Humanist vs Religions
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Religious ideas are better for expanding into the Middle East/Africa, Humanist is better for establishing European hegemony.
I take Religious if I need Deus Vult, or for RP reasons, or if I'm going full-on Catholic or Reformed (because all of Religious is a Fervor-producing machine).
Every time else, Humanism. Humanism is just...well, there have been hundreds of posts here on how just ____ Humanism is.
Every time else, Humanism. Humanism is just...well, there have been hundreds of posts here on how just ____ Humanism is.
Generally if you play an isolated religion like orthodox Muscovy then religious because of great cb against all neighbours.
If you got great tolerance national ideas and generally stable then Humanist may be the better pick because you likely can ignore religion altogether.
Looking at what policies they unlock and which ones look most interesting:
Humanist: diplo and plutocratic to get very low requirements for accepted culture, trade for even lower idea cost, offensive for -unrest and -5 years of nationalism.
Religious: quality-quantity for 20% extra moral, a little discipline and moral recovery.
If you got great tolerance national ideas and generally stable then Humanist may be the better pick because you likely can ignore religion altogether.
Looking at what policies they unlock and which ones look most interesting:
Humanist: diplo and plutocratic to get very low requirements for accepted culture, trade for even lower idea cost, offensive for -unrest and -5 years of nationalism.
Religious: quality-quantity for 20% extra moral, a little discipline and moral recovery.
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If I plan to go wage war on the dirty heretics or heathens, religious, otherwise i can get the same use out of other CB generating idea groups.
Both have their places, and their advantages/disadvantages. I kinda like Humanism more, but others will prefer religious.
Each has their own use depending on your region, play style and short/long term goals.
Religious unity under 1 religion is generally stronger overall (but takes a bit longer) when tied to your culture group. It also allows you to expand rapidly with the great CB you get from the first idea. That CB alone makes it a really strong idea group early on. You can't forget the -25% to stability cost as well. Cheaper stability is a nice buff to have. You can also culture convert cheaper, useful for those few provinces you might have that are lower base tax but cause you problems due to culture rebellions. Who would say no to that? It is like saying no to more money and a happier populace
Humanism is good for bigger empires that have many culture groups. The -2 RR is nice and some say OP, but even combined with the religious unity +25%, will not be more united than a 1 faith nation. It is a less tedious way to play the game in my opinion and I definitely use it if I am going to westernize. The finisher idea is the most powerful I think, the -50% to accepted culture threshold. That is amazing when you have a nation that has a solid amount of 'same culture group' provinces, but really...would be amazing to get them to be one of you main accepted cultures. Thats an extra 15% to tax and manpower. Already double the value of what an unaccepted culture province would be worth.
Religious unity under 1 religion is generally stronger overall (but takes a bit longer) when tied to your culture group. It also allows you to expand rapidly with the great CB you get from the first idea. That CB alone makes it a really strong idea group early on. You can't forget the -25% to stability cost as well. Cheaper stability is a nice buff to have. You can also culture convert cheaper, useful for those few provinces you might have that are lower base tax but cause you problems due to culture rebellions. Who would say no to that? It is like saying no to more money and a happier populace
Humanism is good for bigger empires that have many culture groups. The -2 RR is nice and some say OP, but even combined with the religious unity +25%, will not be more united than a 1 faith nation. It is a less tedious way to play the game in my opinion and I definitely use it if I am going to westernize. The finisher idea is the most powerful I think, the -50% to accepted culture threshold. That is amazing when you have a nation that has a solid amount of 'same culture group' provinces, but really...would be amazing to get them to be one of you main accepted cultures. Thats an extra 15% to tax and manpower. Already double the value of what an unaccepted culture province would be worth.
Something could be said about taking both:
Lets look at Najd who is the only country able to get the jihad achievement.
As a sunni country you can swap to shia if you move the capital to a shia province or maybe by rebels.
This may sound like a bad idea because you need to be sunni for the achivement but this give two advantages.
