Ages - Splendor Ability Guide

[lolada]

About bonuses and splendor

Edit: Updated 14.01.2019. patch 1.28.2 after Golden century DLC.

In its expanded form, each age contains seven period-related objectives, which when fulfilled, grants nations +3 Power projection and +2 Splendor on a monthly basis (per objective). Splendor may then be used to purchase age-specific abilities, which are various temporary bonuses a nation can activate for the remaining period of that age. The age-abilities are divided into 7 general abilities which can be taken by any nation and 4 nation-specific abilities which may only be taken by the indicated nation - these reflect countries that were historically powerful during the active age period. When a given age ends, all accumulated splendor and all previously purchased abilities disappear while power projection gained from objectives starts waning - thus resetting the table for the new age.

- From EU4 wiki.

Each age has a few good abilities while the rest are very situation or weak. In general its not worth going way too far to fulfill ages and get more splendor unless you really badly need some ability quickly. If you fill 3 objective you will eventually get all the abilities you want. If you fill most of the objectives you will have spare Splendor that goes to waste. You do get abilities quicker and more power projection if you have more fulfilled objectives which is a good incentive to try to get them.

Age of Discovery objectives

This age has quite a few good abilities so chasing objectives early should be prioritized.

Discover America - While having your capital on Europe, Africa or Asia, discover North America, South America or a random new world continent - Get it if you want to colonize, otherwise don't bother. Should be possible to steal map at Diplo level 6 if you really want it, I didn't try it though.

Developed Nation - Have at least 100 total development while the capital is not in Europe, Asia or Africa - You can get this through conquest. Not worth it to develop a lot.

Control Centers of Trade Own and control 5 core provinces with the Coastal Center of Trade or Inland Center of Trade modifier - You should blob anyway to get these important provinces. The faster the better.

A Large City Own and control a core province with at least 30 development - You should probably get this in every game. Having a highly developed capital is generally good way to embrace institutions. Its good to wait and develop a bit later to spawn Renaissance if you plan to do so. Otherwise you will have to spend lots of points trying to get both.

Embrace Renaissance Embrace the Renaissance institution and keep it in all state provinces. - Get this when and if you can obviously. Not worth it to go extra length to use state edicts or develop provinces to get it faster.

Hold Three Thrones Have at least 2 personal unions as Christian country - Extremely situational - Austria can get this, Denmark, Burgundy and maybe someone else if you are lucky. You can't do much about this.

Feudal Society Have at least 5 vassals as non-Christian country. - This is usually over diplomatic limits so its not worth to pursue it. You could get it with Muscovy and maybe some other countries that can get easy vassals, Japan shogun gets it. In general, don't bother.

Present on Two Continents Own provinces on at least two continents. - Some nations are in unique position to get this one. Prioritize it to get it quicker, no brainer.

Humiliate Rival Humiliate a rival through a peace treaty - Get this immediately at start while you can rival many people. There's usually an easy rival you can defeat and you don't need to take all his land.

Age of Discovery abilities

Feudal De Jure Law - Allow Edict “Feudal De Jure Law” ( −5 Unrest) - his is useful edict - combination of this edict, -2 unrest advisor and rebel suppression can stop the rebels. If situation is really bad, edict + increase autonomy should solve rebel issues. Avoiding rebels save both money and manpower, often worth it.

Justified Wars −10% Aggressive expansion impact - Great if your AE is important. Good fiest pick in HRE region, maybe in India, Japan also, anywhere where there is lots of states.

Transfer Subject Transfer subject peace treaty at half cost, and allow fabricating claims bordering existing claims. - Transfer subject is a great way to steal vassals from overlords. You could for example vassalize Naples or Hedjaz this way. If you are in position to use this ability its a worthwhile pick.
With Fabricate claims change you can chain claims to attack countries that you could not otherwise attack with legal CB. This could be extremely powerful tool to gobble up and vasalize HRE minors for example. Good for Ryukyu also, you can snake your claims all the way to Malacca.

Improved Wartaxes −100% Wartaxes cost - Great way to save some money. If you don't need other abilities more this is very good pick. You could even intentionally start easy wars or stay longer in wars to save money. You will have this picked every game, sooner or later.

Cavalry Armies +20% Cavalry to infantry ratio - Could be a cool pick for Eastern nations or a horde for max cav tactics. Since money is scarce early and horses are expensive its hard to put to good use. Not great but pickable if you don't have better choices. In 95% of the games you won't even care about cav ratio.
You could never pick this one if you don't care about cavalry.

Higher Developed Colonies Gain +1 base tax, +1 base production, and +1 base manpower in a colony when it becomes a city. - Some quick colonizers can get a few development from this. You can get something like 5 - 10 colonies, depending when you pick it, small bonus. benefits are questionable, since colonial nations forms, provinces are not in your states... Kind of weak, pick if there's nothing more important. Obviously, you should never pick this one if you don't colonize.

