Best first national idea for Holland?

[unmerged(106498)]

I just checked my 1450 save as Holland. Income from trade is over my income from vassals, but not by much. Still 2 pm as no inheritance yet. I stopped warring about 8 years ago in the game so BB is low enough for trading, and I have 5 merchants in every spot I can reach. But I also have 9 vassals and 6 PU's going. Vassals are switzerland, Hansa, several 1-2 pm archbishopics, and Venice. I had Genoa but France got 'annex Genoa' mission, and I didn't think I could hold him off since he was allied with the reduced but still dangerous Burgandy at the time. I'm more than 2 full ranks of tech above the next closest guy, and have 35k standing army for 2 provinces. remember, vassals also give force limits. Mil drill first = clobber all your small neighbors, get their force limit bonus, clobber bigger neighbors, by the time BB is down, you already got 1-2 more national ideas because you tech like mad. My research investment is sitting at just under 80/month, and that's for a 2 province country still!

Edit: I gotta add, I shifted slider several times (3 I think) towards quantity, the base Holland troops are too spendy. Rather use size and tech. Oh... and not a single 'claims on our rivals' either. Also, I've had games where I was 'waiting' and sometimes it works out, you get free in 10-20 years or less, sometimes Burgandy gets drawn into other regional wars and 50 years later you're still waiting.

 

[alexti]

I think you have a totally different vision of 'war' in mind. I try to force PU/vassalize everything in the HRE, especially the German region, to later form Germany. High BB will make trading problematic, so replace that income with a pile of vassals. Once I'm done marking out this chunk of turf, you gotta wait a while for infamy to cool down, plenty of time to have 2-3 ideas. You can hit Gov 9 by 1415 pretty easily as Holland for your second idea, not like you can't do it then.

Gov 9 by 1415 with that strategy? I find it hard to believe. Even with full trade and getting a lucky government advisor event (+18/month) it seems to be a stretch. And you won't get from vassals nearly as much as you can get from trade in that timeframe. In another post you mention 80/month invested in research in 1450 which is strangely low for Holland, especially if you got to Gov 9 by 1415.

 

[unmerged(106498)]

Iirc I was investing about 70g on whatever tech I was working on, and was still 2 provinces in actual size. Vassalize the 3 merchant republics (not Novogord obviously) and a couple high income nations small enough to vassalize, plus a handful of smaller vassals, pretty straightforward really. And 5 merchants in every COT, easy once you're max free trade, low BB, high prestige, and have a trade tech advantage.

 

[alexti]

Iirc I was investing about 70g on whatever tech I was working on, and was still 2 provinces in actual size. Vassalize the 3 merchant republics (not Novogord obviously) and a couple high income nations small enough to vassalize, plus a handful of smaller vassals, pretty straightforward really. And 5 merchants in every COT, easy once you're max free trade, low BB, high prestige, and have a trade tech advantage.

This doesn't match up - you would need to eat 20+ infamy to do all that vassalization, which would make it difficult to keep 5 merchants in every COT. Besides, at the start you can't even reach many CoT. 70 investment wouldn't be enough even if you managed to trade without suffering from vassalization infamy. And then all this clashes with 80/month in 1450 statement. In a straightforward Holland game you have around 200/month in 1450 and with that play you would get Gov9 somewhere in 1430s. So to get Gov 9 by 1415 you need would have to raise income much faster somehow. But then what happened between 1415 and 1450? Why did you go backwards?

 

[Ryuujin95]

If you're doing the relatively peaceful teching route, instinct says NTP, but the math says National Bank (after taking CAD for Gilded Iconography, of course.) Getting 5 merchants placed at all your initially reachable CoTs generates 20ish trade income, and an additional 10% TE will boost that by 25-30%, meaning between 5-6 ducats. However, you'll want to mint a bit to fill your coffers, which would mean a Master of Mint, but at this point in the game running a 3rd tech adviser with NB will generate more total income. Switch to NTP later when the income boost exceeds 15 ducats / month, or just take it at tech 9.

Taking Patron of the Arts to sell extra advisers is just silly. Creating a level 5/6 adviser costs 20ish tradition, and Patron generates 3 tradition per year, netting you one extra adviser every 6.6 years. That 2.5 ducats a year is so totally worth it. The value in Patron is generating early/cheap Universities/Fine Arts, or getting innovative slider moves for non-Latin tech nations, not generating income, and you're probably not going to waste an adviser slot on an Artist early on playing as Holland.

