Great List! A very unpopular combo I like using as a opener is actually Trade+Economic+Quality. This gives you 3 great polices that in total give you +25 Trade Eff, 10 Prod Eff and 5% Discipline. Although i agree Economic is not a good idea group the bonus that gives you +1 Developments from building Manufactories is quite good and can be combined with States Houses and Expand Infrastructure to get it multiple times on the same Province. It's a surprisingly good combination to play Tall. I do of course later in the game Replace Trade+Eco with Influence/Diplo+Admin, because you reach a point where money is just not an issue anymore. But in the Early game where money can be a limiting resource they are really useful Idea Groups.
In Eu4: Religious, admin, influence, quantity (because I need to expand) Reality: Humanist, Innovative, diplomatic, philosopher (plutocracy, divine and Aristocracy) Because they are good
Anytime I see these discussions on tier lists I think it is better to group the assessments into different groups: 1) WC/Blob, 2) Single Player/Casual/Roleplaying, 3) MP. I see merits from both lists here but each one are approaching the topic from two different end goals. In a WC/Blob game, Religious, Diplo, Admin, Humanist are S tier. In a SP/Casual game or MP game, I would rank all 3 at lower levels (B tier or lower for almost all of those cases). In a SP/Casual game, then other idea groups have higher priority. A recent example of changes in idea groups is Byzantium. Pre 1.36, I would argue that Religious is mandatory. With the changes to their national ideas and mission tree I have favored swapping in an earlier Admin (super cheap coring with perm claims, CCR in National Ideas and Admin Ideas for a total of -75%, not too mention an additional Prenoria) or Infrastructure group instead for a tall game play. The region you play in also can play a big factor in idea selection. As Chewy pointed out, Religious in the HRE is basically useless until the reformation spawns. At that point it still may or may not be useful to you. Whereas as Orthodox, Coptic, Shia, or another minority religion surrounded by heathens/heretics early game, Religious is soooo useful for growth, and stability. Another example could be if I'm playing in Persia, Trade ideas can be really useful as a 2nd or 3rd pick (SP, MP or blobbing) to rake in tons of $$$ and deny players further downstream the riches of the silk road. On some recent games I have been messing around with Court ideas to find ways to use them. I have found some success with nations like France, Poland, or Sweden as some of the policies when paired with Admin, Offensive, Quality, Infrastructure (even Defensive) are quite nice. The fact that Chewy and Playmaker put Indigenous ideas as D tier I find hilarious as they are probably the strongest all rounder military idea group (-20% province warscore cost, 10% morale, -10% idea cost, 15% manpower, 25% reform progress and +1 attrition). for pretty much any of my 3 play styles and have some very solid policies to boot. Martime is another funny one as it can be (arguably better) substitute for Exploration for Castile, Portugal, or England in a SP game. Is it ideal? Not necessarily, but it can be fun and a nice way to mix up the game. Lastly, one thing that is less of an impact that was not touched upon but still can play a part in the decision making are the events for each of the idea groups. As an example Religious has amazing events, whereas Innovative is bad to meh at best. My top 4 idea groups for playstyles above would be (in no particular order): Espionage, Quality, Innovative, Infrastructure. I find most youtubers tend to focus on the blobbing/min-max which in my opinion gets very boring, especially in the mid to late game. Finding any replay of a game where the timeline reaches 1550-1600 is rare and for any replay or guide to push into the age of revolutions is almost unicorn level of rareness. At the end of the day, you pick what you like/need and just enjoy the game you are playing.
I know this is really old now, but Habibi just did a tier list update that breaks it up into three separate tier lists just like you were suggesting. Was pretty interesting.
I choose idea groups based off of the situation and what I’m aiming for. I’m more situational and going for achievements. I’m generally going to choose something similar to Inno, Economic, Quality/Quant/Offensive as my openers unless I’m an early colonizer. At some point in every game, I’ll have Trade though because its generally worth it to get that money that way. I’m not aiming for world conquests though so Playmaker’s ideas might work for him but I think his focus is narrower in regards to good vs bad ideas as his situation requires more “wider” focus than reaching different targets. I do know that he has tried Inno as Brandenburg though I don’t know his result thus far. Lol
Espionage is underrated because spy networks are underrated. Tech cost reduction, siege ability, aggressive expansion, are the passive bonuses for a big spy network. Not to mention all the things you can actively do with them (make claims, steal maps, hurt an enemy's trade, lift fog of war).
Generally agree with your ranking as you have a similar playstyle to me. Loved the discussion - very civil and definitely could see both points of view. It very much comes down to playstyle and personal preferences.
Thank you for your video. I can not only learn the best EU4 ideas in 1.35, but also practice my English listening through your clear speaking. Your pronunciation is one of the best and most friendly for foreigners in EU4 videos. You speak fast but each word sounds very clear, which helps a lot in my Eu4 and English learning. Thank you very much. 🙂
Espio is definitely favored by a lot of single player people but in terms of publicity it has been hanging around A on tier lists rarely on B, it even has decent usage in mp for reasons like you said, Poland OP cav in vanilla
Espionage, Aristocratic and Religious is a fantastic start for muscovy, especially if you choose the bonus instead of permanent claims at the beginning of the game, you can claim every province for a cost of 8 to your spy network with no increasing cost.😅
@@jarvee9407claims reduce the warscore cost and coring cost of provinces in addition to giving a casus belli. Making you able to expand faster and safer. Religious mainly for the role play, I believe there's a good reason for it as well, but I can't remember it off the top of my head.
9:00 the sunset invasion mission that all new world nations have allows you to change your tech group to high american. In the early to mid game, that tech group is extremely op. It is more that double the power of the anatolian tech group. Watch the video by *the student* on the topic
I agree pretty strongly with your list. I like admin a little more, but it’s fair to say it’s somewhat situational. I had written off espionage a long time ago, but took a hard look at it a few days ago. It didn’t fit my current game, but I was really surprised by how much it had been buffed and I would definitely use it in a future game.
Yeah, Espionage has gone from useless (pre-Dharma), to "mandatory" because of state limits and corruption (Dharma to Emperor), to mostly useless (Emperor to Origins), to situationally good (Origins to LotN), to borderline mandatory with a lot of AI nations taking it, as well as the focus on sieging. The thing is though is that Espionage always had a good idea or two for a while. No amount of buffing is going to make the average non-pirate/non-RP SP guy pick Naval or Maritime and those have been buffed to no tomorrow.
Use espionage with inno and offensive and you will get massive seige speed and broken advisor cost, you can run +5 advisors as soon as you get inno espionage finished
Playing in Europe espionage is my number 1 pick every game just for the -20 ae impact getting around coalitions is so good. Pack that with good things for eco with the advisor cost coruption root out and some insane combines like with eco for aditional advisor cost and coruption root out with the policy your printing money by taking coruption instead of loans and get nearly half cost advisors
One thing I like to do sometimes is take the 'very situational' idea groups, and the ones that pair up well together (like naval / maritime) and create a custom nation to dial that effect up to 11. My current one, with a points modifier mod, is; "This is not the greatest infantry in the world, no. This is just a tribute!"
For exploration, it got shafted pretty hard after domination, because you can just take expansion as your first group and gan give one of the estates, i forget which, I think its the burghers, a privilege to allow a descision to recruit an explorer. When I took it I would usually get rid of it once there wasn't any more land to settle and now you don't even need to take it in the first place.
Love the video. I’m an out of the loop ex vet EU4 player and I wanted a run down of what’s relevant now due to patch changes and the new idea groups. The discussion element was really nice too because it made it very obvious what play style and strategy went with each tier list. My style being more your style of snowball with mana and dev.
Love the list! Based Inno in S tier, waiting to see the Zlewikk reaction lol Would probably bump Admin up to A tier too. The gov cap is nice (seeing as I'm always over gov cap), but the CCR reducing the coring time means you can take land so aggresively Indigenous ideas easy S tier, I get it's only on native tribes, but the idea set itself + the policies are nuts Otherwise generally agree with your list, enjoyed the discussion afterwards too - interesting to see the difference in perspectives and playstyles
My alltime favorite is and always was quality. Good infantry, good artillery, 10%discipline with economic and even on its own its perfect for my very aggressive and battle focused playstyle. And like i said economic is just as nice because of the discipline in combination with quality and also my love to make my country rich. Those two ideas always result in me having an economy not able to be rivaled by my friends with whom i play veeeeeeery often.
