Humanism Why?

[Hellbooze]

My problem is that even with Humanism, a wrong religion province is still worth less than an accepted religion province, so I'd rather just convert it every time. I do not accept even a single wrong religion province in my nation ever if I can convert it. So Humanism becomes useful for the accepted culture threshold and that it helps RR, so really only 2 of the ideas within Humanism are of any interest to me. Now if I am playing a nation that has accepted culture threshold in its national ideas I MIGHT stack Humanism in there too, then I'll be accepting people left, right and center. Otherwise I never take it.

Why is a wrong religion province worth less than your main religion? You get the same tax and manpower from a wrong religion province if your tolerance is at +3.

 

[Marox]

Actually its at +0. You only get the tax penalty for each point of negative tolerance. Also it doesn't even effect manpower at all. You get +1.25 unrest, -10% local tax, and -10% local goods produced for each negative tolerance point on the province's religion.

 

[Zelius]

Let's compare Humanist to Religious, one by one.
R: Deus Vult CB
Obviously, the CB is one of the best in the game, and often a must have while waiting for imperialism. Best for "lonely" religions like Orthodox or Shia, as most of your opponents will be a different faith.
H: 25% Religious Unity
The religious unity is quite nice, as you can avoid +stab cost and +unrest from disunity. Once you get rolling and have the religion you plan on keeping (post reformation at the latest usually) this becomes rather trivial, as you shouldn't have that much wrong religion land and you get this from other policies.
>I think this one goes to Religious. Unique ideas tend to win.

R: +1 Missionaries
A missionary, is quite wonderful. Double your conversion rate instantly. Once provinces get your religion, their unrest drops greatly.
H: -2 National Unrest
Getting -2 National Unrest is a great modifier, but it seems like a "band-aid" fix. You still are going to be converting the provinces to your religion (unless you humanist players leave you missionaries idle?) and -2 is not enough to avoid a revolt in a freshly conquered province of wrong religion and culture. Little utility here, if you ask me. Would help during westernizing, disasters, niche situations.
>Again, you can't get a Missionary anywhere else, save a few policies (which require religious...) and some triggered modifiers.

R: -25% Stab Cost
-25% stab cost is huge. When you stack it with national ideas and other modifiers, you can break the game. As Mamluks-Arabia, I was paying 2 to 8 adm points per stab boost under +1. This is an AMAZING relief from ADM burden over the course of a game (as a monarchy).
H: +3 Tolerance of Heretics
This is also huge. If your religion allows it, such as Confucianism or Buddhism, you can be on the path to ignoring any downsides of conquering wrong religion land. This can accelerate conquest greatly in that region of the world.
>This is a toss-up. The stab cost is great for monarchies all around the world, but some religions and NI's will see a greater benefit from the tolerance.

R: +3% Missionary Strength
This is one of the most powerful ideas anywhere in the game. You can now combine your extra missionary with this 3% boost to achieve and obscene conversion rate increase compared to those without religious. Best used with max Piety and Patriarch Authority to achieve trivial conversion times. If you snatch another missionary or more from Defender of the Faith and Triggered Modifiers, or your NI's, you reach the point where you don't care about wrong religion anymore either. Conquer, Convert, Core. Never see a revolt again. Less utility in the parts of the world that haven't gotten a DLC yet (east asia).
H: -10 Years of Nationalism
I don't get this one. I rarely see any revolts after the first one. The length of nationalism seems pretty trivial here. It can allow you to decrease autonomy and convert culture at an earlier time, but that doesn't mesh with humanist at all.
>Not really a contest here. Religious.

R: +1 Tolerance of the True Faith, +2 Yearly Papal Influence, +.25 Monthly Fervor
A must have for Catholics and Reformed, for obvious reasons. I rarely play Catholic and have NEVER played Reformed, so I'll leave that be. The Tolerance of the True Faith is great, and gives you even less revolt risk in provinces of your religion, which will be your religion even faster because of your previous ideas. Not the most powerful idea.
H: -50% Accepted Culture Threshold
Cool I guess. (So overrated) Anyway this helps you stay in one piece in the early game, but oops! Its 5 ideas into the tree, and by that time I assumed you've done quite a bit of conquering, especially outside of Western where it will take you a lot longer to tech up and reach this idea. The culture %'s will simply be too low to accept outside of ones like Lombard, which you probably could do for most of the game without this.
>The Religious one is only a must have for two religions, but the humanist idea seems quite trash tier unless you are Poland. Call it a draw.

