How to improve Innovative idea group?

[solidprice]

It needs a buff now. It was fine before.
Policies and events are nice but religious dose that too and dose not suck.
Dem +1 stab events, praise god/Allah/ROTW deities!

 

[ringhloth]

Innovative's events are good, right, but to chose it because of them is silly. One random event every five year, and unless it's my only Idea Group I'm not even guaranteed to get an event from its list.

There are other events. The Great Men events fire if you have a level 3 adviser, and give a nice bonus, plus 1 stab. The MTTH is vastly reduced by innovative, and gives you about another ~.4 adm a month in free stab, versus not having innovative.

 

[Ameron]

I would hazard that most players wait for the techs to hit -5% from on time + neighbour bonus before purchasing a tech (at least the ones I watch do), and I feel like getting a tech for standard price a year early isn't exactly the most appealing. It could be fantastic a certain tech levels, where being the first into a military tech can give you a nice edge against the opponent, but otherwise I'd just wait that extra year and save the extra monarch points. Maybe make it 15%, so when you're a year early, it will cost -5%, same as if you had a neighbour with it, but being on time or having a neighbour with the tech level will drop 10% off your bonus, both being true will nullify your bonus entirely.

Might be a little complicated for a tooltip though

If you couple the tech cost decrease for being ahead of time with an idea that increases the bonus for being ahead of time it's really more appealing. Make it 50% more bonus, would mean +10% production efficiency and +10% trade efficiency (or whatever that is). That's a reasonable bonus for an idea that activates only in the condition of being ahead of time.

 

[LastSalian]

Agree that it sucks in SP, and might be a good competitor to Religious in MP.

So why, if we all agree it sucks in SP, is it still an alternative to reform hordes? Either made all the administrative idea group viable to reform or replace with Humanism or Expansion.

Or buff it.

 

[yerm]

Agree that it sucks in SP, and might be a good competitor to Religious in MP.

So why, if we all agree it sucks in SP, is it still an alternative to reform hordes? Either made all the administrative idea group viable to reform or replace with Humanism or Expansion.

Or buff it.

It's not really a viable horde reform group, because admin ideas are so much better - lower core costs stack and mercs that reinforce free are godly.

The problem really is the simple fact that innovative ideas are the least innovative of any idea set. There's nothing unique, and nothing even exclusive, about the group. Just small reductions and bonuses that all together are lackluster. At least espionage, the least useful idea group, or maritime, its close to useless buddy, have innovative ideas like ship repair and sabotage reputation. Innovative has... numbers.

 

[Bobby555nc]

I file like discussing and on recent voting Innovative idea was one of the worst ideas next to Espionage, Naval and Maritime. If you have any ideas to improve it, discuss.

Idea 1 should be changed to -1.25% prestige decay.

I think the inflation reduction discount should be upped to -15% or changed to a flat -.1 inflation per year.

Idea 2 and idea 6 should be switched in order.

You might have over buffed them, especially considering the events related to the idea group. At least, imo.

Edit: How about as an idea in innovative? "Receive random extra monarch point per month".

 

[WSnova]

It doesn´t even suck in Single player that much. Its just that beating the AI is so easy you don´t really need to go all out against it.

Only thing I would change is the prestige thing. Inflation redution is always nice, you get some realy powerful policies. People don´t choose it because the AI doesn´t put as much of a fight as a player so you can choose another thing that lets you be more efficient in other areasd

 

[saegoto]

Innovative
Scientific Revolution
-1 year Ahead of time penalty
+50% Being ahead of time bonus (+10% prod. eff. for adm tech and +10% trade eff. for diplo tech, none for mil tech)
Pragmatism
+25% Mercenary cooldown
Patron of the Arts
-1% Prestige decay
Dynamic Court
+1 Possible advisors
Resilient State
-25% Advisor costs
Optimism
-0.05 Monthly war exhaustion
Light of the Reason
+10% Advisor bonus strength (basic bonus, not mana)
Bonus:
+1 Building slot

all ideas are unique, besides +1 advisor but it fits very well now

Spoiler

give Administrative -3 years duration of policy instead of good produce, interest or possible advisor

reduce or remove production and trade efficiency bonus from technology to balance income in mid and late game. if so consider increase of maintenance for advisors, army, and fleet

 

[Ameron]

Innovative
Scientific Revolution
-1 year Ahead of time penalty
+50% Being ahead of time bonus (+10% prod. eff. for adm tech and +10% trade eff. for diplo tech, none for mil tech)
Pragmatism
+25% Mercenary cooldown
Patron of the Arts
-1% Prestige decay
Dynamic Court
+1 Possible advisors
Resilient State
-25% Advisor costs
Optimism
-0.05 Monthly war exhaustion
Light of the Reason
+10% Advisor bonus strength (basic bonus, not mana)
Bonus:
+1 Building slot

all ideas are unique, besides +1 advisor but it fits very well now

Spoiler

give Administrative -3 years duration of policy instead of good produce, interest or possible advisor

reduce or remove production and trade efficiency bonus from technology to balance income in mid and late game. if so consider increase of maintenance for advisors, army, and fleet

10% Advisor bonus strenght is too little to matter (0,2% missionary stregth, 1% trade power, 1% morale for example).