7:43 There is another way for any nation to get a guaranteed siege pip, the Innovative-Offensive policy. This can make your sieges go very quickly, especially if your national ideas give you leader siege as well.
So, Oda, Ino-aristo-ofensive-defensive (for the manuver guarantee) staks the maximum you can guarantee os pips for a general being 2-2-1-3 (pretty good)
7:45 there is also the Innovative-Offensive policy which gives guaranteed +1 Siege Pip for Generals and +10% Siege Ability, and that’s on top of +20% Siege Ability from plain Offensive ideas
Enjoying the logic and how you @chewbert examine the benefits of both changes and new ideas groups. Certainly agree with many, such as Innovative ideas early on, though the contrary to a couple, such as development, I do see the counter points (despite being a play style deference). These kind of videos say a ton about someone's play style from game to game, but also how someone would focus fire in life more times than not. I personally enjoy these videos and would love to see a 4 or 5 person play through with either RP elements or just a for fun play through. Keep it up!
I very much agree with most of your tier list. My only nitpick is espionage is S tier, when combined with innovative, and offensive, you get super fast siege ticks, extra diplomats with your policies. I find it really hard to talk myself out of opening with those three every game. Then for my fourth idea it comes to situational choice but it falls to diplomatic, influence, or admin a lot of the time based on need. From there it’s wide open. I basically always open with those three unless I’m in a very specific situation that calls for something else just because the amount of synergy they have with each other. Siege ability, advisor cost, extra diplomats, I love using the extra reasons to subjugate to peacefully pick up small countries around my border or countries that have a lot of reconquer able cores.
If you mix Espionage Ideas with Horde Ideas you get a policy which gives you a nice buff for cav combat & width if I remember clearly. It helps with whenever I try stacking as much cav combat as possible😎
+10% Combat Ability and +50% Flanking. Flanking in EU4 is funky, but it basically means your single unit deals damage to multiple units of the enemy, so overall you do more damage. It doesn't just affect the cavalry but all units, including artillery, so your arty does more overall damage thanks to it too.
@@edim108I think that you are wrong. You can hover over each unit to see whom they are attacking, and I have only ever seen Cav attacking more than one unit.
@@Alorand Artillery hit 3 units at a time with their attacks assuming equal combat width (and filled out). I don't think that counts as flanking, though; it's just how artillery attack.
I take inno + offensive first almost every single time just for the siege ability stuff, because it makes everything so insanely much easier, then almost always diplo after.
Very solid list and hard to argue with, even if my personal playstyle means I dislike some of the ideas that are in higher tiers compared to those in lower ones. I would only swap maritime and naval around. Most times, if you are naval focused nation, you will go with both anyways, but there have been times I skip maritime. If I have decent enough income, which naval nations usually do, I do not need reduced ship costs or more sailors, as you often have long coastline anyways. Naval on other hand boosts your admiral shock, fire, ship combat abilities, and basically is Offensive equivalent on seas. You absolutely need it to beat your naval superpower rivals, as they are certainly going to get that one.
19:30 I agree with you here. I would go further and say that people generally underestimate construction cost reductions. Stacking those, since they stack additively, massively improves a building's ROI, making it sometimes worthwhile to take additional loans just to build building and still have more money (for more military) down the road.
If you also take policies into account, Influence and Admin get a big bonus. Because together they re amazing for expanding by both annexing land and using Vassals and PUs. The Policy gives you another -15% diplo annexation cost on top of Influences -25%. If you stack that with the priviledge for nobles, the papal blessing, national ideas like Austrias and mission bonuses like from Provence, Spain, Sardinia-Piemont or Bohemia you ll absorb your Vassals and PUs in no time. Provence into Sardinia-Piemont into Austria for example can really go wild here.
quantity is also a diplomatic pick since AI think your forcelimit is important. meaning coalitions will form less vs you and they will like you more for having more men
7:47 if you get the policy from offensive and innovative you get a guaranteed siege on all generals plus something else. Inno, offensive, and infrastructure all have very good policies so that adds to how good they are
Merc ideas is S-Tier. In early, it is the cheapest way to pump mil points into a idea group, and when you finish the idea group as first pick, you normally get tier 5 elite mercs as goverment reform at the same time. From this point, you can pump ducats into Merc disc, and you run doomstacks which ai dodge at all cost. And than the cost- and maintenance reduction on mercs, which allow you an easy way to go +100% over your army forcelimit with a Merc Army. Also, Merc manpower is separated from your normal manpower, and allows more wars, more conquest, more assault on forts. Merc idea is perhaps the only mil idea, which can carry a nation through all game, and make other mil ideas unneeded for a pick. And it help snowballing, because it is your first pick as mil, it frees adm points for coring, and dip points for developing up the conquest....so it speeds up your snowballing. More tax, production, trade income through better province's, more money for Merc stacks...and higher development means bigger Merc stacks. Also, Merc generals are linked to Merc ideas, because if you go Merc ideas and fill them up, there are two full reset on your merc generals and they get new, better stats roll. With Merc ideas, you get far better generals, faster, than army tradition can do it over you generals. Also, you can drill mercs with full merc ideas, which offset one of there biggest flaws. And lastly, Merc dicipline still stacks on top of normal dicipline, so you go completly crazy on disc. +50% merc disc (+30 elite merc, +20% from ideas and polices), and tha n your normal disc from quality, professional and so on... Mercs army are so absurd OP, that they never loose there value.
Artillery Barrage is behind a paywall (Mandate of Heaven), which makes siege ability far, far more important. The idea groups are quite different without various DLCs.
Aristocratic can be a strong A tier group if you have inno-aristic early on. -5 dev, +15% manpower, more diplomats, cheaper claims (-10 Core cost), extra seige pip early on + nobility equilibrium (lower maintenance, and reinforce costs)...and a nice 20% prod efficiency policy to supercharge your economy.
I would say that right now the idea groups are more balanced than ever before and as a result there are far more possibilities that are viable than in earlier iterations of the game
This tier list is freakishly based. Innovative and infrastructure are always underrated, glad they're represented here. Maritime and espionage are situational, not useless! People are too willing to throw these ideas into F tier.
The biggest thing for me with administrative idea is that the -25% core cost, also is +25% coring speed. This is super strong as a nation that expands fast, or any nation taking expensive provinces, getting rid of the overextension quickly. That alone is strong, and the you have some mediocre bonus but still useful sometimes. Administrative is S in 70% of games and A in the remaining IMO.
Maybe that's just a personal thing but a few years ago when everyone was memeing on aristocratic ideas I had the feeling that itnwas really underrated, and I still think it is. Amazing for cavalry focused nations but also really good in the early game too, the cheaper cav allows you to get a better ratio in your army and going 10/6 vs 12/4 might be the difference between a win and a loss, especially with tthe cav combat bonus and the cav early ge strength. It definitely falls off towards the late unless youre hardcore into cav but there are surprisngly many nations out there that can use it well. Siam, Scandinavia, PLC, Mameluckes, Mugal, Arabia, Persia, nearly all ex hordes and some european indian nations. Plus anyone with the cossac estate.
Admin and Diplo go so well hand-in-hand, both should be in S. Doesn’t matter who you play as, most likely you gonna conquer land. Diplo lets you take more, and not upset the AI (+2 diplomats lets you improve with whoever you need with) and admin lets you core cheaper AND faster. Not to mention admin tech is really important, it gives Admin Eff. and dev cost reductions, so falling behind on it is bad.
You have ideas that bring you bonuses (inno, trade, ...), that are nice, and ideas that enable you to do more things (colonist for ex). Those are the best for me. If you aim for a fast conquest, THE slowing down factor is AE (except for some few countries like hordes). So diplo + humanist brings you the best plateform to bring down AE (> -4 / year with advisor). Combined with the other benefits (diplos, war cost, break mariages, and NO rebels), this gives a wonderful combo. The only case when I wouldn’t go for it, is when I want to go colonial. Expansion then (using the estate decision to spawn explorers), or Explo + expansion for a pure colonial game.
I’m a very inexperienced player, but I found AE to be my limiting factor too. The way I see it is if you stack AE reduction with improve relations you get a multiplicative effect since each point of AE is worth more development.
Indigenous itself isn't bad for the native playstyle. Getting free tribal dev translates well into your own development. It also has some very very strong policies. Coupled with doing the sunset invasion mission giving access to the High American tech group is also, very good.
