EU4 Guide: Essential Diplomatic Idea Groups
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- čas přidán 13. 05. 2024
- In this video guide we will cover all 6 of the Diplomatic ideas in EU4 (Europa Universalis), exploring the benefits and setbacks of each group, along with their synergies and corresponding policies that they unlock. The Military Idea Group guide will be out next month!
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The music used in this video are "For Honour and Glory", "Discover New Land", "Piper Lead your Clansmen", "Eire", and "At The Gates of Constantinople" from the EU4 OST.
All music is owned and copyrighted under their respective owners. Europa Universalis IV is a grand strategy games published by Paradox Interactive. All rights reserved.
tags:
#europauniversalis4, #eu4, #eu4guide - Hry
Diplo idea 6 (-20% province warscore cost) means you can take 25% more land (125% WS * .8 = 100%) not just 20%.
Math is funky
Good eye! I've always been terrible with math so I appreciate the info
Better to say 25% more development than 25% more provinces
JESUS FUCKING CHRIST
5:22 names explorer Ewan McGregor
and goes to explore.
Ewan McGregor to the natives: Hello there
It's over Aztecs I have the Higher Technology.
Aztec:You underestimate my Numbers.
NICK PASCHIENTIS don’t try it aztecs
Aztecs declare flower war
@@maxddf1049 They cite "I HATE YOU!" as their Casus Belli!
I have spent years defending Espionage ideas and Innovative ideas, and now I am coming to defend Maritime ideas (and Naval ideas too).
The first idea in the group is essentially a big bonus to trade steering (and therefore large amounts of income) and gets you better admirals (which give you more trade steering as well as far better navies) and it gives your navies big bonuses that make them even more powerful.
Admittedly there have only been very few times where I have worried about the amount of sailors I have so that one is mostly useless.
Global ship repair is quite useful already for wartime but what makes it crazy powerful is when combined with the group finisher (when you can have navies that can endlessly blockade any enemy regardless of how many battles they get into).
The naval force limit is just great, instantly making almost any nation a naval powerhouse right away (which is quite useful in many aspects of the game).
Ships costs, unlike army costs reduction, is actually somewhat useful as ships are extremely expensive and replacing them after every battle and maintaining them can cost a lot.
Leaders without upkeep is also somewhat useful as during the mid to late game it will help out a lot to be able to have one more general or admiral on your side.
Blockade efficiency isn't too useful at the moment I must admit, but in the 1.30 update it is going to become a lot more useful, and I have already talked about how great the finisher is for navies.
When combined with Quality ideas (on top of the great bonuses Quality gives to navies already) you will get a bonus 20% morale to your ships which is incredibly important for naval combat and will give you a huge edge in all naval battles.
Really the only thing that makes the group not worth picking is if you don't have a focus on navies, which is fair enough as about 90% of players don't really need a navy for what they want to do (i.e. France conquering the continent, or Austria forming the HRE etc.). If navies are important to you though, this is a good idea group in my humble opinion. Thank you all for reading this, I hope to see you when I defend the other aforementioned idea groups.
Also in regards to Privateer Efficiency, it can be quite powerful. If you have the bonus from the Espionage group and the Maritime group without even considering additional policies you can take, your privateers will be nearly twice as powerful as normal trade steering ships.
Whilst the "leader" of our privateering fleet does take a bit of that extra trade power as a bonus for him/herself, you will still earn more ducats overall without having to own any provinces in that trade node (and you will also take more trade power away from the other nations in that node).
It becomes even more powerful if one nation owns more than 50% of the trade power in that node, as you will start getting an extra boost to privateer efficiency which will earn you even more ducats.
The primary drawback though is that the trade power you gain from your privateers won't contribute to your embargo power if you are embargoing your rival in that node.
I also forgot to mention that sailors are also about to become far more useful (though once again they weren't too useful at the time of this video so I won't pick on that one).
I agree maritime can be quite powerful if you want to get more trade power from light ships, let's say you play a country that lacks laval force limit then you can get with that idea a power fleet of light ships and reap all the money from your neighbors. Also if you already have a powerful laval you can attain a naval hegemony which give you artillery damage +20% which is the best hegemony in my opinion as you also get tons of sailors recovery which means you can use them in your army as there is so much.
If you're not a pirate republic, don't do anything related to maritime. Just sayin a personal opinion.
This idea group is great for Japan and England as you can just destroy all your forts to save money because nobody will ever land on your island anyway
We need a separate video for all the policies
As others have pointed out you are seriously underrating Trade. Trade scales very well with size and time if you are going for a highly expansionist or colonisation game. You definitely need to read more about how trade value and income are calculated, because it's a lot more sophisticated than you might think.
