What are the worst NI’s?

[EarlKonrad]

I wonder what the worst single Idea in the game could be.

Cavalry flanking has to be up there.

Increased coring cost against is probably my choice. Even if you lose a war, does it benefit the player at all? It is just an annoyance to the player and I am glad the removed it from most of the world (I think just a few natives have it now).

Throwup between

+20% Female Advisor Chance (Mantua)
or
-10% Cost to Justify Trade Conflict (Genoa/Venice)

I'm pretty sure the 1.3.1 patch will also ship with the ability to give custom nations Transport ship combat ability, which probably takes the cake for worst combat related idea.

Convert-only ideas are, if the wiki is right, either mediocre or amazing. On one hand you have the Templars with 10% discipline and on the other the Aztecs with 5% tax. https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/National_ideas

In terms of vanilla, I'd rank embargo efficiency very high on the list of useless ideas. That and -5% shock/fire damage taken (if you compare it to other army related modifiers).

And while I'm at it, can I call your attention to how bad Hussite is as a secondary Tengri religion? It gives you an amazing -2,5% shock damage taken. That's it.

 

[Cancerofthehead]

Female advisor chance? What the hell? Does the gender of your advisor have any impact at all? Are there even events that rely on it?

So far I would go:

1) Female advisor cost (as far as I can tell it’s only impact is to give you slightly different portraits on rare occasions)
2) Hostile core creation (worst designed but does ever so slightly more than female advisors)
3) Cost to justify trade conflicts (the CB is occasionally slightly useful so it might get used on rare occasions)
4) Cavalry flanking range (you might get a small benefit in a couple battles to save a few dozen manpower over the course of the game)

 

[EarlKonrad]

Female advisor chance? What the hell? Does the gender of your advisor have any impact at all? Are there even events that rely on it?

So far I would go:

1) Female advisor cost (as far as I can tell it’s only impact is to give you slightly different portraits on rare occasions)
2) Hostile core creation (worst designed but does ever so slightly more than female advisors)
3) Cost to justify trade conflicts (the CB is occasionally slightly useful so it might get used on rare occasions)
4) Cavalry flanking range (you might get a small benefit in a couple battles to save a few dozen manpower over the course of the game)

Apparently only two nations have a chance to get female ideas (why Orleans don't have this idea is beyond me) and neither of them are penalised for having it. There is also "may recruit female general" which I'd rank as worse than female advisor because in the case of the general you just get a female name and the female icon, no pretty picture.

Custom nations on the other hand have to spend a slot for either of these ideas, unfortunately.

Maybe we should petition for a new modifier: chance to have female heir. It does exactly what it says; increases the chance of heir being female. Simple as that. Just that.

Advisor - Europa Universalis 4 Wiki

eu4.paradoxwikis.com

 

[Cancerofthehead]

Apparently only two nations have a chance to get female ideas (why Orleans don't have this idea is beyond me) and neither of them are penalised for having it. There is also "may recruit female general" which I'd rank as worse than female advisor because in the case of the general you just get a female name and the female icon, no pretty picture.

Custom nations on the other hand have to spend a slot for either of these ideas, unfortunately.

Maybe we should petition for a new modifier: chance to have female heir. It does exactly what it says; increases the chance of heir being female. Simple as that. Just that.

Advisor - Europa Universalis 4 Wiki

eu4.paradoxwikis.com

Does the ability to have female generals let you make a female rule / heir a general? Because that would have some value and enough to take it out of the bottom group. Otherwise I can can agree that it gets top spot.

Increased chance of female heir might be the first unquestionably bad idea in the game if it were added, as (rightly due to the historical context) female heirs/rulers are just worse than males.

 

[Snake_Squeezins]

I have a late entry for worst idea set:

 

[Snake_Squeezins]

There are a lot of one-off trash ideas in various NIs. It's tough to really evaluate them in a vacuum, because often they offset other ideas in the tree that are strong. Some of my least favorite (but incredibly common) national ideas are -10% Stability Cost and +1 Yearly Legitimacy, which are bland and normally not very useful. But here are some one-off ideas that stand out to me, plus a full tree with two extremely lame ideas in it:

Moldavia & others:

Sunda & others:

Leinster:

Crimea & many others:

Clanricarde:

Cleves:

Sweden & a few others:

Tarascan:

Trent & a tiny number of others:

Bayreuth:

And possibly THE worst:

Pisa:

And check out the two flagged tiers in the Ottoman idea set:

 

[swagmeister]

Unit cost reduces maintenance so it's never useless. Of course ship cost isn't as impactful as army unit cost, but the Ottomans get an event around the late 1400s where they can get another 5% ship cost reduction for the duration of the campaign.

A garrison size NI stacked with quantity can be useful for delaying enemies. The knights for example get an extra fort level if you stack quantity with their cultural manpower decision.

 

[fr-rein]

In terms of filler ideas, twice the PP from insults doesn’t sound half bad. There are plenty of times when I would have loved to have an extra 5-15 PP and that could directly translate into a decent amount of MP over the course of a game.

How is this bad? You get 20 pp for free from scornfully insulting one of your rivals, which lets you sit at 50+ pp pretty easily.

It sounds nice in theory. In practice Zaporozhia is clad between 3 great powers and can't afford to rival too much or it gets wiped off.

NI's don't do much at all to help with their unique position. They also have no mission tree. And all Cossack content is barely tied to them (which isn't that good after they merged buffed Sich Radaa).