Admin definitely number 1 for me cause covernment capacity is always a issue for me and i still dont have wealth of nations and dharma for trading companies so usually i allways pick it first
based tierlist I play inno -> quality -> trade/admin/offensive (always all 3 but the order depends on what I need the most) literally 100% of the time on every single nation
expansion also gives minimum autonomy in territories which is also essential for blobbing making your territories 2x as effective, even if you are not planning on colonization with your blob, this idea alone gives you massive boost to your economy and manpower,and extra merchant and global trade power is also a nice economic bonus, and if you dont plan tocolonize you can still leave colonists in your stated provinces to boost your development, and the policies are solid and best one is with expansion-trade which gives not only 20% trade steering (best money making modifier together with goods produced) but also trade efficiency, expansion (unless im playing tall) is always a pick for me and definetly S tier
one thing i also have to add is that autonomy also affects your force limit modifier, so depending on your amount of territories you can get solid portion of manpower as from quantity and comparable (if not bigger) force limit as from quantity while also giving you economy bonuses so you can field a large army
Innovative is my favorite! No one idea is dominant, but every single one is a solid QOL improvement. Plus it opens up some great policies, especially Innovative-Offensive
Innovative, just the 1° or 2° best idea group, not only its bonuses, but its strong mixed bonuses with otheres good Ideas. Innovative allows you +1 free policies; 15% infantry quallity; +10% siege and +1 siege and +15 trade efficiency in the military block, in diplomatic you can get 10% trade efficiency. Basically if you dont get Innovatio you will lose power in late game, even if you pick the idea group in middle game is worth
Inno, espionnage and offensive is insane as Brandenburg/Prussia. You can beat Russia on your own even before the age of absolutism lol with 3 stars generals in the like early-mid 1500s. Also it gives you so much siege ability +a guaranteed siege pip to your generals, you’re just melting forts. I do lvl 4-5 forts in 60 to 100 days, which is insane.
i think you are selling court ideas short, it has that plus dip for monarchs if i remember correctly and that means its a general idea group with added free mana.
The only other way to get a guaranteed siege pip outside of Aristo ideas, that I know of, is to have Oda National Ideas. Their ideas are so flipping strong for conquests!
I'm planning a Britain game, I want to take defensive because I don't want to conquer a lot of land in Europe, but have France as a massive buffer against any possible continental rival. Add to this, I'd take offensive, and quality. I don't want to bother with naval ideas as Britain because their navy is good enough as is. Is this a good set of military ideas for Britain ?
No, as defensive is only useful if the enemy is in your land. By the way ur making that, if this happens ur doomed. Only go defensive for these 3 nations: Ming (must take cuz forts are ridiculously cheap and ming can stack fort defense very easily+ it lowers the devastation that kills mandate) Russia (Just take a look in their history)
Well in most of my playthroughs I always end up with those 4 idea groups: Humanist, Diplomatic, Quality and Offensive. Usually I want to start with Inno, but I tend to be low on admin mana early, so in the end I end up with those 4
Even if you only conquer like 1/4th of the world you save more total mana with Admin than with Innovative. Considering that in any somewhat blobby game you always, always set the focus on admin mana "only" saving admin mana and not the other both types is not a good reasoning against Admin. I understand that not everyone likes conquest but Admin still belongs at least into A and Inno also at most into A.
Admin is the best idea group for wide games and inno is the best idea group when u can't blob early on and don't waste a lot into admin, like starting in HRE. Both are S tier unless on MP
This is brutal advice for sp play. It depends on player goals though. For normal expansion focused games, highly rating miltary ideas is a meme, admin saves way more mana than inno, and stuff like infra is almost impossible to justify. If you do take a military group, merc is strong, but the micro is awful.
Offensive is a must take for sp runs as this siege ability is all you need to end wars fast. Inno is still good because if you start in the hre or any position u can't blob in the first 50 years u can go inno and it will not only save you mana but do a lot of stuff that would take a while to talk about. But generally, if you start with a nation with over 100 dev or no threats early on, then u should go admin or diplo first unless you are in Oceania or things like that.
I think indigenous ideas are actually pretty good and they also have some of the best policies in the game. And I think natives are really fun. Also quantity for me is still an S tier. In SP you really don't need super soliders to win wars. All you need is manpower. For me quantity is the only idea I always peak. Rest of them depends on the nation I'm playing. Diplomatic is also an S tier for me and maybe offensive.
If you take innovative but not court, you are missing out. 25% longer monarch life expectancy and no stab loss on death are huge. That's preventing disasters and saving you so much admin mana, which I always struggle with. As someone who prefers full privileges to absoluteism, the +1 possible privileges also buffs the nation. Rushing gov reforms also is super useful in most cases, albeit, you do end up at the end with a glut of reform progress.
Court is a waste, never take it. Also what you just said can be solved with stab cost modifier instead. Stabbing up is one of the things u least spend mana, unlike coring provinces for example.
If you're not playing optimally and playing for RP. Then how are you ranking ideas? As an RP, there can be no ranking. I can play as knights and convert to Judaism and raid the world. In this RP, Maritime and Naval would be S tier. I mean no disrespect. Just curious. I like your videos. But I don't see how an RP style playthrough which is just for fun can have an idea tier list. But I agree with you. I too RP a lot and not interested in WC all the time. I prefer getting insane modifiers.
Focusing on the mana cost savings from core cost reduction in admin is a mistake. The true benefit is it lets you core 25 percent faster, which lets you cycle wars of conquest more quickly. Admin efficiency reduces coring cost too, but not coring time. Top 3 idea groups for me are 1. Admin 2. Influence 3. Diplomatic
Yeah but that’s a playstyle choice. If you think the average player values admin for core creation time you’re very much mistaken. It is a super nice part of it, I agree, but super wide blob play isn’t how most people play the game
Infrastructure ideas is a must for evrey nation and should be your 2nd or 3rd idea it fits wide and tall and it has 10 dev cost reduction and helps getting prosperity the rest is situational
Infra on wide game is a complete waste, especially as early as u said. I really hope these points you made are for multiplayer, because for single player they're a blunder as big as not taking the +1 mana previleges
Economic is better than court and especially maritime. Martime is so situational and many of the bonuses verge on useless in most playthroughs. The Interest reduction from econ along with the goods produced and production efficiency can help boost your income in the midgame by way more than maritime ever could. Plus the tax as a first idea early on can be very strong. (Many other useful but not crazy good ideas in economic) point is that almost all the economic ideas are usefull in every game (maybe not always crazy useful), whereas most maritime ideas are useless in most games.
I think you may wanna look at those S-tier trade ideas and think to yourself "Why tf would I ever need bonus merchants when I get those for free with trade companies?" Trade steering is very weak. +15 trade power on merchants is weak. None of it is really strong or changing trade significantly, and the 2 merchant slots are just waste since they allowed TCs everywhere. Trade isn't just weak, it's one of the worst idea groups in the game. I get the idea of making more money, but it's not actually making you more money. The bonuses sound better and more significant then they are in practice.
I really disagree with the innovative praise, throut the entire playthrough (till tech 32 in 1820) it would save maybe some 4000 powerpoints, in around 350 years of having the idea group that is avarege of around 1 power points per month, while good it's not that great. Also Indiginous is absolute S tier if you can take it
Its not just the cost savings for tech, its also all power costs, advisor cost reduction, prestige decay reduction, war exhaustion decay during war (Which is really helpful in long grindy wars) and the big reason to take it is the events and policies that mix with it.
@@survivalizerThat stuff isn’t that worth it unless you are a newer player, bad with mana generation, or just flat out lazy. Innovative is just a waste of an idea group. Out of 4000+ hours I have taken it exactly One time, and I regret it still. I literally cannot find any justification to waste an idea group on innovative when you only get a certain amount of idea groups, especially if you only play first 150 years. Innovative is a noob’s favorite idea group. If you want to stack siege ability, I guess that is not a bad idea, as at least that is a pretty valuable military modifier that can especially come in handy with lvl4-6 forts. The bonuses given directly by innovative ideas are literally just not that useful. I feel like you save way more mana points by going infrastructure and stacking every single dev cost bonus. Because at least with infrastructure you build up a really strong nation, really quickly. You can get 100 innovativeness without innovative ideas, and who cares about the tech cost when you have to use an entire idea group slot to get it? It is something you only get the benefit of every 10-15 years when you take tech. And the all powers cost doesn’t matter because you can get that without innovative ideas. Being ahead of time in tech doesn’t give you that great of an advantage lol unless you are seriously underpowered and if you are underpowered, you should have gone infrastructure.