 

[unmerged(106498)]

@ alexti:

Did you even read the start of the conversation? The whole point was that it's hard to trade early if you're fighting a ton and getting BB, thus why I like MD first. For the first few years I'm generally only putting traders in Lubeck and maybe Antwerp, but this time I had good trade tech very early because I stayed small (2 province) and had a lvl 4 trade advisor at start, who I swapped for a lvl 6 a bit later. While infamy was high however I just had a few merchants out because most were failing tbh. I tried to keep 2 in the high trade value COT's. Having rank 5-6 advisors takes a few years as well. Once you get it rolling though, it's rediculous income. Probably 5-10% of my cashflow was comming from provincial tax, the rest was trade and vassals. This last game was very different from my normal Holland game because I wasn't really attempting to form the Netherlands, but just use vassals to give me a high force limit and lots of cash while I waited for PU's. My original statement about teching that fast was a bit of an exageration because it takes as you say into the 30's to do all the vassalizing, bleed off the BB, and get your PU's in place. It was probably about 1440-1450 or so when I was out to a tech lead of 2 full levels on the next closest country. In truth it took about 10 years just on the war with the Hansa because even once they're occupied you gotta sit on them for a few years before the vassalization cost drops under 100. Switzerland is slightly faster, and Venice and Genoa were both down to 2 provinces when I grabbed them. The point I was trying to get at is that if you start with military agression instead of passive trading, you'll be making more in the long run. But the 70g investment in a 2 province country wasn't an exageration at all.

 

[wickes]

National Bank is my first regardless of what nation I play because it allows free minting without much concern during times of major war (150k BBB troops are rushing across the border). Its real nice to be able to build a good cash base, and by the time you need more for your inflation to be gone.

 

[alexti]

If you're doing the relatively peaceful teching route, instinct says NTP, but the math says National Bank (after taking CAD for Gilder Iconography, of course.) Getting 5 merchants placed at all your initially reachable CoTs generates 20ish trade income, and an additional 10% TE will boost that by 25-30%, meaning between 5-6 ducats. However, you'll want to mint a bit to fill your coffers, which would mean a Master of Mint, but at this point in the game running a 3rd tech adviser with NB will generate more total income. Switch to NTP later when the income boost exceeds 15 ducats / month, or just take it at tech 9.

With trader nation you can get around 50 trade income (with NTP) in the beginning (usually requires some trade negotiations). NTP gives you 5% compete chance which is important. I think early on it's better to mint and gain inflation. When you reach you initial tech targets you can get master of mint and get inflation under control.

 

[unmerged(106498)]

National Bank is my first regardless of what nation I play because it allows free minting without much concern during times of major war (150k BBB troops are rushing across the border). Its real nice to be able to build a good cash base, and by the time you need more for your inflation to be gone.

For some countries NB is very good at some point, but I'd avoid taking it as your first idea 90% of the time. Most ideas are more powerful than advisors that do the same thing (-1 infamy/yr idea vs -.3 infamy/yr rank 6 advisor as an example) but in this case, you can actually get an advisor that's better than the idea. You get 3 advisors, so when you only have 1 idea, I'd make it something else instead.

 

[alexti]

@ alexti:

Did you even read the start of the conversation? The whole point was that it's hard to trade early if you're fighting a ton and getting BB, thus why I like MD first. For the first few years I'm generally only putting traders in Lubeck and maybe Antwerp, but this time I had good trade tech very early because I stayed small (2 province) and had a lvl 4 trade advisor at start, who I swapped for a lvl 6 a bit later. While infamy was high however I just had a few merchants out because most were failing tbh. I tried to keep 2 in the high trade value COT's.

That's why I was asking about Gov 9 in 1415 - it doesn't seem possible with this strategy. I am not sure if it's possible at all. Maybe if one came up with some really creative plan.

Having rank 5-6 advisors takes a few years as well. Once you get it rolling though, it's rediculous income. Probably 5-10% of my cashflow was comming from provincial tax, the rest was trade and vassals. This last game was very different from my normal Holland game because I wasn't really attempting to form the Netherlands, but just use vassals to give me a high force limit and lots of cash while I waited for PU's. My original statement about teching that fast was a bit of an exageration because it takes as you say into the 30's to do all the vassalizing, bleed off the BB, and get your PU's in place. It was probably about 1440-1450 or so when I was out to a tech lead of 2 full levels on the next closest country. In truth it took about 10 years just on the war with the Hansa because even once they're occupied you gotta sit on them for a few years before the vassalization cost drops under 100. Switzerland is slightly faster, and Venice and Genoa were both down to 2 provinces when I grabbed them. The point I was trying to get at is that if you start with military agression instead of passive trading, you'll be making more in the long run. But the 70g investment in a 2 province country wasn't an exageration at all.

