Why innovative ideas are so rare choice?

[gia257]

Except taking innovative first means you don't take admin, humanist, or religious first...

this is the main problem, i always want to take innovative at some point, but find out im pressed for humanist,admin is too useful, and religious starts to look good if not early on for the cb, later when you have 50+ cities to convert

the only things that innovative bring that are enticing is tech cost, war exhaustion, and events and such, and none of those is a must compared to -% on cores, 3% missionary strength +cb, -10 unrest, -20% ae -45% diplo cost +2diplo rep +1relation -50% unjustified, +1diplomat +2rep +1 relation, or colonists

 

[Bouchart]

Any serious attempt at a world conquest will want to take Administrative, either Humanist or Religious, Diplomatic, Influence, possibly Exploration depending on starting position, and at least one but possibly two military ideas. That doesn't leave much room for Innovative.

 

[Parapluman]

A 5% tech discount isn't that much overall;

It's a glorious 10% these days. Though the rest of your point stands.

 

[BAMman100]

I like to take innovative in SP if I can stack a lot of adviser cost reduction bonuses; for example, the group is godlike in the mid-to-late game as Bohemia which has advisor cost reduction and infantry combat ability in its National Ideas. The main drawback is that it does nothing immediately to make the sort of wars you want to fight in the early game (quick, low cost, and for proportionally large gain) easier, nor does it make administering newly conquered, foreign lands less of a hassle. So early on its just not good enough to justify the admin expenditure unless you really don't need to, or simply can't conquer much (like if you're Bohemia in the HRE). If I take innovative I will often take it as a second admin idea group; since the policies mean you need another group to take advantage of it anyway, I find that it works well to pick it up then. So basically, its a useful group but the opportunity cost just doesn't come out in its favor most of the time and especially if you want to be very expansive.

 

[Lacost]

With the implementation of tier 5 advisors taking innovative might be a considerable choice. But as many mentioned above: it simply can't compete with Religious, Humanist and Economic.

The reason is specialization. If I want to super-blob away, I simply need either Religious or Humanist to keep my Empire together. Same for Economic if I either need to reform the government or my trade income is negligible.

Innovative in comparison is just .... well an allround idea group. But if I want to play tall or blob I have better ideas at my hand. And specialization is always more efficient than allround ideas.

Another problem is that Innovative is an admin idea group. It uses up monarch points that are the scarcest in the game, so every admin-idea group you take better has enough kick in it to justify it. Military and especially Diplo idea groups can justify some garbage ideas such as recruitment time reduction but investing 400 admin for +1 advisor .... well not worth it.

 

[Less2]

I'd say that Innovative is better than Economic, it's just still so much worse than Admin/Humanist/Religious.

That said, Influence/Innovative looks like a workable opener. Both decent groups on their own, but the policy magnifies the best parts of both very well.

 

[Badesumofu]

A problem with Innovative is that if you also take Humanist it can become quite hard to trigger C&C. Innovative makes it almost impossible to stack war exhaustion which means you have to tank your stab even harder and/or deal with really crazy amounts of OE for a while.

It's not insurmountable, but it's a consideration. Being able to just stack 5 or 6 WE and keep your stab around +1 or +2 and not go overboard on OE makes it much more convenient to put your country back to normal once the disaster triggers.

For the late game where -WE is really and truly very useful, going Revolutionary basically makes you immune to WE anyway.

Having said all that - 10% tech discount and the cheaper advisors for earlier +5 advisors could make this a decent bang for your buck if taken early on. Only problem is that, as already established, Admin is far, far better and Humanist is too good to not take. Maybe Humanist could be delayed a little in some situations, and maybe if you turned idea group restrictions off you could go Admin-Inno-Humanist or something like that. Follow that up with Dip and Influence.

 

[Shinkuro Yukinari]

It can be interesting to combine with Admin ideas when playing Sweden or Byzantium. You cut merc maintenance by 75%!

 

[Badesumofu]

It can be interesting to combine with Admin ideas when playing Sweden or Byzantium. You cut merc maintenance by 75%!

