It seems that "Influence Ideas" are mainly for blobbing...

[Ellyll]

It seems that Influence was mainly aimed at blobbing using subjects rather than maintaining subjects.

Lowered Aggressive Expansion
Lowered Unjustified Demands
Inceased Diplo Reputation for Annexation
Lowered Cost of Annexation
Increased PU Chance for Christian Nations (Heir + Prestige)

Nothing for actually dealing with liberty desire, or, other than a single diplo relations slot, actually maintaining multiple subjects.

It would be nice if "keeping subjects" was a valid play-style as well.

 

[bly08]

It is for Shogun or HRE.

 

[ecrurudesby]

Income from vassals - Whether or not it's worthwhile, it obviously affects current vassals.
Diplomatic Reputation - Directly affects liberty desire of all subjects.
One extra relation slot without upkeep - Self explanatory.
Vassal force limit contribution - See income from vassals. You can greatly increase your force limit by stacking this modifier along with multiple Colonial Nations.

Policies - Plenty that affect current vassals.

 

[PhoenixG]

It seems that Influence was mainly aimed at blobbing using subjects rather than maintaining subjects.

Lowered Aggressive Expansion
Lowered Unjustified Demands
Inceased Diplo Reputation for Annexation
Lowered Cost of Annexation
Increased PU Chance for Christian Nations (Heir + Prestige)

Nothing for actually dealing with liberty desire, or, other than a single diplo relations slot, actually maintaining multiple subjects.

It would be nice if "keeping subjects" was a valid play-style as well.

Pick espionage

 

[Ellyll]

Pick espionage

LOL! And as an aside, why is the Liberty Desire there and not in Influence, lol?

 

[Badesumofu]

If you want long term subjects, aim for PUs, and later in the game Client States. PUs once made fully loyal will basically stay loyal forever. They get no LD from development, and they only consider their own strength for the relative strength modifier. Client States get an inherent -25% LD.

Additionally, granting March status reduces LD (as well as OP military bonuses).

It might be a nice idea to add an idea group centered around keeping vassals. But Influence is currently one of the better designed idea groups and I would hate to see it overhauled.

 

[Ellyll]

If you want long term subjects, aim for PUs, and later in the game Client States. PUs once made fully loyal will basically stay loyal forever. They get no LD from development, and they only consider their own strength for the relative strength modifier. Client States get an inherent -25% LD.

Additionally, granting March status reduces LD (as well as OP military bonuses).

It might be a nice idea to add an idea group centered around keeping vassals. But Influence is currently one of the better designed idea groups and I would hate to see it overhauled.

I understand your sentiment, it is a good idea group for what it does - but lets face it, what it does is allows you to eat and annex multiple countries quickly.

PUs are nice, but I happen to be playing in India right now, so I am afraid they not an option. Additionally, multiple marches actually leads to higher liberty desire. It's 15% less to start with, but as each march builds up to force limit the combined power vs overlord penalty skyrockets/.

 

[Incompetent]

Influence has always been a blobbing idea set, from the moment it was added to the game. The whole group screams vassal-feeding. It gets even more crazy when you consider the Administrative-Influence policy (and Influence-Plutocratic to a lesser extent), and Religious-Influence policy also has great synergy if you like culture-converting (Manchu countries and so on). Certain countries could try to stack AE reduction really hard by including the Innovative-Influence policy. The other policies are mostly nothing special.

As I understand it, Diplomatic is a popular option to take early for the game of thrones (due to no stabhit for breaking royal marriage, and the extra diplomat comes in handy), but if you're not a Christian monarchy it generally takes a back seat to Influence. I suppose it could feed into a hyper-aggressive style, with cheaper trucebreaks/no-CBs and ability to take more land in a single war, but probably more conventional blobbing ideas are a higher priority even in that situation. In terms of policies, there's a +diplomat policy and a ton of diprep ones (again, great for game of thrones) and Diplomatic-Defensive lets you pay for a diplomatic relation with sword mana, which is quite handy.

Espionage quite a mix of different things, all of which are somewhat helpful but none of which are individually outstanding, so it's hard to know when to use it. Maybe more fun for role-players than power players. I think it has some potential for countries that are going tallish (you aren't taking your enemies' land, so you want to disrupt them by other means). It could do with a finisher of cheaper spy actions (i.e. so that you need less spy network to steal maps, agitate for liberty etc); rebel support efficiency is a bit too specific, and all it really does is make the rebellion fire a bit faster. The policies are mostly for players who want to create an early modern CIA for some reason, although Espionage-Quantity is somewhat interesting for countries that use a lot of mercs and a couple of the others give nice military buffs.

 

[Ellyll]

Espionage quite a mix of different things, all of which are somewhat helpful but none of which are individually outstanding, so it's hard to know when to use it. Maybe more fun for role-players than power players. I think it has some potential for countries that are going tallish (you aren't taking your enemies' land, so you want to disrupt them by other means). It could do with a finisher of cheaper spy actions (i.e. so that you need less spy network to steal maps, agitate for liberty etc); rebel support efficiency is a bit too specific, and all it really does is make the rebellion fire a bit faster. The policies are mostly for players who want to create an early modern CIA for some reason, although Espionage-Quantity is somewhat interesting for countries that use a lot of mercs and a couple of the others give nice military buffs.

The only time I can remember considering espionage seriously was for max meme calvary damage as Mongolia.

 

[bbqftw]

Keeping subjects is garbage because vassal troops are the epitome of unreliability with no obligation to follow your attach commands. They do random shit regardless of objectives set or attitudes.

Until that is fixed I am fully supportive of keeping influence something for keeping your subjects under your boot until they are inevitably annexed.