Even Betsimisaraka isn't that bad relative to their position.

tl;dr Zaporozhia is ignored and devs never bothered to play it

 

[moscal]

Pueblo?

 

[Sidolowka]

Pueblo?

+10% Land Morale, +2 ToTF/+10% Religious Unity, +15% Fort Defence and -15% Advisor Cost is bad...? Sure Pueblo has some lackluster filler ideas like -10% stab cost and +1 yearly prestige, but they're not definitely not a candidate for the worst NI's in the game.

 

[Kapitalisti]

Arabia is pretty substandard for something you get after conquering such a huge area (and is insulting

Forming Arabia doesn't trigger the idea change even though. At least not according my memory or the Wiki. So only a few nobody Levantine states are stuck with those. Although in my opinion there should be a separate idea set for the formable Arabia tag.

 

[Thorfindel]

Sweden & a few others:

This also lowers upkeep, making it better than you make it out to be. There are plenty worse ideas there than having 10% cheaper to buy and upkeep cavalry.

Bayreuth:

This also increases the number of enemies needed to siege down a fort. For every level you now need another 600men, which means that a capital+lvl 2 fort requires 10800 men. Add quanitity's +25% garrison to that, it's +1350 men per level. That capital+lvl2 fort now needs 13050 men to siege down. This adds up, especially for the early game in the HRE. Bayreuth gets that idea within the first 25 years of the game, giving them a strong start.

 

[Snake_Squeezins]

Unit cost reduces maintenance so it's never useless.

If it were Regiment Cost, which affects all land units, I'd like it, but since the idea highlighed above only affects Cav units . . . that's pretty lame for most countries. How much Cav does Sweden really need, and how much of a difference-maker is that for them? How long will they use a lot of Cav? Hordes or Poland, sure.

Ship cost is maybe slightly more useful than that for naval powers. Maybe.

 

[Kapitalisti]

Sweden & a few others:

The Finnish version gives cavalry combat ability though.

 

[EarlKonrad]

Unit cost reduces maintenance so it's never useless. Of course ship cost isn't as impactful as army unit cost, but the Ottomans get an event around the late 1400s where they can get another 5% ship cost reduction for the duration of the campaign.

A garrison size NI stacked with quantity can be useful for delaying enemies. The knights for example get an extra fort level if you stack quantity with their cultural manpower decision.

Ask yourself how many ducats does 10% ship cost reduction save. If I recall correctly, the ship costs are:
Heavy 50, Light 10, Galley 20, Transport 10.

The Ottomans generally only need light and galleys so you are saving either 1 or 2 ducats per ship. Maintenance saving is even worse because heavies, the most expensive to maintain, cost 0.05 a piece. That is quite cheap in comparison to armies.

 

[Republic of Mercury]

People suggested Mantua's +20% female advisor chance as the worst idea, but they're neglecting to mention that the idea is actually:

-10% idea cost for your second NI is not bad, and the Countess's Studiolo is objectively better than any idea that only gives a -5% discount. +25% cavalry flanking range might seem awful, but it can counteract the range-penalty from a unit being below full strength, and there are points in the game when cavalry can be worth using, especially when you have +cavalry combat strength, (which nations with +flanking range usually do).

Meanwhile, -cost to justify trade conflicts really is awful, but the nations with that also get a stab-cost reduction in the same idea.

Female advisor chance? What the hell? Does the gender of your advisor have any impact at all? Are there even events that rely on it?

There's a negative event "desires of the flesh" or somesuch, where the ruler's consort is caught cheating with an advisor. The advisor and consort have to be diferent genders, and, since one's ruler is usually a man, having three female advisors would prevent that event. That's a very niche case, but, as mentioned above, ideas that grant female advisor chance give other (actual) bonuses too. It's just a bit of flavour.

 

[pphair]

And here I was thinking the bane of my existence that was "Hostile Core Creation Cost on Us" was gone in 1.30. Hopefully 1.31 removes it from North America entirely.

Kono ideas are quite possibly on the list for worst:

Spoiler

I wish I had never seen these tbh.

 

[cuendillar]

And here I was thinking the bane of my existence that was "Hostile Core Creation Cost on Us" was gone in 1.30. Hopefully 1.31 removes it from North America entirely.

Kono ideas are quite possibly on the list for worst:

Spoiler

View attachment 630340

I wish I had never seen these tbh.

I don't think they're that bad, in fact Kono was the first country I picked in Japan due to their NI set and positioning.

They start on a 3-province Japanese island surrounded by inland sea zones so being a potential naval superpower is very useful for defense right from the start. They just have to be played with a strong focus on utilizing naval dominance to its utmost. It's the sort of idea set that makes you pick maritime and (maybe) naval in order to further specialize, rather than try to mitigate their army weaknesses.

Their navy is awesome and the economy set is about average. Expansion and army ideas are nonexistent though, which I assume is the reason that you considered them trash-tier.

 

[AlknicTeos]

Cavalry flanking is really worse, indeed. And also every naval stuff. An NI set must contain army morale at begin, and discipline at the end. Some useful money saving/making and every thing that is good for administration and of course ccr

 

[swagmeister]

Ask yourself how many ducats does 10% ship cost reduction save. If I recall correctly, the ship costs are:
Heavy 50, Light 10, Galley 20, Transport 10.

The Ottomans generally only need light and galleys so you are saving either 1 or 2 ducats per ship. Maintenance saving is even worse because heavies, the most expensive to maintain, cost 0.05 a piece. That is quite cheap in comparison to armies.

Heavies cost as much as cav to maintain at .5 not .05.