@@andromodous 20% goods produced is great! But that is a dumb reason to take an idea group. The better I get at the game, the less money I need, because I simply do more with less. 20% goods produced is a terrible reason, a stupid reason to pick an idea group “man”
This is perfect timing! I'm finally doing an Ironman run with Munster (Ireland) and doing well. Took Quantity and Influence ideas but wasn't sure what to take. I'm really not good at this game but I'm dominating the British isles and managed to win against France so really pleased with myself.
is innovative still worth it as the 2nd pick? i like to pick the military one first like offensive because you sometimes you need to move fast in order to secure yourself in the game.
I know it’s not very good, but like 90% of the time I pick innovative first, cause have a tech advantage early game is really good. But, it starts to become not as good in the 1510, so I usually change it out for something else.
gov cap is not an issue unless you play to wc ı was germany and had all german culture plus poland bohemia and france even with %50 reduction state houses and courthouses make it up
I generally agree. I usually mod Having 12 idea groups. Game isn't eaiser with 12 its actually harder due to tougher AI and having to use mana more efficiently. 🤣
if we talk for singleplayer, now admin-inf-quality combo is best pick. not for army quality but for diplmatic annex cost stacking. if you are catholic espionage is crazy good with papacy. i used in my montferrat run and i wasnt sad about dropping quality for it.
wait innovativnes is a hot take?! lol i play since 2 years (very sporadicaly but still) and i ALWAYS pick inno if i can, be it bohemia, mamluks, england, korea etc if you can afford to pick it as first or second idea its absolutely worth in every scenario because you need to tech/idea up either way (playing tall or wide)
Bad idea choices. You should go offensive first (to match Ottoman discipline and already prepare for a wide game, then religious (unless you culture convert to Turkish, then u can postpone it). After that u should be in a good position to blob, so ofc you do admin and Diplo.
About your tier...mercenaris lets you use the mercenaries without losing army tradition, that for me os very powerfull, you can make war more agressively, and you can use your manpower for others things, like projects,
But if u play well in sp most of the time you will end wars before you run out of manpower. That makes merc ideas kinda meh. Must take for Switzerland tho
Overall i agree with that list, except for one thing. Trade Ideas are never S Tier for me since we have Trade Companies. With all the great Ideas we got in Diplo i always find myself looking at Trade and think "Nope. I go with the good ones and scale my trade with Trade Companies." Niche roleplay pick these days. Id say C.
You don't mention the policies, religious has one of the best of all, also, no one plays till late 1600 max till 1650-60. Which means Deus vult is a must (if you are not a horde or confucian). For quantity it gives you manpower! You don't have that thing in abundancy in EU4 now, like it was pre leviathan. Also , it gives you opportunity to not waste you government reforms and state privileges on mp ,ones. Defensive is now op if you stack it. and after 1,35 you can stack it in absolute insane numbers like over 200, which mean you can win wars without single battle. Aristo is crap, no every one of junk of all trades like court ideas are trash, because they give you everything but in a small quantities. Which is useless. Because it steals valuable idea slot position.
Inno: First 3, trash after that. Admin: 10 years before you are ready to start blobbing Any mil idea not talked about: To match other AIs army quality. Offensive: First military idea group if you are going for a wide game. Infra: if ur going tall game, 3-5 idea because u need to expand a little in the early game usually, like Holland for example. Naval, quantity and maritime: Never Trade: 4-8 idea Economic: When the policies ur going for are worth it, but it has been nerfed to the ground so it's not that good anymore. Merc: Must take for Switzerland as first mil idea, if ur not it then idk Humanist: Second admin idea if you aren't going for one faith and just took admin. Religious: Good for any small religion, and obligatory for one faith. Expansion: Colonial nations. Exploration: Colonial nations that don't have the colonial range. Espionage: HRE Based from these you should know the order
Inno is totally broken if you build your government to stack bonuses like advisor and tech cost. Every game I play inno I am swimming in mana, taking techs before ai even can, always get a miltech advantage on every war, I always slap the shit out of this game on inno.
Well, i disagree with so many things i dont really know where to start. Just the most major things. Okay nvm, i think the other guy basically brings up every point i was gonna make. Except that i think colonial ideas are just the most broken stuff in the game atm. They deserve S tier for sure.
Ideas are 100% tied to the nation you are playing and your objectives. Most tier lists are heavily affected by blobbing. So you will take the ideas that allow blobbing. Which is fine, but i rarely do blobbing since past 1600s the game gets boring as you pretty much won and are just painting the map. Another important fact regarding ideas is policies. You talk about trade, but if you like trade, you have to go quantity as well. If you stacking discipline YOU HAVE to go economic for obvious reasons. If you are colonial, exploration is S tier, and expansion is A tier. If you are playing tall infrastructure suddenly isnt a meme. If you are austria, you stacking all diplo rep you can, so court ideas is decent. And i could go on. Even naval and maritime can have situations where they are mandatory if you want to go thalocracy
Lets say you are playing as hungary/poland/moscovy/byz/other christian tags and you need to beat an enemy like the ottomans or mamluks. Youre confident that you can beat them 1v1 but they are allied to one of your christian allies or a powerful contry like france/venice respectively, then deus vult will be extremely useful because you can declare on your enemy and break their alliance at the same time.
What is your top 3-4 idea groups and why?
1 innovative 2 diplomatic 3 trade 4 religious
Honorary picks: espionage offensive plutocraftic aristocratic
I have never played EU4, so I have no idea
Indigenous is the GOAT
Great List!
A very unpopular combo I like using as a opener is actually Trade+Economic+Quality. This gives you 3 great polices that in total give you +25 Trade Eff, 10 Prod Eff and 5% Discipline.
Although i agree Economic is not a good idea group the bonus that gives you +1 Developments from building Manufactories is quite good and can be combined with States Houses and Expand Infrastructure to get it multiple times on the same Province. It's a surprisingly good combination to play Tall.
I do of course later in the game Replace Trade+Eco with Influence/Diplo+Admin, because you reach a point where money is just not an issue anymore. But in the Early game where money can be a limiting resource they are really useful Idea Groups.
In Eu4:
Religious, admin, influence, quantity (because I need to expand)
Reality:
Humanist, Innovative, diplomatic, philosopher (plutocracy, divine and Aristocracy)
Because they are good
Anytime I see these discussions on tier lists I think it is better to group the assessments into different groups: 1) WC/Blob, 2) Single Player/Casual/Roleplaying, 3) MP. I see merits from both lists here but each one are approaching the topic from two different end goals. In a WC/Blob game, Religious, Diplo, Admin, Humanist are S tier. In a SP/Casual game or MP game, I would rank all 3 at lower levels (B tier or lower for almost all of those cases). In a SP/Casual game, then other idea groups have higher priority. A recent example of changes in idea groups is Byzantium. Pre 1.36, I would argue that Religious is mandatory. With the changes to their national ideas and mission tree I have favored swapping in an earlier Admin (super cheap coring with perm claims, CCR in National Ideas and Admin Ideas for a total of -75%, not too mention an additional Prenoria) or Infrastructure group instead for a tall game play.
The region you play in also can play a big factor in idea selection. As Chewy pointed out, Religious in the HRE is basically useless until the reformation spawns. At that point it still may or may not be useful to you. Whereas as Orthodox, Coptic, Shia, or another minority religion surrounded by heathens/heretics early game, Religious is soooo useful for growth, and stability. Another example could be if I'm playing in Persia, Trade ideas can be really useful as a 2nd or 3rd pick (SP, MP or blobbing) to rake in tons of $$$ and deny players further downstream the riches of the silk road. On some recent games I have been messing around with Court ideas to find ways to use them. I have found some success with nations like France, Poland, or Sweden as some of the policies when paired with Admin, Offensive, Quality, Infrastructure (even Defensive) are quite nice. The fact that Chewy and Playmaker put Indigenous ideas as D tier I find hilarious as they are probably the strongest all rounder military idea group (-20% province warscore cost, 10% morale, -10% idea cost, 15% manpower, 25% reform progress and +1 attrition). for pretty much any of my 3 play styles and have some very solid policies to boot. Martime is another funny one as it can be (arguably better) substitute for Exploration for Castile, Portugal, or England in a SP game. Is it ideal? Not necessarily, but it can be fun and a nice way to mix up the game.