Adaptive Combat - Terrain Gain +1 combat bonus in provinces with the same terrain type as the capital. - This is cool bonus to have, equivalent to something like +5% discipline if fighting in favorable terrain. Important pick, worth it as 1st pick. There are a few nations that can't use this bonus well, but those are exceptions.

The Guns of Urban: +33% Siege ability (available only to Ottomans) - Cool ability, i tried it, it looks strong on paper, but in game it just saves a bit of time, its not really mandatory or OP for Ottos. Ottos might pick combat bonus, AE and war taxes ability before this one.

Portuguese Colonial Growth: +50 Global settler increase (available only to Portugal) - Great bonus for Portugal, 1st pick. Helps picking up major trade centers quickly.

Danish Subject Loyalty: −30% Liberty desire in subjects (available only to Denmark) - Obvious pick for Denmark, not much to say.

Venetian Trade: +50% Ship trade power (available only to Venice) - Good Venice pick. You can use force limits to build less Light ships and more Galleys if you need them. Or just get more ducats. Its a pick certainly, you might pick AE reduction, war taxes or combat bonus ability before it tho.


General rating

If you don't know what to pick you could start this way.

*** Best, always good
- Adaptive Combat, War Taxes, Justified Wars and Nation specific abilities

** Can be very good but are situational
- Transfer Subjects, Cavalry armies, Feudal De Jure Law

* Weak - give only small benefits
- Colony development

You can find more information about ages on EU4 wiki page:
http://www.eu4wiki.com/Ages#Age_of_Discovery

 

[lolada]

Age of Reformation

Important to know is that you can fulfill these objective in Age of Discovery. When ages change they will be immediately active thus saving you time and you will get abilities quicker.

Age of Reformation objectives

This age abilities are quite lackluster.. probably worst of all age abilities. They are somewhat useful, but don't go overboard to achieve objectives. Picking up one or two is probably enough.

Join the Reformation Embrace Protestantism or Reformed as your state religion. - If you are in position to do so its a decent incentive to switch. Gameplay choice mostly.

Humanist or Religious Complete either the Humanist or Religious idea group - Two very strong groups, you will probably have one of these picked. For best effect try to have it completed by early 1500s.

Convert Provinces Convert 10 provinces of a different religion. (Conversions done during the Age of Discovery count.) - Worth it to prioritize conquering and converting 10 provinces. You should do this in Age of discovery.

Create a Colonial Empire Gain at least 5 colonial nations - This is very hard to get unless you are western european power. Don't bother much.

Converted another Nation Convert another nation through war, subject interaction, or enforcing unity. (Doing this during the Age of Discovery counts.) - Usually easiest to convert your vassal. Don't convert big vassals, i tested it several time, its not worth it. Rather find some weak OPM and force convert him.

Asian Trade Gain trade bonus in Silk, Spices or Chinaware - These are quite hard to get. If you are Ming, Pasai or ambitious Japanese state its possible to get it. Big nation in Persia can get it. Some Indian nations could pick exploration and get it. Its worth it to conquer Mallacca area anyway so its a good goal for early-mid game.

Unify Culture Own all provinces of your culture group - Do it if you can, its much easier for some nations than the others. I wouldn't bother for Germans or Italians for example..

Age of Reformation abilities

Religion Enforced Edict Allow Edict “Religion Enforced” (+90% Resistance to reformation) - Crap ability, don't rely on this. If you are in HRE better think ahead and decide what religion you want.

Coastal Barrage +1 Blockade impact on siege - Very handy ability to pick up if you are going to siege coastal forts.

Religious Wars −25% Warscore cost vs other religions - Very good ability, makes peacing out and taking land easier. Still not overpowered, you are limited by overextension and aggressive expansion.

Mercenary Discipline +5 Mercenary discipline - Very nice bonus as well. If you are playing to the max, chances are you are using lots of mercenaries.

Powerful Tradeships +20% Ship tradepower propagation - This will transfer some of your ship tradepower through nodes if i figured this out.. and its only 20%.. And it would save you maybe a little bit of money. You'd need have lots of ships and that costs a lot. A weak ability for most nations, some merchants republics or colonizers might pick it up earlier. Nothing to write home about.

Institutional Spread +50% Institution spread in true faith provinces - Useful if you are a large country that would wait a lot to embrace institution. Think Muscovy and Ottomans. Otherwise its not a high priority, you could rather use State edicts if you really want the bonus.
Still i pick this often, since other abilities are not usable or plain bad.

Prestigious Conversions +0.3 Prestige per development from missionary - Might look a little, its only 0.3, but this is actually awesome if you are conquering lots of heathen lands. You can plow through India and Asia, convert land, feed vassals, use prestige to lower liberty desire, take negative events for prestige and still be capped at 100 prestige most of the time.

Spanish Tercios −30% Shock damage received (available only to Spain) - Awesome ability 10/10. Consider it smth like 5-10% discipline, we tried to calculate a bit in one forum thread, whatever the exact result, this ability is really strong.

Mughal Artillery −50% Artillery cost (available only to Mughals) - Mughals got huge buff in latest DLCs, worth forming. Looks like a great pick.