Erik Beyer Paulsen trade is also important for Venice
Yes, and with colonial nations these ideas are great, like you can increase a lot your commercial income (and also gives the overcheated politic of +20%trade efficiency, which literally boosts your income by 20%)
trade is really good but influences and diplo are >>>> also religious amministrative innovative... i mean you can pick a limited number of them so the moment when you could pick trade you dont really need it anymore, last time i wanted pick trade was 1600 and i was making 1.200 gold each month as andalusia and could just get at force limits with mercs in just 2 months so... trade lul
If you’re unable to colonize trade ideas are basically the only way to steer money to your home node.
Also it is cool in multiplayer
I think you misunderstood the effect of trade steering, it increases the outgoing trade value of nodes you steer from, the base bonus is 5% and trade ideas increase it to 6.25% (reduced with multiple merchants steering in the same direction. It's really powerful if you control a chain of nodes like from India around Africa into an European endnode. Also light ships don't affect it in any way whatsoever
Dominik Beppler true I think trade ideas are one of the strongest group. It boosts your economy so much(Much more than economy ideas xD)
Light ships protecting trade indeed do not increase trade steering directly. However, protecting trade gives navy tradition which gives a huge 100% boost to trade steering at 100 tradition. So they do increase trade steering indirectly, as in: not in the specific trade node but, much more powerfull, globally.
@@bernhardhuber7761 Economic ideas are more about development than actual economy. Sure, you get that national tax increase but the real values of that idea group are construction cost, development cost and let us not forget one of the most important stats of the game, land maintenance modifier.
@@bernhardhuber7761 True, maybe AlzaboHD mostly played as a colonial power which makes sense since Trade is good only if you're not going colonial.
Trade ideas are vastly underrated. Late game it doesn't stand out but early game it is an amazing income boost. In most of my games I don't get any extra merchants from colonial nations or trade companies before 1600, so the three you get from trade ideas + the extra trade efficency and global trade power often boost my income by around 30%. And this vastly increased income in the early game snowballs to the late game. Usually in the early game you spend around 80% of your income on army and fort maintnance. So when you get 30% more cash you end up getting more than twice the amount of money for buildings which further increase your income to build even more buildings which increas your income... Overall having that much more money for buildings early game snowballs a lot into mid and late game and gives you a huge financial advantage.
And if you decide to keep trade ideas in the late game, you get acces to some of the strongest policies (+20% goods produced, +20% trade efficency).
With all that extra money in the mid and late game you can afford higher tier advisors much earlier and thus easily get back your monarch points.
Because of all these reasons I often find myself picking trade ideas as my first or second idea group (especially when playing as a small or financially weak nation).
Yes alzabohd is wrong, 20% goods produced bonus policy is game-changing
I actually like playing a peaceful game of colonization.
Each update I usually find myself playing either Portugal or Venice. I also like to play Poland but that's because my family lives there.
Whenever I try to play a peaceful game of colonization I end up somehow fabricating claims on natives and founding colonial nations on the ashes of their nations. Playing peacefully sounds like a challenge haha
@@AlzaboHD When somebody speak about "peaceful colonization" I understand "colonization with just murder of natives nation and not of other colonial nations" XD
@@krankarvolund7771 don't forget about all the imperialism and trade generated by taking over India and Indonesia.
I like money and just find it really fun to make make all that money while being able to leave the rest of Europe alone.
@@josedubois2295 How do you take over India peacefully? XD
But yeah, India is a lot of money, I currently play Moghol Empire (starting a Timurids), I barely conquered half of India I already make 150 ducats a month XD
sounds boring.
Since most strategies in this game revolve around picking the same 6 or so idea groups, maybe Paradox should consider scrapping all of them and building them from scratch. It would be a much needed change that would refresh the EU4 experience
Or they can u know make a new game. This ones old
@Anti-Federalist 1776 Eh at this point i am kinda ok with this. It runs nicely on my old laptop and thats all that matters.
@Anti-Federalist 1776 If this game lags or crashes (on yours) than u should get better one.
@Anti-Federalist 1776 it never crashes and the lag isnt that bad unless you are in a coalition or blob war.
@@mex_I.M you dumb fuck. every paradox game uses at most 20-30% of a good PC's capabilities. Literally, shut. the. fuck. up. it's the game's fault
Kept coming back almost everyday since the adm vid, happy you spent so much time and ill be looking forward to the mil video too. Thanks for the great work man!
Thank you for your support! The next video won't take as long, I was sick with the flu for a week and just moved back to the EU so I was a bit delayed. See you on the next video!
@@AlzaboHD I know im in the middle of finals, so no worries on the delay mate GL with whats going on.
One of the only series of videos on my favorites list
Part 2 of the 3 part idea group guide is here! What EU4 guides would you like to see in the future? More videos will drop next week so stay tuned! PS: Sorry for the week without uploads - I recently just moved back to France. Schedule coming soon!
Maybe a guide to what some of the more obscure modifiers do, eg admin efficency, native assimilation and so on....you could go through the custom nation creation interface and cover the modifiers/traits.
I personally wouldn't rank trade a low tier idea set. I think it's as situational as exploration. It makes life just so much easier playing as a horde, having no money. And due to trade being the only real source of income its really worth picking.
