Strategy And Idea Guide - Guide for Europa Universalis IV
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@----------------------------------------------------------------------------@
! Europa Universalis IV !
! {accurate for version 1.8} !
! !
! IDEA GUIDE !
! !
! by coineineagh !
! version 1.1 !
@----------------------------------------------------------------------------@
Table Of Contents:
1. INTRODUCTION
- links
2. ADMIN TYPE IDEAS
- Innovative
- Religious
- Economic
- Expansion
- Administrative
- Humanist
3. DIPLO TYPE IDEAS
- Espionage
- Diplomatic
- Trade
- Exploration
- Maritime
- Influence
4. MILITARY TYPE IDEAS
- Aristocratic
- Plutocratic
- Offensive
- Defensive
- Quality
- Quantity
- Naval
5. THE FINAL EIGHT (PLUS TWO)
- Diplomatic
- Exploration
- Quantity
- Expansion
- Offensive
- Influence
- Quality
- Innovative
+ (Administrative & Religious)
- The Five Best Policies (+3)
6. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
7. VERSION INFORMATION
___________________________________________________________________________
DISCLAIMERS
This may be not be reproduced under any circumstances except for personal,
private use. It may not be placed on any website or otherwise distributed
publicly without advance written permission. Use of this guide on any other
website or as a part of any public display is strictly prohibited, and a
violation of copyright. This document may not be bought or sold, or used in
any way for profitable gain.
This FAQ is authorized to be hosted on the following websites:
www.gamefaqs.com
www.gamespot.com
www.neoseeker.com
This guide is copyright 2015 by Thomas de Jong, e.g. coineineagh.
All trademarks and copyrights contained in this document are owned by
their respective trademark and copyright holders.
___________________________________________________________________________
<3 <3 <3
Dedicated to my wife Suby, my son Owen, and our new arrival Andy!
<3 <3 <3
*------------------*
| *--------------* |
| | INTRODUCTION | |
| *--------------* |
*------------------*
When Paradox released a new version of the Europa Universalis series, I was
again hooked by the addictive gameplay offered. The game has a level of
complexity that is manageable, and the learning curve is not too steep as to
stifle enjoyment. You will find that many aspects of the game take time to
master, and I also found myself starting over after having learned a few things
early on. Everyone must find their own way to enjoy the game; some like to
expand their country into a global empire (nicknamed 'blobbing') until they're
too powerful for any nation or even coalition to challenge them. Others prefer
to limit their territory, so there remain challenging foes for them throughout
the 400 years of history. Yet other people attempt to simulate the true course
of history with their nation. Whatever you decide to do, you eventually stumble
upon dilemmas when choosing idea groups for your nation to pursue. Choosing the
right idea group for your nation can be a daunting task, especially if your
understanding of the advantages offered is not yet complete. What this guide
attempts to do, is offer an evaluation of all the ideas, while at the same time
discussing many related aspects of the gameplay. It is all highly subjective
and opinionated of course, but by knowing my views of certain ideas, you should
have an extra perspective to form a more informed strategy of your own.
I use the terms 'tree' and 'group' interchangeably to refer to the idea groups,
but each idea group's ideas must be taken one by one in correct order. National
ideas are not discussed in this guide at all, but my insights should help you
better evaluate your chosen nation's ideas. Recent reader feedback has allowed
me to improve my knowledge of certain game aspects.
Information resource:
http://www.eu4wiki.com/Europa_Universalis_4_Wiki
*----------------------*
| *------------------* |
| | ADMIN TYPE IDEAS | |
| *------------------* |
*----------------------*
Not to be confused with the Administrative ideas tree. Admin ideas use up
Administrative Monarch points to learn. Admin points are considered by most to
be the most important type of Monarch points in the game, as they are needed
for coring provinces you annex during war, raising stability, manually reducing
your inflation, changing government, moving your capital, and constructing
government and production type buildings. I disagree with the assessment that
Admin points are the most crucial, but that's because I like to play as a
Western-European colonial power. If you are playing a non-colonial game, then
your income sources rely more on production and tax, making these buildings
very profitable, and having high priority. A nation that conquers a lot of land
will also need lots of Admin points for coring. Finally, stabilty drop events
may be more frequent for some nations than for others. If you suffer from many
such events, it is advisable not to raise your stability higher than +1, since
high stability also causes those events to occur more often. Medium stabilty is
a necessary evil for such countries, possibly precluding you from some positive
events that will only occur at high stability.
*------------*
| INNOVATIVE |
*------------*
Patron of the Arts
-1% PRESTIGE DECAY: Prestige tends to drop steadily during peacetime, so
anything that reduces the decline helps.
Pragmatism
-25% MERCENARY COST: This can be somewhat helpful for winning a difficult
war that has depleted your manpower reserves. But it has limits, as going
over land forcelimits will still cause expenses to skyrocket.
Scientific Revolution
-5% TECHNOLOGY COST: Saves western tech nations up to 2700 monarch points
depending on how many techs still need researching. In comparison, every
idea you purchase grants 2% cheaper tech points cost of its type. -5% is
like having a 2nd university, but it isn't a colossal game changer.
Knowledge Transfer
-2% YEARLY ARMY TRADITION DECAY
-2% YEARLY NAVY TRADITION DECAY: There's nothing quite like this in other
ideas. Since Tradition helps determine the strength of generals/admirals,
this idea aids you in securing good long-term military leadership. Without
it, a nation must be in near-constant state of war to keep its Tradition
high enough. This may actually be feasible for a warring state in Europe's
heartlands or an aggressively expansionist colonial power, but this idea
is less risky than war in the long run. Exploring uncharted lands/seas also
gains +1 Army/Naval Tradition, so there are many opprtunities to keep your
tradition high in the mid game, but war and tradition-preservation are all
that's left after the world has been largely charted. Reader feedback has
made me realize I place too much emphasis on the importance of Tradition,
since its major benefit is to your military leaders, and their stats are
still partially determined by (un)lucky dice rolls.
Resilient State
-10% REDUCE INFLATION COST: If you need to reduce inflation, you probably
have Gold provinces, and you're better off hiring a Master of Mint advisor,
and/or buildings that reduce inflation gradually and for free. In the most
extreme cases, Economic ideas should be considered.
Optimism
-0.05 MONTHLY WAR EXHAUSTION: Another unique idea with no equal. It helps
you fight long protracted wars, obviously. War Exhaustion is most serious
in the early game, or when you are losing battles. This idea minimizes the
damage wars do to your nation, so helps weak central European nations most
of all.
Formalized Officer Corps
+1 LEADER WITHOUT UPKEEP: It's difficult to get Leader slots until tech level
19, when you'll have an easy 4 with buildings and Power Projection. By then,
a 5th Leader slot just tempts you to spend more monarch points every time a
leader dies, which will be five times as often. I can't imagine needing 5
leaders at the same time, so you'd be exploring a lot, or having idle
siege/maneuver specialists standing around. Even generals in hostile territory
can be recalled by reorganizing the army into a new one (don't do this with
navies as it will kill the admiral). But there's no way to assign a new leader
to an army in hostile territory, and then it doesn't matter if you have 5.
Bonus:
-25% ADVISOR COSTS: Advisor costs increase quadratically over time. Although
your income should also increase, this cost reduction can help a lot. If you
are employing 3 level 3 advisors, the savings of this idea might be better
than army maintenance bonuses.
Noteworthy Policies:
+QUALITY: +20% Infantry combat ability will make your armies *invincible*.
+EXPLORATION: +5% Colonist chance, +10% Trade power
+MARITIME: +1 Naval leader Maneuver, +10% Heavy ship combat ability
Summary: Innovative ideas offers a variety of useful ideas that aid a nation
in a variety of ways. I wouldn't take it as an early idea group, but many
countries would be wise to get it once more important groups have been gained.
A large nation can be in extensive wars, and still be reducing their WE most
of the time: Optimism is usually more than the WE increase from monthly losses
due to attrition. Opinions on the value of Innovative vary among players. Keep
in mind that role-playing preferences for certain idea groups may cloud their
objective value: Concepts like innovation and humanism will appeal more to a
non-religious player than the Religious ideas would, for example.
*-----------*
| RELIGIOUS |
*-----------*
Deus Vult
PERMANENT CASUS BELLI AGAINST NEIGBOURING HEATHENS AND HERETICS: Many players
speak highly of this advantage, though I rarely found it difficult to gain
casus belli when I needed them. Often, I'd only fabricate claims for the
lower coring cost. Expansion and Exploration trees also have ideas that grant
casus belli, but this is the only one that can apply to European nations. It
allows you to claim provinces for no diplomatic power cost, so if Europe is
where you must expand, this is a valuable idea. Colonial powers have better,
less risky avenues of expansion. In practice, you'll need to pay diplo points
for most of your victories in Europe even with this idea. Keep in mind that
although it should only apply to the War Leader of religious wars you are in,
players have in fact reported that the benefits are also applied when you sign
separate peace treaties.
Missionary Schools
+1 MISSIONARIES: Naturally, nations that have religious unity problems will
benefit a lot from this idea and the rest of the tree. Certain provinces in
the game will grant an extra missionary, as will some decisions, temporarily.
Church Attendance Duty
-25% STABILITY COST MODIFIER: Online sources question the usefulness of going
over +1 stability, since stability-lowering events will increase. If you have
a lot of those, this idea helps. Often it's unclear whether this is important
to a nation. You may acquire it only to find that your Time of Troubles has
passed.
Divine Supremacy
+3% MISSIONARY STRENGTH: Good when your nation is riddled with heresy, or you
have colonial conquests that can't be sold to a Colonial Nation or made into
a Trading Post. It strengthens and speeds up conversion.
