If you are not aiming for world conquest, ADMIN or ECO as the first idea ?

[Incompetent]

Depends fully on your goal: Exploration could be taken first for several countries, but Economic could be interesting for a merchant republic, that will then use money to hire mercenaries and has not to expand too much due to size limitation.

Going tall isn't such a good plan for Merchant Republics in the long run. To get the most out of MR you need to build a substantial trade empire, and 'tall' trade empires don't really scale up in single player, as they suffer too much competition to maintain long routes. So you do want to expand a lot, it's just that almost all of the expansion will be in trade company land, where the province restriction doesn't matter (it'll all be 'territories' anyway, just that TC magic makes it zero autonomy).

If you want to go tall, I think it's better to be a non-merchant republic and really get into bed with the Burghers estate.

 

[apocalypse06]

Economic first is what I do for 90% of my VH games, otherwise I usually skip it. I do a lot of development early on. I like to get most 0 autonomy provinces to 5/5/5 if the cost isn't too prohibitive (assuming I have 10 provinces or less). I find that gives me a good power base to support a decent army, have good income, and paired with quantity, have the force limit to gain useful allies. I can snowball from there.

I'm sure better players can skip it, but I like going Admin third, to get the 2% loans which are so very nice. Assuming i'm not starting as someone like Spain or France, my VH progression is usually Economic, Quantity, Admin, Defensive or perhaps Diplomatic.

 

[Sfan]

Not influence? Genuine question.

 

[Vetgirig]

The big argument I can see for econ is if you're a RoTW start and you're going to be developing every institution up until global trade, as it's a nice savings on the development. It also contributes nicely if you're disc stacking on your military - not by any means the most effective way to go in sp, but it's there. (And so much fun). You can always take it later, but if you're going to take it at some point, I'd say you get the most use out of it as a first/second idea group (and thus first admin group). Having more money also help you get to top level advisers sooner, which means more MP down the line.

In a ROTW start you want Exploration as first idea group. You wanna make sure you spawn the institution.

 

[PhoenixG]

Yes you can reach Greenland, but I'd rather wait for Tech 7 and go directly into valuable provinces. From my experience, the time it takes to finish Greeland is about what it takes to get Dip 7.

Last time I checked, you can remove the TI, but it's out of colonial range. (Even if you take iceland). This is with explo 3 and advisor. Besides the eastern part of Canada is closer than greenland.

When you have dip 7, you might go for the caribbean instead.

 

[qwertzuiop]

I guess that depends what you call early game, but not having religious to deal with Coptic provinces seems like shooting yourself in the foot, and you'll definitely hold Coptic provinces before your fifth idea group unless you're doing something really weird with your Zanzibar game. There is a reason why any game that's played reasonably and without RPing tends to always have Admin and Religious. Playing without them is really playing with weights even if you can play with weights.

To be fair I didn't claim that taking Economic was better than Religious/Humanist even in this situation, just that the nice synergies make me want to pick it and I consider it worth picking in this situation. Coptic provinces, while they are a problem, only exist in a small area so you could just let a converter vassal do all the work. As far as I know many countries in that area pick Religious ideas (I remember Adal picking it several times), also it might be possible to use Beja which is a Sunni tag that has Nubian ideas.

 

[I_am_Nemo]

In a ROTW start you want Exploration as first idea group. You wanna make sure you spawn the institution.

I suppose that's viable, but a lot of ROTW isn't going to have the cash to colonize, I wouldn't think. Or you're landlocked - thinking of Nepal, here.

 

[Sfan]

Not the range, not the cash, and landlocked. Only Japan, Korea, Brunei and the African nations have a really easy time colonizing and reaching the New World. A landlocked OPM in India has no reason at all to take exploration.

 

[BaronNoir]

Again, it might sounds silly, but why England should take explo first and not second ? (explo is nearly useless for 30 years)

 

[Sfan]

That's why I said second and not first. I totally disagree with the idea of taking it first as England (and with most countries actually).