Moved back to France? You live in France? I'm rench, it's fun to know that some of the english-speaking youtubers lived in my country :p
@@krankarvolund7771 Ouais! J'habite a Lille chez les ch'tis : ]
Excellent stuff.
Although in most cases I never pick maritime ideas, in my current game I am finding it to be a perfect 3rd idea to compliment expansion and exploration. I am Japan (fully formed from Uesugi) and aiming to control the Americas. My biggest fear at the moment is being attacked by Ming and Korea. My distant fears are my inevitable wars with Spain, Portugal, France, and Great Britain. Maritime ideas provide several advantages for my colonization focused nation.
*Economic* With +50% naval force limit I have a ton of light ships (with high naval tradition admirals at all times from the first idea). These protect trade in Beijing (where I have no provinces whatsoever, only a merchant) allowing me 60% trade power which currently comes out to over 30 ducats a month which is 1/3 of my entire income. This has the bonus effect of denying Ming most of their trade income from their largest source.
*Protection* With the additional Sailors, naval tradition, lowered ship costs, and a whopping additional +33% naval force limit from the Naval Infrastructure policy, I rule the seas and will later continue to rule the seas even when I must face the Europeans. This allows me to keep most of my standing army in the Americas fighting colonial wars and protecting my colonial nations. In the event of a war with a major power, I can't possibly ferry my troops back and forth nor keep up with Ming or Spain even if I could. Dominating the seas means blockading my enemies from landing on my shores, my numerous islands, and eventually from reinforcing their colonial nations once full scale colonial war breaks out.
So for me, in my situation with my goals, Maritime Ideas feels like it was the best possible choice.
I guess, kinda
Helping noobs know what on Europe they're doing...since 1444...it's AlzaboHD!!!!!!! (Cheers and roars ensue.)
>Panzermadels
HAHAHHAAHHAHAHAHAA
This was acutally really intressting and helpful. You earned another sub!
In the current dev clash the maritime idea group stomps. I mean if you want to do any kind of naval warfare, being basically 70 % more powerful is op as hell.
Exploration's expel minorities is mildly useful for preventing Dutch separatist events from spawning as Castile if you had burgundian inheritance
I found Trade to be very usefull since the extra merchants really come in handy when you want a trade empire. It saved my economy as Russia.
trade ideas is so good lol, easily can double or triple your late gate gross income, its even better if you are Castile or Portugal, even if you are going for a wc trade ideas is the best idea group for making money and it uses diplo points rather then admin
Nice work sir. Now just need to see the best military ideas for my Milanese run.
Figures first idea I took was trade because I didn't know about trade company/ colony benefits.
You are awesome! And your voice is simply pleasant. :D
The hardest achievement in EU4 is trying to not sit whole night there and playing it - even if you have to wake up early in the morning because of job.
Somehow i still have job, social life, good relations with family and girlfriend. Ahahaha
trade ideas are basically the best in the game.... honestly, its great having a full military idea group... but having an extra 30 gold per month with just basic trade competence is much better.... idk what the hell you are talking about.
I think he undervalues trade ideas, but I think you're really over valuing them. They're only good for the first 200 years. After that they're really trash as you start swimming in ducats and each trade region and colony gives you a merchant, even without taking trade ideas, you easily have like 20 merchants.
Both Influence and diplomacy are way stronger and scale very well into late game while also giving you good early game boosts. Espionage is also amazing, as the main bottleneck early game is aggressive expansion, and espionage is the best idea group to deal with that. However, it's also pretty weak late game. The only benefit is that AE has no methods to work around it other than accepting it, while economics can be fixed using a lot of different methods.
Imo, it's
Diplomatic>Influence>Espionage>Trade>Exploration>Trade>Maritime.
Edit: I didn't get to the very end of the video until after I posted this, but that's the exact order he puts them in too.
I don't recommend having full military ideas. I take either admin or diplo first, the other second (depends on whether I'm expanding directly or through vassals early game or whether i'm trying to join HRE), then humanism, then influence, at which point it opens up a lot. If i want to save myself the head ache of having to take colonial forts, I'll take exploration to be able to use "cede" colonial region after I create some colonies. If I'm not western tech group and/or my nation has no strong military national ideas, I take 4 mil ideas. If I'm playing ottoman sometimes I'll take espionage second after administrative, in order to expand VERY fast as it makes aggressive expansion really easy to deal with. I still take influence and diplo too, but just as my 4th and 6th ideas. Admin, Influence, diplo, and humanist are all almost "essential" to an efficient WQ. By the time I have all 4, my economy is strong enough that I can't justify an economic idea group like economic or trade. Innovative is terrible, religious is pointless if you have humanist unless you want a one religion run, I'll consider expansion or exploration to make my life easier but usually go exploration even though it's worse since admin points are way better than diplo points and at this point i'm usually approaching the point of the game where I'm going to expand rapidly and I need admin points. Maritime is trash, and espionage has already started to fall off at this point, so getting it now would be pointless.
