forming China does......nothing?

[Novacat]

You just need them to become the majority religion, then you can accept demands. If you conquer a lot of muslim lands, as you will with any country that invades the Steppes, you can just let them occupy one province then accept demand. You get a nasty -50 prestige hit, but beyond that you pretty much become Islamic.

Not like 1.2 and previous versions where it was nearly impossible to change religion groups.

 

[Comes Imperii]

oh no, its incredibly easy. Firstly you don't need a statesmen iirc. All sunni (maybe even all islamic?) nations can enact 3 different decisions if a monarch has any stat 5 or above, its learning center for adm. I forget the others, i think adopt title of kalifa is the mil one. You can usually kill off bad heirs via events or marching them repeatedly into losing battles. If I get a bad heir (low adm skill) I actively try to kill them constantly. It seems like once you get a good breed of rulers, they continue for awhile, maybe not all of them 5, but still, that is only 5%, you could still get massive discounts with islam.

I was talking about the Education Act. *Facepalm*

 

[Novacat]

I was talking about the Education Act. *Facepalm*

I find level 3 statemen to be a lot more common than Adm 5+ rulers =/

 

[Barbarossa66]

Actually any westernized islamic nation probably gets the lowest tech cost in the game, almost all game long.

you can get islamic learning center -5%
and from negative piety -10%
university -5%
innovative - 5%
and if you use your monarch points correctly, usually getting at least a 5% neighbor bonus on adm/diplo techs.

You can essentially get a 30% discount on all techs that way. A plutocratic islamic republic sounds kinda scary actually, I guess you could probably get about 40% discount on everything that way, if that is possible.

While westernizing Ming still has inward perfection and the faction system. Inward perfection gives a +50% tech cost malus and the eunuch faction gives a -75% tech cost bonus. You are also technically in the Western tech group so you have no additional tech cost, so you are getting a constant -25% tech cost bonus not including anything else.

 

[unmerged(184583)]

While westernizing Ming still has inward perfection and the faction system. Inward perfection gives a +50% tech cost malus and the eunuch faction gives a -75% tech cost bonus. You are also technically in the Western tech group so you have no additional tech cost, so you are getting a constant -25% tech cost bonus not including anything else.

ah, I wasn't sure where exactly that put them after all the bonuses vs western tech, thanks for clearing that up.

 

[Incompetent]

Surely the best (if you only care about tech costs) would be an Islamic Tuscany. Not only do you get the tech cost modifier from their NIs, but you get the 2 universities they start with, and you can fairly easily get plutocratic as well.

Plus you could remain an HRE member as far as I know.

 

[Novacat]

While westernizing Ming still has inward perfection and the faction system. Inward perfection gives a +50% tech cost malus and the eunuch faction gives a -75% tech cost bonus. You are also technically in the Western tech group so you have no additional tech cost, so you are getting a constant -25% tech cost bonus not including anything else.

Oh wow, it used to be +60% tech cost malus, when did they change it?

 

[unmerged(184583)]

I find level 3 statemen to be a lot more common than Adm 5+ rulers =/

yea, you are probably right, but you can certainly help yourself by killing off bad heirs when there is opportunity. Its obviously not fail safe or anything, but I think I've honestly had games where I had a 5+ adm ruler at least 30-40% of the game.

My current aztec game, worst adm ruler I've had the entire time was 2, and that only lasted about 10 years. I also had 1, 3 adm ruler, and I think 4-5, 4 adm rulers, 2, 5 adm rulers, and 1, 6 adm. Some might say I was just lucky, but I did kill 3 terrible heirs that never made the throne in the mean time.

 

[Barbarossa66]

Oh wow, it used to be +60% tech cost malus, when did they change it?

If it was changed I would imagine it was when they removed the ability to keep the faction system after westernizing.

 

[grisamentum]

Plus you could remain an HRE member as far as I know.

You can. Did this as Muslim Poland. Actually works well because there's no risk of becoming emperor and losing the Imperial Integrity buff. Although maintaining -100 piety is not really that practical. Besides losing it on every ruler change, most of the -piety decisions require the loss of prestige. Some give you gold as well (or instead) but it's typically not so useful. You also have the problem of gaining piety every time you attack a non-Sunni. Realistically if I'm going for negative piety I can probably hope to ride around -60 or -80, with occasional periods at -100.

More importantly, you really need to remain at 100% piety for a long time when you first convert, because you need to go back and convert all your original provinces which can take a while. Even with full Religious ideas it took me a few decades. Converting Kiev wasn't even possible until I happened to have the right combination of ruler (for Office of Sheik al-Islam decision) and 100% piety.

The upside is that the Hordes are extremely easy to diplo-vassalize.

Anyway, going Muslim as France would be pretty impractical compared to Bohemia, and you'd still have the -10% tech cost but worse NIs. France could obviously do it but you'd probably end up with a large amount of overseas territory. Tough to get a land connection to Africa or Asia as France, where Poland or Bohemia can do it a bit quicker.

As a side note you can retain a bunch of Catholic decisions (with varying degrees of usefulness...) like Statute in Restraint of Appeals, Witchcraft Act, Pass De Heretico Comburendo Act, etc when you convert to Islam because religion group switching doesn't remove them, just switching to Protestant does.

 

[Buttfart]

All of you are forgetting how easy it is for Russia to convert to Sunni! No need for Muslim France.

 

[joelzhl]

All of you are forgetting how easy it is for Russia to convert to Sunni! No need for Muslim France.

Russia also has the BEST tech cost reduction in the game, bar none.

These are the permanant modifiers, giving a base of -50% tech cost

 -5% : Innovative Ideas - Scientific Revolution (scientific_revolution)
-10% : Plutocratic Ideas - bonus (bonus)
 -5% : University - modifier (modifier)
-10% : Russian Ideas - Broaden the curriculum of the Cadet Corps (curriculum_of_the_cadet_corps)
-10% : Liberal Constitution (liberal_constitution)
-10% : Restricted Serfdom (restricted_serfdom)

You can also become HRE for another 10%, although that take a bit of work and will get you into a few wars to maintain the balance in the HRE. I am not sure it's worth it.

Going Muslim will get you another 10%. Again, I am not sure it's needed.

Finally, Russia also gets quite a few temporary tech cost reduction events as well as several adm/dip cost reduction only events as well. Tech cost is so absurd you can get your admin/diplo down to less than 100 if you are a few techs behind.

 

[grisamentum]

Russia also has the BEST tech cost reduction in the game, bar none.

Sigh, Bohemia and France have exactly the same tech cost reduction. So barring them, yes.

Bohemia also starts in the HRE and France can join, whereas Muscovy cannot. This gives them an extra 10% Russia/Muscovy can never have. And they start Western, whereas Russia has to Westernize eventually.

I also suggest you read the rest of the thread because we've discussed most of the things you just said, but in better detail (like states with multiple universities at game start).

 

[Novacat]

Sigh, Bohemia and France have exactly the same tech cost reduction. So barring them, yes.

Bohemia and France cannot get liberal_constitution and restricted_serfdom modifiers, which adds up to -20% tech cost.

 

[grisamentum]

Bohemia and France cannot get liberal_constitution and restricted_serfdom modifiers, which adds up to -20% tech cost.

Where do those come from?

 

[Novacat]

Where do those come from?

Russian events.