Devoutness
+1 TOLERANCE OF THE TRUE FAITH
+2 YEARLY PAPAL INFLUENCE
+0.25 MONTHLY FERVOR: The papal influence isn't so big but helpful. Personally
I favour the +1% Mercantilism bonus from the Papacy; it's often better than
spending it on Stability or Legitimacy. That is, until you're already drowning
in ducats. Fervor helps Reformed nations gain the bonus they want more often.
Religious Tradition
+1 YEARLY PRESTIGE: A nice bonus to prestige, to alleviate its plummet before
the next war. It's easy to gain Prestige in wars, assuming you win battles.
Inquisition
+2% MISSIONARY STRENGTH VS HERETICS: Since the most vital provinces to convert
are high-base-tax European provinces, this is a great help.
Bonus:
-25% CULTURE CONVERSION COST: Converting culture takes ages, but it can be a
great boost, raising income, manpower and many other things. But it usually
isn't your first priority. I rarely had diplomatic power free to convert
cultures, and most provinces will be fine unconverted. It also feels wrong to
go around homogenizing cultural diversity, though it's just a game after all.
Noteworthy Policies:
+QUALITY: +2.5% Discipline, +10% Morale of armies
+INFLUENCE: -20% Culture conversion cost; for when you have excess Diplo power
and want to put it to good use. Total cost reduction 45% with full Religious
ideas.
Many Religious policies increase Religious unity or missionary strength, but
since the idea tree already increases your control of religion, most policies
are of limited use. One gripe I have with the game's policies, is that few
other idea trees raise religious unity, and NONE besides Religious policies
improve missionary strength. Nations with Religious ideas have little need for
these policies, and those without would stand to benefit a lot. Unbalanced, in
my opinion. Would a nation in control of religion need to enact such policies?
Summary: Colonial powers should probably try to make do with their single weak
missionary. Non-colonial nations will find this idea group a great help. Other
players, after reading my comments, offered valuable feedback. It depends on
whether a Center of Reformation appears in/near your territory, really. Some
games will have need of Religious ideas to weed out heresy, or expand into
territories of another religion faster
.
*----------*
| ECONOMIC |
*----------*
Bureaucracy
+10% NATIONAL TAX MODIFIER: Tax is the primary income source of most European
nations, unless they have good trading opportunities. Boosting their tax can
help out HRE and other central European nations a lot.
Organized Construction
-20% BUILD COST: This is build cost in ducats, not monarch points. A rich
country will benefit more from monarch points reduction, in which case you
should consider Quantity tree.
National Bank
+0.10 YEARLY INFLATION REDUCTION: This is the best advantage of the idea tree,
since all the counting houses in your nation only contribute -0.10 as well.
Nations with many Gold provinces might *need* Economic for this idea alone.
Debt and Loans
-1 INTEREST PER ANNUM: Loans are a risky business, and all this does is soften
whatever decline caused you to take loans. A slight monetary advantage you
don't want to be making use of.
Centralization
+1 POSSIBLE ADVISORS: This can give you more choices in advisors, so it may be
of great help. A rich nation should mainly be choosing advisors for their +3
monarch points per month, but this makes it more likely you'll have a +3 one.
Nationalistic Enthusiasm
-10% LAND MAINTENANCE MODIFIER: It saves you a bit of money, and makes it
cheaper to maintain your standing armies in peacetime. And at war, of course.
Smithian Economics
+10% PRODUCTION EFFICIENCY: Production can lead to a decent extra income if
your provinces produce valuable goods. If you achieve production leader status
with any good, that good also gets an extra production bonus.
Bonus:
-33% REDUCE INFLATION COST: I can't imagine you'd need this often when you
already have -0.10/year from an earlier idea. Maybe it's needed by Zimbabwe or
Incan nations, due to their many gold provinces.
Noteworthy Policies:
+OFFENSIVE: +20% Artillery combat ability is a tremendous advantage.
+QUANTITY: +33% Forcelimits if you still need more standing armies.
Summary: If you have many Gold provinces, this becomes a last resort to fix
skyrocketing inflation. If you're looking to make more ducats, the Trade idea
group is much better for most. Readers feel I didn't place enough emphasis on
how useless Economic ideas are, since it really is one of the lousiest trees.
*-----------*
| EXPANSION |
*-----------*
Additional Colonists
+1 COLONISTS: A subsitute for Exploration? No. You'd be relying on others to
do the exploring for you, meaning you get at least a 25 year delay before you
discover colonizable provinces. The A.I. doesn't seem to pick its colonies
logically, so there is a chance that there will be some worthwhile leftovers,
but if you want in on the colonial game, Expansion is no substitute.
Additional Merchants
+1 MERCHANTS: An extra merchant is very useful, obviously.
Faster Colonists
+10 GLOBAL SETTLER INCREASE: This extra colony growth is a good reason for
colonizing nations to pick Expansion as another early idea.
Organized Recruitment
-10% RECRUITMENT TIME: Recruitment time is rarely of relevance - I don't know
why they thought it warranted an idea at all.
Additional Diplomats
+1 DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS: This can be very important, if not vital for your
diplomatic breathing room. An extra relation can mean another ally or vassal.
Improved Shipyards
-10% SHIPBUILDING TIME: As with recruitment time, another bad idea.
Competitive Merchants
+20% GLOBAL TRADE POWER: This is nothing short of excellent. Even the Trade
tree only has a +10% Trade Power bonus (though it has many other bonuses
which benefit trade).
Bonus:
PERMANENT CASUS BELLI AGAINST CHINESE, INDIAN, NOMAD AND SUB-SAHARAN TECH
GROUP NATIONS IF OWN TECH GROUP IS WESTERN, EASTERN OR OTTOMAN: Asia and
Africa are ripe for conquest, and this bonus allows you to conquer from them
at no power cost in peace negotiations. This opens the gateway to Trade
Company dominance. This casus belli no longer applies to westernised nations.
Noteworthy Policies:
+EXPLORATION: +20 Colonial growth allows you to let colonies grow faster, so
your Colonist can move on early to colonize another province.
+QUALITY: +1 Land leader Fire, +0.5 Land military tradition; one of few
ways to increase/maintain tradition during peacetime.
+QUANTITY: +1 Settler, +10 Colonial growth; the only policy that grants an
extra Settler/Colonist, arguably *the best* policy in the game.
Summary: This is easily the best idea tree for Admin Power, if not the best
of all idea trees. There is no nation in the game that won't benefit from
taking Expansion, though due to it's allround benefits it shouldn't be a
nation's 1st choice. Most countries have a vital tree or two they really need,
but once those have been taken, this can be the most potent 2nd/3rd choice.
Opinions on its usefulness are very divided, as some players consider it to be
the worst! I can only draw from my own experiences, that it has helped me
enormously during play. I would have progressed much slower if it weren't for
Expansion ideas.
*----------------*
| ADMINISTRATIVE |
*----------------*
Organized Mercenary Payments
-25% MERCENARY COST: As in the Innovative tree, it's helpful to get cheaper
mercenaries when you're out of manpower, but if you have money issues, mercs
are a costly option anyway. This will help you acquire a few more regiments
that might turn the tide for you.
Adaptability
-25% CORE-CREATION COST: Widely hailed as the best idea in this tree, some
feel it's the best idea of all. Definitely a necessity if you intend to 'blob'
your empire across the continent. I try to limit my expansion so as not to
lose rivals that are easy to Privateer against for Power Projection, and just
to avoid becoming so powerful that the game's challenge has been lost.
Benefits for Mercenaries
-33% MERCENARY MAINTENANCE: If you combine this with the bonus from trading in
Cloth (requires 20% of world Cloth trade control), mercenaries have a chance
to become an affordable standing infantry that won't expend your manpower in
combat. However, they'll remain more expensive than regular infantry, and will
not upgrade when you research a new infantry type. A standing army consisting
entirely of mercenary infantry and regular cavalry & artillery has been
calculated to cost only 40% more than a full regular army.
Bookkeeping
-1 INTEREST PER ANNUM: This saves money on loans repayment. A benefit you
don't want to have to make use of.
Mercenary Recruitment
+50% AVAILABLE MERCENARIES: This is actually helpful, because you can raise a
mercenary army even quicker if the pool is larger (and replenishes faster). As
mentioned, infantry are the most practical mercenaries to recruit, since they
take the most casualties in combat and are cheaper than cavalry or artillery.
Just remember that this strategy is only advisable if you engage in frequent,
costly wars and your nation's manpower is limited. Mercenaries in a standing
army will become obsolete when a new unit type appears; regular regiments will
upgrade, but mercs won't.
Administrative Efficiency
+1 POSSIBLE ADVISORS: It's the luck of the draw. It can be very helpful to
have more choices, or still no help at all. More often than not, it does help.
Civil Service
-10% ADMINISTRATIVE TECHNOLOGY COST: It may save you up to 1800 Admin Points,
depending on how many techs you've researched already. Learning 5 Admin ideas
will do the same, so this is no game changer. It should be noted that Civil
Service and Adaptability ideas together provide a very significant reduction
of your Admin points expenses.
Bonus:
+10% GOODS PRODUCED NATIONALLY: A very nice bonus. More goods means more
income, and indirectly a bit more trade goods control for you. If you manage
to become production leader, each of your provinces produces +0.1 more goods,
augmented by your production multipliers. Getting a Trading In bonus grants a
different bonus for each good. So, a powerful nation can double/triple up on
this bonus.
Noteworthy Policies:
+DIPLOMATIC: +1 Diplomat, -25% Envoy travel time; travel time is reduced for
Diplomats, Merchants as well as Colonists.
