Mathematics of Religious vs. Humanist

[DominusNovus]

So, in my play style, I find myself constantly choosing Humanist ideas, since I generally am fairly expansionist and end up ruling over many different cultures. All well and good, I like the idea group as a whole (that and Plutocratic are my favorites). However, I'm curious at what point it makes sense to choose Religious instead (of course, I could choose both) and culture convert provinces of the wrong culture. Has anyone broken down the math on this?

 

[uishax]

If you need dip points, using deus vault saves you tremendous amounts of dip points in the long run.

 

[Achanei]

I find that if you play really expansionist, the accepted culture bonus from humanism is not enough, unless you also have a NI...even 10% of entire BT from a single culture is hard to get once you get snowballing. Deus Vult is no longer so important to lock warleader, but it still is a strong CB, and the 25% stab cost is a must if you go trucebreaking. if you can convert everything quickly (with dotf +1 missionary you are at 3, and enough strength from the ideas) you end up with better net -unrest due to the TTF bonus. Religious also has a lot of +stab events which are always good.

In my last games I usually ended up taking both ideas just to stack -unrest, and the BROT from humanist is pretty cool too.

I think the main difference is that humanist makes expanding easier in the short and mid-term due to less nationalism and -unrest/tolerance in conquered provinces, while religious has the strong long-term -unrest with true faith tolerance. you'll have more revolt problems in newly conquered territories with religious, but that is kind of an early game problem. both idea groups are strong, and which one is better is situational depending on starting position, NIs etc.

 

[ChildeR]

The effects of wrong culture are +2 unrest, -2% missionary strength, -33% tax and manpower. The first two are important, especially with recently conquered provinces. Culture conversion cost reduction does nothing to change that when there's nationalism, while accepted culture threshold can. More importantly, humanist ideas give -2 unrest and -10 years of nationalism, which always help the unrest situation. The latter two effects are only important in the early game, when accepted culture threshold is most likely to help. Once you grow beyond the size where it can, it is unlikely the penalties matter much since you are swimming in money and manpower, and you can just use the diplo points on buildings instead to get money.

In short, I don't think culture conversion is usually worth it even with the -25% cost reduction. It's just something to dump your extra diplo in. Accepted culture threshold can potentially help more when it's important and costs no points, so it's often better.

The reasons to prefer religious are more to do with religious conversion, IMO. If you expand into a different religion that has conversion resistance (like Sunni) and you don't have NIs or anything else to help with it, you may *need* religious.

 

[Freudia]

I've found that in a game where I'm inclined to pick one, I end up picking the other too. They're both really fun to play with for me, and Deus Vult is a wonderful diplo point saver.

 

[Krajzen]

For such countries as Ethiopia or Georgia, is Religious or Humanist better?

 

[Freudia]

For such countries as Ethiopia or Georgia, is Religious or Humanist better?

For Ethiopia, Religious. You're expanding primarily into Sunni nations.

 

[Oryxslayer]

Its not really a question of opinion, its more a situational decision. Humanist works the best while conquering religiously divided regions, such as europe and india. This is stacked with the years of nationalism, which works best with either a immensely divided culture map. Religious works the best when there are large cultural and religious blobs, such as in asia or the middle east. It is also a must take for nations like russia or qing, who can't convert half their empires without it, and can easily abuse the awesome cb.

 

[Nyrael]

You know, I always wondered on why people act like the two Idea Groups are mutually exclusive If both could be useful, you choose both.

 

[Achanei]

You know, I always wondered on why people act like the two Idea Groups are mutually exclusive If both could be useful, you choose both.

True, but there is still the question of priority, especially since administrative is usually highest of all adm groups - taking administrative first and considering that you need to invest admin MP to unlock more idea groups, it is rarely sensible to take a third admin group before tech 17, and that is basically halfway through the game.

 

[Hakuromatsu]

Its not really a question of opinion, its more a situational decision. Humanist works the best while conquering religiously divided regions, such as europe and india. This is stacked with the years of nationalism, which works best with either a immensely divided culture map. Religious works the best when there are large cultural and religious blobs, such as in asia or the middle east. It is also a must take for nations like russia or qing, who can't convert half their empires without it, and can easily abuse the awesome cb.

It's definitely a situational matter. There are even some starts that may not want to take either in some circumstances (Tall Tuscany, Najd, Inca, some other Americans, etc.)

 

[lordelenath]

Humanist is at it's best if you NIs support that (either by additional heretic/heathen tolerance or cultural acceptance bonuses). It's still solid without ofc, but if your NIs are geared towards that it's just way better. Obvious examples would be France, Ottomans, Poland, Lithuania and England.

 

[Hakuromatsu]

Also, I will take Religious 100% of the time I go Reformed - the difference in Fervor gain is absurd.

