What are your favorite idea groups for blobbing now?

[uberjedi]

Since Professionalism/Slacken, mercs are not as important as before.
So Admin idea group might not be as good as it used to be.
What groups do you pick now for blobbing?

 

[netherlink]

IMHO nothing really changed. Admin is still best pick as long as it has CCR.
Religious or Humanism is still obligatory.
Influence for Integrating is still obligatory.

Stack as many Mil boni as you can is still overall best (whether quantity or not is another debate...).

Merc cost was always more like a nice bonus to Admin ideas, not a reason to pick them...

 

[HansBaer]

Admin is still the best blobbing group. So same as always.
A point could be made for quantity now if you have room for a mil idea.
So admin>inf>rel/hum>dip>rest. Nothing changed in that regard

 

[Freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeedom!]

I'm going to have to join the choir on this one and say that Admin is still the best blobbing group, and even throw my lot in with influence being 2nd. What might be the unexpected member of this club from my last game is expansion ideas. I just played a Russia run, and I had influence, diplo, expansion as well as admin. Once I hit run away strength, having 7 vassals to feed was nice. I pretty much spent the whole of the last 150 years constantly at war. I took as much territory as I could fit into 100% overextension on myself and all 7 vassals. The growth rate was impressive.

 

[Badesumofu]

Expansion is garbage. Probably the worst idea group in the game, considering all the costs and benefits of taking it.

Admin, Influence, Humanist, and Diplomatic are comfortably the best for blobbing.

Religious would be situationally included in that group. But really Influence plus Despotic is already - 60% unjustified, rival adds another 33%. You can also target claims at the highest dev provinces to make them justified demands and especially if you are pursuing high professionalism and getting that 75 spy network on a neighbor event that is exactly enough for 3 claims. Dues Vult is convenient but the amount of Dip it saves is not really all that much in most cases.

 

[TenshiN]

Nothing has changed. Still the obligatory Admin for the -corecost, still the obligatory Quantity to provide manpower for those nonstop wars, still the obligatory Religious/Humanist to up religious unity. Sometimes Diplomatic/Influence (i prefer Diplomatic), sometimes Exploration when you want to colonise. Sometimes, albeit really, really rare - i do pick Maritime, when i need a bit of extra punch for my fleet (admiral manuever and naval forcelimit boost are cool). Also stack military groups when there is nothing better to pick/you need to spend excess military points.

 

[qwertzuiop]

The best idea groups for blobbing are still Admin, Religious, Humanist, Diplomatic, Influence and Exploration. But the decision which of these groups you want to take early, later or not at all depends on your personal preference and the country you are playing.

Now my favourites would be Admin, Religious, Diplomatic and Exploration (situational).

Admin is just a superb mix of saving admin points and boosting your economy. I don't necessarily take it first, but I'm going to pick it up sooner or later in any game.
Religious is just a fun group with great events, Deus Vult CB (it's still worth it even though you have to complete the whole group) and it's a life saver for certain countries.
Diplomatic is also a very fun group that synergizes well with Religious and shines especially for Christian monarchies.
Exploration is arguably the strongest economic group overall and it gives you new areas to expand into, but all the micro-management involved isn't always fun.

Humanist is great but if I have already taken Religious then it means I won't take Humanist at least until the late game. It really depends on the country I'm playing.
Influence is not one of my favourites. It is a very strong group and I would take it in various situations, but I find it a bit boring because it's the generic "pick first" option.

 

[Brynjar]

Administrative, Defensive, Diplomatic, Offensive, Influence and Quality. Religious may get picked sometimes, depending on the situation.
The coring cost reduction alone makes administrative worth picking.
Humanist ideas are just boring as it's an easy way to bypass many of the challenges in the game.

 

[herrhals]

I would counter many people here, and say influence is not that useful. Of course it has everything to do with the hands you're dealt.

It is fairly simple to play until 1630 without any unmanagable coalitions forming, because when you get an impressive ally like France or Ottomans, no one will touch you, as long as you don't go too crazy, and split the AE on all your borders. Negates the AE bonus from INF

As for the vassal feeding strategy, once absolutism hit, you can easily get >80 absolutism by 1630. Now, coring costs are dirt cheap, even without RCC ideas, and it is way cheaper and much less time consuming to just core everything yourself. Not to mention the pain of dealing with AI's: 1) liberty desire 2) incompetence of AI to keep its realm together. It is during this time the bulk of your territorial expansion happens anyways.

I would nix influence.

Defensive + Religious + Quantity + Admin + w.e. you want. Stack military ideas for the rest of the game.

 

[Brynjar]

I would counter many people here, and say influence is not that useful. Of course it has everything to do with the hands you're dealt.