R: +1 Yearly Prestige
Every tree has one like this. Its okay, and if you have collected some Romes and Meccas you can sit at 100 Prestige permanently, which is more valuable than ever in this patch.
H: +33% Better Relations Over Time
Coalitions are more abusable than ever, so I don't see why non-HRE players would fawn over this. Oh, its just HRE players.
>Giving it to Humanist here because that is a big bonus, but more because the religious one is weak.

R: +2 Missionary Strength vs Heretics
If you have a lot of Heretics to "deal" with, converting just keeps getting better. Helps Catholics survive the reformation, can be overkill to reformers who already get +8% from religious zeal. Can help east asians tear through the three blobs of religion going on over there. Vital for Shia/Ibadi. Can help Sunnis chew through the toughest conversion area in the game in Persia.
H: +3 Tolerance of Heathens
Cool if you already have some in your NI's or religion. Otherwise it won't really do much for you. At all.
>Since the argument is that Humanist is good for East Asians, I think conversion against heretics will do them even better. Convert high base tax china in a jiffy.

R: -25% Culture Conversion Cost
One of the least important aspects of the single player game, and more of a roleplaying game. But some people love it, and if you have a pile of DIP than its great to quickly and cheaply remove a smaller culture from your empire entirely and collect full tax from it. (your silly accepted culture threshold would have you leaving this there the whole game unaccepted)
H: -10% Idea Cost
I don't know what this is doing here, but it is quite nice. At the end of a tree no less. This solidifies Humanist as idea group that you must take first or not take at all. With better trees like Administrative, (and Religious) and situationally Expansion and Economic sitting there... I don't know how this makes it worth it. Probably good to combine with protestants-to-be.
>The Humanist idea here is better. I already explained why its not worth it, but in a 1 to 1 comparison it is better.

Humanist appears to be the poorer choice on average. It has some things that look great on paper, but you are not considering the opportunity cost. With new restrictions on idea groups, taking Humanist instead of Religious seems like an awful decision. And you pretty much have to take it first to get any utility out of it. Nations that get the best use out of it still seem better served to take Religious. For the few nations with NI's that can take advantage of some stacking (Poland... and Poland?), go ahead. There are actually so many more nations that can take advantage of stacking with Religious, the best being Byzantium (super overpowered mode) and Mamluks, Russians, Timurids, and any European start, Muslims, all of the New World, Africa, East Asia, Hordes...

Please argue my point substantively, I wish to learn more reasons why to take this group.

As you say, it's all about min-maxing by stacking with NIs, but to rebut:

1. Free CB is good, doesn't reduce the coring cost though, and fabricating claims for an expansionist game is easy, saves ADM (many diplomats) and doesn't cost anything. AE from fabricating is usually not too high unless you're unlucky.
+25 Religious Unity allows you to keep 100%+ unity with any nation without negative heretic tolerance, with decision.

2. Yes. Missionary idle. -2 unrest is de facto +2 tolerance of every religion as long as you maintain unity. No +6 revolt risk for active missionary.

3. Yes, you can have very low stab cost and no-CB. Doesn't remove the WE though, but I suppose it lets you sit at higher stab without +3 advisers.
Heretic tolerance to get 100% unity, for point 1 on this list.

4. It's really hard to compare ideas side by side, but at this point with -nationalism, there IS no first revolt.

5. Religious here buffs Catholic; Reformed a little (fervor not too hard to keep by the time you can convert), plus de facto -1 unrest.
Accepted culture threshold can be used to grab a culture early and keep it accepted as long as it remains >5%. What's Ireland's basetax, 18? Accepted at <180 basetax, keep accepted until 360 basetax. Not to mention Russian etc.