First you get the moral bonus that shia have, giving you easier battles.
Secondly if you get religious, you get the great cb against every non shia neighbours, including all sunni countries.
But you don't want to convert sunni provinces, so why not tolerate the religion with humanism
Then you have basicly annexed every sunni country you can then move cap to a sunni province and convert to sunni and get the achievement.
Lets look at Najd who is the only country able to get the jihad achievement.
As a sunni country you can swap to shia if you move the capital to a shia province or maybe by rebels.
This may sound like a bad idea because you need to be sunni for the achivement but this give two advantages.
First you get the moral bonus that shia have, giving you easier battles.
Secondly if you get religious, you get the great cb against every non shia neighbours, including all sunni countries.
But you don't want to convert sunni provinces, so why not tolerate the religion with humanism
Then you have basicly annexed every sunni country you can then move cap to a sunni province and convert to sunni and get the achievement.
Each has their own use depending on your region, play style and short/long term goals.
Religious unity under 1 religion is generally stronger overall (but takes a bit longer) when tied to your culture group. It also allows you to expand rapidly with the great CB you get from the first idea. That CB alone makes it a really strong idea group early on. You can't forget the -25% to stability cost as well. Cheaper stability is a nice buff to have. You can also culture convert cheaper, useful for those few provinces you might have that are lower base tax but cause you problems due to culture rebellions. Who would say no to that? It is like saying no to more money and a happier populace
Humanism is good for bigger empires that have many culture groups. The -2 RR is nice and some say OP, but even combined with the religious unity +25%, will not be more united than a 1 faith nation. It is a less tedious way to play the game in my opinion and I definitely use it if I am going to westernize. The finisher idea is the most powerful I think, the -50% to accepted culture threshold. That is amazing when you have a nation that has a solid amount of 'same culture group' provinces, but really...would be amazing to get them to be one of you main accepted cultures. Thats an extra 15% to tax and manpower. Already double the value of what an unaccepted culture province would be worth.
I would disagree about being less united than single-faith nations, even as songhai with no NIs for tolerance of heathens, I consistently stayed over 100% RU when I moved into coptic and catholic territory (kongo converted, plus greedy europeans trying to get land on MY continent) I did convert the animists, however.
Both of them are really strong ideas. I always take at least one, and would sometimes take both.
Humanism is great if you can stack it with tolerance NIs (=heretics/heathens reach +3 or thereabouts and cause no problems) and/or culture acceptance bonuses. -65% or better culture acceptance threshold is insane - you end up with half a dozen cultures without even trying. It's also the best idea bar none for soothing unrest in newly-acquired provinces and will let you reduce autonomy a lot sooner than you would otherwise (or at least not have to raise autonomy when you take over). I'm a big fan of Humanist for merchant republics, England (especially if you have continental ambitions), and countries that start in area with lots of medium-sized cultures and no big culture group to call their own (e.g. Ottomans, Indians and any European who isn't Iberian, French, Germanic, Latin or East Slavic).
Religion is great if you want to go full Borg and create an ultra-stable, homogeneous empire. Like cultural acceptance, culture conversion really shines when you can stack the bonuses. For instance Muscovy with Religious ideas and the Religion+Influence policy pays -65% conversion cost, at which point it's feasible to just carpet-convert large chunks of Asia. It's a similar story with stability - if you already have a discount, it becomes very cheap, allowing you to be much more aggressive with stab hits. Religious conversion is also a must if you are Orthodox, because of all the bonuses you get from Patriarch Authority. It's a great idea group if you are a non-Sunni in Africa or Asia (so many heretics and heathens to conquer/convert, and initially no Expansion CB available), a Muslim going for 'Unify Islam', an Orthodox country, a Reformed country that plans to be aggressive in Europe, a theocracy (so much true faith tolerance!) or a Catholic country in a game where the Reformation is especially strong (more conversion needed, and the papal influence counts for more because there is less competition for the Curia).
