is Offensive absolutely necessary for your playstyle?

[Musthavename]

Offensive is arguably the best all round national idea militarily speaking. The general bonuses effectively give you +1 to rolls, you get nice manpower and forcelimit bonuses, there's the always wanted discipline, and best of all is forced march and the flexibility it brings. That said, do I use forced march that regularly? Not really. The flexibility it brings is just generally useful though. I'm a defensive player myself, but against the AI I tend to try to lure the AI into attacking a stack they outnumber in mountains, only to use forced march on some adjacent stacks to reinforce them and then hunt them down when I win.

 

[Yenzen]

Yes, but I always pick it along with Defensive as two of my 4 first ideas. Sometimes, however, I will favor defensive first, especially in mp where the early morale is a huge boon, and military tradition can otherwise be difficult to keep at a reasonable level. They also have nice synergy with the Recruitment act.

 

[brifbates]

Nope. I'm not even sure I've ever completely unlocked it, then again I rarely play western nations so unlocking forced march to drain mp is somewhat counter-productive to maximizing mil-tech.

 

[RELee]

Okay. I completely misunderstood the question apparently.

As with all strategy games that have some form of economy, I concentrate on that at the very first opportunity. If you economy is failing, then your strategy ultimately will as well, or so I learned many years ago playing Stars!. I guess that lesson became ingrained because that was the first Idea Group that I picked in my 3rd or 4th first try as England. It may be a sub-optimum pick, but it is now 1680 and while I've been kicked off the mainland already and lost the HYW, I have defeated an alliance of Burgundy, Aragon, and about a half-dozen minor nations, working on a Grand Fleet and gotten the Royal Fleet National Idea. I'm okay with the way things are turning out so far. Being a historically lucky nation and getting Longbows hasn't hurt either I suppose.

 

[PhroX]

Is it necessary? No. Could I live without it? Certainly, both defensive and quality are good idea sets for buffing your military. On the other hand, is it the first military idea set I get? Almost always yes for a Monarchy, though when I'm a Republic I usually get Plutocracy and Offensive second

 

[Korashy]

Okay. I completely misunderstood the question apparently.

As with all strategy games that have some form of economy, I concentrate on that at the very first opportunity. If you economy is failing, then your strategy ultimately will as well, or so I learned many years ago playing Stars!. I guess that lesson became ingrained because that was the first Idea Group that I picked in my 3rd or 4th first try as England. It may be a sub-optimum pick, but it is now 1680 and while I've been kicked off the mainland already and lost the HYW, I have defeated an alliance of Burgundy, Aragon, and about a half-dozen minor nations, working on a Grand Fleet and gotten the Royal Fleet National Idea. I'm okay with the way things are turning out so far. Being a historically lucky nation and getting Longbows hasn't hurt either I suppose.

The player can never be lucky, even if you pick a lucky nation. Building a strong economy gets easier and easier the more you conquer because there is actually no drawback for adding more stuff to your empire as long as you can convert people.

 

[Magean]

I almost always take Offensive at some point. The sooner, the better : after all, I want to have as much generals as possible generated with the tree's bonuses.
The next question is : quality or defensive ? Then, I'd say it depends.

 

[gnome109]

Yes, forced march wins wars.

 

[unmerged(177849)]

"Absolutely necessary" is a high bar. I can't imagine any play styles that absolutely requires offensive, as powerful as it is.

The only "absolutely necessary" idea groups are exploration for an early colonizer (and even there one can argue for expansion for Portugal) and diplomatic for a diplomacy oriented game (and there one could maybe get by with, ironically, expansion also, though really a true diplomacy oriented player needs both). And of course, some specific nations have near mandatory idea groups.