How many Military Ideas and how early?

[Aksolotli]

I know this depends on Nations to Nations, but is there any good point for Military Ideas?
Like how many and how early for nations like Denmark. Or how many or how early for nations like Portugal.

[dbond1]

Yeah I take it often. One of my top picks actually. Sometimes it is my first group. In the Mewar run just completed it was my first pick and worked out quite well indeed.

[Mason]

These days I feel the best military idea group is Espionage.

[Keijo]

It's an issue that you basicly get +morale of armies from prestige, army tradition, power projection, defender of faith and golden age, and the AI only uses golden age.

You get like 65% morale and the AI only gets 10%. On top of that you have missions and stuff. But the mil ideas have some usage in late game as 5th idea if you have to fight some big European powers after 1650.

[Masshiron]

It depends on what your plans are for your game I guess, but about 50% of the time I take a mil group as my first idea group. When you do that you have to make sure not to fall behind in mil tech, but it can help give you an early game edge. In most games, I end up taking Offensive and Quality at the least. My personal preference is to get ideas and policies that give discipline and siege ability, although it's not really that important what you pick as long as you don't fall behind in tech.

[RCMidas]

My personal favourite 1800s idea set, when I'm ready to settle down for the rest of eternity ruling over the planet, is actually: Administrative, Aristocratic, Court, Economic, Infrastructure, Quality, Offensive, Trade. Whatever other idea groups I needed on the way to this point can be discarded and replaced, and these provide me with pleasant policies and a legitimised infinity of dominance to come. The single, solitary downside is the occasional peasant revolt from the Aristocratic ideas.

[Azoniar]

Originally posted by Mason:

These days I feel the best military idea group is Espionage.

The ledger should be removed and its info coming from actual espionage. Been a sore in my eyes since the early days.

[darkestkhan]

Originally posted by Azoniar:

Originally posted by Mason:

These days I feel the best military idea group is Espionage.

The ledger should be removed and its info coming from actual espionage. Been a sore in my eyes since the early days.

Hear ye, Hear ye.

Yeah, the ledger gives way too much information. At least get us to build that 25-size spy network before we know the size of the army and the fleet (and 50 for quality).

Originally posted by Mason:

These days I feel the best military idea group is Espionage.

The best is going too far, but it's indeed great at that job. After all, it provides just as much (potentially more: up to 30%, but 20% with spy network size 50 is more realistic) siege ability as offensive, and a bit of "defensive ability" (by making it more difficult to build spy network against you - it takes longer to build it up, and then the event that cuts it down is more frequent).

[Mason]

Originally posted by darkestkhan:

The best is going too far, but it's indeed great at that job. After all, it provides just as much (potentially more: up to 30%, but 20% with spy network size 50 is more realistic) siege ability as offensive, and a bit of "defensive ability" (by making it more difficult to build spy network against you - it takes longer to build it up, and then the event that cuts it down is more frequent).

Yeah I was being a little bit hyperbolic, it's just so good. The great strength is that it doesn't have the opportunity cost of an actual military idea group, i.e. the mil point cost.

[Marquoz]

Originally posted by Damphair:

*awaiting incoming Marquoz post about why you should never pick any military ideas*

I've been traveling, so that post is late in coming. But here it is, lol.

One of the great ironies of EU4 is that military idea groups make your armies weaker until late in the game. Consider what happens when you don't spend all those points on military ideas:

--You get and keep a permanent tech lead. AI nations with a tech lead destroy new players on this forum over and over again. Be the destroyer instead. If you don't take military ideas, you get to be the one with a lead over the rest of the world.

--You hire many, many generals, discarding the bad ones and keeping the good ones. This means all your armies have strong leaders who are good at their jobs. Siege armies have generals with siege pips, combat armies have generals with fire and shock pips, and pretty much every army has generals with maneuver pips.

--Your army professionalism goes up fast because of all the generals you hire, which gives other strong bonuses.

The combination of a tech lead + good generals + high army professionalism is stronger than any single military idea group. Taking early military groups are a trap that many players fall into. "I want a better army" is their thinking--and it's a good goal. But because of EU4 design flaws, military ideas aren't the way to get it until late in the game, if ever.

The real way to win is to pick idea groups that enable you to outgrow the AI. Then you swamp it with numbers, a tech lead, good generals, and army professionalism. I guarantee that this approach works against every nation in the game.

