Fantastic changes done to Espionage ideas! ( Open beta 1.33.1)

[kannanven]

Thank you devs for the changes made to Espionage ideas!. Choosed Espionage as my first idea for Brandenburg ( yeah I know, I know it's not a good opening choice, but was more than satisfied and will definitely do again

In 1.33.1 ( open beta )

Espionage now STARTS OFF with -25% claim reduction. Including claim for subject. Coupled with Brandenburg traditions ( -20% cost ) claims were easy to make and really fun, to chain claim.

This is immediately followed by -20% aggressive expansion, allowing me to take more territory. ( Coupled with -10% age abilities).

The +10% siege ability in a non cannon era DEFINITELY helped me massively, finishing tough sieges like prague quickly. ( This is the 3rd idea together with 50% faster network )

The extra Diplomat, helped me with all the accumulated AE, and the advisor cost was good when I had loans to manage. (4th idea)

The other parts had good use to, like -0.1 corruption and embargo power. it was a GREAT opening move and I was genuinely surprised and loved how well the idea set helped in early game, while giving you tons of innovation as AI rarely pulls Espionage. Going to definitely try again with Poland. All in all, really happy and loved these necessary changes and hope more to come. What do you guys think?.

 

[avalahn]

Yeah, espionage just went from niche idea group into really useful tool, and 10 % is a nice number since it doesn't upstage the 20% from offesive.

Also makes a lot of rp sense to get siege ability from better spies

 

[RobbieAB]

How does it compare to Influence and Diplomatic though?

 

[MachopPower69]

How does it compare to Influence and Diplomatic though?

Diplomatic doesn't have AE reduction, but it does have relations boost. Not sure what the ratio of AE reduction % to Relations % is.

 

[grommile]

Diplomatic doesn't have AE reduction, but it does have relations boost. Not sure what the ratio of AE reduction % to Relations % is.

Not straightforward.

Like all stackable subtractive percentage bonuses, each point of AE reduction makes the next point better.

 

[RMS Oceanic]

In the aggressive expansion bottleneck, AE reduction widens it, while improved relations speeds up passage through it

 

[TeutonicTortoise]

Like people mention cant properly compare the two but one thing that is nice from AE reduction is you can take more land in a peace deal and make more from the 50AE threshold while IR reduces that meaning you can begin a 2nd war. Espionage was underrated for its corruption reduction from the ideas and as policies from alot of other ideas meaning you could just farm money pressing +2 Corruption

 

[kdsw]

Well now it really sounds essential for particularly small countries - AFAIK you get exactly as much AE from conquering the same land as a small and large country. Of course that's somewhat offset by being able to conquer less in the first place.

 

[PDXJon]

Can we discuss the ridiculous change to the cost to fabricate in the HRE? Try fabrication one single claim on a prince with espionage ideas. I hate the person who came up with that change

 

[bokorthedust]

Can we discuss the ridiculous change to the cost to fabricate in the HRE? Try fabrication one single claim on a prince with espionage ideas. I hate the person who came up with that change

If you mean the increased cost, that was introduced in Emperor and has nothing to do with the 1.33 changes to Espionage, at least no increased cost is mentioned in the changelog.

 

[klingonadmiral]

Like people mention cant properly compare the two but one thing that is nice from AE reduction is you can take more land in a peace deal and make more from the 50AE threshold while IR reduces that meaning you can begin a 2nd war.

Diplomacy gives more diplomats, which means you can improve more relations.

If everyone but your rivals is at +100 with you, you can take a lot more than 50 AE worth of provinces.

 

[PDXJon]

If you mean the increased cost, that was introduced in Emperor and has nothing to do with the 1.33 changes to Espionage, at least no increased cost is mentioned in the changelog.

I know. I mentioned it because of the discussion about making claims as Brandenburg.