6. Well +1 prestige more useful for peaceful play, can generally max out prestige still (via peace deals...).
+33 BROT allows you to expand / make allies faster. Up to your play style.

7. Religious idea here good for converting, say, Orthodox (or provinces with religious zeal, maybe?), faster conversions. Again, don't need to convert anything with Humanism. +3 tolerance is, again, -3 revolt risk as long as you already have unity. I guess Humanist is good for east asians because they have +tolerance in their religions (except Shinto)...?

Bonus: Culture conversion is, by all accounts, simply fantastic, though I never do it myself. -10% idea cost is actually meh compared to the rest.


Really, the ideas in the Religious idea group are individually useful, more or less, while for Humanist you need to see the unholy synergy of ideas, so this is not a good comparison method...

 

[Violent AI]

As you say, it's all about min-maxing by stacking with NIs, but to rebut:

1. Free CB is good, doesn't reduce the coring cost though, and fabricating claims for an expansionist game is easy, saves ADM (many diplomats) and doesn't cost anything. AE from fabricating is usually not too high unless you're unlucky.
+25 Religious Unity allows you to keep 100%+ unity with any nation without negative heretic tolerance, with decision.

2. Yes. Missionary idle. -2 unrest is de facto +2 tolerance of every religion as long as you maintain unity. No +6 revolt risk for active missionary.

3. Yes, you can have very low stab cost and no-CB. Doesn't remove the WE though, but I suppose it lets you sit at higher stab without +3 advisers.
Heretic tolerance to get 100% unity, for point 1 on this list.

4. It's really hard to compare ideas side by side, but at this point with -nationalism, there IS no first revolt.

5. Religious here buffs Catholic; Reformed a little (fervor not too hard to keep by the time you can convert), plus de facto -1 unrest.
Accepted culture threshold can be used to grab a culture early and keep it accepted as long as it remains >5%. What's Ireland's basetax, 18? Accepted at <180 basetax, keep accepted until 360 basetax. Not to mention Russian etc.

6. Well +1 prestige more useful for peaceful play, can generally max out prestige still (via peace deals...).
+33 BROT allows you to expand / make allies faster. Up to your play style.

7. Religious idea here good for converting, say, Orthodox (or provinces with religious zeal, maybe?), faster conversions. Again, don't need to convert anything with Humanism. +3 tolerance is, again, -3 revolt risk as long as you already have unity. I guess Humanist is good for east asians because they have +tolerance in their religions (except Shinto)...?

Bonus: Culture conversion is, by all accounts, simply fantastic, though I never do it myself. -10% idea cost is actually meh compared to the rest.


Really, the ideas in the Religious idea group are individually useful, more or less, while for Humanist you need to see the unholy synergy of ideas, so this is not a good comparison method...

Let me counter with this. There is revolt risk. Let there be a revolt. If you're a big nation, and you should be because that's what Humanism is for, what do you lose except some money in reinforcing mercs for defeating a pack of rebels. After the first nationalist rebel upon annexing (which you won't even get if you vassal feed and integrate), you will have NO rebels in the province except for combination of negative stability, low legitimacy and high war exhaustion.
Is 2800 admin points and an idea group slot worth some gold for mercs?

 

[Zelius]

Let me counter with this. There is revolt risk. Let there be a revolt. If you're a big nation, and you should be because that's what Humanism is for, what do you lose except some money in reinforcing mercs for defeating a pack of rebels. After the first nationalist rebel upon annexing (which you won't even get if you vassal feed and integrate), you will have NO rebels in the province except for combination of negative stability, low legitimacy and high war exhaustion.
Is 2800 admin points and an idea group slot worth some gold for mercs?

If you are at war constantly? Then yes, it helps when you sit on close to 100 OE all the time. And all your mercs are carpet-sieging the next enemy. Yeah, you can vassal-feed. With Religious you'd have to convert and release (or maybe force religion and then force vassalise, if they also take Religious), or else convert all the provinces later.