I'm not a big advocate of military ideas, but honestly they're really the only decent choice after you've filled out the necessary first 4-5. 4 military idea groups gives you space marines in any country and better yet, they'll be led by a 3 star general. WQ runs are all about dealing with your mental state. Keeping yourself from getting too tired, stressed, and making sure you're paying attention. With 4 military idea groups, your armies become fire and forget missiles that you lock onto enemy forts. After the 1700's, if you want to WQ, it's not unusual to have to be in like 3-4 wars at once. Often in different continents or hemispheres. Having to micromanage each army because your troops are shit quality would make WQ tedious, tiring, and frankly impossible unless you only play for 1-2 hours each session in order to not get burnt out.
Trade + Admin, sure, can be valuable late game, too. Since you have tons of ducats swarming in every month you can basically just use tons of mercs. But as a standalone nation, trade isn't viable.
You’re crazy if you think they’re best lol. Definitely overvaluing gold
@@tylernelson4901 Exploration rush gives shit tons of money by mexico and incan gold. Trade is lower than explo in my opinion
@@tylernelson4901 Also gives insitution/Age objectives.
I love these two videos on the admin and diplo idea groups. They are clear, concise, and very informative - and the recap and overview tables at the end are extremely helpful! I've gone back to these videos more than a few times already, when it came to choosing the next idea group. Are you planning to create a video on the military idea groups as well? And have you thought about creating a 4th video in the series, where you put it all together, i.e. talk about the order and which factors affect which group is a good pick at a given time?
Keep it up with the really well produced content!
Bear in mind he heavily undervalues trade because he doesn't seem to understand how valuable steering trade is.
His understanding of a few other points in other ideas is also a bit shaky.
The maritime idea tree does appear to be very situational but I don't think it's as bad as he makes out.
A point about the merchant traditions means having +100% = +100% trade steering (which is super important if you want to play the trading game)
It takes more than a day to repair a ship, wiki says 10% per month as the base amount. So if you're in the middle of a naval war, you're gonna want some repair bonuses to help with that.
Expel minorities is apparently faster than waiting for conversion. And the 25% discount in the exploration idea means you'll save some diplo power if you're having to do this a lot. And presumably with that idea tree you will.
Envoy travel time is relevant, wiki states
Travel time depends on the distance envoys must travel from the player's capital. It differs between the different envoy-types:
A Diplomat performs (or, for maintained actions, begins) their action instantly, then spends time travelling back.
A Merchant spends time travelling both to and from the destination. A merchant can be sent directly between trade nodes without having to return to the capital.
A Missionary is both sent and recalled instantly.
A Colonist spends time travelling to the destination, but is recalled instantly after waiting one day.
So it's vital for colonists, merchants and diplomats. Colonists can spend hundreds of days travelling long distances.
Thanks for the laugh on maritime ideas :)
Hey, I picked Maritime twice and I didn't regret it either time!
(first time was as Korea because iirc, you need some of Maritime's policies to get the ship durability achievement without taking the Mandate; second time was as Pegu for the Sailor Mon achievement. I would never even consider picking it in any other scenario.)
I might actually value Espionage higher than Influence nowadays, which still feels weird to type. -20% AE is really good and I do like the fast claims, especially when I'm not going Religious. I still hope that the devs will also add the claims-bordering-claims ability to the idea group, or at least as a possible policy.
Explo might be a good idea group to only dip into (pun intended) after the nerfs, at if you don't want to go all-in on your colonial game. Set up colony in order to claim adjacent province (like Mali, Kilwa, Maldives, Pasai, Brunei - depending on where you are), conquer, hop to the next target. Maybe even abadoning the colonies to a) save the 2 ducats a month and b) establish the next colony faster once the conquered land is cored. It's only 1200 mana to use it this way (800 if you don't need the extra range) and you can use the idea group slot for a more universally useful pick once you've established yourself everywhere you wanted.
Good point on needing Maritime for the Korean achievement - I didn't think of that! It's kind of funny that the only use the idea group has is for unlocking achievements... really illustrates how niche and worthless it is. I hope the development team replaces it or upgrades it with bonuses that are actually worth it (looking at national sailors modifier in particular!)
You’re forgetting about Ryukyuan Pirates, then it works
grats on 20k!
Spying networks also helps to sieges. Its important to take that into account. A small bonus to sieges can help reduce the time by a lot.
Maritime also has 5-7 stab hit events. Its the idea with the highest amount of stab hit between all ideas in all 3 groups
When do you plan to post the video about military ideas online? Can't wait for it
Dude you opened my eyes for trade ideas. I was always picking trade ideas , especially when palying as spain,england, russia, ottomans or another big trading empire. Thought it was crucial but in my current england campaign I took trade and am at a point now where I can´t do shit with money anymore. My ducats just keep growing and growing (right now at arround 400k). I just realized that I really didn´t need trade ideas as much as I thought and should have taken something else. Thanks
Great content
Influence pairs well with Humanist and Diplomatic pairs well with Religious, for AE management and Diplomatic Power conservation. (Release -> Reconquest and Unjustified Demands vs Deus Vult.)