Lastly, one thing that is less of an impact that was not touched upon but still can play a part in the decision making are the events for each of the idea groups. As an example Religious has amazing events, whereas Innovative is bad to meh at best.
My top 4 idea groups for playstyles above would be (in no particular order): Espionage, Quality, Innovative, Infrastructure. I find most youtubers tend to focus on the blobbing/min-max which in my opinion gets very boring, especially in the mid to late game. Finding any replay of a game where the timeline reaches 1550-1600 is rare and for any replay or guide to push into the age of revolutions is almost unicorn level of rareness.
At the end of the day, you pick what you like/need and just enjoy the game you are playing.
I know this is really old now, but Habibi just did a tier list update that breaks it up into three separate tier lists just like you were suggesting. Was pretty interesting.
I choose idea groups based off of the situation and what I’m aiming for. I’m more situational and going for achievements. I’m generally going to choose something similar to Inno, Economic, Quality/Quant/Offensive as my openers unless I’m an early colonizer. At some point in every game, I’ll have Trade though because its generally worth it to get that money that way. I’m not aiming for world conquests though so Playmaker’s ideas might work for him but I think his focus is narrower in regards to good vs bad ideas as his situation requires more “wider” focus than reaching different targets.
I do know that he has tried Inno as Brandenburg though I don’t know his result thus far. Lol
Espionage is underrated because spy networks are underrated. Tech cost reduction, siege ability, aggressive expansion, are the passive bonuses for a big spy network. Not to mention all the things you can actively do with them (make claims, steal maps, hurt an enemy's trade, lift fog of war).
It's only useful in hre or extreme cav CA for hordes. Tech cost reduction only happens if ur behind in tech which you shouldn't
Generally agree with your ranking as you have a similar playstyle to me. Loved the discussion - very civil and definitely could see both points of view. It very much comes down to playstyle and personal preferences.
Can you make an Idea Group tier list for the AI? For all of us observers
Lol do you actually spend 5 hours observing the damn game?
Yes @@ovuvuevuevueenyetuenwuevue9325
@@ovuvuevuevueenyetuenwuevue9325 yes
@@ovuvuevuevueenyetuenwuevue9325I do
Thank you for your video. I can not only learn the best EU4 ideas in 1.35, but also practice my English listening through your clear speaking. Your pronunciation is one of the best and most friendly for foreigners in EU4 videos. You speak fast but each word sounds very clear, which helps a lot in my Eu4 and English learning. Thank you very much. 🙂
It’s my pleasure, friend! Thank you for the kind words! I hope you continue to learn EU4 and English as well :)
S++ Espionage, Aristocratic
#Poland
But seriously, Espionage is the most underrated idea group. I am glad to see it get the recognition here.
Espio is definitely favored by a lot of single player people but in terms of publicity it has been hanging around A on tier lists rarely on B, it even has decent usage in mp for reasons like you said, Poland OP cav in vanilla
It's not that good, there are way better ideas to chose from.
Espionage, Aristocratic and Religious is a fantastic start for muscovy, especially if you choose the bonus instead of permanent claims at the beginning of the game, you can claim every province for a cost of 8 to your spy network with no increasing cost.😅
@@nevets2371 then why take religious?
@@jarvee9407claims reduce the warscore cost and coring cost of provinces in addition to giving a casus belli. Making you able to expand faster and safer. Religious mainly for the role play, I believe there's a good reason for it as well, but I can't remember it off the top of my head.
9:00 the sunset invasion mission that all new world nations have allows you to change your tech group to high american. In the early to mid game, that tech group is extremely op. It is more that double the power of the anatolian tech group. Watch the video by *the student* on the topic
I agree pretty strongly with your list. I like admin a little more, but it’s fair to say it’s somewhat situational. I had written off espionage a long time ago, but took a hard look at it a few days ago. It didn’t fit my current game, but I was really surprised by how much it had been buffed and I would definitely use it in a future game.
Yeah, Espionage has gone from useless (pre-Dharma), to "mandatory" because of state limits and corruption (Dharma to Emperor), to mostly useless (Emperor to Origins), to situationally good (Origins to LotN), to borderline mandatory with a lot of AI nations taking it, as well as the focus on sieging.
The thing is though is that Espionage always had a good idea or two for a while. No amount of buffing is going to make the average non-pirate/non-RP SP guy pick Naval or Maritime and those have been buffed to no tomorrow.
Use it in a muscovy game
Use espionage with inno and offensive and you will get massive seige speed and broken advisor cost, you can run +5 advisors as soon as you get inno espionage finished
Playing in Europe espionage is my number 1 pick every game just for the -20 ae impact getting around coalitions is so good. Pack that with good things for eco with the advisor cost coruption root out and some insane combines like with eco for aditional advisor cost and coruption root out with the policy your printing money by taking coruption instead of loans and get nearly half cost advisors
I’ve been playing with it a ton since then. What a great idea set, and with some good policies too.
One thing I like to do sometimes is take the 'very situational' idea groups, and the ones that pair up well together (like naval / maritime) and create a custom nation to dial that effect up to 11.
My current one, with a points modifier mod, is; "This is not the greatest infantry in the world, no. This is just a tribute!"
customan nations are broken xD i have played with one a couple of times but once you know what to stack for what you about to do its gg.
For exploration, it got shafted pretty hard after domination, because you can just take expansion as your first group and gan give one of the estates, i forget which, I think its the burghers, a privilege to allow a descision to recruit an explorer. When I took it I would usually get rid of it once there wasn't any more land to settle and now you don't even need to take it in the first place.
Love the video. I’m an out of the loop ex vet EU4 player and I wanted a run down of what’s relevant now due to patch changes and the new idea groups.
The discussion element was really nice too because it made it very obvious what play style and strategy went with each tier list. My style being more your style of snowball with mana and dev.
Love the list! Based Inno in S tier, waiting to see the Zlewikk reaction lol
Would probably bump Admin up to A tier too. The gov cap is nice (seeing as I'm always over gov cap), but the CCR reducing the coring time means you can take land so aggresively
Indigenous ideas easy S tier, I get it's only on native tribes, but the idea set itself + the policies are nuts
Otherwise generally agree with your list, enjoyed the discussion afterwards too - interesting to see the difference in perspectives and playstyles
Cheers Rory! Yeah hindsight admin deserves A. I’m hoping to spark some good conversation with other creators with this one :)
Most important modifier in the game CCR for reduction in coreing time rather than cost and saving mana
My alltime favorite is and always was quality. Good infantry, good artillery, 10%discipline with economic and even on its own its perfect for my very aggressive and battle focused playstyle. And like i said economic is just as nice because of the discipline in combination with quality and also my love to make my country rich. Those two ideas always result in me having an economy not able to be rivaled by my friends with whom i play veeeeeeery often.
7:43 There is another way for any nation to get a guaranteed siege pip, the Innovative-Offensive policy. This can make your sieges go very quickly, especially if your national ideas give you leader siege as well.
So, Oda, Ino-aristo-ofensive-defensive (for the manuver guarantee) staks the maximum you can guarantee os pips for a general being 2-2-1-3 (pretty good)
Damn, I play so muh Anbennar, I forgot Tolerance Ideas are actually Humanist
7:45 there is also the Innovative-Offensive policy which gives guaranteed +1 Siege Pip for Generals and +10% Siege Ability, and that’s on top of +20% Siege Ability from plain Offensive ideas
Enjoying the logic and how you @chewbert examine the benefits of both changes and new ideas groups. Certainly agree with many, such as Innovative ideas early on, though the contrary to a couple, such as development, I do see the counter points (despite being a play style deference). These kind of videos say a ton about someone's play style from game to game, but also how someone would focus fire in life more times than not. I personally enjoy these videos and would love to see a 4 or 5 person play through with either RP elements or just a for fun play through. Keep it up!
IMO
I feel like expansion ideas are highly underrated. That ten percent autonomy reduction alone makes them worth the group to me.
Very true
I very much agree with most of your tier list. My only nitpick is espionage is S tier, when combined with innovative, and offensive, you get super fast siege ticks, extra diplomats with your policies. I find it really hard to talk myself out of opening with those three every game. Then for my fourth idea it comes to situational choice but it falls to diplomatic, influence, or admin a lot of the time based on need. From there it’s wide open.