Polish Crown - +33% Goods produced modifier (available only to (available only to Poland or Commonwealth) - Awesome if you need money and if you expanded nicely. This is lots of production and trade money that scales the bigger you are.

Persian Reinforcement −30% Reinforce cost (available only to Persia) - Didn't try it, but i suppose it works for mercenaries. Its a good money saver, reinforcement costs are high. Might not be the first pick, but none the less, good bonus.

General rating

If you don't know what to pick you could start this way.

*** Best, always good
- Religious wars, Mercenary discipline and Nation specific abilities

** Can be very good but are situational
- Prestigious conversions (if doing lots of conversion this is ***), Coastal barrage

* Weak - give only small benefits
- Powerful tradeships, institutional spread, Edict “Religion Enforced”

You can find more information about ages on EU4 wiki page:
http://www.eu4wiki.com/Ages#Age_of_Reformation

 

[lolada]

Age of Absolutism

This age is at a weird place a bit. It has some super strong stuff and some very weak stuff. Basically you will want to get objectives as early as possible and raise Absolutism quickly. To do this you must pick some abilities first, which makes some other abilites second grade.

During this age Court and Country disaster is available and this is one disaster that you want to trigger asap. If you finish the disaster with 65+ absolutism you will get extra +20 absolutism. Careful, its easy to restart disaster progress, it requires +1 unrest, which means you will probably want lots of overextension. If you core the land and get below +1 counter resets and you need 3+ more years to trigger it. Disaster then lasts minimum 10 years.


Age of Absolutism objectives

While this age is awesome in general, only two abilities (+ special nations if you are one) are really good. You want them fast so its important to prioritize objectives.

Three Trade Companies: Have 3 Trade Companies - A worthy objective - trade companies are strong and you would eventually get 3 merchants from them. Should be prioritized in earlier age to get the bonus splendor immediately.

Multiple Universities Own and control at least 5 Universities - Since absolutism abilities are great you should plan to get this asap. The catch is that University is level 17 admin tech which you might get late. And it costs like 1000+ ducats. You can loan up and build the buildings to get them faster.

Potential for a Large Army Reach a force limit of 200 regiments - You don't need to have 200 regiments, but your force limits need to be over 200. Doable if you are large. You can't really plan for this. If you are close to limit you might build some force limit buildings to get it.

Absolutism Have at least 90 absolutism - You will get this eventually, probably need to start Court and Country disaster. Raising absolutism is priority in most games.

Emperor of China Be Emperor of China with a mandate of at least 50 - Its a tough one to get and counter productive a bit. Its better to keep Ming at low Mandate and punch them than to take it away from them. I wouldn't bother with this one. If you planned to take Mandate then its a nice bonus you get along the way.

Multicultural Nation Have at least 5 different promoted cultures - You need to be good at diplo tech to get this one, its easy to screw up if you diploannex a lot. Much easier if you have Humanism group, it has +2 promoted cultures. Easier after Dharma DLC since you can also pick +2 accepted cultures in government reform.

Win Religious War - Be on the victorious side in the Religious League War - If it happens it happens. more trouble than worth. Easiest way to win religious war is to just join on the side where Ottomans are.


Age of Absolutism abilities

Edict of Absolutism Allow Edict “Edict of Absolutism” ( −0.25 Monthly devastation) - Not worth it really. Spends money in order to save money and you need to remember to activate and deactivate it. If your capital area was sieged maybe it might pay off. Pick if you have nothing better.

Flexible Rivalries −50% Change rival cost - Can save you some diplo points if you ever change rivals. Since its late in game you probably never will. A weak ability.

Protecting Forts −100% Fort maintenance on border with rival - If you are surrounded by rivals and have forts on border it could save you some money - 5 ducats maybe, probably less. Playstyle dependent. Chances are you will not pick it as one of first abilities so it is even weaker than it looks. Borders move... and putting forts on borders is often not the best choice due to terrain.

Efficient Autonomy −50% Autonomy change cooldown - Looks good on paper, but in reality you are not gonna use this one. Your states are probably at low autonomy and unstated land is locked at 75.. Once you reduce autonomy you can spam harsher treatment and activate Court and Country disaster and you are mostly finished with raising autonomy.
There's a trick - when Age of absolutism starts - incite Particularist and/or Noble rebels and accept their demands. This will increase your autonomy all over the land. Reduce it for absolutism gain.

Harsher Treatment −50% Harsh treatment cost - Great to raise absolutism quickly. This can save lots of military points, harsh treatment can be expensive. Stops rebellions obviously. Works well if you expand a lot or reduce autonomy.
In patch 1.25+ in default new mission system there's reward that gets you -33% harsher treatment cost, these two stack. Keep this always for age of absolutism. Incite revolts intentionally, go to 99% overextension and do something to lower your stability and keep harsh treating rebels to get absolutism. If you have humanism, go over 100% OE since your country is probably very stable.

Administrative Efficiency +5% Administrative efficiency - Awesome for mass conquering, 1st pick.

Absolute Government +1 Yearly absolutism - A slow way to raise absolutism but it helps to get it to max. Should be early pick for conquerors, probably after admin efficiency, and Harsher treatment.