This is not necessarily a good argument for military drill. If you play peaceful trading and colonizing route at the same stage you will have more income - as I mentioned the good targets are 200/month in 1450, by 1500 you can get into 600-700/month range.

There's also a factor of difficulty. On VH military drill is mostly useless unless you need it because you can't avoid war at all.

 

[unmerged(106498)]

That's why I was asking about Gov 9 in 1415 - it doesn't seem possible with this strategy. I am not sure if it's possible at all. Maybe if one came up with some really creative plan.


This is not necessarily a good argument for military drill. If you play peaceful trading and colonizing route at the same stage you will have more income - as I mentioned the good targets are 200/month in 1450, by 1500 you can get into 600-700/month range.

There's also a factor of difficulty. On VH military drill is mostly useless unless you need it because you can't avoid war at all.

I play hard or VH all the time and use it all the time. Holland has to take some ground from Burgandy at some point if you are going to form Netherlands, and either Burgandy or France will be your southern neighbor, and both usually take MD. You don't need it if you're playing nice, but if they attack, which usually happens sooner or later, you will not be able to beat them back, especially in the early game. Using it to take on 2-3 odds in smaller 1-2 province countries is also handy, and makes what might be a hard war very easy because you win fights with morale even if your dice are bad. In any case, I don't like being peaceful, or colonizing. Peaceful colonizing to me is boring and tedious. Maybe I played to many games as a colonial power, I dunno I just don't like it. You can take Florida, I'll take Venice.

Edit: also, 200 income is easy if you're expanding, what I was saying is that if you stay small, 70g is a huge amount of investment for 2 provinces. As soon as you have 2 colonies, you cut your tech speed in half. If you're just going for income, Russia will own everyone with all those iron provinces that crank such huge production as land tech goes up and 20 with manufacturies thanks to the huge manpower, but he's gotta devide it by a billion provinces so won't be the tech leader.

 

[alexti]

I play hard or VH all the time and use it all the time. Holland has to take some ground from Burgandy at some point if you are going to form Netherlands, and either Burgandy or France will be your southern neighbor, and both usually take MD. You don't need it if you're playing nice, but if they attack, which usually happens sooner or later, you will not be able to beat them back, especially in the early game. Using it to take on 2-3 odds in smaller 1-2 province countries is also handy, and makes what might be a hard war very easy because you win fights with morale even if your dice are bad. In any case, I don't like being peaceful, or colonizing. Peaceful colonizing to me is boring and tedious. Maybe I played to many games as a colonial power, I dunno I just don't like it. You can take Florida, I'll take Venice.

That's a different argument - it doesn't make MD the best idea. Colonizing is kind of boring, but crushing AI in a war is also boring (and even more tedious).

Edit: also, 200 income is easy if you're expanding, what I was saying is that if you stay small, 70g is a huge amount of investment for 2 provinces. As soon as you have 2 colonies, you cut your tech speed in half.

If you place merchants in every CoT you'll get over 100/month from trade alone. So for two province trading minor 70/month just means that it is not trading everywhere. It's also not true that adding 2 colonies cuts your tech speed in half. Before the time penalties make tech more expensive the further ahead you are and with trading minor you're going to be way ahead no matter what you do, so the actual tech slowdown is less than twice because your penalties are reduced. The income colonies produce also reduces the hit on your tech speed.

If you're just going for income, Russia will own everyone with all those iron provinces that crank such huge production as land tech goes up and 20 with manufacturies thanks to the huge manpower, but he's gotta devide it by a billion provinces so won't be the tech leader.

Right, that's the problem with Russia, but Holland doesn't have to take poor provinces - it can simply colonize the rich ones only, so it can have a huge income and lead in all tech (and more importantly, sink any would be invaders)

 

[Ryuujin95]

With trader nation you can get around 50 trade income (with NTP) in the beginning (usually requires some trade negotiations). NTP gives you 5% compete chance which is important. I think early on it's better to mint and gain inflation. When you reach you initial tech targets you can get master of mint and get inflation under control.

Not until you have Venice, Liguria, and Alexandria in range, and I find that doesn't happen until Trade 6 or maybe 7. The numbers I posted were accurate for the beginning of the game, and you can get Gov 4 within a couple of years. Even at 50 total trade income, though, NTP still isn't doing more than a 3rd tech adviser. If you're arguing going with neither a MoM or NB, then of course it's the most income, it just depends on just how much inflation you want to rack up.