+EXPLORATION: +5% Colonist chance, +10 Colonial growth
+INFLUENCE: -20% Diplomatic annexation cost; makes for 45% cheaper power cost
along with basic Influence ideas. If it saves you at least 120 points, it's
worth the 10 years you have to keep the policy active.
Summary: Many players select Administrative ideas mainly for the lower coring
costs from the 2nd idea. A lot of this tree is focused on mercenaries, so a
country that has need of them will benefit greatly form it. Burgundy springs
to mind, as it has national ideas that also lower costs, as well as a lot of
Cloth provinces to posibly get a Trading In bonus. But mercenaries do not
upgrade, so unless you are constantly attacked and suffer low manpower, it's
better to try and get by with regular forces. Nations that expand mainly
through conquest will also benefit from getting Adaptability early. It is the
favourite Admin idea for aggressive players, and this their first idea tree.
It's hard to deny the added efficiency you gain from saving so many Admin
points on future techs and province coring. The mercenary benefits are minor
perks for most countries, as you should be able to afford them without cost
reduction, and be able to recruit from a small pool with decent planning.
*----------*
| HUMANIST |
*----------*
Tolerance
+25% RELIGIOUS UNITY: Low religious unity will cause some unrest, though it
should be small enough for a healthy nation to deal with. Aside from missions
to gain 100% religious unity, this isn't a significant problem. If your nation
is in trouble, consider Religious ideas before Humanist.
Local Traditions
-2 NATIONAL UNREST: Another nice bonus to keep your provinces revolt-free, but
rarely of vital importance.
Ecumenism
+3 TOLERANCE OF HERETICS: Since negative tolerance can hurt your tax and goods
production, this can actually be helpful. Especially once reformation events
makes Europe less homogenous.
Indirect Rule
-10 YEARS OF NATIONALISM: Nationalism is an issue for conquered provinces, and
reduced nationalism speeds up the process of assimilation. This will probably
spare you the hassle of a revolt suppression event.
Cultural Ties
-50% ACCEPTED CULTURE THRESHOLD: This gives you a significantly easier time
gaining accepted culture status if you have a number of conquered provinces
of the same culture. Normally a culture becomes accepted at 20% base tax, in
comparison with all a nation's cores (even ones possessed by another country).
Cultures lose acceptance once they become <10% of a nation's base tax. With
this idea, those thresholds become 10% and 5%, respectively. I find that there
are so many cultures out there, that the opportunity to even make use of this
will be rare without this idea. It doesn't apply to culture groups; only single
cultures. Since expanding your country will gradually remove accepted statuses,
this is at best a temporary boost to province trade and manpower. Converting
culture is more permanent, but costs diplomatic power (Religious ideas helps).
Benevolence
+33% BETTER RELATIONS OVER TIME: A very helpful ability. Any and every negative
relationship modifier with a foreign country will deteriorate faster with this.
It will make nations forget your conquests, peaceful annexations, discovered
espionage, insults and much more. Don't get this idea group just for this bonus
though, as Diplomact tree has a decent +25% idea too.
Humanist Tolerance
+3 TOLERANCE OF HEATHENS: The heathen version of an earlier idea for heretics.
This is good when you start controlling provinces of other faiths, to still get
decent tax and manpower from them.
Bonus:
-10% IDEA COST: If Humanism were your first idea group, this bonus stands to
save you 1960 monarch points. Completing a new idea tree faster can also be a
strategic advantage. A significant bonus.
Noteworthy Policies:
+DEFENSIVE: ?25% Land attrition, +5% Recover army morale speed. This along with
basic Defensive ideas will literally halve your attrition losses.
+QUANTITY: +1 Land leader Shock, +0.5 Land military tradition; one of few
ways to increase/maintain tradition during peacetime.
Summary: I consider Humanist idea group rather weak overall. I wouldn't
reccommend it, but my opinion is the minority. I'd rather face unrest issues in
battle, but I've never faced overwhelming turmoil in a game, where rebels stand
to break my nation. For some countries, low religious unity and intolerance are
serious issues that this tree addresses very effectively. It may be a necessity
for some to invest an idea group on the issue. If this is necessary, Humanist
and Religious ideas are your only options. Since taking both is probably not
necessary, I'd prefer Religious for its more active conversion bonuses and
other benefits over the passive effects of Humanist ideas, but that's just me.
*----------------------*
| *------------------* |
| | DIPLO TYPE IDEAS | |
| *------------------* |
*----------------------*
Not to be confused with the Diplomatic idea group. Diplo ideas need Diplomatic
Monarch points to learn. I consider Diplo points to be the most important for
the type of games I play, often as Western-European colonial powers. Diplo
points are needed for making unjustified (non-wargoal) demands during peace
negotiations, diplomatic annexation of subjects, recruiting Admirals/Explorers,
changing province culture, reducing War Exhaustion, going over your diplomatic
relations allowance (i.e. having diplomatic agreements with too many counties),
removing a rival, moving your main trading port, and finally for building naval
and trade buildings. Since navy and trade are very important for a colonial
power's income, trade buildings will be especially profitable, causing you to
spend lots of Diplo points. Non-colonial nations will be more focused on their
production and tax incomes, as well as coring conquests. So, the importance of
Diplo points vary from country to country, depending on the situation. Annexing
vassals is a safer way to expand European holdings, without getting dragged
into large wars. Most of the time, unless I'm learning non-Diplo ideas, my
country usually sets its National Focus on Diplo points (+2 Diplo points, -1
Admin & Military points).
*-----------*
| ESPIONAGE |
*-----------*
Privateers
+25% EMBARGO EFFICIENCY
+33% PRIVATEER EFFICIENCY: This helps you to gain Power Projection more easily
when you have a limited fleet of light ships. It should be possible to gain 50
Power Projection if you gain +10 from Privateers, +3 from Embargoing, and +5
from having a long-time rival, for all three of your chosen rivals. It is very
important that your three rivals control enough trade in sea nodes in range of
Privateers. Privateering for Power Projection is more important than protecting
your trade, and worth going over navel forcelimits for.
Vetting
+25% NATIONAL SPY DEFENSE: Perhaps this dissuades enemies from fabricating
claims and other acts of espionage against you. You will certainly uncover
attempts more often, which will penalize them with Aggressive Expansion.
Rumourmongering
ALLOWS SABOTAGE REPUTATION: Your diplomat will give -50 relation to the target
country with all its neigbours and rivals/enemies. This may be helpful if you
want to prevent a vassalization or a powerful alliance from forming. But your
diplomat will be constantly occupied for the duration.
Efficient Spies
+1 Diplomats
+25% SPY OFFENSE: The extra Diplomat is always handy. Better offense means
less chance of being discovered, which may come in handy if used in moderation.
If you start spamming claims on all your neighbour's provinces, you will be
discovered eventually.
Shady Recruitment
-33% COVERT ACTION RELATION IMPACT: As with the previous idea, this benefit to
offensive action might serve to tempt you into committing more acts of
espionage, penalizing you more in the long run. Use with moderation.
Destabilizing Efforts
ALLOWS SOW DISCONTENT: This is a form of indirect warfare. If you are patient,
you can try to riddle rival countries with revolts, hopefully causing
provinces to break loose. The A.I. is often slow in tackling revolts, so it
has a chance of success.
Espionage
ALLOWS INFILTRATE ADMINISTRATION: Your Diplomat will allow you to see your
enemy's lands, but has a chance of being caught and sent home.
Bonus:
+50% REBEL SUPPORT EFFICIENCY: By sending money to a rebel faction with some
revolt risk in an enemy country, you will raise their unrest level, and they
may be treated as allies during war. Any formed nation that had rebels you
supported, will like you. The more money you spend, the more unrest and Power
Projection. If you want Power Projection during war, it's easier to just
subsidise your colonial nations and vassals with 0.10 ducats/month for +1 PP
*per rival* at war. I keep this cheap subsidy running indefinitely, and you
don't need Espionage ideas for this at all! The more subjects, the more PP.
This benefit triples if you're fighting 3 rivals at once (you'll need every
benefit you can get in such a situation).
Noteworthy Policies:
+ARISTOCRATIC: +20% Cavalry combat ability; most nation's armies function best
with just a few cavalry regiments, but nonetheless helpful for flanking.
+QUALITY: -1% Military tradition decay, one of few ways to preserve tradition
during peacetime.
Summary: Espionage idea group has an interesting array of options that are
only available if you choose this tree. As unique as Espionage ideas are, they
are not vital to most countries in the game, and may serve to tempt you into
making hostile actions that will be discovered and ultimately bite you in the
tail. Espionage offers interesting advantages to weak nations whose best option
to tackle a superior foe is to engage in proxy warfare. Most of the best forms
of proxy warfare can already be conducted effectively without this tree.
*------------*
| DIPLOMATIC |
*------------*
Foreign Embassies
+1 DIPLOMATS: Diplomats are always useful, to improve relations, make
agreements or commit espionage. Even idle Diplomats are useful to improve
relations with neighbours. You may be surprised how annoying travel time can
be for envoys of a world power, so the more Diplomats, the better.
Cabinet
+1 DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS: Every extra relation is another ally or vassal you
can acquire without power penalty. Diplomatic points are valuable, I believe
the most valuable of the three types. Avoid going over relations limit as much
as possible.
War Cabinet
-33% COST OF REDUCING WAR EXHAUSTION: You shouldn't have to manually reduce
War Exhaustion too often in your game, but this helps when you need to.