The rest is fine

 

[saegoto]

10% Advisor bonus strenght is too little to matter (0,1% missionary stregth, 1% trade power, 1% morale for example). The rest is fine

It could be more.
Some national ideas, events, decisions, policies could give it too.

 

[yerm]

Innovative
Scientific Revolution
-1 year Ahead of time penalty
+50% Being ahead of time bonus (+10% prod. eff. for adm tech and +10% trade eff. for diplo tech, none for mil tech)
Pragmatism
+25% Mercenary cooldown
Patron of the Arts
-1% Prestige decay
Dynamic Court
+1 Possible advisors
Resilient State
-25% Advisor costs
Optimism
-0.05 Monthly war exhaustion
Light of the Reason
+10% Advisor bonus strength (basic bonus, not mana)
Bonus:
+1 Building slot

all ideas are unique, besides +1 advisor but it fits very well now

Spoiler

give Administrative -3 years duration of policy instead of good produce, interest or possible advisor

reduce or remove production and trade efficiency bonus from technology to balance income in mid and late game. if so consider increase of maintenance for advisors, army, and fleet

I really like this list.

The bonus stuff for being currently ahead of time may be an iffy thing, but it could always be simplified by being a flat -2 years ahead of time penalty removal, assuming a theoretically 20% tech discount isn't too wildly OP, rather than those trade/prod eff bonuses that are likely to be on and off as time passes. The +10% advisor bonus I actually really like. Sure, it's weak, but some ideas SHOULD be weak. At least it's 3 really weak bonuses. It could be +20/25% though honestly and still be on the weak side and I'd still like it either way.

The one big suggestion I would say is to add something related to development. Historically, the nations who were pushing the enlightenment and innovating were also doing things like land reclamation and development. Since the bonus is currently well suited to wide play, a tall play (development) bonus would arguably not be too overpowered, since they'd go at odds with each other. All in all though, either way, I do like this list.

 

[saegoto]

what do you think guys about faster mercenery cooldown modifier?

 

[saegoto]

The one big suggestion I would say is to add something related to development. Historically, the nations who were pushing the enlightenment and innovating were also doing things like land reclamation and development. Since the bonus is currently well suited to wide play, a tall play (development) bonus would arguably not be too overpowered, since they'd go at odds with each other. All in all though, either way, I do like this list.

-50% development cost increase? In 1.13 we're getting +2% development cost increase for one click. This modifier could reduce it to +1%.

sorry for double post. can someone merge them?

 

[Ameron]

what do you think guys about faster mercenery cooldown modifier?

It's better than - mercenary cost. Not in "sheer power", but at least it's different and unique.

Edit: and it pairs well with ideas that increase the mercenary pool. (Plutocratic, Administrative)

 

[yerm]

what do you think guys about faster mercenery cooldown modifier?

It's a nerf. At least it's an interesting nerf though.

 

[saegoto]

There are many situation in my wars that I need more mercs NOW, I have money but pool is empty.

I think faster merc pool regain could be useful.

 

[Ameron]

-50% development cost increase? In 1.13 we're getting +2% development cost increase for one click. This modifier could reduce it to +1%.

sorry for double post. can someone merge them?

In monarch power it's little, until you have ridiculous levels of development. Maybe put there instead something that cancels terrain malus for certain terrains (Hills and Coastline) or increases the bonus to development costs in CoT and Capitals.
Anyway, the +1 building slot is fine for me in the "development area"

 

[net.split]

Faster merc cooldown is to available mercs what prestige decay bonus is to prestige gain... it's another modifier that basically does the same thing, only not quite as good. That's something EU4 needs less of, not more.

Scientific Revolution is too early in the list; getting those crucial mil techs in the early-game is too much of an advantage. It should be second or third.

+1 building slot is strong. Like, really strong. And it creates problems: what if you sell the idea group? Does it simply destroy all the buildings you've placed in the last slot? Does it pick a random one? Do they get to stay but can't be replaced until you unlock the slot again?

Advisor bonus strength is interesting. I'd make it scale with advisor level so a +3 advisor gets more out of this than a +1 (which might get so little as to have no real effect).

I'd like to see some bonuses to your capital city to reflect its place as the center of innovation (and new hometown of all those superior advisors you hire). Maybe a development cost bonus that's better than the usual but only applies to your capital and a huge bonus to your capital's free fort (capital fort keeps up with your highest-tech fort level, with the +1, and costs no upkeep). That would split across two idea slots, of course.

Maybe even a huge bonus to the MP you get returned to you when you abandon any other idea slot. As-is that feature is almost useless apart from experimentation and letting beginners adjust to a terrible mistake they've made, but if the Innovation finisher made it a lot cheaper to swap, new strategies might emerge.

 

[grommile]

+1 building slot is strong. Like, really strong. And it creates problems: what if you sell the idea group? Does it simply destroy all the buildings you've placed in the last slot? Does it pick a random one? Do they get to stay but can't be replaced until you unlock the slot again?

The game already copes just fine with building slots going away, since not having a core is a -2 penalty to your number of building slots.

 

[indika_tates]

Remove inflation cost which is an useless idea and recover knowledge transfer at -1%,-1% for armies and navies. Idea group fixed.