I basically always open with those three unless I’m in a very specific situation that calls for something else just because the amount of synergy they have with each other. Siege ability, advisor cost, extra diplomats, I love using the extra reasons to subjugate to peacefully pick up small countries around my border or countries that have a lot of reconquer able cores.
If you mix Espionage Ideas with Horde Ideas you get a policy which gives you a nice buff for cav combat & width if I remember clearly. It helps with whenever I try stacking as much cav combat as possible😎
+10% Combat Ability and +50% Flanking. Flanking in EU4 is funky, but it basically means your single unit deals damage to multiple units of the enemy, so overall you do more damage.
It doesn't just affect the cavalry but all units, including artillery, so your arty does more overall damage thanks to it too.
@@edim108I think that you are wrong. You can hover over each unit to see whom they are attacking, and I have only ever seen Cav attacking more than one unit.
@@Alorand Artillery hit 3 units at a time with their attacks assuming equal combat width (and filled out). I don't think that counts as flanking, though; it's just how artillery attack.
I take inno + offensive first almost every single time just for the siege ability stuff, because it makes everything so insanely much easier, then almost always diplo after.
Very solid list and hard to argue with, even if my personal playstyle means I dislike some of the ideas that are in higher tiers compared to those in lower ones.
I would only swap maritime and naval around. Most times, if you are naval focused nation, you will go with both anyways, but there have been times I skip maritime. If I have decent enough income, which naval nations usually do, I do not need reduced ship costs or more sailors, as you often have long coastline anyways. Naval on other hand boosts your admiral shock, fire, ship combat abilities, and basically is Offensive equivalent on seas. You absolutely need it to beat your naval superpower rivals, as they are certainly going to get that one.
19:30 I agree with you here. I would go further and say that people generally underestimate construction cost reductions. Stacking those, since they stack additively, massively improves a building's ROI, making it sometimes worthwhile to take additional loans just to build building and still have more money (for more military) down the road.
If you also take policies into account, Influence and Admin get a big bonus. Because together they re amazing for expanding by both annexing land and using Vassals and PUs. The Policy gives you another -15% diplo annexation cost on top of Influences -25%. If you stack that with the priviledge for nobles, the papal blessing, national ideas like Austrias and mission bonuses like from Provence, Spain, Sardinia-Piemont or Bohemia you ll absorb your Vassals and PUs in no time.
Provence into Sardinia-Piemont into Austria for example can really go wild here.
quantity is also a diplomatic pick since AI think your forcelimit is important. meaning coalitions will form less vs you and they will like you more for having more men
7:47 if you get the policy from offensive and innovative you get a guaranteed siege on all generals plus something else. Inno, offensive, and infrastructure all have very good policies so that adds to how good they are
Merc ideas is S-Tier.
In early, it is the cheapest way to pump mil points into a idea group, and when you finish the idea group as first pick, you normally get tier 5 elite mercs as goverment reform at the same time.
From this point, you can pump ducats into Merc disc, and you run doomstacks which ai dodge at all cost.
And than the cost- and maintenance reduction on mercs, which allow you an easy way to go +100% over your army forcelimit with a Merc Army.
Also, Merc manpower is separated from your normal manpower, and allows more wars, more conquest, more assault on forts.
Merc idea is perhaps the only mil idea, which can carry a nation through all game, and make other mil ideas unneeded for a pick.
And it help snowballing, because it is your first pick as mil, it frees adm points for coring, and dip points for developing up the conquest....so it speeds up your snowballing.
More tax, production, trade income through better province's, more money for Merc stacks...and higher development means bigger Merc stacks.
Also, Merc generals are linked to Merc ideas, because if you go Merc ideas and fill them up, there are two full reset on your merc generals and they get new, better stats roll.
With Merc ideas, you get far better generals, faster, than army tradition can do it over you generals.
Also, you can drill mercs with full merc ideas, which offset one of there biggest flaws.
And lastly, Merc dicipline still stacks on top of normal dicipline, so you go completly crazy on disc.
+50% merc disc (+30 elite merc, +20% from ideas and polices), and tha n your normal disc from quality, professional and so on...
Mercs army are so absurd OP, that they never loose there value.
Artillery Barrage is behind a paywall (Mandate of Heaven), which makes siege ability far, far more important. The idea groups are quite different without various DLCs.
Siege ability is also super important for wc runs anyway too
Aristocratic can be a strong A tier group if you have inno-aristic early on. -5 dev, +15% manpower, more diplomats, cheaper claims (-10 Core cost), extra seige pip early on + nobility equilibrium (lower maintenance, and reinforce costs)...and a nice 20% prod efficiency policy to supercharge your economy.
I would say that right now the idea groups are more balanced than ever before and as a result there are far more possibilities that are viable than in earlier iterations of the game
I think court ideas have some value playing with the mandate of heaven as it gives you mandate and estate things that help with the missions
This tier list is freakishly based. Innovative and infrastructure are always underrated, glad they're represented here. Maritime and espionage are situational, not useless! People are too willing to throw these ideas into F tier.
The biggest thing for me with administrative idea is that the -25% core cost, also is +25% coring speed. This is super strong as a nation that expands fast, or any nation taking expensive provinces, getting rid of the overextension quickly. That alone is strong, and the you have some mediocre bonus but still useful sometimes. Administrative is S in 70% of games and A in the remaining IMO.
Maybe that's just a personal thing but a few years ago when everyone was memeing on aristocratic ideas I had the feeling that itnwas really underrated, and I still think it is. Amazing for cavalry focused nations but also really good in the early game too, the cheaper cav allows you to get a better ratio in your army and going 10/6 vs 12/4 might be the difference between a win and a loss, especially with tthe cav combat bonus and the cav early ge strength. It definitely falls off towards the late unless youre hardcore into cav but there are surprisngly many nations out there that can use it well.
Siam, Scandinavia, PLC, Mameluckes, Mugal, Arabia, Persia, nearly all ex hordes and some european indian nations. Plus anyone with the cossac estate.
absolute victory against opponent!
Admin and Diplo go so well hand-in-hand, both should be in S.
Doesn’t matter who you play as, most likely you gonna conquer land. Diplo lets you take more, and not upset the AI (+2 diplomats lets you improve with whoever you need with) and admin lets you core cheaper AND faster. Not to mention admin tech is really important, it gives Admin Eff. and dev cost reductions, so falling behind on it is bad.
You have ideas that bring you bonuses (inno, trade, ...), that are nice, and ideas that enable you to do more things (colonist for ex). Those are the best for me.
If you aim for a fast conquest, THE slowing down factor is AE (except for some few countries like hordes). So diplo + humanist brings you the best plateform to bring down AE (> -4 / year with advisor). Combined with the other benefits (diplos, war cost, break mariages, and NO rebels), this gives a wonderful combo.
The only case when I wouldn’t go for it, is when I want to go colonial. Expansion then (using the estate decision to spawn explorers), or Explo + expansion for a pure colonial game.
I’m a very inexperienced player, but I found AE to be my limiting factor too. The way I see it is if you stack AE reduction with improve relations you get a multiplicative effect since each point of AE is worth more development.
Indigenous itself isn't bad for the native playstyle. Getting free tribal dev translates well into your own development. It also has some very very strong policies. Coupled with doing the sunset invasion mission giving access to the High American tech group is also, very good.
Admin definitely number 1 for me cause covernment capacity is always a issue for me and i still dont have wealth of nations and dharma for trading companies so usually i allways pick it first
i never rush admin idea first.
i want admin points more
@@spatrk6634 if am a small nation with other nations around me 3 show strengths and the advisor event allows me to get enough admin
based tierlist
I play inno -> quality -> trade/admin/offensive (always all 3 but the order depends on what I need the most) literally 100% of the time on every single nation
expansion also gives minimum autonomy in territories which is also essential for blobbing making your territories 2x as effective, even if you are not planning on colonization with your blob, this idea alone gives you massive boost to your economy and manpower,and extra merchant and global trade power is also a nice economic bonus, and if you dont plan tocolonize you can still leave colonists in your stated provinces to boost your development, and the policies are solid and best one is with expansion-trade which gives not only 20% trade steering (best money making modifier together with goods produced) but also trade efficiency, expansion (unless im playing tall) is always a pick for me and definetly S tier
one thing i also have to add is that autonomy also affects your force limit modifier, so depending on your amount of territories you can get solid portion of manpower as from quantity and comparable (if not bigger) force limit as from quantity while also giving you economy bonuses so you can field a large army
Yup really good for trade companies
Innovative is my favorite! No one idea is dominant, but every single one is a solid QOL improvement. Plus it opens up some great policies, especially Innovative-Offensive
I am learning so much from your videos, it's crazy
Happy to hear that!
