Aristocratic is the best military idea

[Medicles]

+1 Leader siege
+33% National manpower modifier
+0,5 Yearly absolutism
+1 Diplomat
+1 Leader siege
+ 1 Leader without upkeep
-10% Military technology cost
+1 Leader siege

Perfect for early game. Did you know it has +1 Leader siege?

[nottheguywhotookyour2cent]

Nguyên văn bởi Medicles:

Nguyên văn bởi nottheguywhotookyour2cent:

Bro Quantity is mandatory for almost all nations on earth since you never wanna use mercs due to them being so annoying and micro heavy.

Bro, experienced players use mercs. One of the reasons why military ideas arent needed except for faster siege. The most important ressource you have in war is ducats. The right amount will always win you wars, especially when you micro manage your armies.

Doesnt matter if Florryworry tortures himself by micromanaging 6 80k unsplittable mercs in Siberia. You are not a youtuber, you are a human being with emotions and you will take Quantity. Not for the sake of being the most efficient but for the sake of your well being as a human.

[Marquoz]

Nguyên văn bởi nottheguywhotookyour2cent:

Nguyên văn bởi Marquoz:

Right. In SP, I never take a military idea in my first 6 groups. After that, I might consider it, but against the AI, military ideas are never necessary.

Bro Quantity is mandatory for almost all nations on earth since you never wanna use mercs due to them being so annoying and micro heavy.

"Bro", I never take military ideas in my first six groups and I have every possible achievement. Quantity is NOT mandatory. No military ideas are needed at all, for any nation. I beat my enemies with my economy and my understanding of combat.

[Medicles]

Nguyên văn bởi nottheguywhotookyour2cent:

Doesnt matter if Florryworry tortures himself by micromanaging 6 80k unsplittable mercs in Siberia. You are not a youtuber, you are a human being with emotions and you will take Quantity. Not for the sake of being the most efficient but for the sake of your well being as a human.

I dont take quantity, but i understand where you are coming from. I took quantity too when i was ignorant. I also took defensive. Since emperor i used quality + economic in my first 3-4 ideas. But they dont matter. You get more than enough manpower by simply expanding and your economy will handle wars. If you really need some army boosting, then get a morale or disciplin advisor. Seriously, you dont even need to build any barracks to come to the usual 100k manpower and 1k monthly recovery around 1550-1600.

I use mercs regularly for early wars and i dont even micromanage that extensively. I usually just trade sieges.

[bri]

Not sure I've ever taken quantity, certainly not as any nation of significance, unless it was fairly late game and doing so for a policy (+20% goods produced? Yes please, and -10% dev cost/+10% fl isn't exactly trash tier).

Maybe if you want to play a pure tall MR type game it'd be worth grabbing early but that seems really boring to me...

[Kapika96]

Nguyên văn bởi nottheguywhotookyour2cent:

Nguyên văn bởi Marquoz:

Right. In SP, I never take a military idea in my first 6 groups. After that, I might consider it, but against the AI, military ideas are never necessary.

Bro Quantity is mandatory for almost all nations on earth since you never wanna use mercs due to them being so annoying and micro heavy.

I never take quantity and never use mercs (except for certain nations in the first 5 or so years) so I've no idea WTF you're talking about.

[Peel]

Everyone's got a different style. Personally I find Aristocratic great early on, pretty much every idea is something I would want.

Becomes even better with a small coloniser - as Holland it was perfect for the third diplomat. With the Exploration-Aristocratic policy I was able to get a manpower over that of Ming with just the Dutch/Flemish lands in a friendly multiplayer game. When you don't need to worry about manpower you can ignore mercenaries - saves money and allows you to drill them for stronger troops and global professionalism bonuses. In this way the Dutch also happened to be the best at besieging...

However, this probably wouldn't work in a competitive multiplayer environment, where your drilling armies are likely to be sniped and the lack of direct military bonuses means you will lose battles. Equally it is inefficient for your average single player run because it doesn't directly help blobbing.

For me, quantity is the worst idea group, as it gives a false sense of security - your large armies can be defeated by smaller enemy forces, and your economy is more stretched. If I wanted land supremacy then Offensive would be my go to (it was Quality before they halved the Tradition, but it's still higher priority on a naval nation). Do beware though that Offensive makes your army more brittle as it inflates your force limit without increasing the manpower pool. Shouldn't be a problem as your armies are also tougher, but worth remembering.

As for discipline being the only modifier worth investing in, that's not very true. It is the best single modifier, but modifiers are best spread out and not stacked. Your best bet would be a mix of discipline, morale, fire/shock modifiers and combat ability (make sure the latter compliment each other - don't go for fire modifiers on cavalry).

[VoiD]

Strategy game 101: Economy is the most important thing.

It also applies to real life but some people/governments are too stupid to realize that.
If you have a strong economy you can get all the rest, of everything, as much as you want, food, goods, armies, missiles, anything can be yours, if you don't then it doesn't matter if you have armies or not, you can't supply them, and the other guy probably can buy better armies than you anyway, plus if you lose a few battles you're done, you won't have the economy to rise up again in time, good economies can afford to lose most battles and still win the war.