These videos are awesome.pls do one for military
Maritime ideas has a lot of trade bonuses. Naval tradition boosts trade significantly.
I've only used Rebel Support as the Byzantines for getting alot of the Greek lands back like Rhodes, Corfu, Chios, etc. It worked quite well for me and saved me a lot of time and early AE.
Espionage and Diplomatic together are now both pretty damn good idea groups for HRE games when you start with HRE minor.
You get AE reduction which is godsend and with not that much diplo points invested 5 diplomats if you start as duchy rank. It is really handy when you can have three diplomats constantly raising relations with outraged countries so AE ticks down quicker and with last two you build up claims all over the place super fast which makes coring bit cheaper and lessens the AE impact as well.
War espionage is still a huge waste . The AE reduction isn’t enough to make it viable still.
@@moreish7193
Maybe so, i just personally think it is fine during HRE game when with AE reduction you could snag maybe one province more speeding up your early conquests.
It may not sound much but AE reduction is still AE reduction.
Is it still meh idea group as a whole? Yes.
Is it more worthwhile now? Also yes.
War ye the only problem is which idea would u take it on . After your first 3 ideas I can’t see you needing AE reduction. Improving relations has more of an effect on AE than 20% reduction .
@@moreish7193, Improve Relations modifies your yearly tick. +25% IR gets you roughly 25% more land than you could get if you had zero prestige, no IR advisor, no ruler trait, etc. If you are constantly sitting around 100% overextension and eating a -50% IR modifier, then you will get more use out of it, but not much because someone conquering that much has prestige at the very least.
-20% AE gets you 25% (100/(100 - 20% AER)) more land than you could otherwise get, period, as well as front-loading its effects in a way that allows you to fully annex more countries and avoid even more coalitions.
That AER is insanely good is a big reason why Brandenburg is so effective even in the early game and Deus Vult and Imperialism are so great.
John Crofford it’s not 25% more land tho cos AE doesn’t work like that. What I ment was taking espionage for that 1 idea is not a great idea. Take influence , more bonus al together
Three things I disagree with:
- Overrating corruption reduction - given how plentiful ducats are in mid-late game, corruption reduction is rarely relevant imo
- Underestimating usefulness of Trade Ideas, especially for countries in Asia where CIs and TCs are difficult to get and trade doesn't flow towards capital node
- Envoy travel time isn't worthless - makes sending colonists quicker which helps a lot unless you are micro-ing recalling and sending colonists
Picked Maritime once as Tunis going for Barbarossa, i.e. 500 privateering lightships. Combined with Espionage, I was siphoning 90% of the trade in the four richest trade nodes in the world. Odd but fun as usually you only ever take the same Idea groups.
Military next please thanks man you are great
Military is up next! Some videos will come up in the interim but I hope to have it up early next month. Thank you for watching!
There are some countries where trade ideas are really useful. I played as muscovy/russia which always has a gigantic forcelimit/manpower pool, but a critical lack of income in comparison. You can't also colonize America until you get to late 1500s (At the very least) so you don't have hope there either.
In this situation, a religious-trade-defensive combo is perhaps most optimized for the military potential of Russia to be fully realized. Religious ideas are helpful for converting conquered land, and trade helps sustain massive military expenditures (I was spending 100+ducats on the army by 1550, yikes)
One last word, the religious-trade policy of goods produced 10% and missionary strength 2% is AWESOME. It's less of a economic boost than quantity(which russia honestly doesn't need) but it really helps convert those sunni provinces of the hordes much, much faster.
I see a lot of people misunderstanding trade ideas, so here’s my shot at explaining why they’re considered to be pretty weak.
Things like caravan power, trade range, and the extra merchants don’t really scale terrifically well. They’re useful early on, or when you have something truly limiting your growth. But if you’re looking for extra money early game, economic are arguably better, since early on you get more money from taxation than trade, and they have some more useful ideas like inflation reduction.
The only ideas in this group that truly scale are the 10% trade efficiency (which is tiny and only affects your income, not your trade itself), trade steering (which Alzhabo actually did get wrong, trade steering is the bonus you get from steering with a merchant), and the global trade power. I think it’s very notable that the policy with quantity, the 20% goods produced, is actually better than the entire idea group on its own.
The most damning thing, however, is the simple fact that in eu4, money is plentiful, and monarch points are extremely valuable, so in general, spending your monarch points to increase your income is a bad deal. Economic ideas give inflation reduction, which can save you admin points over time, but trade ideas give you nothing
Economic is universally good while trade ideas are situational. For example a small nation close to a wealthy trade node will benefit more from trade in early game. Better is taking both of them so you will have best advisors or field an army at your force limit.