Innovative, just the 1° or 2° best idea group, not only its bonuses, but its strong mixed bonuses with otheres good Ideas. Innovative allows you +1 free policies; 15% infantry quallity; +10% siege and +1 siege and +15 trade efficiency in the military block, in diplomatic you can get 10% trade efficiency. Basically if you dont get Innovatio you will lose power in late game, even if you pick the idea group in middle game is worth
Inno, espionnage and offensive is insane as Brandenburg/Prussia. You can beat Russia on your own even before the age of absolutism lol with 3 stars generals in the like early-mid 1500s. Also it gives you so much siege ability +a guaranteed siege pip to your generals, you’re just melting forts. I do lvl 4-5 forts in 60 to 100 days, which is insane.
i think you are selling court ideas short, it has that plus dip for monarchs if i remember correctly and that means its a general idea group with added free mana.
4:00 Colonization is really fun if you play as the the ulimate colonial nation (russia)
The only other way to get a guaranteed siege pip outside of Aristo ideas, that I know of, is to have Oda National Ideas. Their ideas are so flipping strong for conquests!
If ur not doing cav i don't really recommend them as the siege ability from offensive is better and it also gives discipline.
It’s always a good day when you upload
O, innovative. The battle of the Arumbans and the Lambdans.
I'm planning a Britain game, I want to take defensive because I don't want to conquer a lot of land in Europe, but have France as a massive buffer against any possible continental rival. Add to this, I'd take offensive, and quality. I don't want to bother with naval ideas as Britain because their navy is good enough as is. Is this a good set of military ideas for Britain ?
No, as defensive is only useful if the enemy is in your land. By the way ur making that, if this happens ur doomed.
Only go defensive for these 3 nations:
Ming (must take cuz forts are ridiculously cheap and ming can stack fort defense very easily+ it lowers the devastation that kills mandate)
Russia (Just take a look in their history)
Well in most of my playthroughs I always end up with those 4 idea groups: Humanist, Diplomatic, Quality and Offensive. Usually I want to start with Inno, but I tend to be low on admin mana early, so in the end I end up with those 4
You make up for it super quickly with the advisor cost reduction & innovativeness that you get
A moment of silence in rememberance of old eco idea
Even if you only conquer like 1/4th of the world you save more total mana with Admin than with Innovative.
Considering that in any somewhat blobby game you always, always set the focus on admin mana "only" saving admin mana and not the other both types is not a good reasoning against Admin.
I understand that not everyone likes conquest but Admin still belongs at least into A and Inno also at most into A.
Admin is the best idea group for wide games and inno is the best idea group when u can't blob early on and don't waste a lot into admin, like starting in HRE. Both are S tier unless on MP
This is brutal advice for sp play. It depends on player goals though. For normal expansion focused games, highly rating miltary ideas is a meme, admin saves way more mana than inno, and stuff like infra is almost impossible to justify.
If you do take a military group, merc is strong, but the micro is awful.
Offensive is a must take for sp runs as this siege ability is all you need to end wars fast. Inno is still good because if you start in the hre or any position u can't blob in the first 50 years u can go inno and it will not only save you mana but do a lot of stuff that would take a while to talk about. But generally, if you start with a nation with over 100 dev or no threats early on, then u should go admin or diplo first unless you are in Oceania or things like that.
Chewy: "I'm a taller player."
🤣
Lol, Chewy, you might be taller height-wise, but I wouldn't say you really play tall. 😂
Haha I think it’s a little subjective but I’d say I’m MORE tall than wide
Chewy gives off those 5"10 vibes, no way he's taller 😂
@@Theplaymaker57 I’m 6 foot even
@@Chewbert I'm 6"3, Certainly the taller player 🤣
This must be country specific. If you are playing with Castile or Portugal, you'll need exploration ideas and then expansion as soon as possible
Of course context matters, that is obvious.
I think indigenous ideas are actually pretty good and they also have some of the best policies in the game. And I think natives are really fun. Also quantity for me is still an S tier. In SP you really don't need super soliders to win wars. All you need is manpower. For me quantity is the only idea I always peak. Rest of them depends on the nation I'm playing. Diplomatic is also an S tier for me and maybe offensive.
If you take innovative but not court, you are missing out. 25% longer monarch life expectancy and no stab loss on death are huge. That's preventing disasters and saving you so much admin mana, which I always struggle with. As someone who prefers full privileges to absoluteism, the +1 possible privileges also buffs the nation. Rushing gov reforms also is super useful in most cases, albeit, you do end up at the end with a glut of reform progress.
Court is a waste, never take it. Also what you just said can be solved with stab cost modifier instead. Stabbing up is one of the things u least spend mana, unlike coring provinces for example.
If you're not playing optimally and playing for RP. Then how are you ranking ideas? As an RP, there can be no ranking. I can play as knights and convert to Judaism and raid the world. In this RP, Maritime and Naval would be S tier.
I mean no disrespect. Just curious. I like your videos. But I don't see how an RP style playthrough which is just for fun can have an idea tier list.
But I agree with you. I too RP a lot and not interested in WC all the time. I prefer getting insane modifiers.
Focusing on the mana cost savings from core cost reduction in admin is a mistake. The true benefit is it lets you core 25 percent faster, which lets you cycle wars of conquest more quickly. Admin efficiency reduces coring cost too, but not coring time.
Top 3 idea groups for me are
1. Admin
2. Influence
3. Diplomatic
Yeah but that’s a playstyle choice. If you think the average player values admin for core creation time you’re very much mistaken. It is a super nice part of it, I agree, but super wide blob play isn’t how most people play the game
Infrastructure ideas is a must for evrey nation and should be your 2nd or 3rd idea
it fits wide and tall and it has 10 dev cost reduction and helps getting prosperity
the rest is situational
I’ve never taken it once since it came out 😏
Infra on wide game is a complete waste, especially as early as u said. I really hope these points you made are for multiplayer, because for single player they're a blunder as big as not taking the +1 mana previleges
Economic is better than court and especially maritime.
Martime is so situational and many of the bonuses verge on useless in most playthroughs.
The Interest reduction from econ along with the goods produced and production efficiency can help boost your income in the midgame by way more than maritime ever could. Plus the tax as a first idea early on can be very strong. (Many other useful but not crazy good ideas in economic)
point is that almost all the economic ideas are usefull in every game (maybe not always crazy useful), whereas most maritime ideas are useless in most games.
In my humble opinion i believe that divine should in low A-tier and Religious in S-tier.
Religious as a big religion like sunni is usually way worse than with a small religion. So it isn't consistent enough to be S
That admin take was hot. Best idea set in the game. Good policies. Ridiculous admin saving. Gov cap.
I think you may wanna look at those S-tier trade ideas and think to yourself "Why tf would I ever need bonus merchants when I get those for free with trade companies?"
Trade steering is very weak. +15 trade power on merchants is weak. None of it is really strong or changing trade significantly, and the 2 merchant slots are just waste since they allowed TCs everywhere. Trade isn't just weak, it's one of the worst idea groups in the game. I get the idea of making more money, but it's not actually making you more money. The bonuses sound better and more significant then they are in practice.
Lol
I really disagree with the innovative praise, throut the entire playthrough (till tech 32 in 1820) it would save maybe some 4000 powerpoints, in around 350 years of having the idea group that is avarege of around 1 power points per month, while good it's not that great. Also Indiginous is absolute S tier if you can take it
Its not just the cost savings for tech, its also all power costs, advisor cost reduction, prestige decay reduction, war exhaustion decay during war (Which is really helpful in long grindy wars) and the big reason to take it is the events and policies that mix with it.
@@survivalizerThat stuff isn’t that worth it unless you are a newer player, bad with mana generation, or just flat out lazy. Innovative is just a waste of an idea group. Out of 4000+ hours I have taken it exactly One time, and I regret it still. I literally cannot find any justification to waste an idea group on innovative when you only get a certain amount of idea groups, especially if you only play first 150 years. Innovative is a noob’s favorite idea group.
