newbie here, what are the advantages of Deus Vult? No diplo for unjustified demands?
Mathematics of Religious vs. Humanist
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newbie here, what are the advantages of Deus Vult? No diplo for unjustified demands?
Well, plutocracy for less unrest and tech cost is good too, if you can have it. And offensive for siege ability and forced march is useful no matter how large your armies.
I have never used the imperialism CB. Especially since it's tethered to diplo tech, which could instead be precious vassal annexations.
you are saying administrative bonuses aren't too hot, and two sentences later talk about innovative? really?
yeah that prestige decay real stronk
seriously though, administrative gives way cheaper mercs, coring cost reduction is awesome and +goods produced is easily as strong as -advisor costs now. the only thing that innovative has going for it is the -WE, and hey, dotf does that too. I still go admin as third idea in most games (except colonist ones).
For innovative you forgot -tradition decay = way stronger generals over time. The difference between 100 tradition and 60-80 tradition is huge. Furthermore the +20% infantry combat ability policy for having Innovative + Quality is insanely powerful. If you combine those two then Innovative becomes far better than any military idea line.
Administrative sucks other than the coring cost (and vassal feeding is better now anyway). The cheaper Mercs bonus completely lies in how much it actually saves you, it's very little in reality. +goods produced is worth very little since it only affects your goods, not the goods of all the other nations you are stealing through trade.
If I'm in a runaway with 300+ FL in SP then I consider the game won and stop playing. Why bother discussing strategies for a game you've already won? If I'm going to discuss which idea group is better then I'm going to assume it's a game that actually has opponents left.
His example may have been hyperbolic, but the point is still valid for nearly all SP games. Numbers + not being an idiot computer means you should win almost any war in SP. I will take Quantity for early manpower or the extra colonist and no other MIL idea set (maybe Aristocratic if I haven't taken Diplo).
Also, while it's not exactly the OP's point much of the discussion of the thread has centered around trucebreaking/WC/snowballing strats where the example is pretty valid. A WC game may be boring at 300FL, but it is far from won.
When you can easily assault provinces, it's a much better use of MIL than forced march and roasts siege ability alive for speed.
Plutocracy's -unrest is useful but hardly worth an entire group just for that, not to mention they really yanked any reliable way of becoming a republic w/o gimping yourself unless you start as one in 1.8 and didn't document it.
In the mid-late game with extra LA burn from governments it's hard to believe that the -2 unrest from pluto would be more attractive than alternative idea groups, even low-priority ones.
Hyperbolic? I had a FL of 700+ at the end as Sunda, and well over 300 for half the game, and that's no powerhouse start.
His question might as well be "why play SP". The answer is for fun.
-AT decay only has an impact if you dont go to war enough - not to mention that with only one military idea, you have plenty of spare mil power to reroll generals all day...even in my non-westernized tabarestan>persia game I had enough spare MP to reroll generals while staying eye to eye with the AI in miltech. once you have reached the point where manpower is no longer an issue, AT is at 100 all the time anyways.
I think you are overestimating the influence of combat ability - discipline trumps combat ability, and when you reach the point where you have those two idea groups done, you should have no need for the combat ability to win battles (unless for some strange reason you'd take quality as first military idea, and that'd just be you own fault then
). moreover, once you are at miltech 18 and beyond, infantry devolves more and more into a meatshield for your cannons.As TMIT already pointed out, vassal feeding and coring are not mutually exclusive, doing both is the best way to go.
the cheaper merc bonus I find very notable in early game where mercs rule, but even if you disagree there its still plain better than the one from innovative
+goods produced is more powerful than you give it credit, especially since AoW where a lot of previously mediocre trade goods can become quite valuable, for example cloth or iron. of course any money-making idea gets obsolete after some point, but it might still be relevant if you take the group early.
Money making never goes obselete because you can always get some more mercs.
Imperialism CB is not diplo free so deus vult may still be better, otherwise if you picked only deus vult in religious then you can just remove religious and pick another idea group.
Imperialism CB is not diplo free so deus vult may still be better, otherwise if you picked only deus vult in religious then you can just remove religious and pick another idea group.
That's not true. I've had a lot of games were I was running an army of 1.000.000 men and still earning hundreds of ducats net profit per month. You don't need more mercs at that point.
AT being high after a war is useless, what you really need is AT before a war when you are making generals. Having AT decay slower after a war is therefore a good thing. Even 10 or 15 AT brings substantial benefits. Manpower is never no longer an issue.
