I suppose I'll inaugurate this thread with the nation that needs it the most, if only because it's just the Generic NIs put in a blender with the Religious Group: Byzantium.
(Retrieved from here:
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...tine-idea-set-i-e-suggested-overhaul.1063233/)
Traditions: +10% Land Morale, +1 Yearly Legitimacy
(Legitimacy speaks for itself: claiming to be the inheritors of Rome was all the rave in Europe, and Byzantium’s claim carries a little more weight than most. As for Morale – the Empire never gave up. They held off numerous attacks on Constantinople by the Turks, and continued to reconquer imperial territories from the Latin princelings of southern Greece across the decades of the early and mid 1400s.)
City of the World’s Desire: +1 Yearly Prestige
Desc: Constantinople was once the center of trade in the world, and carried with it all the architectural and intellectual grandeur that such a role would demand. The Constantinople of today is a shallow memory of those days past, but not all is lost: the name alone is enough to draw prestige, and should our empire flourish once again, it doubtlessly shall too.
Grand Tour of Manuel II: +1 Diplomatic Reputation
Desc: Faced with an onslaught of the treacherous Turks, Manuel II set out on an unprecedented tour of Europe in 1399 to raise support for the Empire; his four year trip took him from familiar Italy, to France and Germany, and even distant England, Iberia and Denmark. Being the guest of honor in so many European courts reinvigorated Latin interest in the Empire, and even now we can make use of such contacts.
Unionists and Anti-Unionists: +3% Global Missionary Strength
Desc: The Council of Florence superficially mended the great schism by acknowledging Papal Primacy and a number of Latin positions on theological issues: its effects are still felt widely today, with widespread disagreement and infighting amongst the clergy over it. Regardless of what side we come to favor, we must do so decisively and ensure that there is only one creed in our churches.
Latin Volunteers: -10% Advisor Cost
Desc: Our continued contacts with and pleas to the west have been answered time over, often in the form of small contingents led by capable men. Most of these are either adventurers, independent captains, or even travelling engineers and clergymen; granting them titles and permanent employment will see their talents put to proper use.
(While Giovanni Guistiani is properly remembered as the most famous western commander in the Siege of Constantinople – even being awarded the title of Protostrator – he was far from the only one. Venetian captains Dolfin Dolfin and Gabriele Trevisano were both given command of garrisons, engineer Johannes Grant organized the very successful counter-tunneling measures, Archbishop Leonard of Chios worked with Cardinal Isidore of Kiev to lead another garrison, and Orban approached the Byzantines before turning to the Ottos. Nevermind that anywhere from a third to a fourth of the defenders at Constantinople were Latins.)
Formalize Succession Laws: -10% Stability Cost
Desc: While the title of Despot has appointed one as the heir apparent of the Empire for centuries, there still has been no formal line of succession, and the endless court intrigues over it have thrown our Empire into civil war on more than one occasion. However, for centuries past the Palaeologus have managed to rule the Empire undisputed; now more than ever in our history are we in a position to establish laws mandating a clear line of succession to ensure that we will not have to suffer the intrigue of ages prior.
Reinstitution of the Pronoia: +10% Infantry Combat Ability
Desc: As the Empire continued to lose more land and revenue, the Pronoia system that once helped form the backbone of our army fell into unsustainability. However, with our borders resurgent, we can finally reinstitute the practice of small-scale, taxable land grants. This will grant our army a pool of professional – and more importantly, reliable – self-equipped units to draw from.
(The Palaeologus made a few reforms to the pronoia system that made the Empire more ‘feudal’ [much as I detest that term], with pronoiars being hereditary and being able to hand out grants of their own. As we’re now getting into the theoretical ideas, there wouldn’t be much of a reason why a resurgent Byzantium wouldn’t try to reinstitute this system, especially between continued debt – as pronoiars paid for their own expenses and doubled as tax collectors – and the fact that the empire’s dependence on foreign mercenaries was its undoing at multiple occasions.)
Repopulation of the Countryside: +10% National Tax Modifier, -10% Culture Conversion Cost
Desc: Nonstop warfare, Turkish raids, overtaxing and migration have all contributed to the depopulation of our Empire’s heartland. With our borders secure now, however, we can begin to change that: inviting numerous Albanian and Serbian tribes to settle within our borders, while granting incentives for native Greek clans to resettle along the borders will not only help rebuild our tax base, but ensure that we can more effectively control it.
(Resettling has always been a favorite strategy of the Byzantines, and it continued into the Empire’s last days; Theodore I of Morea invited a number of Albanian tribes to settle in the peninsula to help repopulate it. Then, of course, there was the large-scale return of Greeks to Asia Minor, made possible as the Ottomans made travel and resettlement largely safe due to their conquests – similar conditions would have easily arose under a stable Byzantine government [nevermind the guilty pleasure of every BYZ player being converting Asia Minor to Greek]. Tax or Manpower would work equally well with this one, but as Restoring the Theme System gives you +25% Manpower, Tax would be more prudent in my opinion.)
Ambition: -10% Core Creation Cost
(This is really just the most fitting ambition for Byzantium, especially given all the cores they've lost since release.)
. I've developed this set with the help of 