 

[Ryuujin95]

Edit: also, 200 income is easy if you're expanding, what I was saying is that if you stay small, 70g is a huge amount of investment for 2 provinces. As soon as you have 2 colonies, you cut your tech speed in half. If you're just going for income, Russia will own everyone with all those iron provinces that crank such huge production as land tech goes up and 20 with manufacturies thanks to the huge manpower, but he's gotta devide it by a billion provinces so won't be the tech leader.

Going from 2 to 4 provinces increases your tech costs by 25% (size modifier goes from 1.2 to 1.5.) In general the size penalty is way overstated, and almost insignificant once you're past 8 provinces. To double your tech costs when starting with 2 provinces (size modifier 1.2 to 2.4, you'd need to go from 2 to 24 provinces. Russia's problem is that too many of its provinces are dirt poor, not that it has too many provinces.

(Note that this chart is somewhat misleading without the context of the tech formula because it doesn't show the (1+SizeModifier) component.)

 

[Valiant_Hogers]

I managed to keep tech leader as Netherlands WITH a huge colonial empire.

 

[unmerged(106498)]

Going from 2 to 4 provinces increases your tech costs by 25% (size modifier goes from 1.2 to 1.5.) In general the size penalty is way overstated, and almost insignificant once you're past 8 provinces. To double your tech costs when starting with 2 provinces (size modifier 1.2 to 2.4, you'd need to go from 2 to 24 provinces. Russia's problem is that too many of its provinces are dirt poor, not that it has too many provinces.

(Note that this chart is somewhat misleading without the context of the tech formula because it doesn't show the (1+SizeModifier) component.)

Good info! Russian provinces actually are very good imo. Some are dirt poor, but your biggest product is iron most of the time once you colonize to the East, and with all the manpower buildings boosting demand, these become very high value later on. Even low tax provinces often have good manpower, and good manpower means more cheap factories as well. Once you build up for a while, the income starts getting very good.

@Valiant yea, it's possible as the human player. But 2 full tech ranks over the next closest country? I was 4 full ranks over most of Europe. They were practically in the dark ages still.

 

[Ryuujin95]

Good info! Russian provinces actually are very good imo. Some are dirt poor, but your biggest product is iron most of the time once you colonize to the East, and with all the manpower buildings boosting demand, these become very high value later on. Even low tax provinces often have good manpower, and good manpower means more cheap factories as well. Once you build up for a while, the income starts getting very good.

The Siberian colonies are great, it's just that they have a ton of Grain/Wool/Naval Supplies provinces in the west, and even moreso if you conquer the Baltics and the Hordes. The good provinces will eventually overpower the crap ones, once you've expanded and built them up, but it takes a while to get there.

 

[alexti]

Not until you have Venice, Liguria, and Alexandria in range, and I find that doesn't happen until Trade 6 or maybe 7. The numbers I posted were accurate for the beginning of the game, and you can get Gov 4 within a couple of years. Even at 50 total trade income, though, NTP still isn't doing more than a 3rd tech adviser. If you're arguing going with neither a MoM or NB, then of course it's the most income, it just depends on just how much inflation you want to rack up.

You can get into Venice, Liguria, Lubeck and Novgorod through trade leagues, even if you're not in the range. The 3rd tech advisor vs MoM is often unclear choice - gov and trade advisors are the first two, but which is one is the third - good land and naval advisor are difficult to get and production advisor is mostly useless in the beginning since you don't need production tech early on. So often you're choosing between something like +6 land tech advisor and MoM. Though in general I'm not too concerned about inflation at this stage, 2-3% don't make that much difference.

 

[alexti]

I managed to keep tech leader as Netherlands WITH a huge colonial empire.

With a huge colonial empire it doesn't really matter what nation you've started with - you're going to be a tech leader by a large margin no matter what.

 

[Ryuujin95]

The 3rd tech advisor vs MoM is often unclear choice - gov and trade advisors are the first two, but which is one is the third - good land and naval advisor are difficult to get and production advisor is mostly useless in the beginning since you don't need production tech early on. So often you're choosing between something like +6 land tech advisor and MoM. Though in general I'm not too concerned about inflation at this stage, 2-3% don't make that much difference.

You go with a Production adviser obviously, because Workshops and Counting Houses are worth it. The adviser alone should be enough to keep your production tech ahead of the tech curve, freeing you to make direct investments elsewhere. The extra efficiency now is just as useful as it is later on, the cumulative effect just makes it more noticeable later, and higher efficiency boosts the effectiveness of docks and trade rights.