I think you are overestimating the influence of combat ability - discipline trumps combat ability, and when you reach the point where you have those two idea groups done, you should have no need for the combat ability to win battles (unless for some strange reason you'd take quality as first military idea, and that'd just be you own fault then
Combat ability is effectively half as good as discipline, so +20% combat ability is worth +10% discipline for just your infantry.
I think you misunderstand the combat system in some way. Cannons at miltech 18 deal 2.4 fire + 0.25 shock base damage * .5 for being in back row = 1.35 damage, while infantry deal 1.1 + 1.15 = 2.25 damage. Infantry are therefore by far the main damage dealers at that time. It's very, very late in the game that cannons actually surpass infantry. In total +20% combat ability to infantry is worth about +7.5% discipline overall.
You always need better soldiers. Everyone runs out of manpower sooner or later, better soldiers ensure you run out of manpower later.
You can always make more vassals to consume more land. The best way to go is to make more vassals and get a better idea group. Anyone that thinks you need to mass-core in the brave new world of AoW really needs to take a game to play with vassals. The only time you need to core something is to get around the "no vassal full annexation of 2/3PMs" rule, and you have more than enough ADM to do that yourself without needing coring bonuses.
the cheaper merc bonus I find very notable in early game where mercs rule, but even if you disagree there its still plain better than the one from innovative
Mercs are at +150% maintenance, so -33% only takes you from 250%->217%, for an effective savings of 14%.
Quantity, meanwhile, gives a savings of 19%(.9*.9 = .81 to maintain) to BOTH normal units (including your expensive cannons) and mercs. Nonwithstanding the fact that everything else in quantity is great.
The only instance I would consider it significantly valuable is if you were a CN or a native american doing a lot of colonizing, since it's far more powerful on lots of small BT provinces and especially since it ignores autonomy. For most nations in Eurasia its not really a big benefit, the majority of other idea groups will translate into a greater economic benefit. At least it's better than the Mercs discount though.
All this said, I'm not saying Admin is a bad idea if you're a super-blob in SP bent on WC with nothing in your way other than coring time. I can't fathom why people want to play such a game though, but if they do then go ahead and take admin. I totally understand why it would be super useful given the circumstances.
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You know, I always wondered on why people act like the two Idea Groups are mutually exclusive
Its more a case that if you take both (and both would be taken early for max utility) then you are going to have to forgo expansion/administrative/innovative all of which are equally situational but all of which are very useful.
After a war? There's no "after a war", there's only "in between wars". I love AT and have taken Innovative very, very often. But I'd never rate it as one of the most important idea groups in the game, even though it's bonuses are pretty decent overall. I don't have AT issues at all since I'm rarely at peace for more than a year anyway.
That is simply and outright wrong. Every single game I play in which I don't set myself house rules to keep my expansion rate at bay ends with me having a manpower pool that is impossible to run out. Quantity is a great idea group in the early game and I'm finding myself taking it very regularly, but it's certainly possible to have (practically) endless manpower without it very easily.
To be fair I never rated it as one of the most important idea groups either. I said that if you were taking a 3rd admin idea group it was probably a good idea, placing it behind Expansion/Religious/Humanist. Certainly don't take Innovative as your first idea group or anything like that, that's just silly. It's a decent all-rounder that helps in war without requiring military points and has a powerful potential synergy through a little known policy, that's all.
Really? Because virtually every WC I read about has a specific "Now I'm running out of manpower and its really painful" part. 500k manpower can disappear in a flash.
Not every game has to be a WC, right?
And I've been breaking the 1 Mil. manpower regularly and not just with majors (e.g. Golden Horde and Byzantium).
And I've been breaking the 1 Mil. manpower regularly and not just with majors (e.g. Golden Horde and Byzantium).
Not every game has to be a WC, right?
And I've been breaking the 1 Mil. manpower regularly and not just with majors (e.g. Golden Horde and Byzantium).
Well you said "games in which I don't limit my expansion rate", so I assumed that's what you meant.
Certainly in any normal game manpower is a very important thing to keep a lot of, unless you're in a position where you can pull most of the weight with your fleet.
These are no WCs and still above or close to 1 Mil. manpower. Some of them probably had Quantity but not all, and even if you assume they all had they'd still be close to 1 Mil. manpower if you subtract the bonus. And to be honest, even at 500.000 I haven't managed to run out of it yet.