@@favorius I've read that a lot of times from many people but I can't still see why Economic are so useful. I can't notice construction reduction cost, I almost never take loans, and I try not to have inflation. Idk. Even Admin group has 3 ideas concerning mercs (which I almost never use) that seem a waste for me. Maybe I'am special idk
@@MrEnric98 i have not played the game for 2 years i forgot the game :)
@@favorius You will come back. We always do
Good video my friend
Envoy travel time is good for reducing the time for colonists arrive at the province - it's pretty useful if you're rushing to Malacca or Molucca trade nodes.
Envoy travel time affects colonists too? Thank you for the info - I wish I had known!
Military ideas are next!!!!
I find Trade Ideas particularly useful in Ottomans and Portugal.
Portgual: Even though I agree Alzabo with his statement (receiving extra mechants from colonies), additional merchants helpful if you are trying to collect/transfer trade power in every trade node in the world. You can transfer your trade power from the nodes in Americas, Africa, S.E. Asia to Sevilla and can literally swim in the money (assuming have great amount of power in Sevilla)
More or less can be said for Ottomans.If you reach the historical greatest extent of Ottomans, you can transfer a vast amount trade power to Constantinople and get a huge money from that. Additional merchants will help steering trade from the nodes at Middle East, Western India and Pontic Steppe. Combining this with "Tulip Era" idea, it generates big amount of money.
Edit: In my experience with Ottomans, manage to get "Globalism" institution most of the times. Because a lot of merchants with steering the trade, makes Constantinople node the highest valued one
Just saying, influence is where it is at! I am finishing up my first (successful) Austria run and even though I did only get Bohemia and Hungary (Castille got Burgundy unfortunately), I managed to win the first war against the Ottomans by 1450 (I picked up defender of faith after peacing out Venice and Ottomans decided that was the best time to attack Albania), I revoked in 1560 and by 1580 I had vassals in Tibet, India and Arabia on top of 70 HRE princes, giving me a 960k force limit and 75 ducats per month in vassal income. I turned off the restrictions on idea groups and the only reason I will pick up a military idea group as my 6th idea set is the policies. Because my army is 200k cannons and pretty much nothing else, since I only use it to make my vassals sieges go faster and sometimes fight the odd rebel stack.
I took espionage for the extra AE reduction.
I got called a chad, made my day!
unirocnically worth if you're in the HRE imo
But what if I'm a Pirate Republic or Dutch/Venetian style trade empire? I'm gonna be heavily relying on a navy and productive/trade advantages to pull that off, so even if the Trade, Maritime and Naval Ideas are subpar overall, I could still use every trade/navy-related benefit I can get.
Pretty sure that's why they exist. Navies are pretty secondary (outside of blockading, transporting, and casually protecting trade) for most campaigns where you're just a big, fat, land-based empire blobbing and assimilating anyone unfortunate enough to border you. So of course it looks useless in most cases.
But for those who want to take a different path and make lots of money with highly strategic expansion instead of world domination, suddenly those shitty idea groups look a lot more attractive.
Maritime was probably designed with Pirate Republics directly in mind.
Hello! As a new eu4 player i find your videos very helpful, but i find myself craving the military idea group guide so hard :p do you have a release-date in mind? Hope to see it soon, and keep up the great work. Liked and subd.
Would you make some Videos about games with the extended timeline mod? :) also when is the Military video coming? :)
I had alot of fun with the +50% rebel support efficiensy with Italy ;)
When it comes to the trade ideas (or any of the idea sets) it is about your play style and what you wanna do. If you are gonna colonize, you don't need trade ideas, but if you play Prussia game or any other country without colonization and trade companies, you definitely need more merchants to steer trade to your home node. In HRE I would also recommend Espionage İdeas because of AE reduction. Prussia also has AE reduction its own natinal idea so you may expand without angering neighbours and dealing with coalitions if you are careful enough.
As other people pointed out, Trade is underrated. It might not be that useful for Europe and it's colonial empires but in a game I played with Songhai it made me from dirt poor to rich enough to reach force limit. Trade is far better than economic, which is useful only if you play a non-european poor, gold ridden country, like Inca or Mutapa.
Trade ideas are by far one of the best and essential idea groups in the game. The amount of money you make off of trade will be 3x your other income by early to mid game. The merchants are really useful early game and even late game its good to get some nice ducats away from nodes. Trade is probably one of the best idea groups so thats where you lost a point with me.
I pick maritime ideas as a first idea in my Prince of egypt run, because i wanted to control the mediterranean when at war as a very small nation plus creating a big merchant fleet, i agree it needs to get better slots, now it is very situational, but it make my early game very smooth.
Take a shot every time he says "invaluable"
6 shots in 18 minutes? Challenge accepted (yes I actually counted them)
Gotta disagree on trade ideas, I can always find a use for three merchants
Trade is okay if you're a horde because playing as a horde is the only time you are desperate for money.