French Musketeers +20% Land fire damage (available only to France) - This is OP, in this age Fire phase becomes dominant. Must pick. Sooner the better.

Dutch Officials −0.20 Yearly corruption (available only to Netherlands) - Sweet. This screams debase currency, you should swim in money. Corruption gets very expensive to eliminate mid-late game.

Swedish Recruitment: +35% Manpower recovery speed (available only to Sweden) - A good bonus, this is a lot of recovery. Sweden also has bonus for using mercenary and should have money so this might not be the first or second pick. Still a good pick.

Manchu Banners: +50% Possible Manchu banners (available only to Manchu or Qing) - This comes late to be really good - you probably have all banners you want by this point. This is also not 50% of your total banners.. its from base number.. if you have 100 banners at this time, you will end up with 125.. 133 or something like that, since you will have other % bonuses. Pick abilities in Best category first then think about this one, probably 4th pick.


General rating

If you don't know what to pick you could start this way.

*** Best, always good
- Administrative Efficiency, Harsher Treatment , Absolute Government and Nation specific abilities

** Can be very good but are situational
- Efficient Autonomy

* Weak - give only small benefits
Edict of Absolutism, Flexible rivalries, Protecting Forts

You can find more information about ages on EU4 wiki page:
http://www.eu4wiki.com/Ages#Age_of_Absolutism

 

[lolada]

Age of Revolutions

Final age has many awesome abilities. It made the lategame more interesting so have a go and try things. Quite a few fun objectives and good abilities here.

Age of Revolutions objectives

Parliament Have a government with a parliament - This is annoying type of government if you are large nation - needs lots of parliament seats to assign. Then you need to bribe them and its all micro hell. If you stayed as nice compact country you might try it. There's also an achievement you might want to get, that requires 11 parliament decisions in row to pass.

Emperor Be an Empire Rank nation, Emperor of HRE or Emperor of China - If you already are or become one, good for you.

Powerful Subject Have a subject with at least 250 development - This one is easy to get if you blobbed a bit. Just release a vassal and grant him some provinces.

High Discipline Have at least 125% discipline - Not so easy to get if you didn't stack military policies. You might want to hire discipline advisor, enact idea policies if you can or raise absolutism to max to try to get this one. having high discipline is great so if you can get it you should do it.

Large Capital Have at least 50 development in the capital - Expensive stuff - turn on development state edict and click the button to get this one. Hopefully you have some development efficiency by now. Should be worth it. You can also just move capital to high dev province - AI tends to overdevelop their capital. My last game i just switch cap to AI's 53 dev Constantinople.

Great Leader Have a 3-star general or admiral - Unless you have very high army tradition don't bother. If you are lucky you might get 100AT general in event.

Control Institutions Own and control 2 origins of institutions - Chances are you have it by this time. Conquering one or two provinces in this age should be no trouble. Find the easiest target and conquer it. If you are not close to Europe.. don't bother.

Age of Reformation abilities

Anti-Revolutionary Zeal −33% Liberty desire from subject development - Awesome if you have large subjects. World conquest policy. After picking this you solved your liberty desire problems.

Napoleonic Warfare +3 Artillery bonus vs fort - Another awesome ability. Great for sieging level 8 forts, great for siging level 1 forts. You need loooots of artillery for level 8 forts but lower level forts will drop super quick. For tough nuts use artillery barrage as additional help. If you must take lots of lvl 8 forts think also about first picking Unrestritced coring distance ability.

Improved Force March Forced March costs no military power - Cool stuff, but remember, morale does not recover if this is turned on. Gotta turn it off sometimes. Good but in the end it only saves some military power.

Naval Engagement +20% Global naval engagement - This is more combat width which means your awesome fleet can use more ships in fights and FLANK enemy. A very good naval bonus now, since naval combat was reworked. Admiral with good maneuver is also very important. If you need to dominate seas this is great pick.

Unrestricted Conquest Ignore coring distance - Godlike - 20/10. Best use, defeat enemy, take all his stupid level 8 forts, no need for land connections or corridors. Delete forts, core land. A life saver. Another great use is for dismantling HRE. With advanced casus belli (level 23 diplo tech) you can declare on anyone - and with this ability you can core any OPMs in HRE no problem.

Improved Artillery Range +20% Artillery damage from backrow - Artillery is the strongest unit by now. If you need more power this is easy pick. Strong.

Loyal Subjects −25% Liberty desire in subjects on same continent - A good ability. Chances are you have subjects everywhere so it is better to pick Anti-Revolutionary zeal ability. Pick this one a bit later if you still have liberty desire problems.

Prussian Discipline −20% Fire damage received (available only to Prussia) - Awesome, invincible troops. Fire is primary damage phase in this age.
British Fleet - −33% Naval maintenance modifier (available only to Great Britain) - Eeeeh awkward - it will save decent $$$ but chances are by now you don't know what to do with ducats. Not the best ability.