Those modifiers are additive with the +lots modifier that they get for being mercs so it's not nearly as good as it sounds.

 

[PhoenixG]

Imo lots of people under value the - 10% tech cost. It's not the cost reduction itself that is amazing, but you can tech up 1 year before the rest for similiar cost. The real value is the time you gained. Paying less MP is a nice side bonus.
It's simliar as RCC, imo the coring time reduction is the selling point, while using less admin is a nice side effect.

 

[Badesumofu]

Imo lots of people under value the - 10% tech cost. It's not the cost reduction itself that is amazing, but you can tech up 1 year before the rest for similiar cost. The real value is the time you gained. Paying less MP is a nice side bonus.
It's simliar as RCC, imo the coring time reduction is the selling point, while using less admin is a nice side effect.

That's not quite... with RCC you get -cost and -time. With cheaper tech you just get -cost which allows you to potentially take it earlier. It's not the same at all. What's more, the advantage of taking most techs a year early is pretty marginal. Mil techs yes, but Innovative ideas don't actually open the ability to take Mil techs early, they just save you 60 MIL each time you take one whether it's early or not. As for ADM and DIP techs - you're still paying an extra 60 points (at least, you can save hundreds of points by delaying techs) to take them a year early which is rarely going to be worth it.

 

[Monzon]

I know that nearly all players tend to take Admin ideas for core-cost, mercenaries and states and Religion/Humanist for conquests and dealing with their consequences. From my point of view, Innovative is amazing too, they are more flexible for every possible gamestyle. They will save not only admin points with money, but also diplo + mil points, prestige and war exhaustion. Even 10% discount for institute embracement cost is huge for every great power.
For example, in my Milan run I took them first, and they worked so great in combo with Milan's ideas. It was so hard to choose to move to the Italian ideas.

I play France quite a lot and take innovative as my first idea since it ends up stacking really well with the -10% tech cost France already has in its idea set. I take it quite a lot with other countries too. In addition to the ideas, it comes with some nice bonus events that grant extra monarch points (called "wave of innovation" or something). I also like the +20% Infantry combat ability.

However, with Milan I would have thought that Humanist would be a natural 1st set. Not only is it a very powerful group in its own right, but you can doublestack that -10% idea cost with Milan's own -10% idea for -20% idea cost for the rest of your groups.

 

[Less2]

Imo lots of people under value the - 10% tech cost. It's not the cost reduction itself that is amazing, but you can tech up 1 year before the rest for similiar cost. The real value is the time you gained. Paying less MP is a nice side bonus.
It's simliar as RCC, imo the coring time reduction is the selling point, while using less admin is a nice side effect.

Totally different from RCC. The point of RCC is:

- Less points spent (duh)
- Less time spent with global revolt risk from OE
- Increased rate at which you can take more OE (Core->finish war->core again)

-tech cost lets you tech ahead, but it doesn't increase the rate at which you can tech (which is itself tied to the year).

I play France quite a lot and take innovative as my first idea since it ends up stacking really well with the -10% tech cost France already has in its idea set. I take it quite a lot with other countries too. In addition to the ideas, it comes with some nice bonus events that grant extra monarch points (called "wave of innovation" or something). I also like the +20% Infantry combat ability.

However, with Milan I would have thought that Humanist would be a natural 1st set. Not only is it a very powerful group in its own right, but you can doublestack that -10% idea cost with Milan's own -10% idea for -20% idea cost for the rest of your groups.

This isn't really a valuable method of stacking. There's no special benefit of -20% idea cost or tech cost compared to -10% of both. Both just boil down to saving x number of points. It's not like RCC where the payoffs are unbounded, or even something like -construction cost where the savings from a quicker ROI can be reinvested for exponentially faster growth.

 

[Vulkandrache]

Imo lots of people under value the - 10% tech cost. It's not the cost reduction itself that is amazing, but you can tech up 1 year before the rest for similiar cost

Milpoints are, still, abundant enough that a 10% saving is nothing special.
For the other 2 getting a 10% discount and then teching up 1 year in advance defeats the whole purpose of getting a discount in the first place.
There are a handful of edgecases with AdminEff levels but thats it.