Humanism is great if you can stack it with tolerance NIs (=heretics/heathens reach +3 or thereabouts and cause no problems) and/or culture acceptance bonuses. -65% or better culture acceptance threshold is insane - you end up with half a dozen cultures without even trying. It's also the best idea bar none for soothing unrest in newly-acquired provinces and will let you reduce autonomy a lot sooner than you would otherwise (or at least not have to raise autonomy when you take over). I'm a big fan of Humanist for merchant republics, England (especially if you have continental ambitions), and countries that start in area with lots of medium-sized cultures and no big culture group to call their own (e.g. Ottomans, Indians and any European who isn't Iberian, French, Germanic, Latin or East Slavic).
Religion is great if you want to go full Borg and create an ultra-stable, homogeneous empire. Like cultural acceptance, culture conversion really shines when you can stack the bonuses. For instance Muscovy with Religious ideas and the Religion+Influence policy pays -65% conversion cost, at which point it's feasible to just carpet-convert large chunks of Asia. It's a similar story with stability - if you already have a discount, it becomes very cheap, allowing you to be much more aggressive with stab hits. Religious conversion is also a must if you are Orthodox, because of all the bonuses you get from Patriarch Authority. It's a great idea group if you are a non-Sunni in Africa or Asia (so many heretics and heathens to conquer/convert, and initially no Expansion CB available), a Muslim going for 'Unify Islam', an Orthodox country, a Reformed country that plans to be aggressive in Europe, a theocracy (so much true faith tolerance!) or a Catholic country in a game where the Reformation is especially strong (more conversion needed, and the papal influence counts for more because there is less competition for the Curia).
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It's because true faith tolerance in better than heathen or heretic tolerance. Even with -2 RR.
If the country has heretic tolerance in its NI i will always go for humanism. If not id rather take religious, its a much better ideagroup overall while humanism is only good for the accepted culture one.
25% stab from religious and more stab +1 events from the ideagroup.
25% stab from religious and more stab +1 events from the ideagroup.
I just get both. Religious is great for expanding and Humanist is great for keeping what you've eaten.
This guy has the right idea. I personally prefer taking religious first, as it allows me to convert wide swaths of lands much quicker. This has been a Godsend in my latest Protestant Japan game. The idea group also has quite a few +1 stab events as well, which is simply amazing for any conquering nation who doesn't want to keep spending adm points. The "Deus Vult" idea is also really grand (though would certainly be less useful in a homogeneous area like early game central Europe).
Humanist is also really great, reducing the early years of new territories and generally making them easier to manage. Increasing tolerance across the board makes rebels less likely and is a great boon to nations trying to westernize. That lowered cultural acceptance isn't too bad either for those games where you just don't have the dip points.
In my opinion humanism is better but it is a close run thing, and for Christian countries which intend to remain Catholic, religious ideas have a very good case.
Yes, but TTF only kicks in when you have true faith. I believe religious is better overall if you have conversion power or more missionaries, and humanist if you have a decent amount of heathen tolerance. The thing with humanist heathen tolerance is that you can then get +3 +3 on non-TF, and that drastically reduces the initial build up of unrest. A strong converter can just convert the provinces immediately, but for nations like Indian sultanates, Ottomans, Mughals, Malayans, Kazan, and so forth you can just use your random missionary as he's capable for conversion and otherwise enjoy no rebellions pretty fast even w/o increased autonomy.
For nations that have neither, I slightly prefer religious unless in Catholic Europe (humanist laughs at the reformation). Getting no heathen tolerance and just the -2 unrest is kind of flimsy. Najd is the rare case that probably wants neither lol.
All true, but please replace Asia with Europe. Next stop is Paris.
Yea this is what I plan to do with my Muscovy game, turn Europe into Russian Orthodox.
But if you only pick it for the cb then you don't have to spend more then 400 points in it and nothing really hinders you from having the benifint of humanism next.