Benign Diplomats
+25% IMPROVE RELATIONS: Faster normalization of relations after diplomatic
activities negatively affected relations (expansion, espionage, etc.). Very
helpful; it's like little invisible diplomats slowly improving relations with
all your neighbours, and not occupying a diplomat to do so. Major relationship
hits can take decades to completely get rid of, so this ability speeds up the
time before relations normalize. It's useful to note that accumulating many of
the same kind of hit (Aggressive Expansion, Annexation of Vassal, Annexation
of HRE member, etc.) initially gives a large relationship penalty, but once
the largest individual component of the penalty has expired, the rest will
disappear too. An example: I annexed 4 vassals simultaneously, timed to be
finished on the exact same month, so my reputaton wouldn't become too low to
annex from the resulting penalty. Anyway, after annexation, My relations with
other vassals received 4x the -30 from annexing a vassal, which showed -120
(+1.4 per year). However, after just over 20 years, I had reduced the malus by
30. The remaining 90 disappeared at the same time. As you can see, yearly
relationship improvement doesn't stack from multiple components (I didn't get
4x +1.4/year), but the time to expire is the same as if it did stack.
Experienced Diplomats
+2 DIPLOMATIC REPUTATION: My main problem with reputation, was when trying to
diplomatically annex my vassals. If you try annexing 2 or more at once, the
first vassalization will inflict a -3 reputation, which lowers the speed of
the annexation process by 3. Since other modifiers are only +1 base, +1 for
having the same culture and +1 for the same religion, the annexation process
easily comes to a complete halt. You can either time annexations so that they
all complete on the very same month (possible, but requires some calculation),
or try to raise your reputation so that the -3 won't cause progress to freeze.
Flexible Negotiations
-20% PROVINCE WARSCORE COST: This is not as useful as it may seem. You either
win a war or lose one, so it's only a matter of time before you get the score
you need if you are on the winning side. A big risk during peace negotiations
is the Overextension limit. If you grab more than 25 base tax worth of
provinces, your country will become over 100% overextended, causing around 3
years of disaster after disaster event until you have cored some of your
conquests. Try instead to weaken your enemy by other concessions.
Diplomatic Corps
-10% DIPLOMATIC TECHNOLOGY COST: Saves you up to 1800 Diplomatic Points,
depending on how many techs you've researched already. Learning 5 Diplo type
ideas will do the same, so this is no game changer.
Bonus:
Lowered impact on stability from diplomatic actions: Not as promising as it
sounds. It lowers penalty for breaking truces from -5 stability to -3. You
can end a Royal Marriage for -1 instead of -2 stability. Does it make you
feel like doing these things? This is a bonus a wise player will never make
use of.
Noteworthy Policies:
+ADMINISTRATIVE: +1 Diplomat, -25% Envoy travel time (Colonists are envoys)
+NAVAL: +20% Relationship improvement over time, -25% Envoy travel time
+QUALITY: +1 Diplomatic reputation, -25% Envoy travel time*
* A game exploit would be to gain all 4 -25% travel time reductions, for
*instant* Colonists, allowing you to spam settlements everywhere. This
requires you to learn 4 full idea trees to get the three policies, plus
Influence for idea 6's bonus, and Exploration idea 2 to be able to explore.
Unfortunately, you have to pay increasingly more (quadratic multiplier)
maintenance per colony you maintain over your number of Colonists: 2x, 4x,
8x, 16x, 25x, 36x. Base maintenance about 2 ducats per colony, but squared
maintenance multipliers quickly become very high even for rich countries.
Summary: The combination of a Diplomat, an extra relation, and improving
negative relations faster over time can be a vital advantage for a country
with many vassals, or with enemies lining up and allies within reach. Some
countries ought to choose this as their first idea group. Diplomacy can be
of vital importance in a turbulent Europe/Asia. I wasn't the only player out
there who considered Diplomatic ideas to be "replaceable": The option exists
to remove an idea tree and replace it with another, and Diplomatic ideas is a
prime example of an idea tree that has tremendous benefits early on, but is
not needed once your nation has become more powerful. If you can live with the
idea of losing 90% of your invested points, choosing and later replacing this
tree isn't necessarily a wasteful strategy.
*-------*
| TRADE |
*-------*
Shrewd Commerce Practices
+10% GLOBAL TRADE POWER: A good start for the idea group specialized in Trade.
It will raise your competitiveness and income.
Free Trade
+1 MERCHANTS: Trade would be hard to control without them. It's best to
collect at a rich node where you have a good share of trade. If you dominate
trade in a node (>80%), it can be better to steer neighbouring trade towards
*that* node rather than collect in both nodes, since your trade power is
reduced from the act of collecting.
Merchant Adventures
+25% TRADE RANGE: Increasing trade range often brings in a bit of profit from
distant nodes, if there is a downstream link to a node where you collect.
Trade range will become most important when you get to the East Indies.
National Trade Policy
+10% TRADE EFFICIENCY: Half your efficiency value is added to your trade power,
and the efficiency itself raises your trade profits.
Overseas Merchants
+1 MERCHANTS: Merchants that are steering downstream in linked nodes will raise
profits together. +5% for one, with diminishing returns up to +11.5% for five.
If you have a sprawling empire and a share of trade in many nodes never before
visited by one of your merchants, it may be a good idea to use a free merchant
to visit them all briefly, just to steer trade in the correct direction. Often,
the default steers trade in directions where you have no one to collect. The
merchant may have to remain in the node for a month or so for it to apply.
Trade Manipulation
+25% TRADE STEERING
+20 MERCHANT STEERING TOWARDS INLAND: When a merchant steers trade, the trade
power is raised by 25%. When steering towards an inland node, +20 is also added
to the trade power.
Fast Negotiations
+10% NATIONAL TRADE INCOME MODIFIER: This simply adds 10% to the ducats you
will collect from trade. It doesn't affect your competitiveness or control of
trade goods.
Bonus:
+1 MERCHANTS: This idea group grants a total of 3 traders, making it unmatched
in profit potential. Remember that Trading In 20% of the world share of a trade
good can grant a variety of different bonuses. The potential for profit is vast
and just gets better the more trade power you have.
Noteworthy Policies:
Trade policies mainly focus on making your trade and related aspects more
profitable and competitive. Personally, I feel they are not worth spending
Monarch points on, especially since the basic Trade ideas already make you very
rich and competitive. Some players may not agree with me, and I admit to having
a few trade boosting policies active at times of monarch point abundance.
Summary: In principle, this idea group is good for any nation, but those that
start off weak in trade power will not suddenly become dominant. Some players
claim that it's better to get Merchants from discovering the East Indies and
dominating trade there, which is relatively easy once you can reach it. From
personal experience, the desire to control trade in more nodes persists even if
you have a handful of bonus merchants from dominant Trade Companies. It's
certainly true that a strong country can achieve trade dominance without this
idea group. So, if other groups offer better benefits, you can pass on Trade
ideas, with some regret. It may help you decide if you realize that Trade ideas
offer exclusively monetary rewards, and that money is usually relatively easy
to amass enough of for your needs, compared to other national resources. The
bonuses from Trading In goods are largely the result of being a large, powerful
country, which Trade ideas contributes relatively little towards.
*-------------*
| EXPLORATION |
*-------------*
Colonial Ventures
+1 COLONISTS: You can start colonizing straight away, if there is unclaimed
territory within sight and colonial range. Spain and Portugal start out so
lucky, and Norway could go north. Most other European nations won't be able to
use their colonist yet.
Quest for the New World
CAN RECRUIT CONQUISTADORS & EXPLORERS: This is a unique and powerful ability
that allows your leaders to explore Terra Incognita. An ideal pastime for idle
leaders during peacetime. Due to the pooling system, Explorers can reappear in
command of the main fleet, even if they were out exploring with a light ship
just weeks ago. Any friendly port is an acceptable location. Conquistadors have
it even easier, as they can disappear from distant jungle expeditions to lead
the National Army the moment war starts. Even on hostile territory, you can
pool a leader by reorganizing the army into a new one. If a Conquistador or
General is in command of zero regiments, he will return to the pool instantly.
Your only limit is that leaders can't appear at sea or in hostile territory;
you must travel into them with a unit. Be warned that neither Explorers nor
Conquistadors will spawn frequently from events for any country, so Exploration
ideas is the only reliable way to get any.
Overseas Exploration
+50% COLONIAL RANGE: An important boost to colonial range. Every few tech
levels, the range increases 20%, so this 50% leap is a major advantage. Another
reason why colonization is very difficult without Exploration.
Land of Opportunity
+20 GLOBAL SETTLER INCREASE: A good growth increase. This growth is separate
from the 'settler chance' growth that a Colonist actively brings to a colony.
If the Colonist leaves a colony, settler increase remains to improve growth.
Tropical provinces are notorious for growing slowly due to penalties, though
I hear version 1.9 has improved upon this problem.
Viceroys
+20% GLOBAL TARIFFS: Once a Colonial Nation has formed, it will beging to pay
you a Tariff from their own income. Tariffs have been found to be extremely
low, and usually not worth the effort. For profits, it is advisable to avoid
creating a 5th colony in a colonial region, so that they remain under your
direct control. Colonial nations can still be a fun ally to help expand, and
their control of goods is still considered yours for purposes of trade and
production. Wars of independence are an exciting twist to look forward to,
so everyone will be trying out Colonial Nations anyway. But when you get an
event to raise tariffs, it's more beneficial to get the +10 monarch points
alternative. Higher tariffs are still fractions of a ducat, so unless you want
to speed up liberty desire, don't expect much from tariffs. Colonial Nations
are an ally at war, but since you don't control them in combat, they end up
losing battles more often than aiding you.
Free Colonies
+1 COLONISTS: More Colonists, more colonizing, more power. There aren't many
ways to gain colonists; most countries can only get 4 at most, with all the
ideas and policies focused on it.
Global Empire
+25% NAVAL FORCELIMITS MODIFIER: Naval Forcelimits are quite free to go over.