 

[makaramus]

its not actually about idea group of blobbling... its idea group of "vassalizing" people... but since this is led to blobbing it happens

 

[Sfan]

Vassalizing can only be considered a short term goal in the game, because of what bbq said: vassals are trash. They can't manage their economy, their troops are unreliable, they permanently go in debt and have revolts because they lower autonomy when they should increase it and increase it when they should not. Influence is clearly designed for vassal play, the only reason why everyone uses it to integrate is that keeping a vassal around will always be less effective militarily and economically, except a faraway one if trade is disconnected and you can't pull money from there, or a divert trade march if you are a MR.

 

[iquabakaner]

Keeping subjects is garbage because vassal troops are the epitome of unreliability with no obligation to follow your attach commands. They do random shit regardless of objectives set or attitudes.

Until that is fixed I am fully supportive of keeping influence something for keeping your subjects under your boot until they are inevitably annexed.

While I was waiting to annex all my vassals, they are doing very well against small and mid-sized countries for me. I can just keep my own forces at minimum maintenance and/or drilling. And also I don't have to micro my troops around for those wars.

 

[Bouchart]

Marcher Lords isn't good enough for you???

 

[Rubidium]

All ideas are mainly about blobbing; it's the main thing to do in the game. Some are just better at it than others.

 

[raikaria]

Influence is for blobbing; yes. It helps with Blobbing. So does Diplomatic [Improve Relations]

Influence is tooled for vassal-heavy play and vassal feeding in particular. It's for expansion; but not just by sword.

 

[Meow of Meowowiz]

Influence alone is not very usefull you either need Papacy(gamble) or NI's ontop of it to make it of any use. If you have one of those and get the event(20% reduction for 10y) it's certainly the most powerful idea group you can have if you start in europe.

So I have to kinda to agree it's mainly for blobbing but only because you just never take influence ever if you start outside of the hre.

At least for myself I never did find any use of it because the -AE is the only real thing why you would choose it. In fact I would never choose dip or influence ideas outside of the hre. But that's just my personal playstyle I honestly run without any dip idea since years if I am not in the hre/do not colonize, because they're just useless and even the policies are a bad joke.

 

[Foefaller]

Influence has always been a blobbing idea set, from the moment it was added to the game. The whole group screams vassal-feeding. It gets even more crazy when you consider the Administrative-Influence policy (and Influence-Plutocratic to a lesser extent), and Religious-Influence policy also has great synergy if you like culture-converting (Manchu countries and so on). Certain countries could try to stack AE reduction really hard by including the Innovative-Influence policy. The other policies are mostly nothing special.

As I understand it, Diplomatic is a popular option to take early for the game of thrones (due to no stabhit for breaking royal marriage), but if you're not a Christian monarchy it generally takes a back seat to Influence. I suppose it could feed into a hyper-aggressive style, with cheaper trucebreaks/no-CBs and ability to take more land in a single war, but probably more conventional blobbing ideas are a higher priority even in that situation. In terms of policies, there's a +diplomat policy and a ton of diprep ones (again, great for game of thrones) and Diplomatic-Defensive lets you pay for a diplomatic relation with sword mana, which is quite handy.

Espionage quite a mix of different things, all of which are somewhat helpful but none of which are individually outstanding, so it's hard to know when to use it. Maybe more fun for role-players than power players. I think it has some potential for countries that are going tallish (you aren't taking your enemies' land, so you want to disrupt them by other means). It could do with a finisher of cheaper spy actions (i.e. so that you need less spy network to steal maps, agitate for liberty etc); rebel support efficiency is a bit too specific, and all it really does is make the rebellion fire a bit faster. The policies are mostly for players who want to create an early modern CIA for some reason, although Espionage-Quantity is somewhat interesting for countries that use a lot of mercs and a couple of the others give nice military buffs.

You take Espionage as Poland for the Aristocratic-Espionage policy that makes your stupidly power cavalry even more ridiculous.

 

[Bouchart]

Influence alone is not very usefull you either need Papacy(gamble) or NI's ontop of it to make it of any use. If you have one of those and get the event(20% reduction for 10y) it's certainly the most powerful idea group you can have if you start in europe.

Diplomatic is a strong contender for playing in Europe. Being able to break royal marriages with no stab penalty can get you some personal unions if you are lucky.

 

[qwertzuiop]

Influence alone is not very usefull you either need Papacy(gamble) or NI's ontop of it to make it of any use. If you have one of those and get the event(20% reduction for 10y) it's certainly the most powerful idea group you can have if you start in europe.

So I have to kinda to agree it's mainly for blobbing but only because you just never take influence ever if you start outside of the hre.

At least for myself I never did find any use of it because the -AE is the only real thing why you would choose it. In fact I would never choose dip or influence ideas outside of the hre. But that's just my personal playstyle I honestly run without any dip idea since years if I am not in the hre/do not colonize, because they're just useless and even the policies are a bad joke.

Even if you don't play with vassals at all and don't need the actual diplomatic bonuses, the -50% to unjustified demands are very good and will save you a LOT of dip points in peace deals. In my opinion Influence is a great general-purpose group, though you don't technically need it if you just pick Religious and make heavy use of the holy war CB (ofc this depends on the country you play) and Administrative and then just core almost everything directly.

It's absolutely viable to play without Influence, but where I disagree is that it's not useful on its own and that it is a group designed for the HRE. In my opinion, Diplomatic is better for regular HRE members because you can actually make use of the additional diplomat and it helps you become the emperor. Diplomatic is also good for the PU game as others have already said which means that it especially shines in Europe (even if you are not in the HRE).