EU4 used to be much harder, specially lucky nations and their crazy cheats beating much larger armies with the same tech in every battle, now it's not that broken.

[Anaverageguy41]

Nguyên văn bởi Marquoz:

Nguyên văn bởi nottheguywhotookyour2cent:

Bro Quantity is mandatory for almost all nations on earth since you never wanna use mercs due to them being so annoying and micro heavy.

"Bro", I never take military ideas in my first six groups and I have every possible achievement. Quantity is NOT mandatory. No military ideas are needed at all, for any nation. I beat my enemies with my economy and my understanding of combat.

You beat your enemies with your humble bragging about having all the achievements you mean?
just an FYI nobody cares my dude

[Marquoz]

Nguyên văn bởi Anaverageguy41:

Nguyên văn bởi Marquoz:

"Bro", I never take military ideas in my first six groups and I have every possible achievement. Quantity is NOT mandatory. No military ideas are needed at all, for any nation. I beat my enemies with my economy and my understanding of combat.

You beat your enemies with your humble bragging about having all the achievements you mean?
just an FYI nobody cares my dude

The fact that I win without taking Quantity is totally relevant to this discussion, "my dude." It proves the idea group isn't mandatory.

[Anaverageguy41]

Nguyên văn bởi Marquoz:

Nguyên văn bởi Anaverageguy41:

You beat your enemies with your humble bragging about having all the achievements you mean?
just an FYI nobody cares my dude

The fact that I win without taking Quantity is totally relevant to this discussion, "my dude." It proves the idea group isn't mandatory.

Nah dude you literally brag about having every achievement on every single discussion you involve yourself in.
I'm here to remind you that nobody cares

[Anaverageguy41]

Nguyên văn bởi Marquoz:

Nguyên văn bởi Anaverageguy41:

You beat your enemies with your humble bragging about having all the achievements you mean?
just an FYI nobody cares my dude

The fact that I win without taking Quantity is totally relevant to this discussion, "my dude." It proves the idea group isn't mandatory.

The fact that you feel the need to brag about the fact you don't take a military group in your first 6 ideas because you're so good at the game is honestly pretty pathetic and terrible advice for people just getting into the game tbh.

[Marquoz]

Nguyên văn bởi Anaverageguy41:

Nguyên văn bởi Marquoz:

The fact that I win without taking Quantity is totally relevant to this discussion, "my dude." It proves the idea group isn't mandatory.

The fact that you feel the need to brag about the fact you don't take a military group in your first 6 ideas because you're so good at the game is honestly pretty pathetic and terrible advice for people just getting into the game tbh.

You've got it exactly backwards. Not taking military idea groups makes you stronger, not weaker, so it's great advice for people just getting into the game. Military ideas are a noob trap. They seem like a good idea at first glance, and they do provide some useful bonuses. But not taking military ideas enables a player to make more impactful choices that generate more total power faster.

[Kapika96]

Nguyên văn bởi Anaverageguy41:

Nguyên văn bởi Marquoz:

The fact that I win without taking Quantity is totally relevant to this discussion, "my dude." It proves the idea group isn't mandatory.

The fact that you feel the need to brag about the fact you don't take a military group in your first 6 ideas because you're so good at the game is honestly pretty pathetic and terrible advice for people just getting into the game tbh.

He hardly seemed like he was bragging to me. Just stating facts. The fact is you absolutely don't need to take quantity ideas (or any other military ideas for that matter), and anybody saying otherwise is the one giving bad advice.

[Marquoz]

Nguyên văn bởi Anaverageguy41:

Nguyên văn bởi Marquoz:

The fact that I win without taking Quantity is totally relevant to this discussion, "my dude." It proves the idea group isn't mandatory.

Nah dude you literally brag about having every achievement on every single discussion you involve yourself in.

Sure, it's a brag. But it's also proof that what I'm doing works. When someone claims that "Quantity is totally necessary," I can prove that it isn't instead of just saying the opposite. Anyone can claim anything, but providing evidence is another matter entirely.

Military ideas are dead last in importance. What matters most is each nation's economy, administration, diplomacy, trade, and (for some countries) colonial ability. When you power those up, you'll find you don't care about military ideas at all. Your armies are so numerous and so high-tech that it's completely irrelevant that this enemy has a higher discipline and that one has better morale. So what? You steamroll them and never even notice.

[Ashling]

It's alright. Nothing really stands out for the idea group which isn't bad, but it's not exactly the best for any given situation. If you're a non western nation that's planning a sunset invasion or something then trying for innovative into aristocratic might be a thing to go for as the policy isn't too bad (20% production efficiency) and the extra tech bonus is nice if you can keep up with institutions.
It's also a requirement for Monastic orders to have holy crusader generals so it's basically a must pick for them (or else you're lame (or, if you want to be the embodiment of holy fury itself, you go naval and crusade the very seven seas!))

Edit: Let me put it this way, if a random idea picker picked Aristocratic for my first idea group, I wouldn’t be upset.