You can be over your naval limit for a penalty of just a few ducats. So, a
bonus to Naval Forcelimits only saves you a little money, that's all. Once
your empire becomes larger, and you decide to build more heavy ships, their
expensive maintenance makes naval forcelimits more significant, but you
should have enough money to fund excesses, not to mention higher force limits
from Trade Company provinces.
Bonus:
PERMANENT CASUS BELLI AGAINST PAGANS: Native Americans, certain Africans and
remote Siberian nations beware. Free declarations of war against enemies with
abysmal tech levels, and no diplomatic points cost for annexing their lands.
Your only real limitation is the Overexpansion meter and admin points supply
to core the conquered lands with. Be mindful that landlocked provinces without
a link to a cored province of yours cannot be cored. Sometimes your conquests
will be ceded to colonial nations you created in that region, leaving them to
core your conquests. But don't overburden them if they're already Overextended
and remember that they have the same problems coring landlocked provinces with
no connection to their lands (but sometimes it seems A.I. can core where you
couldn't). Occasionally, selling provinces back to natives is your only way
out of being stuck with uncorable lands.
Noteworthy Policies:
+ADMINISTRATIVE: +10 Colonial growth, +5% Colonist chance
+EXPANSION: +20 Colonial growth for faster colonization, allowing you to move
your Colonist to a new province sooner, confident that the old colony will
grow into a functional province quickly. Gamers with a fondness for math have
calculated that 200 settlers is the optimal time a colony can fend for itself.
Keep a regiment or three in the province permanently, and you avoid any damage
the colony would take from native uprisings, and also avoid progress delays.
Summary: Exploration ideas will define the course of your game. It helps if
you take it early, but A.I. is so illogical in its colonization, that arriving
late won't mean *all* the best lands are already taken. Plus, you will likely
reach the East Indies faster through deliberate range expansion. Even as a
central European nation with poor starting position in the colonial race, I
can't imagine not taking Exploration. It's a whole dimension of gameplay that
depends on this idea group. Once the world has largely been explored, and the
richest lands colonized, this idea tree may become suitable for "replacement":
Read the summary of Diplomatic ideas for details.
*----------*
| MARITIME |
*----------*
Seahawks
+1 YEARLY NAVY TRADITION: A great way to keep your Navy Tradition high.
Protecting Trade with light ships only helps so much, and you may even find
your tradition declining more during wartime if your ships are sheltered at
port, waiting out the war.
Merchant Marine
+10% LIGHT SHIP COMBAT ABILITY: This is a good boost to ship strength. When
you don't have the naval forces needed to dominate the seas, most of your
fleet will consist of light ships for Protecting Trade and Privateering. If
they do run into trouble, they stand a better chance of winning, or at least
retreating to a port. Light ships are abysmal at combat though, so don't rely
on them for any wartime battles. Rather, seek out enemy trade fleets without
leadership or heavy ship escorts for easy warscore gains. The "Go Home At War?"
toggle in the fleet screen is useful if you're fighting naval empires, but
remember that it also shelters your fleets when you're merely fighting a nation
that can't threaten your fleets, which lowers your trade income unnecessarily.
Micromanagement is not avoided by activating the shelter-at-port toggle, but
it's excellent for Privateers, because the Power Projection bonus remains even
when sheltering. For other trade fleets, I prefer to concentrate them at war,
so their numbers help naval combats. Just remember that light ships and
transports are a *LOT* weaker than heavy ships (and galleys in inland seas).
Sheltered Ports
+20% GLOBAL SHIP REPAIR: Not completely useless, but since the base is 10%
repair/month, this only raises repair rate to 12%/month. With the new Upgrade
option, modernized ships will be out and about faster. What makes this idea
much better, is in combination with the final Maritime bonus: Read below.
Grand Navy
+25% NAVAL FORCELIMITS MODIFIER: Naval Forcelimits are quite free to go over.
You can be over your naval limit for a penalty of just a few ducats. So, a
bonus to Naval Forcelimits only saves you a little money, that's all. By the
time you have a heavy ship fleet that would be expensive over forcelimits,
you'll also have enough income and forcelimits for it not to be an issue.
Ship's Penny
-10% SHIP COSTS: This will save you a bit of money every time you build new
ships, and every time you Upgrade them.
Excellent Shipwrights
+2 NAVAL LEADER MANEUVER: High maneuver makes leaders faster, which is very
important for Explorers. Maneuver also benefits naval positioning during
combat, giving you an edge similar to defending in mountains, but not dependent
on being the combat defender. Since maneuver counteracts the slowness of heavy
ships, it may even be more important than fire and shock bonuses. High maneuver
leaders also improve Protect Trade boosting, and I believe they even increase
blockade efficiency.
Naval Fighting Instruction
+50% BLOCKADE EFFICIENCY: Speak of the devil. If you have naval superiority,
your light ships (blockade is mostly determined by maneuver, making light
ships the most effective) can fan out and surround a defeated enemy's
coastline for a handful of quick, easy warscore when you sue for peace.
Bonus:
SHIPS CAN REPAIR IN COASTAL SEA ZONES: This makes it unnecessary for your
fleets to dock for repairs; as long as your light ships are within supply
range, they will be repaired. This likely improves trade boosting, as your
fleets are never out of their patrols.
Noteworthy Policies:
+INNOVATIVE: +1 Naval leader Maneuver, +10% Heavy ship combat ability; a
decent surrogate for choosing Naval ideas.
Summary: After so many interesting Maritime ideas, at the end of the day it
remains most vital that your armies are competitive. Ships can shelter at port
while armies defeat the enemy. Without land superiority, naval superiority
reaches its limits. The only country I'd even consider this idea group for is
England, as it can successfully defend its homeland with a navy, as well as
assert dominance in the colonial game. All other countries have dangerous
land borders to defend. Portugal can give it a try too, but Spain might
punish it for neglecting its army. If you want to dominate the seas during
war, Naval ideas offers better combat bonuses than Maritime, but you might be
better off just trying to dominate without either idea trees.
*-----------*
| INFLUENCE |
*-----------*
Tribute System
+25% INCOME FROM VASSALS: Vassal income is broken, determined by the vassal
not the suzerain. This bonus is not applied at all. A bug.
Claim Fabrication
-33% TIME TO FABRICATE CLAIMS: Faster fabrication reduces risk of discovery.
It can also allow you to fabricate a series of claims on an enemy's provinces
more quickly.
Integrated Elites
-25% DIPLOMATIC ANNEXATION COST: This can save you a lot of diplomatic monarch
points. Useful if you have many vassals you intend to integrate.
State Propaganda
-20% AGGRESSIVE EXPANSION IMPACT: Coalitions are a serious risk after a war
with lots of territorial gains. Only the strongest of nations can survive a
large coalition, and defeat is a likely possibility. Reducing Aggressive
Expansion can mean the difference between defeat against a massive coalition,
or facing a small coalition that never decides to attack you. A clever strategy
to divide and conquer coalitions, is to attack them when there are just a small
number of nations on board (and you expect others will join soon), because it's
not easy for an outraged nation to join a coalition that is already at war with
you. You can sue the small coalition for peace, disbanding it. Other nations
may form a new coalition straight away, but the old coalition members can't
join until their truce with you has expired.
Diplomatic Influence
+2 DIPLOMATIC REPUTATION: As explained in the Diplomacy idea group, Reputation
is most vital when you intend to diplomatically annex vassals. It also gives a
very minor relations bonus, which very rarely makes it possible to achieve the
+190 relation to suggest vassalization
Postal Service
+1 DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS
-25% ENVOY TRAVEL TIME: An extra diplomatic relation slot is always useful to
have. Envoy travel time should also not be underestimated, as diplomats take
months to return from a task in East Asia. Colonists and Merchants are also
Envoys, so their travel times are also reduced. It's a flaw in the game that
technological advancement doesn't speed up envoy travel time, so this idea
will be of great significance.
Marcher Lords
+50% SUBJECT FORCELIMITS CONTRIBUTION: This can be significant if your vassals
have good manpower. Even more so if you maintain large vassals or Marches.
Colonial Nations are also subjects, though I'm unsure whether they contribute
to your forcelimits or just field independent armies. A.I. armies are hard to
rely on: Even though you can set enemy provinces as their objective, many other
events supercede the A.I.'s priorities over sieging what you want them to.
Bonus:
-50% UNJUSTIFIED DEMANDS: Each declaration of war has a different casus belli,
and some of those casus bellis do not include certain wargoals. If you demand
something other than the wargoal of the casus belli, it is considered an
unjustified demand. These cost diplomatic points in the negotiation. With this
bonus, the points cost is cut in half. Demanding a province in a trade dispute
casus belli will cost 25 diplo points instead of 50, for example.
Noteworthy Policies:
+RELIGIOUS: -20% Culture conversion cost; for when you have excess Diplo power
and want to put it to good use. Total cost reduction 45% with full Religious
ideas.
+ADMINISTRATIVE: -20% Diplomatic annexation cost; makes for 45% cheaper power
cost along with basic Influence ideas. If it saves you at least 120 points,
it's worth the 10 years you have to keep the policy active.
+OFFENSIVE: +50% Land Forcelimits; the highest Force limit bonus of any policy
in the game. Definitely worth keeping in mind.
Summary: Influence idea group seems to be tailored for powerful nations like
Austria and France, which often have a lot of vassals and European conflicts.
This is one of those groups that constantly gets trumped by others, until it
may be too late to reap benefits from it anymore: When your cultural homeland
has largely been captured, the focus turns outwards to colonialism and trade.
Nevertheless, once you become very powerful, interests in its advantages may
re-ignite, as it makes both war and peaceful annexation easier.