 

[Zardnaar]

Let's compare Humanist to Religious, one by one.
R: Deus Vult CB
Obviously, the CB is one of the best in the game, and often a must have while waiting for imperialism. Best for "lonely" religions like Orthodox or Shia, as most of your opponents will be a different faith.
H: 25% Religious Unity
The religious unity is quite nice, as you can avoid +stab cost and +unrest from disunity. Once you get rolling and have the religion you plan on keeping (post reformation at the latest usually) this becomes rather trivial, as you shouldn't have that much wrong religion land and you get this from other policies.
>I think this one goes to Religious. Unique ideas tend to win.

R: +1 Missionaries
A missionary, is quite wonderful. Double your conversion rate instantly. Once provinces get your religion, their unrest drops greatly.
H: -2 National Unrest
Getting -2 National Unrest is a great modifier, but it seems like a "band-aid" fix. You still are going to be converting the provinces to your religion (unless you humanist players leave you missionaries idle?) and -2 is not enough to avoid a revolt in a freshly conquered province of wrong religion and culture. Little utility here, if you ask me. Would help during westernizing, disasters, niche situations.
>Again, you can't get a Missionary anywhere else, save a few policies (which require religious...) and some triggered modifiers.

R: -25% Stab Cost
-25% stab cost is huge. When you stack it with national ideas and other modifiers, you can break the game. As Mamluks-Arabia, I was paying 2 to 8 adm points per stab boost under +1. This is an AMAZING relief from ADM burden over the course of a game (as a monarchy).
H: +3 Tolerance of Heretics
This is also huge. If your religion allows it, such as Confucianism or Buddhism, you can be on the path to ignoring any downsides of conquering wrong religion land. This can accelerate conquest greatly in that region of the world.
>This is a toss-up. The stab cost is great for monarchies all around the world, but some religions and NI's will see a greater benefit from the tolerance.

R: +3% Missionary Strength
This is one of the most powerful ideas anywhere in the game. You can now combine your extra missionary with this 3% boost to achieve and obscene conversion rate increase compared to those without religious. Best used with max Piety and Patriarch Authority to achieve trivial conversion times. If you snatch another missionary or more from Defender of the Faith and Triggered Modifiers, or your NI's, you reach the point where you don't care about wrong religion anymore either. Conquer, Convert, Core. Never see a revolt again. Less utility in the parts of the world that haven't gotten a DLC yet (east asia).
H: -10 Years of Nationalism
I don't get this one. I rarely see any revolts after the first one. The length of nationalism seems pretty trivial here. It can allow you to decrease autonomy and convert culture at an earlier time, but that doesn't mesh with humanist at all.
>Not really a contest here. Religious.

R: +1 Tolerance of the True Faith, +2 Yearly Papal Influence, +.25 Monthly Fervor
A must have for Catholics and Reformed, for obvious reasons. I rarely play Catholic and have NEVER played Reformed, so I'll leave that be. The Tolerance of the True Faith is great, and gives you even less revolt risk in provinces of your religion, which will be your religion even faster because of your previous ideas. Not the most powerful idea.
H: -50% Accepted Culture Threshold
Cool I guess. (So overrated) Anyway this helps you stay in one piece in the early game, but oops! Its 5 ideas into the tree, and by that time I assumed you've done quite a bit of conquering, especially outside of Western where it will take you a lot longer to tech up and reach this idea. The culture %'s will simply be too low to accept outside of ones like Lombard, which you probably could do for most of the game without this.
>The Religious one is only a must have for two religions, but the humanist idea seems quite trash tier unless you are Poland. Call it a draw.

R: +1 Yearly Prestige
Every tree has one like this. Its okay, and if you have collected some Romes and Meccas you can sit at 100 Prestige permanently, which is more valuable than ever in this patch.
H: +33% Better Relations Over Time
Coalitions are more abusable than ever, so I don't see why non-HRE players would fawn over this. Oh, its just HRE players.
>Giving it to Humanist here because that is a big bonus, but more because the religious one is weak.

