926)]

Espionage is actually good now I think. With the policy you can get to +8 unrest in provinces from supporting rebels and since a rebellion is a lot more important than it used to be this can really cripple some nations. It's still not as good as other idea groups I think but I find it pretty hilarious.

Are you sure? In the interface the slider still goes from +2 to +4.

 

[Sorellis]

Don't forget that province warscore cost is tied to autonomy, which is increased by 10 every time peasant rebels win a siege. At 100% autonomy almost all provinces will cost just 1% WS. Espionage isn't just fun, with rebel abuse you can one shot any country in the world unless they're strong enough to face millions of rebels (the AI usually isn't).

Good point. In my experience I've found that the AI likes to spam harsh treatment, but this just usually delays the rebellion rather than preventing it. And them spending mil points is still a win for you. If a country is facing westernization/a peasant war/religious turmoil espionage can be seriously deadly.

Are you sure? In the interface the slider still goes from +2 to +4.

The interface is a bit misleading. You are right that it only goes from +2 to +4, but when you check the unrest in the province view you can see the "bonus" unrest from +rebel support efficiency. Remember that you can only see the modifiers affecting unrest if that province is not in the fog of war. With full Espionage you can get to +6 and with the Economic + Espionage policy you can get to +8. The Espionage + Humanist policy can bring the total to +9 but I'm not sure that this policy is worth it.

 

[radiatoren]

Defensive for the moral bonus seems like the best deal relatively early when picking mil ideas. Moral is the king at this time. Except for maybe naval the military ideas all seems pretty viable.

Oldschool diplomatic seems like the best overall diplomatic idea with the extra diplomat. Influence may be just as good, if not better because of the aggressive expansion reduction, but I like the extra diplomat and lowered province warscore cost.

Humanist is hands down the bomb in terms of avoiding rebels. Religious unity, less nationalism and straight reduced unrest are golden for taking provinces in religiously diverse areas. Religious and Innovative are very tempting picks too.

I would love to pick maritime and economic more often, but they seem a bit low value in broader gameplay. Economic is lower value since inflation can be handled relatively easily and cheaply even without it, through advisors, spending monarch points and buildings. Interest reduction is just extremely low value overall. Land maintenance modifier and build cost is not enough upside to pick it usually. Maritime is geographically restricted and while all of the ideas are OK with forcelimit bonus and ship repair, they won't help enough to make up for the loss compared to other more specialized ideas like exploration, trade and even espionage.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Don't forget that province warscore cost is tied to autonomy, which is increased by 10 every time peasant rebels win a siege. At 100% autonomy almost all provinces will cost just 1% WS. Espionage isn't just fun, with rebel abuse you can one shot any country in the world unless they're strong enough to face millions of rebels (the AI usually isn't).

You'd need a lot of peasant revolts to bring down someone like Ottomans in one go though . That kind of war would probably take 50+ years, and while you could do it I think it'd actually be faster (and less WE costly, even if you avoid call for peace) to just do multiple wars once you break out all the nationalists.

 

[Vulkandrache]

You'd need a lot of peasant revolts to bring down someone like Ottomans in one go though . That kind of war would probably take 50+ years, and while you could do it I think it'd actually be faster (and less WE costly, even if you avoid call for peace) to just do multiple wars once you break out all the nationalists.

I think if you do it well it's gonna be two wars maybe 3. In the first you deplete their manpower, take all their money and reparations to weaken their ability for mercs. Afterwards they'll have WE and your supported rebels as unrest. And now, with each successful peasant siege, their income and manpower shrinks even more.



Humanist vs Religious

Taking both is probably too much. You will never have unrest, yes, but with only one of them you can just beat down what few rebels you get.
If i had to choose i'd most likely go for religious, the cb and missionary are just really good.
That said, i think humanist is both extremly strong and one of the best designed idea groups in the game.
Because you do not want to take it. What?


Humanist is a one trick pony but it does that one trick really well. It keeps your realm stable against all odds.
Why do i not "want" to take it?

The only thing humanist "gives" you is "better relations over time". All the others ideas simply iron out problems in your nation.
10% cheaper ideas. You pay 2800 points for that, admin points. If you want something that saves mp look at quantity.

The group as a whole gives nothing that would help expand your nation.
I always want to cry for people that go: "Humanist first, rebels, what rebels?"
The question that should be asked is not: "Should i take humanist?" but rather "Can i make do without it?".
Can you keep your realm stable using other methods and do those other methods use less ressources, especially admin points.
If not, take humanist. Somewhere around third or forth idea maybe.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I'm starting to think religious is being underrated if you're running AoW. Early on you can just pick up Deus Vult and spam feed a vassal you've put in your religion without spending DIP there other than annexing. Later you can either fill it more or dump it once you have imperialism.

 

[Denkt]

Religious can probably save you more MP then influence can and you only have to pick the first idea.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Religious can probably save you more MP then influence can and you only have to pick the first idea.

True, but influence is still a top tier option when going that route because of the diprep and utility of vassals pre-annex in addition to the -cost. Influence + diplomatic = can overpower the annexed penalty and keep going at a reasonable rate (base, same religion, and +1 from having +4 -3 put you at +3 DIP annexation rate, or +5 with statesman, even if you've annexed a vassal recently and as high as +8 otherwise which really makes the strategy more viable).