*-------------------------*
| *---------------------* |
| | MILITARY TYPE IDEAS | |
| *---------------------* |
*-------------------------*
Military Monarch points are the most freely available points, since the things
they can be spent on are often not vital for a nation's development. You can
avoid spending Military points if you are careful. Military points are needed
for seizing or burning colonies, harsh treatment of rebels, assaulting forts
or Sortie garrisons to attack a siege army, eradicating natives, scorching the
earth, raising War Taxes, Forced March (Offensive ideas ability), recruiting a
General/Conquistador, going over your leader allowance (having too many army &
navy leaders), and for constructing Military buildings and Forts. As you can
see, it's easy to save up a surplus of Military points without hurting your
nation's development much. Raising manpower and Force limits is important, but
building Forts can often be neglected as long as you maintain your armies and
win your battles quickly enough. A useful strategy could be to use surplus
points to learn a Military technology earlier than a target nation (if you are
ahead of time, the tech cost penalty can be accepted to gain early advantage),
especially one with a new type of infantry unit, so you can win a war easily.
Most Military idea groups offers mostly military benefits, with few bonuses to
help develop your nation. If your developmental needs are not dire, Military
ideas are the most convenient avenue to invest points in.
*--------------*
| ARISTOCRATIC |
*--------------*
{ Only available to Monarchies, Theocracies, Noble Republics & The Papacy. }
Noble Knights
-15% CAVALRY COST
+10% CAVALRY COMBAT ABILITY: I found that cavalry isn't the best part of the
army, but having just some present to fill up flanking corners does help a bit.
I had a lot of success with my 11/2/7 ratio of infantry, cavalry & artillery.
In practice, maintaining more cavalry than artillery during the early game is
better, but I was wowed by artillery's ability to fight from the rear line, so
I got enough artillery to cover most of the rear as soon as I can afford it,
and play like this mostly. 20,000 is also the maximum stack for suppressing
rebels in a province. Since patch 1.9, low maintenance also lowers an army
stack's rebel suppression ability. I somewhat disagree with the decision.
Local Nobility
+100% HOSTILE CORE-CREATION ON US
+10% INCOME FROM VASSALS: As mentioned, vassal income bonuses don't work due to
a bug. Hostile core creation will make enemy gains hard to core, if you lose
land to them. Losing lands is an undesirable prospect, but high coring cost may
serve to deter the A.I. from trying to expand into your lands. Enemy nations
with this modifier attached to their provinces are costly to expand into, and
are hated by many players. Poland is a common culprit.
Serfdom
+25% NATIONAL MANPOWER MODIFIER: Although less helpful than forcelimits,
manpower increases your country's endurance for long, protracted wars with many
casualties. Manpower is considered to be a country's most finite resource. Once
it's depleted, the end is near. Unless you can afford costly mercenaries.
Noble Officers
+1 LAND LEADER SHOCK: The Shock phase is the most important phase in the early
game; later on Fire becomes more relevant.
International Nobility
+1 DIPLOMATS: Always nice to have an extra diplomat, if only to improve
relations with neighbours.
Noble Resilience
-20% COST OF REDUCING WAR EXHAUSTION: If you feel the need to spend power on
reducing WE rather than let it dissipate in peacetime, then you are getting
involved in too many long wars with high casualties. But it may be necessary,
and considering WE reduction costs the same diplo points needed to get a good
peace deal, you may be thankful for having this discount.
Military Traditions
-10% MILITARY TECHNOLOGY COST: Saves you up to 1800 Military Points, depending
on how many techs you've researched already. Learning 5 Military type ideas
will do the same, so this is no game changer.
Bonus:
+1 LEADER WITHOUT UPKEEP: If you get this bonus early, it can make a big
difference. After tech level 19, it's not so amazing as you'll have 4 leader
slots already.
Noteworthy Policies:
+ESPIONAGE: +20% Cavalry combat ability; most nation's armies function best
with just a few cavalry regiments, but nonetheless helpful for flanking.
For nations with cavalry bonuses, this policy may even be essential.
+MARITIME: -1% Naval tradition decay; one of few ways to reduce its decay.
Summary: Aristocratic ideas are a mix of good ideas, though nothing amazing
that really sets it above other idea groups. Learning these ideas early on
would probably be best, as cavalry, manpower, Shock, War Exhaustion and leaders
are very valuable early on. Its extra diplomat serves as a decent surrogate for
Diplomatic ideas if you don't want to choose that. Those who take Aristocratic
ideas early do not regret it, and feel no need to replace it. But if you don't
get it early on, there are much better options for any nation later.
*-------------*
| PLUTOCRATIC |
*-------------*
{ All countries without Aristocracy Ideas get Plutocracy Ideas instead. }
Tradition of Payment
+50% AVAILABLE MERCENARIES: It can he a useful fallback if you are able
to muster a mercenary army more quickly with a larger merc pool. Wealthy
nations should start recruiting mercenary infantry as soon as war starts,
even going over forcelimits. Also, don't consolidate mercenary regiments
unless you've pretty much won a war (consolidating regular forces can be
advantageous at times). Their regiments will keep increasing, reinforcing
numbers without reducing your manpower. So, you'll want to hold on to
mercenary regiments for most of a war, then disband them afterwards.
Abolished Serfdom
+10% MORALE OF ARMIES: For this Military idea group, this idea is the only
one that offers a direct combat benefit. Morale helps win battles.
Bill of Rights
-2 NATIONAL UNREST: Erm, I'd rather have a stronger military to beat back
rebellions than simple unrest reduction. But it's still widely helpful.
Free Merchants
+1 MERCHANTS: Merchants bring in profit, so this is better than reduced
maintenance costs in most cases.
Free Subjects
+10% GOODS PRODUCED NATIONALLY: As above, a great boost to profits, which may
indirectly help you gain production and even trade bonuses.
Free Cities
+20 MERCHANT STEERING TOWARDS INLAND: Inland trade nodes get a flat trade power
boost from merchant trade steering. More competitiveness and money in the bank.
I often find that Merchants are more useful inland due to inland trading
bonuses. And because there are no trade fleet bonuses to compete against, their
trade power becomes doubly effective.
Emancipation
+10% MANPOWER RECOVERY SPEED: As I understand it, this speeds up the manpower
you gain back every month. It doesn't reinforce regiments faster.
Bonus:
-5% TECHNOLOGY COST: Saves western tech nations up to 2700 monarch points
depending on how many techs still need researching. In comparison, every
idea you purchase grants 2% cheaper tech points cost of its type. -5% is
like having a 2nd university, but it isn't a colossal game changer.
Noteworthy Policies:
As useful as the assorted benefits of Plutocratic ideas are, their policies
aren't the kind of things I'd consider spending monthly Monarch points on.
Summary: Not all nations have access to Plutocratic ideas, but those that don't
may look upon the idea group with envy. The grass always seems greener in the
neighbours' yard; perhaps it's unwarranted. Although Military points are spent
on the ideas, many of them are financial benefits that increase a nation's
competitiveness. An interesting mixed bag of tricks I often find is unavailable
to the countries I play. Disappointment has been expressed by players who did
take Plutocratic ideas, stating they often wished they had picked another tree
instead. It may be a case of ideas being overhyped due to people's roleplaying
preferences, while its true in-game value is in fact lower than it seems.
*-----------*
| OFFENSIVE |
*-----------*
Bayonet Leaders
+1 LAND LEADER SHOCK: A great help early on, when Shock is the important fase.
National Conscripts
-10% RECRUITMENT TIME: A wasted idea. Rarely of any relevance, definitely not
worth a whole idea.
Superior Firepower
+1 LAND LEADER FIRE: Improved Fire Phase, as long as you have an army leader.
Glorious Arms
+100% PRESTIGE FROM LAND BATTLES: Useless in practice. A well fought war is a
fountain of Prestige that will fill your reservoir to the brim. There is not
much benefit from double gains.
Engineer Corps
+20% SIEGE ABILITY: A tremendously useful ability, even more so because it
doesn't require a leader. This allows you to effectively "blanket siege" your
enemy's lands after a decisive victory, to swiftly gain the warscore you need,
and improve Military Tradition while you're at it. Just remember not to start
"blanketing" until you're confident that all large enemy stacks can't reach
your 2,000-3,000 man detachments. If a large army does appear, it could
'stackwipe' such small armies, costing you troops and warscore.
Grand Army
+20% LAND FORCELIMITS MODIFIER: A significant help. Going over *land* force
limits is extremely expensive, so you are very much limited by Forcelimits.
More troops can mean the difference between being a great power, or a big
target for enemy expansion.
Napoleonic warfare
+5% DISCIPLINE: Discipline is a strange aspect of warfare, one that has
quadruple effectiveness compared to other things like morale. Raising your
discipline is a big deal, and apparrently the designers patched it to +2.5%
due to its quadriple effect, only to return to +5% when players complained
about the change in the patch.
Bonus:
CAN ISSUE FORCED MARCH ORDERS: Unit moves 50% faster but consumes 2 military
monarch power per province moved. No attrition impact: Many players speak very
highly of this ability, though I have my doubts due to the Monarch Points cost.
On occasion, I can chase a retreating army to their destination to destroy them
before they regain morale in a new month. Retreating and Forced Marching armies
have the same speed. It should be noted that morale is not regained monthly as
long as Forced March is active. I assume that large land empires like Russia
make good use of this, allowing reinforcements to come to the rescue on time.
It might also be useful if you're waging war with a nation that has Terra
Incognita. Land units only.
Noteworthy Policies:
+ECONOMIC: +20% Artillery combat ability; enormously helpful
+INFLUENCE: +50% Land Forcelimits; the highest Force limit bonus of any policy
in the game. Definitely worth keeping in mind.
