I am really uncertain with the second one, the eco-horde combo has the nice +33% raze power gain but I am not sure if this is better than taking admin or humanist.
What are your first three idea groups for a horde?
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I like Horde Humanist Diplomatic. I often also take admin ideas at tech 5 and just take the first 2 ideas.
Some potent combinations:
Horde - Humanist - Defensive: This gives you 70% attrition reduction. In my experience this is the most significant source of casualties so this conserves manpower like crazy
Horde - Economic - Espionage: This gives extra razing power gain, and buffs combat with extra cav flanking range. This modifier is quite underrated, especially for hordes. It effectively allows you to put 2 more units in your front row, which results in a 5 to 10% bigger frontline (depending on tech level)
However, it also makes stackwiping easier. As soon as enemy frontline starts breaking, these 2 extra frontline units start becoming more and more impactful.
Horde - Administrative - Quantity: This makes cavalry dirt cheap as long as tribes are loyal. It also gives some nice manpower policies.
Horde - Humanist - Defensive: This gives you 70% attrition reduction. In my experience this is the most significant source of casualties so this conserves manpower like crazy
Horde - Economic - Espionage: This gives extra razing power gain, and buffs combat with extra cav flanking range. This modifier is quite underrated, especially for hordes. It effectively allows you to put 2 more units in your front row, which results in a 5 to 10% bigger frontline (depending on tech level)
However, it also makes stackwiping easier. As soon as enemy frontline starts breaking, these 2 extra frontline units start becoming more and more impactful.
Horde - Administrative - Quantity: This makes cavalry dirt cheap as long as tribes are loyal. It also gives some nice manpower policies.
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Like what others said, Horde is the most potent military idea. I would say Quantity follows after. But you cannot take two military ideas at once so take another group that suits your need. What that group should be was already discussed by others. Administrative if your country is running fine and you are blobbing. Otherwise deal with other bottlenecks first like Economic if you are restricted by money and etc.
In my last horde run, I went horde, humanist, diplomatic. Horde ideas are very nice.
It's not. Compare the mana you get with the admin you save coring. The latter should be much bigger. Additionally, CCR reduces coring time, so less time with high unrest, low trade power, low improve relations etc. You can core more land in the same time.
Furthermore, the opportunity cost of your combo ist extreme: Horde play is about rapid expansion and financially living from your conquests and - eventually, trade if you conquered a good node. Economic gives you nothing for rapid expansion. And I find the Horde idea group to be rather weak.
I agree, but I rate admin over Offensive. Diplo-->Admin-->Humanist seems reasonable for me, but I did not play a horde recently. Admin raises your GC and taking it at tech 7 helps before tools of reducing GC become available. If you play a horde in eastern asia that punches on Ming early, consider temporarily taking Exploration either at tech 7 to steal Colonialism or at tech 10 to open more fronts.
Admin is obviously not a bad shout, but my goal as a Horde is to conquer everything as fast as possible and Offensive helps a bit more with that.
The other thing is Humanist + Offensive policy for -1 National Unrest and specifically -5 Years of Separatism is amazing.
Hordes never suffer for Mana and the early land you conquer is never that high dev so I feel Admin can wait for the 4th idea group.
Just my opinion
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Yeah, after playing a little bit additional razing power just seems like pouring water in an already full bucket. It is imo overkill for dip and mil mana and for adm mana the administrative idea group is better.
This is interesting.
The last time I played as a horde, I took admin to the first 2 and then diplo-humanist. The coring cost reduction and speed really make things easier. I don’t think wasting an idea slot on econ is worth the policy. It seems a waste to me.
I think ideas depends on religion and region a lot.
Looking at the bonuses CCR is not needed for coring cost with fast mana generation but it also helps with coring time. Culture and permanent claims helps with coring time too so in certain regions CCR won't make big difference at the beginning
Tengri nation can get some tollerance of heathens, sunni without dhimmi can't, still it's possible for sunni horde to expand mainly in sunni territory first so this affects unrest
horde - diplomatic helps with siege ability, offensive increases it even further but if you need to take admin ideas as second you can go offensive 3rd and diplo as 4th, without admin idea horde, diplo, offensive would be better for this modifier.
If you go offensive you can think about trade later for movement speed. This helps with taking fights in terrain where you have extra modifiers to cavalry
Looking at the bonuses CCR is not needed for coring cost with fast mana generation but it also helps with coring time. Culture and permanent claims helps with coring time too so in certain regions CCR won't make big difference at the beginning
Tengri nation can get some tollerance of heathens, sunni without dhimmi can't, still it's possible for sunni horde to expand mainly in sunni territory first so this affects unrest
horde - diplomatic helps with siege ability, offensive increases it even further but if you need to take admin ideas as second you can go offensive 3rd and diplo as 4th, without admin idea horde, diplo, offensive would be better for this modifier.
If you go offensive you can think about trade later for movement speed. This helps with taking fights in terrain where you have extra modifiers to cavalry
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Horde Humanist Espionage.. The first duo with the -1 unrest policy make rebellions disappear. Espionage + Horde is really good for the 10% cav combat ability + 50% flanking, also spy networks give extra -30% AE and siege speed.
Just a FYI, spy network AE reduction only applies to the tag you have a spy network on. Good luck getting to 100%. The AI is good at using counterespionage with their diplomat that’s permanently assigned for use against the player.
Really? In my current run I have 100 spy network on all 4-5 neighbors at the same time. Maybe I am just lucky
I play on VH, so maybe it’s a behavior thing depending on settings. I’m usually getting caught in the 70s on. I stopped trying a while ago. Maybe the AI behavior has been changed.
I played as Jianzhou-Qing (my first horde game since returning from a 1-1.5 year hiatus from EU4), and found Horde ideas to be very good. The policies specifically have amazing synergy with all of the idea sets you would want, and the different bonuses you get from the idea set (tribe loyalty equilibrium being a surprisingly strong sleeper idea) are better than they appear.
Obviously though, what makes Horde great though is its policy with Economic, with boosts by far the most broken modifier you could get as a horde (infinite monarch power with conquest) by a whopping 33%. Although its policy with Diplomatic is also very good.
I find those three idea sets to be the best picks for a horde, with administrative being less efficient than diplomatic for admin points (more provinces from enemy = more admin from razing), and then admin 4th for governing capacity perhaps (or humanist/espionage if this is unnecessary).
It's extremely easy to be very far ahead on monarch points as a horde, so much so that you can easily end up spending frivolous amounts on niceties like generals for max professionalism and boosting mercantilism or developing/culture converting ad infinitum since you'll have so much excess. Your army also butchers anything as long as you're aware of terrain.
Obviously though, what makes Horde great though is its policy with Economic, with boosts by far the most broken modifier you could get as a horde (infinite monarch power with conquest) by a whopping 33%. Although its policy with Diplomatic is also very good.
I find those three idea sets to be the best picks for a horde, with administrative being less efficient than diplomatic for admin points (more provinces from enemy = more admin from razing), and then admin 4th for governing capacity perhaps (or humanist/espionage if this is unnecessary).
It's extremely easy to be very far ahead on monarch points as a horde, so much so that you can easily end up spending frivolous amounts on niceties like generals for max professionalism and boosting mercantilism or developing/culture converting ad infinitum since you'll have so much excess. Your army also butchers anything as long as you're aware of terrain.