Espionage is good for Eastern Nations: Poland, Lithuania, Hungary and only really if you also have Aristocratic ideas.
Exploration... Well if you want to colonise or spawn Colonialism then you don't really have a choice. Shame it got nerfed though.
Diplo is good in the HRE and also is one of the core 'blobbing ideas' cause of the warscore cost and lowered impact on stability.
Influence is brilliant, vassals are really strong and this helps you have more, makes them easier to manage and integrate. Unjustified demands is nice too cause making claims is boring and you can save a lot of points. They lost the AE, but the -15% LD makes up for it, imo.
Maritime is a bit of a joke. If you really need sailors and only care about your navy because it's the last piece you need for an achievement then go ferrit, you don't need to tryhard and go Admin, Influence, Diplo, Offensive, etc every game.
Thank you for your analysis! I never thought of using trade for hordes but that does make a lot of sense, given that you won't normally have colonies or trade companies in such a campaign. I appreciate the tip!
Thanks you so much you saved my ass. I started making money for he first time in 200 years after just taking the first 2 trade ideas, can't wait to get the policy.
5:26 Hello there.
I think you are really closeminded into one playstyle, even the navy ideas you seem to dispise are decent for naval heavy playstyle, making you virtually invincible if you play isle nation, even against giants.
The main problem with Maritime- (and Naval for that matter) Ideas, is that the only nation which could possibly benefit from this already gets so many native boons for its Navy that taking the two groups is unnecessary.
can't the coastal repair work while on a mission? (as in when the ship goes back and forth through the province)
I like picking Trade in the ME-Persia-India region when you don't have access to that many TCs (moving your capital to Europe is too gamey for my taste) and the Americas are a long distance away.
Otherwise I agree that is is a sub-par idea group.
I always pick Trade as my first.
I actually liked Maritime ideas from trade empires. Having 100% Navy tradition gives you 100% more trade steering and 25% more moral. Moral is king with naval battles. Low moral ships are more likely to sink, each sunken ship decreases moral. So having higher base moral can make a otherwise even fight top overwhelmingly in your favor.
So Maritime giving you more cheaper light ships increasing your trade value through numbers. It also passively increases your naval tradition also increasing your trade value and combat potential of heavies through higher moral and better leaders.
Nice
please do Strongest Releasable Nations. Nations you don't really hear about and can only play if you release them as a vassal.
Huh. I've never thought of vassal play as a good tactic, always just integrated them ASAP. But if Influence is that good in your opinion, I might have to try out a playthrough like that soon.
Small vassals are a great way to squeeze extra power out of things. A 1/1/1 province in your empire provides virtually no benefit, but an OPM vassal with a 1/1/1 province is going to have the same minimum manpower, income and force limit as any other nation, plus generate its own monarch points it'll inevitably spend developing that province at least a little.
You can also use vassals to leverage national ideas that you don't normally get. Like having a march with +fort defense national ideas control occupied forts in battle so the enemy has a much harder time taking them back.
Big allies are stronger than vassals, usually, but AI allies are unreliable as heck and you can't always just find someone strong to join up with so Vassals are an awesome option a lot of the time to just create your own friends.
Have you tried stacking improve relations? I had >200% when forming and playing as italy on VH, you won't ever get a coalition against you.
How did you get 200%? That sounds like a great idea, I'll try it out on my Ulm HRE campaign!
One way to go about it would be:
Humanist (30) + Diplomatic (25) + 100 prestige(50) + protestant(15) + advisor(20) + diplo & humanist policy (20) = 160. Slap italian ideas on top of that for 50 more for a total of +210% improved relations modifier. What really makes this work is to not take just improve relations modifiers, but reduced AE generation alongside it for a multiplicative bonus.
I managed to do it by taking maximum HRE land in my Milan -> Italy -> Prussia -> Germany campaign (Italian ideas + Prussian government) before they introduced endgame tags.
@@AlzaboHD Lehmuska pretty much covered it, I started as savoy, went diplo > humanist. Always kept prestige at 100 by declaring conquest on smaller nations and not annexing them.
I actually find Trade and Martime Ideas useful when playing as Portugal - if I ever find myself in economic struggle early in the game, I choose Trade and spawn as many Light Ships as I can - this creates ,,somewhat" of stable income.
I also enjoy Martime Ideas - it's like naval version of Quantity Ideas.
wHeRe'S aUsTrIaN iDeAs?
so when the military ideas coming out
One thing to note about Espionage Ideas is that it has one policy (with aristocratic) that grants you +20% cavalry combat ability, which is huge if you want to RP as horsey :^)
What bonus do you think the maritime should have to be a good idea group?
