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I think most of ths sliders are more or less balanced, with the exception of quality. Centralization is better than decentralization, but you have to face constant stability drops to maintain it. The others are situational.
My choices these days:
Aristocracy- leave this alone for the most part.
Innovative- slightly narrowminded to get missionaries and colonists.
Quality- high quality to discourage expansion
Land- Maxed naval for explorers, colonists, and trade percentage
Centralization- leave this alone, let events decentralize me
Offensive- no preference really
Serfdom- about halfway
Mercantilism- tend to go free trade, it really should give trade pct instead of colonists I think
My choices these days:
Aristocracy- leave this alone for the most part.
Innovative- slightly narrowminded to get missionaries and colonists.
Quality- high quality to discourage expansion
Land- Maxed naval for explorers, colonists, and trade percentage
Centralization- leave this alone, let events decentralize me
Offensive- no preference really
Serfdom- about halfway
Mercantilism- tend to go free trade, it really should give trade pct instead of colonists I think
Originally posted by Peter Ebbesen
I'll take Hobbes any day with Calvin as Supreme Dictator for Life
Oh, no, please no!
Hobbes for Dictator and Calvin for General-in-Chief!
I've been in too much of a rut with trying to force every country I play into a peaceful trading/colonial power. I guess it's time now to go to the DARK side and explore what huge amounts of brute force can achieve.
Peter - is your advice on sliders situational at all or do you apply a similar formula to every country you play? I know MP is an entirely different game.
I consider it nearly optimal for most countries that want to expand in SP, but there are exceptions.
Aristocracy
If I'm planning on not getting BB wars and not doing diplo-vassalisation/annexation then I am liable to go plutocracy rather than aristocracy.
Centralisation
I will always choose decentralisation over centralisation. This may change when the production slider bug for centralisation is fixed in 1.06
Innovativeness
Unless I neither have a need to convert nor to colonise, I will always choose narrowmindedness over innovativeness. I don't care much about tech costs in singleplayer - I care about the stability recovery time. I tend to have it hover around 3 [extra conquistadors] until I really need extra colonists, missionaries, or lowed stab costs due to conquest of non-state-religion provinces, after which I send it diving to 0, staying there forevermore.
Mercantilism
Early in the game I like mercantilism. The reduced cost of placing traders can be quite significant. Once I'm really colonising after a century or so, I prefer free trade for more traders (as I can now afford to place them) and more colonists.
Land
Usually naval for colonists, trade bonus, naval morale, and more explorers. [That 0.5 bonus is nice, since I am usually very far behind in naval tech] Occasionally land if I'm in the Chinese or Exotic tech group, but even then, colonisation usually pays off better in the long run.
Offensive
If I'm playing in the exotic or chinese tech group, I am likely to go offensive initially (assuming other sliders are in place) for the morale boost if I don't have to spend too many dp-clicks doing so, and defensive in the second half of the game.
Quality
Quality=1 for +40% manpower, lower infantry and cavalry recruitment and upkeep costs, and higher army support limit. Always after I first discovered how efficient this is.
Serfdom
You are all serfs!
While the production bonus from free subjects is nice, and the morale boost nice early in the game, the -50% stability cost for serfdom compared to the +50% for free subjects, makes this one a non-issue for me. I have yet to play a game where I stay a 4-8 province minor for the duration of the game, but I assume that free subjects would be a very sensible choice in that situation.
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A little extra morale really helps when fighting natives. Once you can asault and have a morale bonus you can take out native cities quick. This is really great if you are a colonizing nation like Spain and you want to quickly conquer the Incas or Aztecs. It's not so important when fighting in Europe though.
You can quickly conquer the Incas and Aztecs as Spain no matter what your dp-settings are.
Yeah but you can do it a lot quicker and sooner with a little boost in your morale.
Those are some helpful tips, PE. Should I one day decide to do a WC, I will certainly benefit from them.
Is annexing the Aztecs or Incas in one year rather than two or three worth the 20 years of dp-change time to move the dp-slider in a direction, that you would later want to move it away from, and back again? Seems awfully shortsighted to me.
Why would lower morale dp-settings mean that you'd have to wait 30 years when you can just ship cavalry across rather than high-morale infantry?
As I see it the difference is between high-morale infantry capable of assaulting their way through the provinces in one year, or low-morale cavalry (possibly more of it) besieging the fortresses in two or three. Certainly doesn't make for a 30 years gap between conquest dates.
Originally posted by Peter Ebbesen
Why would lower morale dp-settings mean that you'd have to wait 30 years when you can just ship cavalry across rather than high-morale infantry?
As I see it the difference is between high-morale infantry capable of assaulting their way through the provinces in one year, or low-morale cavalry (possibly more of it) besieging the fortresses in two or three. Certainly doesn't make for a 30 years gap between conquest dates.
I only like a little quality early as a conquerer. Since the game tends to push me to my desired early positions as Spain (towards narrowminded, mercantilism etc) I find that putting a little towards quality fits my style well.
You need infantry to assault and since assaults are won by breaking the defenders morale, a little advantage goes a long way. I've taken the entire Inca empire in less than a year with small groups of infantry and assaulting as soon as I move in. Losses are extremely low and you rarely lose an assault. It certainly doesn't work well in Europe but it does wonders against the natives.