So can somebody tell me whats so good about Plutocratic?

[hashinshin]

It gives less moral than defensive, half the manpower recovery of quantity, has no notable policies (and no military policies at all despite being a military idea...) and has no amazing idea inside of it that makes it worth it. Innovative has the war exhaust reduction per month, humanity has the -50% culture acceptance, administrative has -25% core cost, etc. I don't see any idea inside of plutocratic that jumps at me. Worse yet is almost all their ideas are below average, and the ones that are on average are merely on average.

Worst yet is the fact it has an event that gives PERMANENT reduction to manpower! PERMANENT. Does any other idea group have a PERMANENT debuff it can cause? I mean that's just crazy. Every 5 years you can lose 1 province manpower (30 manpower) just based on a dice roll. And for the rest of the game that province now has less manpower.

 

[ikkiks]

It's a way for you to spend military points and basically get adm/dip ideas. Most of the ideas in plutocratic are pretty good. It works better if you're doing a large conquest game, where unrest reduction is critical.

 

[hashinshin]

I had the suggestion to run defensive + plutocratic + aristocratic faction Hansa to get 35% moral to make up for their atrocious military. (In multiplayer, so this was sort of key.) I load up a game to try it out and I'm looking at the ideas thinking ehhh.... and then I get hit with a permanent manpower debuff event and so I scramble to look up their events.

Suffice it to say, I'm going to take away from your comment that Plutocratic is in no way meant for an AI bonuses/multiplayer game where you're not doing world conquest?

 

[hauptman]

Well as Hansa, the very first idea is 60% more force limits. That's pretty huge.

An extra merchant, gives you access to the Krantor earlier.

Manpower recovery stacks with the NI AND quantity.

It's not really about it being better or worse than another idea set, it's about it meshing well with every facet of the game. It does a little bit of everything. I always take it first, as a republic.

 

[RobRoy3]

It's not really about it being better or worse than another idea set, it's about it meshing well with every facet of the game. It does a little bit of everything. I always take it first, as a republic.

It's become more situational, IMHO. It's still a solid idea set, but it's just not the "must have" set that it was in earlier versions. When I'm playing a Republic, I'll often have an incentive to take other idea sets as my first (Exploration, Religious, Diplomatic), depending on the type of game I'm planning, even as the Hansa. And, as the game progresses, it might not be compelling for the second or third set, either. I find if I don't take it first, I don't get around to it, ever.

 

[fleetothemoon]

Due to its final tech bonus, plutocratic is best taken early. However, it is a very weak military idea to take early on compared to say, Defensive, Offensive or even Quantity, offering only minor enhancements to military.

+1 Merchant: this indirectly increases naval force limit by 5, becomes proportionately less meaningful later on, especially for Republics.

+50% available mercenaries: this is only useful because it increases your force limit indirectly by 6, becomes proportionately less meaningful as the game progresses. Republics can still stack mercenaries without this bonus.

+10% Manpower recovery: A wasted idea. Almost completely negligible, especially for republics since they tend to have a small manpower pool due to them being minor powers, and thus, draws proportionately less manpower from their provinces compared to their base manpower (10,000) which are not effected by manpower bonuses. This is bad since even if it did work on base manpower, it would still be pretty mediocre.

+10% morale: a tiny boost to military that would only make a difference in some very, very close battles.

So in total, the military boost are actually: +5 naval limit, +6 land limit and +10% morale.

And it is not as if this was offset by killer non-military bonuses; most of its ideas are fairly mediocre.

Plutocracy's saving grace is its boosts to mana. When you combine its technological bonus with Pluto-Administrative policy (increase republican tradition, which is very hard to come by), you are able to get more monthly mana and expend less mana for increasing tech, allowing you to get the money bonuses for being ahead-of-tech.

Unfortunately, to capitalize on this, you have to take pluto early, where competition with other military ideas are fierce. Nations that do not start as a republic may also have to take on specific idea sets just to form a republic, further delaying adoption of pluto, and adoption of pluto-administrative policy.

EDIT: note that the pluto-admin policy may not actually be worth the costs (see subsequent posts)

 

[SignedName]

I take it all the time. I usually neglect military ideas anyway- it's better to just tech, and I always try to pick fights I know that I can win.

 

[CPMuskovy]

I only pick plutocratic as Hansa, they are the only Republic that can really take advantage of all its benefits, especially given the limited number of republics in 1444.

 

[Aard Vark]

I think it's fine. All the best ideas come right away. 50% available mercenaries is great. +10% morale and +2 unrest are also strong. +10% goods produced nationally is the best economic bonus of any idea group if I understand it correctly.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

It's a good early pick for republics. 50% available merc does 3 things:

1. Adds 6 force limit directly
2. Allows you to go from at an increased force limit to 12 over in very short periods of time to all-in someone larger, then disband/consolidate after battles.
3. Makes it possible to field large enough merc stacks at once to consistently assault forts

This you get immediately, first idea. -2 unrest is often the difference between manually lowering autonomy or not, and while the morale is 5% weaker than defensive that also comes early and is useful. Plutocratic falls off after that. It is useful throughout the game but it's really at its best at the start.

 

[Johan]

+10% Manpower recovery: A wasted idea. Almost completely negligible, especially for republics since they tend to have a small manpower pool due to them being minor powers, and thus, draws proportionately less manpower from their provinces compared to their base manpower (10,000) which are not effected by manpower bonuses. This is bad since even if it did work on base manpower, it would still be pretty mediocre.
.