Summary: Just as the label reads, Offensive ideas allow your army to strike
hard, fast and with superior numbers. It allows you to win sieges and battles
quickly and decisively. Probably all nations benefit from its ideas, and this
is usually the most popular military type idea tree. It's the only tree where
every single idea benefits your armies, and armies ultimately win wars.
*-----------*
| DEFENSIVE |
*-----------*
Battlefield Commissions
+1 YEARLY ARMY TRADITION: Compared to the -2% Tradition decay from Innovative
ideas, this +1 is more helpful at low Tradtiotion, while the Innovative -2%
decay helps preserve high Tradition better. Getting both bonuses would be even
better for Tradition, of course.
Military Drill
+15% MORALE OF ARMIES: A very significant boost to morale, improving an army's
performance.
Improved Maneuver
+1 LAND LEADER MANEUVER: Maneuver increases travel speed, and from a defensive
point of view, this can be more helpful than a pip in Shock or Fire.
Regimental System
-10% LAND MAINTENANCE MODIFIER: A limited, but not useless, cost reduction.
Defensive Mentality
+33% FORT DEFENSE: This will make your fort defenses better and able to
withstand sieges for longer, giving your armies the time they need to win. In
game terms, it makes the siege phases longer.
Supply Trains
+33% REINFORCE SPEED: Regiments with casualties will be replenished with new
troops faster. This makes a difference when facing multiple engagements, just
keep in mind that reinforcements also cost money, so you'll be paying more in
the short term. It's money you'd have to pay eventually, to get a regiment to
full strength. This can be a great advantage, as I found the Quartermaster
advisor a real difference-maker in war. Even if you run out of manpower, it
will continue to keep your mercenaries reinforced fster.
Improved Foraging
-25% LAND ATTRITION: You'll have an easier time traversing enemy lands, and
enemies can't hope to slowly whittle down your numbers by attrition anymore.
Nevertheless be careful how you move your troops. I often keep a large main
force divided in 2-4 adjacent provinces, moving in tandem to avoid attrition.
When it's time to engage the enemy's main force, the good news is that during
combat, attrition is not applied. So, you can move everything into battle if
it will help. It can sometimes be more helpful to let reinforcements in arrive
later for mountain/hill/forest battles, because although reinforcements can't
fight in the narrow battlefield, their morale boosts those fighting. But once
combat is over, spread out your large army again.
Bonus:
+1 ATTRITION FOR ENEMIES: Enemies will suffer the opposite of above. Attacking
your lands will burn away their manpower faster, allowing you to outlast them.
Noteworthy Policies:
+HUMANIST: ?25% Land attrition, +5% Recover army morale speed. This along with
basic Defensive ideas will literally halve your attrition losses. I prefer to
move carefully, but if an A.I. enemy has this policy active, it won't waste
nearly as much manpower as you'd like it to.
Summary: Defensive ideas is not the fast track to victory, but victories can
be more fulfilling in the end, as you outwit and outlast opponents. Defensive
ideas strengthen the defenses of your lands, your armies, and your long-term
military future. You can expect to outlast your enemy's manpower with a full
Defensive idea group. This is most people's 3rd or 4th choice of military
ideas, meaning that most players usually prioritize other trees. When facing a
fully defensive enemy in battle, however, keep in mind that sieging their
lands will cost twice the monthly attrition losses to manpower and a lot more
time. A wise strategy is to siege non-Defensive enemies first, and leave their
Defensive allies for last, preferably only sieging those of their provinces
you absolutely have to, such as wargoals and capitals.
*---------*
| QUALITY |
*---------*
Private to Marshal
+10% INFANTRY COMBAT ABILITY: Infantry are the backbone of western forces, and
only increase in relevance as guns are introduced. This first idea gives your
army a tremendous boost already.
Quality Education
+5% RECOVER ARMY MORALE SPEED: Morale recovery is important, and it can take
months to recover an army from a defeat or close victory. The faster an army
is ready to fend off another assault, the better. Low morale armies are easily
destroyed, but sometimes a retreating army has already partly recovered when
reaching its destination.
Finest of Horses
+10% CAVALRY COMBAT ABILITY: Less important than infantry, but useful
nonetheless.
Corvettes
+10% MORALE OF NAVIES: Quality ideas now move to the navy, with a nice +10%
morale that could be enough to stand your ground against England's naval
superiority. Or maybe not.
Naval Drill
+5% RECOVER NAVY MORALE SPEED: As with army morale recovery, very helpful for
regaining fighting ability after a defeat or close victory.
Copper Bottoms
-25% NAVAL ATTRITION: This helps explorers, and navies patrolling remote trade
nodes. And even fleets transporting troops over long ocean stretches.
Massed Battery
+10% ARTILLERY COMBAT ABILITY: The last of the army trinity, the Artillery get
a 10% combat boost. Another great idea.
Bonus:
+5% DISCIPLINE: An excellent Discipline bonus to top off the Quality tree,
effective in many aspects of combat. Late game, Discipline is the most deciding
factor in battles, though terrain, tactics and morale aren't irrelevant either.
Noteworthy Policies:
+RELIGIOUS: +2.5% Discipline, +10% Morale of armies
+EXPANSION: +1 Land leader Fire, +0.5 Land military tradition; one of few ways
to keep your tradition high during peacetime.
+INNOVATIVE: +20% Infantry combat ability will make your armies *invincible*.
Summary: Quality idea group focuses a little more on land combat than naval,
which makes it a perfect balance to augment your strength where you need it
most. Straightforward, to the point, and giving great military advantages.
Quality idea group can make the difference between having an army that should
focus on colonial conquest with weaker nations, or also being able to reliably
defeat European military powers such as Austria, Prussia and France without
needing to be numerically superior or take massive casualties. Due to the
relative importance of combat bonuses later in the game, and their comparative
weakness early on, this idea tree is most efficient taken late in game, while
learning it early might be disappointing, and a wasted opportunity for more
urgent early-game ideas. I suggest taking it as your 6th-8th idea group.
*----------*
| QUANTITY |
*----------*
Levee en Masse
+50% NATIONAL MANPOWER MODIFIER: Many people focus too much on Force limits,
assuming that this manpower advantage is irrelevant without a higher Force
limit to benefit from it. It's true that your Forcelimits are key in defining
the power of your armies. But, this added manpower helps the army become more
durable, able to stand their ground against a powerful foe for longer, and in
a lengthy war of attrition, outlast the enemy's manpower, securing victory.
The Young can Serve
+20% MANPOWER RECOVERY SPEED: Similar to the previous bonus, recovery speed
will reduce the time needed to recover from an exhaustive war. Most nations
require 10-15 years to fully replenish their lost manpower from zero to the
maximum capacity; this boost will shave a few years off that time. A careful
player should be able to avoid exhaustive 'total' wars with good diplomacy and
by picking easier battles to fight. With these 2 ideas, you should never have
need for mercenaries ever again.
Enforced Service
-10% REGIMENT COST: A helpful cost reduction for recruiting regular regiments.
It also reduces costs for hiring mercenaries, since that is calculated using
recruitment cost as base. More relevant is the lower cost of reinforcing
regiments that took losses, since that also uses the base regiment cost. An
exhausted regiment with 0 soldiers in it will cost half the price of a new
regiment to eventually replenish to 1000. Consolidating regiments, and
recruiting new ones can be seen as a faster way to gain more standing soldiers,
at a higher price. This is often a worthwhile trade-off during wartime, though
remember that new regiments still need a safe place to recruit and gain morale.
The Old and Infirm
-10% LAND MAINTENANCE MODIFIER: Maintenance can be a significant expense for
large armies of countries with a weak economy. Especially for countries that
use a lot of cavalry, such as Poland, Lithuania, steppe hordes and nomads.
National Arsenal
+25% NAVAL FORCELIMITS MODIFIER: Naval Force limits aren't that relevant, since
the penalty for being over limits is quite low (unless you have a lot of heavy
ships). Many countries might be able to reap more profit from Protecting Trade
with light ships that are over force limits, than they will pay in penalties.
Nevertheless, if you want to be a naval power and build lots of heavy ships,
Force limits are important. Later, western nations with lots of coastal Trade
Company provinces will have such a large naval Force limit, that they would be
paying more for naval maintenance than for land maintenance, if they make full
use of their naval Force limit. This remains true even after getting a larger
land Force limit from full Quantity ideas.
Forced Labor
-20% BUILDING POWER COST: This bonus is better for large sprawling empires than
it is for small nations. With a strong economy, the Monarch Points cost of
building improvements will be more important than their cost in ducats, giving
you more freedom to improve your technology & ideas, as well as your provinces.
I build many improvements in distant overseas colonies, despite the 75% penalty
to Autonomy. Trade power, production efficiency, tax and manpower are all hurt
by high Autonomy, but it is still possible to gain benefits from building
improvements, since the penalties are *additive*, not multiplicative. Many tax
and production buildings will yield just as much benefit as those buildings do
in your homeland. If your overseas colonies form a Colonial Nation, you will
gain a stronger subject, and you won't lose control over production or trade
for the purpose of gaining bonuses. Tariffs remain insignificant, though.
Expanded Supply Trains
-10% LAND ATTRITION: Since you will be swimming in manpower, reduced land
attrition is a minimal advantage. The only exception being large armies on
(enemy) provinces that cause high attrition; this idea reduces your monthly
losses traveling there, helping to keep your army large during wars. When
carpet sieging, the benefit can also become significant.
Bonus:
+50% LAND FORCELIMITS MODIFIER: Widely considered to be the best aspect of the
Quantity idea group, it can allow you to maintain far larger standing armies,
skyrocketing your land warfare potential. The only countries that should be
careful with this ability are nations with large cavalries. Steppe hordes may
find that too much cavalry forces will exceed their economic capacity to pay
maintenance, and wartime casualty reinforcements.