R: +2 Missionary Strength vs Heretics
If you have a lot of Heretics to "deal" with, converting just keeps getting better. Helps Catholics survive the reformation, can be overkill to reformers who already get +8% from religious zeal. Can help east asians tear through the three blobs of religion going on over there. Vital for Shia/Ibadi. Can help Sunnis chew through the toughest conversion area in the game in Persia.
H: +3 Tolerance of Heathens
Cool if you already have some in your NI's or religion. Otherwise it won't really do much for you. At all.
>Since the argument is that Humanist is good for East Asians, I think conversion against heretics will do them even better. Convert high base tax china in a jiffy.

R: -25% Culture Conversion Cost
One of the least important aspects of the single player game, and more of a roleplaying game. But some people love it, and if you have a pile of DIP than its great to quickly and cheaply remove a smaller culture from your empire entirely and collect full tax from it. (your silly accepted culture threshold would have you leaving this there the whole game unaccepted)
H: -10% Idea Cost
I don't know what this is doing here, but it is quite nice. At the end of a tree no less. This solidifies Humanist as idea group that you must take first or not take at all. With better trees like Administrative, (and Religious) and situationally Expansion and Economic sitting there... I don't know how this makes it worth it. Probably good to combine with protestants-to-be.
>The Humanist idea here is better. I already explained why its not worth it, but in a 1 to 1 comparison it is better.

Humanist appears to be the poorer choice on average. It has some things that look great on paper, but you are not considering the opportunity cost. With new restrictions on idea groups, taking Humanist instead of Religious seems like an awful decision. And you pretty much have to take it first to get any utility out of it. Nations that get the best use out of it still seem better served to take Religious. For the few nations with NI's that can take advantage of some stacking (Poland... and Poland?), go ahead. There are actually so many more nations that can take advantage of stacking with Religious, the best being Byzantium (super overpowered mode) and Mamluks, Russians, Timurids, and any European start, Muslims, all of the New World, Africa, East Asia, Hordes...

Please argue my point substantively, I wish to learn more reasons why to take this group.

I basically agreewiththis. If you are taking humanist it seems you may actually be bad at playing EUIV.

 

[Zelius]

I basically agreewiththis. If you are taking humanist it seems you may actually be bad at playing EUIV.

Ouch, mate.

Are you really my countryman? Ouch.

 

[Marox]

I basically agreewiththis. If you are taking humanist it seems you may actually be bad at playing EUIV.

Tell me your best achievement if you're an expert then.

 

[hauptman]

I basically agreewiththis. If you are taking humanist it seems you may actually be bad at playing EUIV.

Ouch, mate.

Are you really my countryman? Ouch.

Do believe I said this already.

Revolt risk is really a non issue, except in the very begining of the game. Which means, as others have stated, humanist is only useful if taken first. Taking an ADM group first is all kinds of bad. I did it once, my very first game, and never again.

It slows gaining other ideas, which slows filling your NIs, slows your ability to core and grow, and leaves you weaker in the early game, when you really need to squeeze every ounce of power from any start.

I'll take a mil set first over ANY adm set. and simply avoid fights.

 

[Zardnaar]

Tell me your best achievement if you're an expert then.

Not a lot as I usually do not play Ironman. I suppose my best ironman game would be Ragusa.

THere are plenty of better EUIV players than I am as I tend to play the game is weird ways. I try for things like OPMs, 2PMs and synergy over building the biggest blobbiest empire I can. I also do not play a huge amount of MP.

Navarra Wurld Empire.




Ironman Ragusa


Germany 1718


I'm not the best EUIV player in the wurld. I do not use exploits and I rarely even use allies so my expansion is usually slow as I will mano a mano France most of the time as opposed to ally Burgandy/Castile or us AI alliances to do my heavy lifting.

 

[hauptman]

Tell me your best achievement if you're an expert then.

I have one achievement.

Get a royal marriage.

It autosaved because i did that, which paused the game for lke 5 seconds, for two royal marriages, I said "wow, that sucks" exited game, and unchecked that box.

but;

I got a little experience.

Edit; pic's a couple weeks old, says 3390 now.

 

[Apolojuice]

Why?

For the glory of Erasmus of course!

 

[Zelius]

Do believe I said this already.