However, with Milan I would have thought that Humanist would be a natural 1st set. Not only is it a very powerful group in its own right, but you can doublestack that -10% idea cost with Milan's own -10% idea for -20% idea cost for the rest of your groups.

Are you expanding into large amounts of wrong religon wrong culture land at the start? Probably not.
Do you desperately need to accept 2 extra cultures when starting in Italy? No.
Can you get -2 Unrest cheaper without holding an ideaslot hostage before the afforementioned points apply? Yes.
Is 30% BRoT good? Yes. Is it better than Influence or Diplomatic at avoiding coalitions, THE limiting factor in south Europe? No.

Already having a discount to ideacosts doenst make the next discount better. This is not RCC.

 

[Rashie]

About the only reason I pick innovative whenever I do isn't for the ideas in the group itself, so much as to stack it's 20% infantry combat ability policy together with Quality when making space marines in non hyperblob campaigns.

Otherwise there are far better ways to spend admin points than to fill out a third admin group when you'll want to have administrative and humanist or religious too.

 

[tobias.mb]

In the early game Innovative Ideas are pretty much limited to nations, that have no need for admin, religious or Humanist Ideas. Basically slow expansion into your own culture & religion.
Even then it still has to compete with economic ideas, so probably you should also exclude nations, that are struggling with money or don't get much trade income.

I really can't think of anyone but HRE minors, that fulfill all of those.

 

[gia257]

I like to take innovative in SP if I can stack a lot of adviser cost reduction bonuses; for example, the group is godlike in the mid-to-late game as Bohemia which has advisor cost reduction and infantry combat ability in its National Ideas. The main drawback is that it does nothing immediately to make the sort of wars you want to fight in the early game (quick, low cost, and for proportionally large gain) easier, nor does it make administering newly conquered, foreign lands less of a hassle. So early on its just not good enough to justify the admin expenditure unless you really don't need to, or simply can't conquer much (like if you're Bohemia in the HRE). If I take innovative I will often take it as a second admin idea group; since the policies mean you need another group to take advantage of it anyway, I find that it works well to pick it up then. So basically, its a useful group but the opportunity cost just doesn't come out in its favor most of the time and especially if you want to be very expansive.

nowadays with th epossibility of getting level 3 advisors earlier (thanks to estates) and innovative boosting them (price but also events) that doesnt sound too bad

 

[grandad1982]

As Sweden it's nice to take to stack the combat ability policy.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Grabbing a few -tech cost modifiers does make it easier to lag in tech and then burst forward at min cost. The more you have, the less neighbor bonus you need to snag a bunch of techs at once.

Dhimmi boosted max legalism Sunni with innovative/administrative could get -40% before ideas/increase over time, so you could conceivably burst tech at 30 points per more frequently in DIP and even in ADM.

The problem is that forgoing humanist as such a nation will give you a few thousand extra rebels soon enough, and now you can't even convert that very well.

In practice I never take it, but as I mentioned earlier that's only because administrative ideas exist. If they didn't, I'd probably be picking humanist + innovative in most SP runs.

 

[Horn and Ivory]

As Sweden it's nice to take to stack the combat ability policy.

I'm playing Sweden right now. Innovative ideas first pick!

You have to do a fair bit of blobbing (something like all of India in states) before Admin saves more than Innovative, even if you only count Mil at half rate. Further, 10% Mil tech cost reduction effectively means getting each Mil tech a year earlier - not a huge benefit but in certain situations it can be clutch. For example, if France is going to invade you any day.

It's worth taking when a) your blobbing is going to be limited (I played Mughals last run, I need a break), b) you're playing into the late game (otherwise the points saved don't stack up enough compared to what you're losing in opportunity cost), and c) you can make planned effective use of policies (for example Sweden + infantry combat). Condition a) rules out all WC-type runs and condition b) rules out many other achievement runs, which I think explains why it's so rarely taken. But there are plenty of runs (at least, the kind of runs I like) where it's competitive. Doubly so if you feel like you can get away happily without Humanist before blobbing accelerates with the Age of Absolutism.