Russian Empire +20 Number of states (available only to Russia) - Quite nice bonus, not Prussia or France great, but still good. You can core some nice land with this ability. Drawback is its late in the game so you probably don't need it. And state maintenance will be very high but it will pay off.

Austrian Diplomacy +5 Diplomatic reputation (available only to Austria) - A late Austria's ability. Diplomatic ability is great in many ways. You can diploannex quickly with this one.

General rating

If you don't know what to pick you could start this way.

*** Best, always good
- Unrestricted Conquest, Napoleonic Warfare, Improved Artillery, Improved Force March

** Can be very good but situational
- Anti-Revolutionary Zeal, Loyal Subjects, Naval Engagement

*Bad.. no bads here

You can find more information about ages on EU4 wiki page:
http://www.eu4wiki.com/Ages#Age_of_Revolutions

 

[Y. D. Dandy]

It's interesting, since you seem to play to min-max, which I very much don't, that I still agree with you on most of your assessments. Still, there's a few things I'd like to comment on.

1. The colonial growth bonus is useful if you have provinces you can colonize that you're likely to make into states. This means if you took Exploration or Expansion as your first idea group and are playing in an area next to a lot of uncolonized land likely to produce good trade goods, it's useful. It was the first bonus I picked as Ethiopia, for instance. It also applied to Siberian Frontiers when I tested it, which is a really OP as a New World custom nation. So I'd put that in the "very good but situational" category. Think of it as saving you about 150 monarch points for province vs if you were going to develop those provinces. (I'm assuming you're stacking dev modifiers but also dealing with a lot of tropical provinces in suboptimal terrain.)

2. I think that you underestimate the bonus of institutional spread modifiers. The Institutional Spread bonus is usually the first bonus I pick in the Age of Reformation, since I'm usually trying to get colonialism at that time (in every game I've played with MoH the Reformation started before Colonialism spawned) and it will also help in getting the Printing Press and Global Trade. (Since Absolutism starts ten years after Global Trade spawns I can easily use the institution spread edict to ensure I embrace it before the Age of Absolutism even starts. I'd say this is almost univerally useful.

3. Powerful tradeships is a clearly situationally useful ability, but when it's useful it's quite useful. I actually found Mercenary Discipline the least useful, since I haven't used many mercenaries since the huge price increase, so I'd say that's also situational.

4. Great Leader is usually possible to get with about 50 AT if you have some military ideas that increase general pips and spend about 200 points. Since I usually hoover around 50-60 AT late game (except my Prussia run, where 95 AT was frighteningly low), I found it's not all that difficult. And since you want a great leader, it's worth doing anyways. Unless I'm at war I usually wait until I have 2-3 open leader slots, then recruit a few extra and pick the best ones.

5. The max absolutism reduction is another reason not to have a parliament. Together with the opportunity cost for not having enlightened despoitsm, you're giving up 40 max absolutism, which is an extra 16% administrative efficiency you're passing up.

6. In my Prussia game, as emperor of the HRE, I found that with a lot of monarchies I was about -3 reasons from getting OPM monarchies with non-militarist leaders to become free cities, despite having a Statesman, Diplomatic ideas, and Foreign Contacts from a mission. If you play Austria, you should eventually be able to have as many free cities in the emperor as you have OPMs in the empire. You'll be rolling in imperial authority.

I'd also like to note that you explained three things I found really helpful. First is why anybody would want the autonomy change cooldown idea. Second is the idea of going over 100% OE to get Court and Country even if you have humanism. Third is that you explained what global naval engagement actually is.

 

[gia257]

what dlc is this? its all OP Ive been playing hard mode apaprently...

 

[Y. D. Dandy]

Age abilities are are from Mandate of Heaven.

And it's not as OP as it may seem at first because the AI gets these bonuses too. On the other hand, I assume the AI is really bad at A. going the extra mile to get a splendor bonus (I have literally never seen the AI humiliate a rival, for instance) and B. really bad at picking the most useful bonuses. I base this on the fact that it A. is really bad at developing (or even building) for institutions and B. It takes its golden age (also an MoH feature) the moment it's first able to do so.

 

[Cookiepie]

Not to be rude, but I honestly find this list at best very subjective, and in most cases quite poor. I would be constructive and point out where I think you went wrong, but it'd end up with me practically writing an entire guide to correct your guide, which doesn't seem very intuitive.

 

[lolada]

Thanks for comments guys, gonna try to give some explanations since i had more time to play and test some of these abilities. I was intending to update some comments after playing more and trying things more.

@Y. D. Dandy
1. Colonial bonus usefulness - yes, you are right, i didn't have it in mind when writing a guide, but for example its super good when playing custom nations where you can colonize a lot and turn those provinces into states. Especially now with new russian Siberian frontier ability (it wasnt available at the time i wrote the guide) you can colonize really a lot and gain much with this ability. I tried it when it costed nothing to pick the idea, its was really op. I rarely play with custom nations so that was a miss.