If you stay tiny, it may not be the best idea in the game, but ...

Its among the most popular modifiers the best players at the office wants... Why? Well, you could view it as 10% more mp, but thats not really true. 10% means that you gain 1 year every 10 years in recovery from major wars.

 

[hashinshin]

Doesn't +10% manpower act the same as 10% recovery?

 

[PouetVL]

It's like aristrocatic, very nation specific!
50% merc seems bad but early on, gives more force limits AND if you can afford merc, you carpet siege with them...
10% morale ain't the highest out there but still a nice addition, help out vs stronger military nation.
-2% unrest is EXTREMELY GOOD for large conquest...
1 merchant is aimed toward merchant republic... = more money = more merc, nice synergy out there...
10% good produced... again more money means more merc....
+25 caravan power... again more money = more merc....
10% manpower recovery speed is "ok" don't belong in that tree but well...
-5% tech cost is a nice thing to have early on...
aimed for merchant republics in the HRE especially the HANSA

I am playing France often and I would love to have it early on, why? MILITARY PTS are eventually useless, in some game I have level 3-4-5-6 manpower building all over "real" France
In my last game, I switched military focus on day 1 and spawned like 6 kings in a row with military skill over 4...had to take 2 military ideas at level 4 and 10-11, maxed out and was teching in advance military by 60% with no more money to build manpower building...
Would kill to waste military pts on a -2% unrest, 1 merchant, 10% good produced and another 5% off my tech... instead of taking a real military idea that gives nothing except spend military pts...
France armies win pretty much every battle early on so 2 military ideas early on is a waste, WAY better to use it on inflience/humanist/religious

 

[birincikalite]

It's good because in SP people don't need to waste MP(you usually get so ahead of time that you can't buy tech) on real military ideas, so they instead spend their huge MP pool as a Western into Plutocratic and pay MP for a %90 ADM/DIP idea group.

 

[Zwirbaum]

Doesn't +10% manpower act the same as 10% recovery?

No it is not. Let's assume you have 10000 manpower from provinces. Add 10000 base to that. In total you have 20000. Now base manpower recovery is 10% per year. This would mean typu would recover 2000 per year. With +10% manpower you will have 10000*1,1 from provinces + 10000 of base for total 21000 manpower. Recovery will be 2100 per year.

Now with +10% manpower recovery you will regain 0,1*1,1*(20000)= 2200 men. 100 more per year.

 

[lolada]

Its always a bit questionable with manpower and recovery, these bonuses look small, but it does add up a lot. Building some armories/training fields when there are spare points, then picking up some +manpower and +manpower ideas, andwith some added blobbing the player ends up at magic 1000 - 2000 new men each month. Thats enough to be in constant war and replenish your soldiers faster than they die.

Why Plutocracy is good?

1. 50% available mercs: - check force limits, this adds +6 FL which is huge early when you have only like 9-10 FL.Another plus is more merc, you should use mercs a lot as a republic.
2. 10% morale - super bonus, especially first half of the game, but good always
3. - 2 nation unrest - one of the best ideas in game; actively check and lower autonomy in provinces
4. - +1 merchants - good for trade obviously, adds +5 naval FL i think
5. +10% goods produced - more production income, more trade income, can be boosted with efficiency modifiers for even more ducats
6. +25 caravan power - this one is a bit weak, it adds something but i'd rate all other ideas higher
7. +10% manpower recovery - this is good as said above, one step closer to unstoppable army
bonus: +5% tech = > saves couple of thousands of points, good enough

Best pick early as 2nd idea group to get most benefits from 1, 2 and bonus.

 

[Me_]

Worst yet is the fact it has an event that gives PERMANENT reduction to manpower! PERMANENT. Does any other idea group have a PERMANENT debuff it can cause? I mean that's just crazy. Every 5 years you can lose 1 province manpower (30 manpower) just based on a dice roll. And for the rest of the game that province now has less manpower.

Well, that indeed seems unfair. I do indeed cannot recall a single other idea that would give a permanent debuff. Perhaps it should be changed to a temporary penalty.

Personally, I find manpower recovery to be meaningless. If you are small the bonus is to small to matter and mercenaries are the way to go, and when you are big it is meaningless because you get plenty of manpower anyway.

Perhaps it has some uses in multiplayer, but in singleplayer it feels like a waste.

I guess that my attitude might also stem from the fact that I actively try to make sure that I don't waste people to attrition, so I tend not to lose that many men in wars anyway.

 

[lolada]

That event is annoying, i think i had it 3 or 4 times in my Switzerland game. Once you pick 3rd and 4th groups it kinda stops appearing so its not that bad.
Fair or unfair, its not then fair to get permanent +1 base tax from events.

 

[hashinshin]

That's the other thing, other than having the only permanent debuff Plutocratic has WAYYYYY more negative events than other ideas. I think 3/5 of their events are negative.

 

[heliostellar]

When you combine its technological bonus with Pluto-Administrative policy (increase republican tradition, which is very hard to come by),

My understanding was that this policy was pretty much the major reason for taking it. Republican Tradition is almost impossible to build up ordinarily. If you can find an artificial source then you'll be swimming in MPs because you can keep re-electing leaders.