And if you need a hint about the best idea groups for growth, the Big Three are the answer: Admin, Diplo, and Influence. Unless you're an early colonizer, they are the three strongest picks you can take as any country. Admin reduces coring costs and increases GC in addition to other helpful powers. Diplo reduces province warscore cost so you can conquer faster and gives you more and stronger diplomats to prevent coalitions, forge claims, and so on. Influence in combination with Admin reduces the annexation cost for vassals by 40% when you enact the policy enabled by completing both. You want to spend roughly as many Diplo mana points annexing vassals as you do Admin points coring direct conquests.

So forget the military ideas. Take the Big Three, blob out, get a military tech lead, and hire lots of generals. Soon you'll be rampaging across the world.

[darkestkhan]

Originally posted by Marquoz:

Originally posted by Damphair:

*awaiting incoming Marquoz post about why you should never pick any military ideas*

I've been traveling, so that post is late in coming. But here it is, lol.

One of the great ironies of EU4 is that military idea groups make your armies weaker until late in the game. Consider what happens when you don't spend all those points on military ideas:

--You get and keep a permanent tech lead. An AI with a tech lead destroys new players on this forum over and over again. Be the destroyer instead. If you don't take military ideas, you get to be the one with a lead over the rest of the world.

--You hire many, many generals, discarding the bad ones and keeping the good ones. This means all your armies have strong leaders who are good at their jobs. Siege armies have generals with siege pips, combat armies have generals with fire and shock pips, and pretty much every army has generals with maneuver pips.

--Your army professionalism goes up fast because of all the generals you hire, which gives other strong bonuses.

The combination of a tech lead + good generals + high army professionalism is stronger than any single military idea group. Taking early military groups are a trap that many players fall into. "I want a better army" is their thinking--and it's a good goal. But because of EU4 design flaws, military ideas aren't the way to get it until late in the game, if ever.

The real way to win is to pick idea groups that enable you to outgrow the AI. Then you swamp it with numbers, a tech lead, good generals, and army professionalism. I guarantee that this approach works against every nation in the game.

And if you need a hint about the best idea groups for growth, the Big Three are the answer: Admin, Diplo, and Influence. Unless you're an early colonizer, they are the three strongest picks you can take as any country. Admin reduces coring costs and increases GC in addition to other helpful powers. Diplo reduces province warscore cost so you can conquer faster and gives you more and stronger diplomats to prevent coalitions, forge claims, and so on. Influence in combination with Admin reduces the annexation cost for vassals by 45% when you enact the policy enabled by completing both. You want to spend roughly as many Diplo mana points annexing vassals as you do Admin points coring direct conquests.

So forget the military ideas. Take the Big Three, blob out, get a military tech lead, and hire lots of generals. Soon you'll be rampaging across the world.

40%. The policy is a 15% integration cost reduction. It is 45% with the nobility privilege.

[Ashling]

Originally posted by Marquoz:

The combination of a tech lead + good generals + high army professionalism is stronger than any single military idea group.

Offensive ideas can give you a guaranteed +3 pip general (shock and fire + siege with policy). I wonder how much military power offensive would save/cost vs spam rolling for general pips?

Edit: the entire idea thing costs like 60 generals, which isn’t great, but less than I was expecting

[Marquoz]

Originally posted by darkestkhan:

40%. The policy is a 15% integration cost reduction. It is 45% with the nobility privilege.

Yup, correct. Once I have vassals, I always grant the nobility privilege and unconsciously factored it in. Good catch.

[Lasagna]

i almost always take just offensive, you don't really need any other mil ideas unless you're really weak and will run out of manpower without quantity. (i do not use mercs since the rework because they are annoying.) Just remember not to fall behind on mil tech for ideas as a new player so probably don't take one as your first idea unless you're a really strong country with a high mil starting ruler or something. when you're more experienced you can afford to do weird idea orders, gotta know the rules to know when you can break them.

[RCMidas]

Originally posted by Ashy:

Originally posted by Marquoz:

The combination of a tech lead + good generals + high army professionalism is stronger than any single military idea group.

Offensive ideas can give you a guaranteed +3 pip general (shock and fire + siege with policy). I wonder how much military power offensive would save/cost vs spam rolling for general pips?

Edit: the entire idea thing costs like 60 generals, which isn’t great, but less than I was expecting

But then you still need to generate Army Professionalism and still need to balance against maintaining a tech lead in the single most important tech type against more military group ideas. Sure, it can be done - but by giving up a military idea, you're able to pick literally any other idea and get its benefits alongside buffing your army universally.

[Magma Dragoon]

I like plutocratic as a third idea group when I can take plutocracy.