Still in standard games very few countries can colonize much to have enough time to use any of benefits - thats the main reason i rated it as fairly weak. For example i recently tried Portugal with Exploration + Expansion and i really colonized a lot - went into Asia for achievement before 1500 and at the same time colonized most trade centers in america way before spain even got close there. But all of these colonies are either trade companies or get turned into colonial states - wasting a lot of benefits. True, most of others abilities don't give that much so it has some decent use for Portugal. Portugal colonizes super quickly with its special +50 bonus so its prime candidate to use this ability.

Big problem is almost nobody can use the ability..maybe someone in Asia but these nations have trouble to fulfill any objectives and colonize anything at decent pace.

2. Institution spread - i wasn't much wrong here, its still kind of weak bonus (since base is often weak so some extra % really doesn't help much). but its true that its often more useful than other abilities and i did found myself picking this ability more and more often because i need instituon spread more than other things i have available. Institution spread can be so slow that every little helps. I also tend to use state edicts to speed it up if i can.

3. Tradeships would be best to playtest and check real numbers but i don't think you will ever see much gain from it even if you try hard to get some use from this abilities. I do pick it sometimes if there's no better options, but you don't really see any meaningful impact. Mercenaries on the other hand are heavily used by best players to get maximum benefits as quickly as possible, especially on very hard difficulty. The best streamers tend to use tons of mercs and 5% discipline really matters.

4. Yup, thats a nice comment, some +pips ideas and good AT can do it - i should have added that. I tend to experiment a lot so i don't stack much military and it get really tough to get 3 star generals.

5. I also found that i often don't need max absolutism (i usually hunt achievements in my games) so i ended up picking parliament government a few times for playtesting. For picking most achievement you don't need to conquer half the world so 60 absolutism + tech is sufficient for conquering a lot. Its not peak efficiency but one can still take tons of land. Tbh I wouldn't even now bother going through disaster for max absolutism unless i play for world conquest or something close to it. Especially now when absolutism effect is limited to 100.

I formed Roman empire as Hungary for example with parliament government no problem with plenty of time left. And it seems parliaments were improved - they are not as annoying as before and they do have some unique benefits. Don't pick for world conquers ofc xD.

6. I was kind of thinking Austrias +5 diplomatic bonus doesn't really matter at this point since they will have all the reforms already passed. Some potential uses are for PUs, liberty desire and very quick diploannexation if going for one-tag WCs. But these are all niche things at this point for them..

@Cookiepie Please make some comments if you heavily disagree - I'd like to see different opinions and playstyle. Guides will always be partly subjective ofc.. and it does heavily depend on playstyle a lot. Some people never use mercenaries, some play tall don't conquer, some only play in Europe, some don't have relevant DLCs.. etc. I hopefully did not make heavy errors.

ps.

- I tried Manchu banners ability. I had them so many (i did some limited culture conversion) that ability didn't matter at all. I actually ended up having too much cavalry so i wouldn't even want to use the ability. It is useful for getting the achievement for banners. Also its kind of misleading, since numbers of banners is already boosted % by ages (50% per age i think - if i remember well they were boosted by 150% in age of absolutism), this extra 50% banners will add much less than you would normally expect.

- Also found that Harsh treatment ability practically tends to be much better way to raise absolutism than Efficient Autonomy −50% Autonomy change cooldown. You often can't reduce autonomy and can't use the ability - especially more than once. On the other hand harsh treatment can be used often, reduction in military points really matter a lot - and you can intentonally raise revolt risk and use harsh treatment many times.

 

[Cookiepie]

Feudal De Jure Law - Allow Edict “Feudal De Jure Law” ( −5 Unrest) - This looks cool but unless you have Humanism picked chance are that it won't stop rebellion. It costs money when you don't have it and you need to turn it on in a few states often and rebellion could still fire. Its a state edict so you naturally forget to turn it off. There are a few better picks almost always.

Way underrated. Can often be used to prevent rebellions entirely (combined with units, cultural acceptance or time for separatism/we to tick away), and if not at least mitigate the number of spawning rebels. The cost of using it is usually way lower than the cost of fighting the rebels (not to mention the loss of manpower, a very precious commodity at this stage), and you having a hard time turning off edicts is hardly relevant for the ability ranking.

Improved Wartaxes −100% Wartaxes cost - Great way to save some money. If you don't need other abilities more this is very good pick. You could even intentionally start easy wars or stay longer in wars to save money. You will have this picked every game, sooner or later.

Greatly overrating this ability. There's a reason why people rarely use war taxes at this stage, and 50 mil power isn't a huge amount. Without cannons, and relatively small armies, you don't end up saving a lot of ducats using this one.

Higher Developed Colonies Gain +1 base tax, +1 base production, and +1 base manpower in a colony when it becomes a city. - Some quick colonizers can get a few development from this. You can get something like 5 - 10 colonies, depending when you pick it, small bonus. benefits are questionable, since colonial nations forms, provinces are not in states... Kind of weak, pick if there's nothing more important. Obviously, you should never pick this one if you don't colonize.