 

[FreeSoc]

Humanist is at it's best if you NIs support that (either by additional heretic/heathen tolerance or cultural acceptance bonuses). It's still solid without ofc, but if your NIs are geared towards that it's just way better. Obvious examples would be France, Ottomans, Poland, Lithuania and England.

And the Netherlands. If you take Humanist and form the Netherlands, then without any policies you're looking at +6 Heretic tolerance and +3 Heathen tolerance, which makes expanding (particularly in a religiously divided Europe) easier in terms of absorbing territories post-war.

 

[1alexey]

To me, the choice mostly comes from what are my NIs and religion.
Reformed, Orthodox definitely benefit from religious more, Catholic also.

Eastern Religions are better of with tolerance, as it is harder to get good missionary strength, and Cristian and Muslim provinces tend to have higher base tax, and harder to accept culture, as you`re already huge.

Then, if your country`s ideas have : Tolerance True faith, missionary strength, missionaries, Stability cost, it stacks better with Religious.
Heretic/Heathen tolerance, culture acceptance treshold, years of nationalism, they stack better with Tolerance.

You know, I always wondered on why people act like the two Idea Groups are mutually exclusive If both could be useful, you choose both.

Because one is perfectly enough, taking both is an overkill.

 

[ChildeR]

You know, I always wondered on why people act like the two Idea Groups are mutually exclusive If both could be useful, you choose both.

Because parts of them make ideas in the other group redundant. Tolerance of true faith is fairly useless if you have -10 nationalism and -2 unrest, and do you really need tolerance of heretics if you have +5% missionary strength against them. Also, I'd always rather have an extra military group if I don't need to use one on the other of these.

 

[Santoes]

I was expecting more math.

Well the choice comes down to the package deal for me, and I don't prefer one over the other. Nor do I find the need to always have one of these.

For me to choose religion I'd have to have a mass expanding empire with a lot to convert. I'd also take it if I could take advantage of the stability boost reduction. If you get it low enough you could take land, break truce, boost, assault, vassal, and then feed. The CB is icing on the cake, but could make a good reason to get it early.

Humanist is a little over rated imo. For me its only useful tool to abuse is the accepted culture modifier. For me to consider abusing it I would have to consider the BT of the primary culture I start as. The lower the better as you can get a lot more out of it that way.

 

[Achanei]

Because one is perfectly enough, taking both is an overkill.

There is no overkill, there is only "open fire" and "I need to reload".

Stacking -unrest, -nationalism, TTF etc allows you to overextend over 100% without much trouble, both -stab cost and BROT are very useful for hardcore expansion.
If you have enough MP for all 8 idea groups, or even only 6 but in a timely fashion adm tech wise, there is little else that is useful for map painting. Quantity is enough for military in almost all situations, then there is administrative and diplomacy&influence, thats four - even if you power-colonize with both explo and expansion we are only at six ideas. trade is fun for infinite money but honestly not really essential. if i don't colonize, I end up taking both kinda by default, what else is useful? espionage?

 

[Santoes]

There is no overkill, there is only "open fire" and "I need to reload".

Stacking -unrest, -nationalism, TTF etc allows you to overextend over 100% without much trouble, both -stab cost and BROT are very useful for hardcore expansion.
If you have enough MP for all 8 idea groups, or even only 6 but in a timely fashion adm tech wise, there is little else that is useful for map painting. Quantity is enough for military in almost all situations, then there is administrative and diplomacy&influence, thats four - even if you power-colonize with both explo and expansion we are only at six ideas. trade is fun for infinite money but honestly not really essential. if i don't colonize, I end up taking both kinda by default, what else is useful? espionage?

Quantity also works great for rebel suppression. Since the rebels are a little bit more easily to time out you can go with the mentality of "let them eat cake". Let them come for you, screw them all, they'll eventually mellow. Once they revolt you'll get about 5 years before they start building up to another rebellion. So why bother with boosting autonomy when you have the manpower? All you need is a good general, good timing, and lots of soldiers.

So wouldn't you say that quantity could replace both religion and humanist?

 

[Achanei]

Quantity also works great for rebel suppression. Since the rebels are a little bit more easily to time out you can go with the mentality of "let them eat cake". Let them come for you, screw them all, they'll eventually mellow. Once they revolt you'll get about 5 years before they start building up to another rebellion. So why bother with boosting autonomy when you have the manpower? All you need is a good general, good timing, and lots of soldiers.

So wouldn't you say that quantity could replace both religion and humanist?

try playing at 250% OE for 20 years with 3 military ideas of your choice, and then try it again with quantity, humanist and religious.

Normal rebels you can squash with your military easily, but if you go over 100% OE regularly (which is very useful for power-map-painting) the culminating revolts and -stab and nationalist sentiment can quickly push your country to a point where your military wont manage to keep up with the rebels. I did not claim that any or both idea groups were necessary to deal with rebels, but if you push the boundaries of expansionism, they are very useful.

If you are just talking about priorities though, I would pick quantity over either.