The drill gain is meh, you get a total of 40% from both of them but max professionalism already gives you 100%. It takes 10 years to get to max drill normally, so one big battle can cost you years worth of drilling. And forget about sieges. All this for 10-15% more army maintenance? It takes 3 different ideas from 3 different idea groups to get to -15% maintenance. Do you think 40% faster drilling is worth the same as three ideas? Probably not right? Please buff in next patch. I want to use the decisions, but they just never make any sense. The increased army maintenance is crushing, especially to an early game economy.
Don't worry, I'm not going to just say "fix it", I'll offer a solution.
State Firearms Regiments - +.25 yearly professionalism, +100% drill speed, +5% Army maintenance, -.25 Yearly army tradition.
You get to tech level 19, then you get 10% professionalism instead of 2.5%
Standardized uniforms - +100% drill speed, =+7.5% Army maintenance, -.25 Yearly army tradition.
Something like that maybe? It should definitely give actual professionalism. Right now, the best source of professionalism is to take it in events, many of which you get from fighting wars, which is antithetical to the idea of having your troops sitting around drilling and eating up your money, so paradoxically, you should actually avoid drilling to get professionalism.
Don't worry, I'm not going to just say "fix it", I'll offer a solution.
State Firearms Regiments - +.25 yearly professionalism, +100% drill speed, +5% Army maintenance, -.25 Yearly army tradition.
You get to tech level 19, then you get 10% professionalism instead of 2.5%
Standardized uniforms - +100% drill speed, =+7.5% Army maintenance, -.25 Yearly army tradition.
Something like that maybe? It should definitely give actual professionalism. Right now, the best source of professionalism is to take it in events, many of which you get from fighting wars, which is antithetical to the idea of having your troops sitting around drilling and eating up your money, so paradoxically, you should actually avoid drilling to get professionalism.