Greatly underrated compared to improved wartaxes. While you praise the ability to save ~500 mil points (20 years of warring), used in a terrible way, you find saving ~750-1,5k monarch points (deving 5-10 colonies 3 times), used in a decent way, negligable. The worst way these get used are typically in colonail nations, which is far from useless (can typically use an early boost to expand properly on their own, and with fairly good goods). If not in colonial nations they get used as trade companies (essentially 0% autonomy state free provinces) or states (for any nation outside of europe/doing an exodus).

Adaptive Combat - Terrain Gain +1 combat bonus in provinces with the same terrain type as the capital. - This is cool bonus to have, equivalent to something like +5% discipline if fighting in favorable terrain. Important pick, worth it as 1st pick. There are a few nations that can't use this bonus well but those are exceptions.

The value is typically significantly above 5% discipline, though it varies greatly based on unit/general pips and rolls. It should also be mentioned that switching capital to use this bonus is very valid.

The Guns of Urban: +33% Siege ability (available only to Ottomans) - Cool ability, i tried it, it looks strong on paper, but in game it just saves a bit of time, its not really mandatory or OP. Ottos might pick combat bonus and war taxes ability before this one.

Underrated. This ability doesn't just save time (which happens to be a very valuable commodity), having your units spend less time sieging also saves ducats, manpower and most importantly leaves them vulnerable for a shorter time (sieging mountain/hill forts is usually the most dangerous part of a conquest).

Venetian Trade: +50% Ship trade power (available only to Venice) - Good Venice pick. You can use force limits to build less Light ships and more Galleys if you need them. Or just get more ducats. Its a pick certainly, you might pick AE reduction, war taxes or combat bonus ability before it tho.

Essentially always better than wartaxes for Venice.

*** Best, always good
- Adaptive Combat, War Taxes, Justified Wars and Nation specific abilities

** Can be very good but are situational
- Transfer Subjects, Cavalry armies

* Weak - give only small benefits
- Feudal De Jure Law, Colony development

While giving a general list is difficult, since the age abilities value differs greatly from nation/situation, this is one is hardly very accurate. Something like this would make more sense:

Tier 1:
Adaptive combat (great potential, almost universially some use), nation specific, colony development (assuming using colonies).

Tier 2:
War taxes (never great, but always useful), feudal de jure law (potentially significant impact, essentially always useful), justified wars (useful for quite a few nations, but doesn't have a huge impact), transfer subjects (high potential, but usually just useful to save some adm/dip through claims).

Tier 3:
Cavalry armies (useful for a few nations, useless for almost all).


I could make a similar list for essentially every age you've described, there's plenty of things that are subjective, and several that are plain wrong. This looks like the list of someone who just read through the abilities, and threw out his initial thoughts, not a guide where the writer really considered or calculated the value of the abilities.

Also worth mentioning that at the time you wrote this (may still be the case, but think they fixed at least the merc one), the 5% merc disc (didn't work at all) and the coastal blockade (applied to inland forts as well) abilities from age of reformation were also bugged, making your description and valuing of them inaccurate.

 

[lolada]

I tend to play a lot and watch streams from the best players so my explanations are kind of aggregate of those experiences - they are far from being only mine or plain subjective, at least in my opinion ^^ - nothing is totally objective so i don't mind the comments xD, don't get me wrong. Let these posts be the fix for too subjective or wrong parts of the guide.

Just to note, this is a guide to help newer players discover a bit what abilities are good and how to use them. Its really hard to cover all the possibilites in detail, it would take 10+ pages i guess, and I would still miss some stuff.. and i did miss some tactics - like colony development is quite good with custom nations. And nobody wants to read walls of texts anyway

The best experience and thing to do for anyone is ofcourse to play a lot and see what you yourself can you really put to good use. I tried to highlight some unusual things and tactics, so it might look a bit unorthodox at places.. mainstream stuff is known to anyone i guess.

I feel you are nitpicking a bit at the end. I didn't try every thing there - but i did try a lot of them. I even mentioned some things i didn't try. I didn't notice 5% discipline bug but i know 5% discipline edge is huge. I don't need to test that. That +1 blockade is also great, the UI said it applies i remember that much, not much of my fault if it wasn't really applied in real calculation - that is quite hard to notice. Blame Paradox.

 

[lolada]

Gonna comment a bit more on post above. That Colony development ability, if you are not a custom nation - almost noone can really put it to good use. You might gain some benefits but its not really meaningful. Its just that you can't really get a lot of colonies in time, unless you are Portugal or Spain. First you need to get to idea groups, fill it - you need the colonists, need colonial range - most nations have problems here, colonization early is then quite slow. You also need enough splendor points to pick this ability over other abilities in the first place. Even for Portugal, you would probably first pick their +50 settlers special ability, so this ability is second pick - meaning you waste even more time. Other nations would rather pick up combat bonus or war taxes in all cases. So in general before you get something like 10 colonies you are in age of reformation. But even then these benefits are partially lost due to colonial and trade company mechanics or to autonomy restrictions.
For example if you are african and you can colonize and core a land around you - it looks like you could gain a lot of development. But in reality you are slow to research, slow to colonize, plagued by bad finances and that colonis is 2 ducats per month which is huge... Its much better to just use this money to finance army and kill someone.