It is fairly simple to play until 1630 without any unmanagable coalitions forming, because when you get an impressive ally like France or Ottomans, no one will touch you, as long as you don't go too crazy, and split the AE on all your borders. Negates the AE bonus from INF

As for the vassal feeding strategy, once absolutism hit, you can easily get >80 absolutism by 1630. Now, coring costs are dirt cheap, even without RCC ideas, and it is way cheaper and much less time consuming to just core everything yourself. Not to mention the pain of dealing with AI's: 1) liberty desire 2) incompetence of AI to keep its realm together. It is during this time the bulk of your territorial expansion happens anyways.

I would nix influence.

Defensive + Religious + Quantity + Admin + w.e. you want. Stack military ideas for the rest of the game.

Influence also gives cheaper peace deals. Absolutism let you take more land, but it still won't help you get away with 200%++ overextension, vassals do. It's much better to give that land to your vassals than to have to fight the Ottomans over it again in 10-15 years.

 

[Zephyrum]

Expansion is garbage. Probably the worst idea group in the game, considering all the costs and benefits of taking it.

Let's not get ahead of ourselves - Espionage is still in the game

 

[herrhals]

Influence also gives cheaper peace deals. Absolutism let you take more land, but it still won't help you get away with 200%++ overextension, vassals do. It's much better to give that land to your vassals than to have to fight the Ottomans over it again in 10-15 years.

1. Don't need cheaper peace deals with holy war. Claiming every province for same-faith provinces is a pain, but until imperialism, not much you can do about it. It is still effective enough.

2. If you prioritize targets, it is no problem at all. Lets say you separate-peace a non-cobelligerent for 50% OE (100% warscore), you can time it so you will finish your war with the main opponent by the time those cores are done.

3. Vassal management is more trouble than it is worth.

 

[herrhals]

Let's not get ahead of ourselves - Espionage is still in the game

Naval and Maritime exist too, don't forget those lumps of coal.

 

[bly08]

Annexation is always cheaper than coring because it factors in RCC. Bird mana is also less valuable than paper mana.

 

[Northernwwater]

I get bored picking, and even planning on picking, the same idea line up every time. How can you stand to play the game over and over again knowing you are going to pick the same idea line-up every time. Sure to go WC you seem to have follow a script pretty much, but I enjoy trying to grow and overcome obstacles while picking "the lumps of coal".

 

[Northernwwater]

Expansion is garbage. Probably the worst idea group in the game, considering all the costs and benefits of taking it.

I like expansion when I'm a coastal European OPM and I want to colonize without exploring. Steal maps and use your one colonist to get a foothold. I love that extra merchant and who can't use an extra diplo relationship.

 

[bbqftw]

I would counter many people here, and say influence is not that useful. Of course it has everything to do with the hands you're dealt.

It is fairly simple to play until 1630 without any unmanagable coalitions forming, because when you get an impressive ally like France or Ottomans, no one will touch you, as long as you don't go too crazy, and split the AE on all your borders. Negates the AE bonus from INF

As for the vassal feeding strategy, once absolutism hit, you can easily get >80 absolutism by 1630. Now, coring costs are dirt cheap, even without RCC ideas, and it is way cheaper and much less time consuming to just core everything yourself. Not to mention the pain of dealing with AI's: 1) liberty desire 2) incompetence of AI to keep its realm together. It is during this time the bulk of your territorial expansion happens anyways.

I would nix influence.

Defensive + Religious + Quantity + Admin + w.e. you want. Stack military ideas for the rest of the game.

coalition will form based on your strength, they will declare based on your allies strength.

Any coalition formation whether they pose any danger at all is often very annoying for expansion since no separate peace.

Exactly how are you defusing Sunni AE without either religious or influence? And religious is very situational as it only works with the Christian religious group now, everyone else suffers serious handicaps.

Might be a normal vs VH thing since catholic dotf is chain claimed after 1500 making expansion there very tricky. So that + Sunni AE locks a big portion of the world without an AE controller.

 

[herrhals]

I play ironman.

I don't fight coalitions outright. For coalitions, you leave 1 or 2 opms alive deep in your territory that have a lot of AE against you. As soon as about half the expected coalition members jump into the coalition + one of these aforementioned opms, you declare on one of the opm (even if you are vastly outnumbered), and blitz down their capital fort, and quickly peace out, before you take any damage.

This starts a nice rotation that prevents coalitions in the future, as long as you keep up the rotation.

 

[herrhals]

Exactly how are you defusing Sunni AE without either religious or influence? And religious is very situational as it only works with the Christian religious group now, everyone else suffers serious handicaps.
.

I use religious...

 

[baaldrix]

...and getting that 75 spy network on a neighbor event...

Excuse me but what event are you talking about?