If you want to stack siege ability, I guess that is not a bad idea, as at least that is a pretty valuable military modifier that can especially come in handy with lvl4-6 forts. The bonuses given directly by innovative ideas are literally just not that useful. I feel like you save way more mana points by going infrastructure and stacking every single dev cost bonus. Because at least with infrastructure you build up a really strong nation, really quickly. You can get 100 innovativeness without innovative ideas, and who cares about the tech cost when you have to use an entire idea group slot to get it? It is something you only get the benefit of every 10-15 years when you take tech. And the all powers cost doesn’t matter because you can get that without innovative ideas. Being ahead of time in tech doesn’t give you that great of an advantage lol unless you are seriously underpowered and if you are underpowered, you should have gone infrastructure.
@@chalupabatman1803nah cuz if u combine it with aristocratic idea it gives +20% goods produced man
@@andromodous 20% goods produced is great! But that is a dumb reason to take an idea group. The better I get at the game, the less money I need, because I simply do more with less. 20% goods produced is a terrible reason, a stupid reason to pick an idea group “man”
@@andromodous bro aristocratic is a waste of an idea group too Lmfao so overrated. It just isn’t that good.
This is perfect timing! I'm finally doing an Ironman run with Munster (Ireland) and doing well. Took Quantity and Influence ideas but wasn't sure what to take.
I'm really not good at this game but I'm dominating the British isles and managed to win against France so really pleased with myself.
Qual Eco is my fav build for small nations, mby even Qual inno
@@martinvokurka6153 thanks. Appreciate the advice!
is innovative still worth it as the 2nd pick? i like to pick the military one first like offensive because you sometimes you need to move fast in order to secure yourself in the game.
First 3 inno is good. After that, never ever.
offtop question: will you update all monuments in one province mods?
Trade ideas in C is actually insane, like I legit don't know what that other guy is smoking.
People get very entrenched in their personal playstyle and tend to look down on others, I reckon it's just that
I know it’s not very good, but like 90% of the time I pick innovative first, cause have a tech advantage early game is really good. But, it starts to become not as good in the 1510, so I usually change it out for something else.
It is good when u can't blob early, because else admin is better and by the time u get inno it is already trash.
gov cap is not an issue unless you play to wc
ı was germany and had all german culture plus poland bohemia and france
even with %50 reduction state houses and courthouses make it up
Ur not blobbing fast enough bro. Get better wide gameplay, as even roman empire runs suffer from gov cap
There are some minor gripes but yes, it is situational. Mil ideas maybe less and I’d say quantity is an A but actually not bad list.
> sees Offensive in D tier at the start
*justifying claim with malicious intent*
I generally agree.
I usually mod Having 12 idea groups.
Game isn't eaiser with 12 its actually harder due to tougher AI and having to use mana more efficiently. 🤣
if we talk for singleplayer, now admin-inf-quality combo is best pick. not for army quality but for diplmatic annex cost stacking. if you are catholic espionage is crazy good with papacy. i used in my montferrat run and i wasnt sad about dropping quality for it.
wait innovativnes is a hot take?! lol i play since 2 years (very sporadicaly but still) and i ALWAYS pick inno if i can, be it bohemia, mamluks, england, korea etc
if you can afford to pick it as first or second idea its absolutely worth in every scenario because you need to tech/idea up either way (playing tall or wide)
The problem is when you desperately need ccr reduction. Inno is awesome but admin is the best administrative idea, simple as that.
I'm actually surprised by the innovative idea group i guess ill try next playthrough
Byzantium runs i always go quality economic (so that the gold mine in kosovo doesn't deplete and +5 dicipline policy) then diplo and religious
Bad idea choices. You should go offensive first (to match Ottoman discipline and already prepare for a wide game, then religious (unless you culture convert to Turkish, then u can postpone it). After that u should be in a good position to blob, so ofc you do admin and Diplo.
About your tier...mercenaris lets you use the mercenaries without losing army tradition, that for me os very powerfull, you can make war more agressively, and you can use your manpower for others things, like projects,
And drill Mercenarys which are on full support anyways so drilling doesnt make it more expensive.
But if u play well in sp most of the time you will end wars before you run out of manpower. That makes merc ideas kinda meh. Must take for Switzerland tho
Overall i agree with that list, except for one thing. Trade Ideas are never S Tier for me since we have Trade Companies. With all the great Ideas we got in Diplo i always find myself looking at Trade and think "Nope. I go with the good ones and scale my trade with Trade Companies."
Niche roleplay pick these days. Id say C.
I like trade later to get eco hegemony asap. Diplo first for sure though
You don't mention the policies, religious has one of the best of all, also, no one plays till late 1600 max till 1650-60. Which means Deus vult is a must (if you are not a horde or confucian). For quantity it gives you manpower! You don't have that thing in abundancy in EU4 now, like it was pre leviathan. Also , it gives you opportunity to not waste you government reforms and state privileges on mp ,ones. Defensive is now op if you stack it. and after 1,35 you can stack it in absolute insane numbers like over 200, which mean you can win wars without single battle. Aristo is crap, no every one of junk of all trades like court ideas are trash, because they give you everything but in a small quantities. Which is useless. Because it steals valuable idea slot position.
8:53 - me playing as aztec as my very first nation: 🗿
They don't have that idea btw. And I bet never had.
can any experienced player label each idea group and what stage of the game youd usually take them?
Inno: First 3, trash after that.
Admin: 10 years before you are ready to start blobbing
Any mil idea not talked about: To match other AIs army quality.
Offensive: First military idea group if you are going for a wide game.
Infra: if ur going tall game, 3-5 idea because u need to expand a little in the early game usually, like Holland for example.
Naval, quantity and maritime: Never
Trade: 4-8 idea
Economic: When the policies ur going for are worth it, but it has been nerfed to the ground so it's not that good anymore.
Merc: Must take for Switzerland as first mil idea, if ur not it then idk
Humanist: Second admin idea if you aren't going for one faith and just took admin.
Religious: Good for any small religion, and obligatory for one faith.
Expansion: Colonial nations.
Exploration: Colonial nations that don't have the colonial range.
Espionage: HRE
Based from these you should know the order
@@gamgamesplayer4506 7 months late but thanks, cheers
That is a very controversial list
You should officially call this a singleplayer tier list
I literally did in the beginning of the video
@@Chewbert i mean the video title
@@BlackHoundWolf nah
Inno is totally broken if you build your government to stack bonuses like advisor and tech cost. Every game I play inno I am swimming in mana, taking techs before ai even can, always get a miltech advantage on every war, I always slap the shit out of this game on inno.
Nice list
I'm playing Milan hard Ironman and religious idea maybe could be ok at later part of the game so I would say it's medium
And playing as Milan the most important is diplomacy for improving relations faster
Why dont you try Moldova and Wallachia? 😂 let's see how well you do
Humanist is D, is there anyone who actually uses it except new players who can't deal with rebels?
Bro a lot of people do what are you talking about 😂
Rebels can drain ur MP and be very nasty
Well, i disagree with so many things i dont really know where to start. Just the most major things.
Okay nvm, i think the other guy basically brings up every point i was gonna make. Except that i think colonial ideas are just the most broken stuff in the game atm. They deserve S tier for sure.
Trade is not that good -you can get merchants easily by conquering a bit of colonial land
he said it's not that good and says its because of merchants
Well, you are not going colonial as most of nations in the game.
Ideas are 100% tied to the nation you are playing and your objectives. Most tier lists are heavily affected by blobbing. So you will take the ideas that allow blobbing. Which is fine, but i rarely do blobbing since past 1600s the game gets boring as you pretty much won and are just painting the map.
Another important fact regarding ideas is policies. You talk about trade, but if you like trade, you have to go quantity as well.
If you stacking discipline YOU HAVE to go economic for obvious reasons.
If you are colonial, exploration is S tier, and expansion is A tier.
If you are playing tall infrastructure suddenly isnt a meme.
If you are austria, you stacking all diplo rep you can, so court ideas is decent.
And i could go on. Even naval and maritime can have situations where they are mandatory if you want to go thalocracy
Lets say you are playing as hungary/poland/moscovy/byz/other christian tags and you need to beat an enemy like the ottomans or mamluks. Youre confident that you can beat them 1v1 but they are allied to one of your christian allies or a powerful contry like france/venice respectively, then deus vult will be extremely useful because you can declare on your enemy and break their alliance at the same time.
0:30 and after the hurting come a PU and then he behave XD