To sum it up, there are many many difficulties to put this abilityto good use. Its the case where it looks awesome on the paper and like a big gain if converted to points, but in reality you would never develop those colonies or african/asian provinces yourself. I don't see almost anyone picking and gaining much from this. Spain, Portugal, GB can finance colonies and custom nations in colonizing positions can pick this one up, probably not worth it for others.

War taxes is really awesome - it keeps you afloat in plus and saves lots of money when its important. 0,5 or 1 ducat is a lot at start of the game. It often lets you go in war and keep near zero when on full maintenance which means you would not get into debt spiral, loan and inflation problems. Anyone can use this ability well - every country in eu4 goes to war.. and the bigger you are the more you save on maintenance with this ability. 50 points is a lot early where tech advantage is huge and wars are numerous.. by spamming war taxes without this you would probably put yourself 1 tech behind which is a big deal.
The reason why people not use this much is that they often forget, or they don't have military points. -50 IS a lot early on, or they are just bad. You should really use this ability when you can, especially if you can make it free.

Feudal de jure law - i feel i was too harsh on this one - you are right. I used it more later, but it will really save you probably from 2-3-4 revolts, hardly more, don't expect wonders. I'd say it would be very good if it stopped those revolts - if you can achieve this pick it. it would be better than most other abilites. I expected more from it when i saw this -5 bonus, looks huge, so i guess i was disappointed by its effect a bit. I think i usually stop 2-3 revolts per game with this, if you can get more its great..

The thing is that this edict often can't stop revolts since revolt risk is 10+ when you take over the provinces. Since its an EDICT it costs money, and it needs to be activated in a STATE now. So you need to core and state the land which takes time and resources. Time is especially important since revolt ticks monthly. It depends how many provinces are adding to revolt risk, which cultures/religions you conquer. Sometimes it helps less, sometimes more, a bit situational.

On its own its not very good, but if you try hard and couple it with -unrest advisor, some active army positioning and high stability you can really stop rebellions. When it can stop revolts i'd say its quite cool.

Adaptive combat - Its a very good ability and i pick it pretty much every game, i said pretty much so. Would you move capital to gain more benefits? Maybe, maybe not, its costly but its a valid tactic - you might want move a capital for easier development, good point there.

1 pip is slightly better than 5% discipline - not much.. just consider it even for simplicity, there are lots of guides and calculation on the internet, i suggest everyone to google combat topics, its really interesting area of the game. Imo Offensive idea group is the single most powerful group with both +1 pips and discipline bonus (ignoriing quantity for the moment...).

Ottomans ability - looks huge but its really average - its nice, everyone will pick it eventually. Many would probably still pick +1 combat bonus and war taxes before this - its jut not insta first pick really. War taxes will probably save you more money than this ability, one could test it i guess. Everyone was on hype train - ottomans op when they saw this. Try it and see for yourself - i did actually try and test it.

Venice ability - its a no brainer pick, i didn't go into detail on special nation abilities intentionally since its situational. There are all good abilities that you will pick eventually. Not sure if its strictly better than war taxes, i didn't try it - its possible - i just didn't want to specualte too much. One should judge on it ofcourse - it depends on your army size, on your trade power in a node, on your trade power from ships..

Cavalry armies - i rated it low for cost and gameplay reasons (people who play slow and casual don't really need to use it), but cavalry is in general very very underrated. I didn't put it intentionally in trash tier because it can be used decently and i wanted to highlight that. Most people probably think its total trash so my point was to try to highlight it a bit, putting it to tier 3 would be sad a bit. Just wanted to avoid mainstream trashtalk and show people something new.

Cavalry is awesome now at early to mid game and its a fact, not much to discuss there now. If you are eastern, orthodox - have estates (buffed a lot), muslims have good cav, hordes ofc.. cavalry is 10/10. Hell even western nation can use it well.. once you get to tech 10. If you need extra power and to save manpower, cavalry is the way to go.

It wasn't always so. but since mercenaries are so expensive to buy and maintain now, the things have changed. Most people are not realizing it, mercenary essentialy costs now as cavalry and they cost superton to reinforce - they are also placed in the middle of the battle so they always take lots of casualties. Meanwhile cavalry has extra pips for everyone and usually huge combat bonuses (up to 20% from estates and in quite a few nation traditions) you can get while infantry is very weak. Not using merc is not excuse, if you are not mercing up it means you are not trying hard enough.. if you have a bit spare manpower, cav is a new merc.. Cav is also manpower efficient compared to infantry. And lastly, when you put this to max you will see that infantry tends to die and cavalry stays up and you start to get that too much cavalry malus which is huge. Anyway, not trash, can be used, but never priority pick ofc.

We could comment any ability i guess and add some more, thats point of guides and topics. You all already have added some nice content to the guide. So feel free to nuke the guide more .

 

[ecrurudesby]

Age of Reformation Revolutions

Age of Reformation abilities

Some minor typos. Should be Revolutionary, not Reformation.