Espionage+Quantity helps offset the cost of merc spam
I mostly agree with your top, but i think that for pirates it is amazing to use maritime. I mean, pirates make ships abd if you have 1000 of them you will feel the naval mentenance :)
In one of my mp games the knights went naval and maritime ideas, si we declared war but they completely rekt us with their navy
9:00 Correct me if I am wrong but upgrading your rank from Kingdom to Empire does not give you an additionnal diplomat, unless you meant going from a duchy straight to empire which is possible for countries like Muscovy
I remember my first ever EU4 game i played as England and got Naval AND Maritime ideas
so thats what I should do as france with meath in the peace deal.
get espionage so I can fabricate claims for it right?
As I watched this and the administrative ideas guide, I don't know how to feel about picking ideas that are apparently mediocre at best. My favorite playthrough is a tall Japan (although I fail to stick to the tall part every time) My first idea was exploration, mainly to get Taiwan and Kuril. Next was quality, since I was outnumbered, so I can punch above my weight and the discipline bonus from completing on top of the bonuses from traditions, advisor and the quality policy pretty much made me into asian Prussia, as I wiped stacks twice my size thanks to high discipline terrain bonuses and being ahead in technology . Next it was economic, for that sweet inflation reduction, and trading. When I was playing I wasn't saying "man I need one more diplomats, or stronger missionaries" I kept saying "I need more merchants so I can steer trade from Girin/Mexico/California and collect in canton/hangzhou/beijing what leaks from Nippon)
Trade is amazing for Timurids as you can´t get trade companies and indias nodes are super rich.
Maritime Idea might be useful in 1.30 patch considering they are adding marines to the game
Actuallu, national sailor modifier is prety important if you think about.
Especially good for pirates :)
I would prefer Naval ideas
Good video mate! One bit of feed back. I'm not saying envoy travel time is great or anything, but now that it applies to colonists as well as diplomats it's quite a bit more useful than the total garbage it once was. Cheers :)
Maritime ideas seems nice for little naval countries specially pirates
For roleplaying purposes I imagine it could be quite fun! Stack Maritime, Naval and Quality for a pirate republic and your ships would practically be invincible
@@AlzaboHD This idea combo actually works very well in multiplayer, beause "nobody" picks those, you can bully everyone with your privateers while hiding behind wooden wall on British Isles or Indochina.
Can you make a video on the best colonial idea groups?
Bro there are only 2 idea groups that focus on colonization.
Does "Envoy travel time" include colonists? Because that at least sounds somewhat useful
Yes
Maritime has one purpose: Confirm Thalassocracy and then delete and get a _real_ idea group... only if you're drowning in bird mana
I canceled my complete espionage group just so I could get maritime since I had full ideas and I wanted to confirm Thalassocracy. I was playing as the ottomans though and already completed my conquest of the Mediterranean.
Is it an achievement?
@@trueblueclue No its a decision that gives some good trade and diplo bonuses.
I don't know if it's a bug or it's just AI being stupid. Mamluk have more ships than me and can whack my fleet if they stack them up (which is what I did). But for some reason they keep scatter their ships into small fleets and I'm just stackwiping them one by one.
When at war I put all my ships together I don't know if it's good though.
Importance of trade scales negatively with initial strength of your country. So for France or Ottos trade may be neglicible but for weaker nations it is god tier if they have a rich trade node close.
How could you rank trade lower than espio and exploration? Espio is only slightly better than it used to be. When you have corruption online you usually have cash to handle it. The aggresive impact is huge but can be neglected with humanist and.... even trade! Exploration is extremely wrak. You can easily colonise with stealing maps, colonise range is the only good idea. The only reason i would take it is spawning colonialism but it is too high price for it. Trade OTOH is very strong especially playing outside Europe and for example essential in Indiana. You NEED that trade range outside Europe as nodes are more distant. You need those 3 merchant to steer trade especially in India as those nodes have many connections. 3 more merchants also mean 3 more trading policies transfering into increasing relations or even siege ability. And policies giving huge trade efficiencies are huge noneymakers. IMO trade ideas are numer three here, just behind diplo and influ.
diplomatic is the best overall, especially the bonus for lowered impact for no cb spam to break alliances, you just save a lot of admin mana over the game and you get a lot of events that can lower by 5% agressive expansion.
Is maritime that bad? I always pick it as my fourth/fifth idea to invade Europe from a far, it works really well,
Can you pick Naval+Maritime as a horde?
Call me crazy but I'm gonna make a case for maritime. Only because it kind of helped me in a nieche situation. At the time I was playing as a Vineland-like custom nation and and gotten declared on by Great Britain. Having a single really good admiral made it so the GB couldn't land on my nation which was scattered on a couple of dozen islands.
I agree that Maritime is trash, but the bonus is really from your ships being able to repair whilst on the move in owned coastal zones - which is a decent bonus in some situations. Still bad, but not as bad as you said.
Trade idea is very useful when I play a country except for the Europe region.
It's a bother to conquer the new world and Europe countries as Asian or African ones for getting merchants.
I always choose treat ideas didn’t know they were so bad, But his ideas make sense
would it be acceptable to get trade ideas as prussia?