What are your favorite idea groups for blobbing now?

[Less2]

Most of Expansion's ideas are objectively bad or at best mediocre. Those that aren't (+relations and +colonist) are found in objectively better groups, so Expansion only becomes potentially useful if you are min-maxing some specific aspect and so don't care much about overall efficiency.

Certainly, in a thread about blobbing, Expansion is objectively baaaaaad.

 

[bly08]

Huh? Vassal annexation/PU integration doesn't include RCC bonuses, only AdmEff.
Base territorial cores are cheaper than annexation in a total mana sense, but, like you point out, when considering paper>bird, annexation is comparable / cheaper.
For full/state cores, of course, annexation is almost certainly cheaper unless you've really stacked the RCC bonuses.

I misread the wiki, it only includes local ccr modifiers like culture, etc but not the general RCC discount.

 

[Zaddy]

Despite any threads OP, or title there are always sub threads within a thread. As I said earlier, WC, do have scripts to follow, and I agree a WC run needs influence and admin. Now, what is "blobbing", but other than some nebulous term. As Florence right now I have about 60 provinces but my monthly income is number one in the world. Even Ming is smaller. My income is much large than all the "blobs" in the world, but others say I'm playing sub optimal ... meh. I picked maritime, LOL.

OK, that's fine, but don't be surprised when you come into a thread that is explicitly about blobbing and get lots of push back from people when you say Expansion is a good idea set. For what the thread is about, no, its not. They're not using straw man arguments against you, you're just talking about something completely different than what they are. Of course you can be #1 income in the world as Florence with Maritime and other suboptimal picks; you're in the richest region in the world bar none. We aren't here to talk about that.

 

[Amadeu of Savoy]

Yeah, I think Expansion has it's place in the game, to help colonizing for exemple, but in the context of blobbing it is very low in the idea group priority.

 

[Northernwwater]

OK, that's fine, but don't be surprised when you come into a thread that is explicitly about blobbing and get lots of push back from people when you say Expansion is a good idea set. For what the thread is about, no, its not. They're not using straw man arguments against you, you're just talking about something completely different than what they are. Of course you can be #1 income in the world as Florence with Maritime and other suboptimal picks; you're in the richest region in the world bar none. We aren't here to talk about that.

I'm never surprised, nor care much about, what I see in forums.

 

[Zaddy]

I'm never surprised, nor care much about, what I see in forums.

then why are you posting on the forums lmao

give me a break dude

 

[Plantagent]

Let's argue about something else. I take religious fourth because I find it hard to fire disasters with humanism.

Like court and country, or the Revolution.

So happy aspiration for liberty was fixed...

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Let's argue about something else. I take religious fourth because I find it hard to fire disasters with humanism.

Like court and country, or the Revolution.

So happy aspiration for liberty was fixed...

Nothing a no-CB war or two can't handle (WE counts towards global unrest too). If you have full diplomatic you can instead truce break on someone who is very AE-isolated.

 

[herrhals]

I think we can agree that for massive blobbing we have a general trend for idea groups:

Take:
Admin, Rel/Hum (or both for the lulz), Inf, exploration(?), and stack military ideas in there.

Do not take:
Naval, maritime, espionage, economic

Everything else is situational.

Mostly agree?

 

[HansBaer]

You forgot diplomacy. I usually switch explo for it once I colonized and discovered what I wanted

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Espionage as 7th idea group in a blobbing run is much more plausible than most of those "situational" idea groups. It does not belong with maritime, naval, or expansion for blobbing runs. Until they nerf interest reduction economic probably doesn't either.

 

[yerm]

I think we can agree that for massive blobbing we have a general trend for idea groups:

Take:
Admin, Rel/Hum (or both for the lulz), Inf, exploration(?), and stack military ideas in there.

Do not take:
Naval, maritime, espionage, economic

Everything else is situational.

Mostly agree?

Economic is THE best non-blobbing group IMO, which silly as this sounds means it's still strong enough to be viable in various limited blob situations. Crowded or constrained MP for example. Ticking -LA is one of the single most underappreciated perks, and I think people underappreciate just how much spare mana gets developed over a game.

The problem obviously is it competes with admin and religious or humanist, and is an "earlier game" advantage, so it really only slots in if admin is worth skipping... which has to mean a very tight neighborhood. When that does happen, though, it can be #1.

The other groups are not merely poor for blobbing, they are also generally poor overall.

 

[qwertzuiop]

You forgot diplomacy. I usually switch explo for it once I colonized and discovered what I wanted

I agree, Diplomatic is a slightly underrated group and deserves to be mentioned. Reduced warscore cost, cheaper no-CB and truce breaking are relevant for any expansionist game. Cheaper war exhaustion reduction is also nice, no stab hit for breaking RMs allows fishing for random PUs as a Christian country (and PUs are a great way to blob). The diplomatic reputation bonus is the same as in Influence and the additional diplomat is not important in certain situations but it is absolutely crucial in others, for example early game in the HRE or late game when there is a lot of stuff to be done at once.

If there is a situation where taking Diplomatic makes the difference between becoming the emperor or not as an HRE minor, then it is in fact the most powerful idea group a player could take in that scenario (it beats Influence easily in that situation).

Economic is THE best non-blobbing group IMO, which silly as this sounds means it's still strong enough to be viable in various limited blob situations. Crowded or constrained MP for example. Ticking -LA is one of the single most underappreciated perks, and I think people underappreciate just how much spare mana gets developed over a game.

The problem obviously is it competes with admin and religious or humanist, and is an "earlier game" advantage, so it really only slots in if admin is worth skipping... which has to mean a very tight neighborhood. When that does happen, though, it can be #1.

The other groups are not merely poor for blobbing, they are also generally poor overall.

The thing is that Economic also requires a certain size to be useful. I think that for a very weak and poor country that hasn't expanded much, Administrative or Quantity would have a bigger impact on its economy (Admin because it gives cheaper mercs on top of the interest reduction, Quantity due to cheaper and more troops). If the country is surrounded by different religions without having any sources of tolerance, then Religious or Humanist are also better economically.

But I definitely agree that Economic is a great non-blobbing group for anyone who has already reached a certain size. The policies are also great for this. Economic - Innovative or Economic - Quality for stacking military modifiers and Economic - Exploration for maximizing tariffs.