Noteworthy Policies:
+ECONOMIC: +33% Forcelimits
+HUMANIST: +1 Land leader Shock, +0.5 Land military tradition; one of few ways
to stem tradition decline during peacetime.
+EXPANSION: +1 Settler, +10 Colonial growth; the only policy that grants an
extra Settler/Colonist, arguably *the best* policy in the game.
Summary: Although the Quantity idea tree offers largely land forces benefits,
its 6th idea has a potential to increase a large nation's capacity to improve
itself greatly. No other idea group has such an ability, and together with the
excellent policies that Quantity offers, this idea group becomes a must-have
for every expanding nation. It should be noted that Quantity ideas fail to
improve the fighting ability of armies or navies; just raising their numbers.
However, this compliments the early game excellently, when numbers are far more
crucial to success in war than any bonuses. This effect is further compounded
by a player's ability to better avoid attrition losses, and just wait out enemy
A.I.'s stupid, high-attrition movements. It's only later on that better quality
troops/leaders can make troop numbers irrelevant. So, you should probably take
Quantity ideas somewhat early, but augment your military later on with another
idea tree as well, such as Quality, Offensive and/or Defensive. Ironically,
because Forced Labour makes it easier to invest in province infrastructure, it
indirectly improves the QUALITY of your country as a result.
*-------*
| NAVAL |
*-------*
Boarding Parties
+1 NAVAL LEADER SHOCK: The 2st Naval idea improves the most important combat
phase in the early game. Unfortunately, you need a leader to get the bonus,
so it won't apply to every naval interception, but it should help you win
engagements with your main navy, *if* you're willing to recruit an admiral.
If you don't want to use a leader slot on an admiral, you probably don't value
naval superiority highly enough to choose Naval ideas anyway.
Improved Rams
+10% GALLEY COMBAT ABILITY: A situational benefit that will only help nations
that focus their navy in inland seas (Mediterranean, the Scandinavian waters,
Japan), since Galleys aren't competitive enough in regular seas without their
combat bonus. This wasted ideas makes the group a bit less attractive for
England and other western European colonial powers, but perhaps of more value
for Mediterranean countries like Turkey, Venice and Genoa.
Naval Cadets
+1 NAVAL LEADER FIRE: Fire phase becomes more important later in the game, as
it does in land combat.
Naval Glory
+100% PRESTIGE FROM NAVAL BATTLES: Like its counterpart idea in the Offensive
tree, Prestige is already very easy to gain from successes in war. Doubling
the speed at which you max out your Prestige from war isn't that helpful.
Press Gangs
-10% NAVAL MAINTENANCE MODIFIER: Only heavy ships are expensive enough to
make the reduced maintenance worthwhile. But since naval powers will be
choosing this idea group, it's probably a decent bonus for nations that choose
Naval ideas.
Oak Forests for Ships
+10% HEAVY SHIP COMBAT ABILITY: This is probably the best advantage for the
oceangoing naval powers, helping to secure dominance of the high seas, and
for island nations like England it helps defend their homeland too.
Superior Seamanship
+10% MORALE OF NAVIES: Finally, a good combat bonus that helps ALL your ships.
Bonus:
+10% SHIP DURABILITY: This might not help you *win* battles per se, but with
more 'hit points', your ships are more likely to survive lengthy engagements,
and if defeated, your navy will have a better chance to retreat and repair
at a dock, rather than being completely lost. I don't believe it reduces
attrition, since that is handled by percentages.
Noteworthy Policies:
+DIPLOMATIC: +20% Relationship improvement over time, -25% Envoy travel time
(Colonists are envoys too)
Summary: It may be possible to be a naval power without having to invest in
Naval ideas, and other interesting idea groups make it very tempting to take
that risk, even for a nation that relies on its navy, like England. If you
are playing Venice, think carefully before neglecting Naval ideas; Turkey will
have a strong navy too, and you must be able to defeat their navy to keep your
island realm safe, and expand. For all other nations it's better to just play
around your disadvantage until you're on top of it. I feel Naval & Maritime
ideas need something grander to increase their appeal, like a coastal siege
bonus without blockading, faster ship movement, or faster amphibious landings.
*--------------------------------*
| *----------------------------* |
| | THE FINAL EIGHT (PLUS TWO) | |
| *----------------------------* |
*--------------------------------*
These are the 8 idea groups which I found to offer the best advantages for
any western nation of decent enough size. Some exceptions exist, like a focus
on Maritime or Naval ideas for a naval power like Venice or England. I merely
offer my optimal mix-'n-match for your perusal; it is in no way definitive.
Listed by order of chronology, first to last, but situation dependent:
[1] * Diplomatic *
Gain allies for protection, vassals for peaceful expansion, and improve your
relations passively with this ideas tree. For most mid-to-large nations, this
idea group helps enhance relations and long-term prospects. It's usually best
to take this group early. If you think you can manage diplomacy without it,
this would be the idea group most easily replaced by another. When playing
France, I considered abandoning my completed Diplomatic group in favour of
Defensive ideas. At the time, my France was dominating worldwide trade, and
beating back coalitions that included half of Europe. Great diplomacy served
little purpose by then, and other idea groups were more appealing. Abandoning
an idea group returns 10% of its points cost; just 280 for a completed tree.
[2] * Exploration *
Most beneficial for Western European colonial powers, the earlier you take
Exploration, the greater your advantage is. I've personally taken this tree
as 4th idea group, and I was still able to reach the East Indies long before
any other power showed up: You just need to take Sinai from Mamluks/Ottomans.
Once most of the world has been colonized and explored, Exploration might be
another idea group you'd consider replacing with another... if you can bear
the thought of colonizing what's left over more slowly.
[3] * Quantity *
In practice, completing the Quantity idea group allows you to manage building
construction with less Monarch points, gain another precious Settler with a
policy, and balloon your standing armies to "major power" levels.
[4] * Expansion *
Arguably the best idea group in the game, with attractive allround bonuses and
good policies to boot.
[5] * Offensive *
If your nation, with or without allies, has the prospect of winning wars
(would you play a nation that doesn't?), Offensive ideas will help your
military a great deal.
[6] * Influence *
The best time to take Influence ideas group, is when you are getting involved
in a lot of wars and/or treaties, and feel the need to gain relationship
bonuses for diplomatic annexation, good peace negotiations, or simply to
maintain quiet borders during a time of European wars. This time may come
sooner or later for your nation, and you should choose this idea tree at that
time. Unified Army Command policy can elevate a nation to global superpower,
but it may not be vital when you already receive +70% Force limits from
Offensive and Quality idea groups.
[7] * Quality *
Despite 2 previous Military idea groups, the strength of your forces may still
be inferior to those of dangerous nations such as France, Austria and Prussia.
With this idea group, your armies will be able to stand their ground against
any foe, and your navies can challenge the superiority of naval powers.
[8] * Innovative *
A very useful mixture of bonuses to your nation, concluded with probably the
best military policy in the game. Innovative ideas secures your dominance.
* Replacement Idea Groups *
Since I now describe the concept of removing ideas that have outlived their
usefulness to your country, it opens up the option of picking new idea groups
in their place. In this regard, I wish to mention two further useful idea trees
that are popular among other players, essentially "written in" due to popular
demand. Remember that you can replace old ideas whenever you feel your nation
has enough monarch points to learn new ideas:
[1A] * Administrative *
A favourite among aggressive players. Definitely a good replacement if you've
exceeded your Aggressive Expansion, and decided to literally give up on
diplomacy, including Diplomatic ideas.
[2A] * Religious *
** The Five Best Policies (+3) **
- The Colonial Settlement Act (Expansion+Quantity): +1 Settler, +10 Colonial
growth
- Modern Firearm Techniques (Innovative+Quality): +20% Infantry combat ability
- Unified Army Command (Offensive+Influence): +50% Forcelimits
- The Mining Act (Quality+Expansion): +1 Land leader Fire, +0.5 Military
Tradition
- Colonial Expansion (Expansion+Exploration): +20 Colonial growth
If you do remove Exploration ideas and decide to replace it with Religious or
Administrative as per my suggestion, consider one of the following policies as
replacement for the lost Colonial Expansion:
- Vassal Integration Act (Administrative+Influence): -20% Diplomatic annexation
cost
- Cultural Unity (Religious+Influence): -20% Culture conversion cost
- The Military Zeal Act (Religious+Quality): +2.5% Discipline, +10% Morale of
armies
These will not always serve you equally well during your whole gameplay, but
remember that Policies can be deactivated after 10 years if, for example, all
the best colony sites have been occupied and colonizing can be de-emphasized.
The beauty of the military policies, is that you can activate them at the
beginning of a war campaign, and deactivate again 10 years later. You may even
opt for one of the many financially profitable policies which I didn't really
consider noteworthy. Just remember that you only have 5 possible policy slots,
and once activated they cannot be removed for 10 years. Always weigh the total
benefits you stand to gain from policies with the costs (120 points/10 years).
You wouldn't be the only player to completely ignore policies due to the costs.
*------------------*
| ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS |
*------------------*
Many thanks to the board members on GameFAQs who offered opinions and advice
to help me on my way. Although the paradox forum is more active, I was unable
to log in to it, possibly because I'm located in China.
Special mentions for Wozarion and DarkScythe0 for offering direct feedback;
their gameplay knowledge & experience helped me update my views.
A big thank you to the EU4wiki website, which has been an invaluable resource
and reference for game details, greatly enhancing my gameplay experience.
*--------------*
| VERSION INFO |
*--------------*
Version 1.0 Initial release
V 1.1 Updated many opinions after feedback, and removed a few errors.