Revolt risk is really a non issue, except in the very begining of the game. Which means, as others have stated, humanist is only useful if taken first. Taking an ADM group first is all kinds of bad. I did it once, my very first game, and never again.

It slows gaining other ideas, which slows filling your NIs, slows your ability to core and grow, and leaves you weaker in the early game, when you really need to squeeze every ounce of power from any start.

I'll take a mil set first over ANY adm set. and simply avoid fights.

All I was saying was; no need for the insult.

There's no need to take it first.

And for gods' sake people, it depends on your position, your religion and your NIs. Nobody (hopefully) is saying you should take Humanist as Byzantium or Religious as Poland / Lithuania.

 

[Zardnaar]

I would be more inclined to take religious as Lithuania/Poland as you can holy war your war all the way to China as you start adjacent to the Muslim hordes. Its not going to take long to convert your provinces or just switch to reformed and become DoTF and you can convert all the PLCs territory very fast.

I have taken humanism for themed games or after religious for very aggressive invade asia games and I wanted to test out the religious+humanism combo.

 

[Apolojuice]

Byzantium with Humanism is overpowered.

Byzantium has absolutely no problem converting provinces, even Rome, with +3 strength and max patriarchal authority (+2). +1 true faith tolerance is laughable to the +4 they get from their national idea and Ortho. Plus, they can usually conquer everything by claims, and they should really be taking Admin as their first paper mana idea anyway, for that stacking Merc ideas before their "Reestablish Theme" kick in. Religious ideas are kind of redundant for them.

 

[StatikShocker]

Byzantium with Humanism is overpowered.

Byzantium has absolutely no problem converting provinces, even Rome, with +3 strength and max patriarchal authority (+2). +1 true faith tolerance is laughable to the +4 they get from their national idea and Ortho. Plus, they can usually conquer everything by claims, and they should really be taking Admin as their first paper mana idea anyway, for that stacking Merc ideas before their "Reestablish Theme" kick in. Religious ideas are kind of redundant for them.

In my opinion, when you have an advantage, take it as far as it can go. Having like +9 Tolerance of the true faith, -95% stab cost, 7 missionaries... Byzantium allows you to conquer nonstop. Religious+Quantity and Byzantium is a juggernaut. I have 2 million manpower.

 

[Marox]

Not a lot as I usually do not play Ironman. I suppose my best ironman game would be Ragusa.

THere are plenty of better EUIV players than I am as I tend to play the game is weird ways. I try for things like OPMs, 2PMs and synergy over building the biggest blobbiest empire I can.

OPM and small states are the only fun states imo otherwise the game gets boring much earlier since blobbing is the only game there is for me until the next expansion. I don't think Humanism was a bad pick for me when it helped me get the Albania or Iberia achievement. Most idea group get weak once you've blobbed up sufficiently and the only ones to continue providing you with significant bonuses at that point would be Influence and Military ideas imo .. unless you're a colonial power.

All I was saying was; no need for the insult.

There's no need to take it first.

And for gods' sake people, it depends on your position, your religion and your NIs. Nobody (hopefully) is saying you should take Humanist as Byzantium or Religious as Poland / Lithuania.

^ This. I'd never pick up Economic without gold provinces, I'd never pick up Expansion without going for trade income from colonies, I'd never pick up Innovative at all now, and I'm biased towards Administrative after too many Hansa games.

 

[hauptman]

still take innovative for the general and war exhaustion reduction mainly. Not always like I used to though.

Aristocratic and innovative are also a godsend for super cheap mil techs.

Plus innovative + quality will make any nation into Prussia.

 

[Zelius]

I have one achievement.

Get a royal marriage.

It autosaved because i did that, which paused the game for lke 5 seconds, for two royal marriages, I said "wow, that sucks" exited game, and unchecked that box.

but;

I got a little experience.

Edit; pic's a couple weeks old, says 3390 now.

*Average >5.5 Hrs/day since the game's release? Hardcore!

 

[Marox]

Missed a few of the replies before and I don't play Ironman much either .. its just easy for people to say console commands to anything you built out of it. Best I've done is the Albania I mentioned before since its only Ironman game I played until the 1700s: