Country with the best national ideas?

[bradlogan]

Title says it all, i want an OP country with good ideas to play as

[Reverend Belial]

France, Brandenburg, and Sweden are the ones that come to mind.

[mischa.zehnbauer]

Well, different ideassupport different styles of play. Also the situation of a country matters a lot. A country could have something OP like -100% Army tradition decay and still be very hard to play if it was starting in a war with the ottomans for example.

That being said, I find ideas with a bonus to land-combat very helpful. So Brandenburg is an excellent choice if you manage to build it up to a certain strength. Also the russian ideas with their focus on shere masses are convincing, as is France with its "Elan".

But that's just my focus on landwar, other people simply rule with naval-based nations like spain or england or at diplomacy (austria).

[Kagemin]

I'm not quite sure how up to date it still is, but someone made a list how expensive all the ideas would be if you created them in the nation designer:
http://www.eu4wiki.com/User:Evil4Zerggin/Idea_group_costs

[Rabob]

I think with the latest patch, countries with lower attrition bonuses might be very favourable.

[whereveryouare]

of course war and core-creation! Steppes,ottoman, and Mughal!

[mss73055]

Screw ideas. Dutch Republic ftw!

[Joko Wilolo]

everybody knows Aceh rule the straits of Malacca, the small and strong sultanate of the south east asia, very challenging to play but can make you feel glorious if you figured the way

[Raider Deci]

Originally posted by mischa.zehnbauer:

Well, different ideassupport different styles of play. Also the situation of a country matters a lot. A country could have something OP like -100% Army tradition decay and still be very hard to play if it was starting in a war with the ottomans for example.

I really like the ideas that karaman & candar has. Really powerful stuff in there and they feel very well suited for most situations, but good luck trying to stop the ottomans during the first years.

[Lockestadt]

Keep in mind that even the most OP ideas fall victim to themselves.

Ottomans are OP for their coring ideas and manpower and their location + size makes it easy to stretch the empire in several directions without aggressive expansion stacking by attacking to the Southeast, Northeast, and West in rotation to allow for AE to fall off. However this also means that without building Humanist ideas and maintaining Religious unity, you're in for hordes of rebels.

A lot of people argue that Venice is OP for its end trade node, but I'm actually more of a fan of building Italy from the ground up as Ferrara/Tuscany and using both end-trade nodes in Genoa and Venice. Then, of course, you're in control of the highest concentration of high development provinces by 1660-1680 if you time your AE right. The Tuscan ideas group is also OP giving +2 papal influence and -10% development as traditions, +5% discipline ambition, and its first three ideas being -5% idea and tech cost, -1 interest per annum, and +1 prestige yearly. As well as 10% trade and production efficiency and 25% manpower mod. While Italian ideas then switch over to a late-game strategy of diplo-rep, trade efficiency, decreased coring, and increased galley and infantry combat ability. The downfall being that its a complete pain in the ass and slow as hell to form Italy, and then the Big Blue Blob gets grumpy about you stealing the Genoa trade node.

Brandenburg is, like everyone before has said, OP as hell. Alliance with Poland, eat Tuetonic Order and Pomerania, and you're set for rapid military growth. Adding TO territory to HRE makes Poland no longer want it, so you can maintain that relationship for a long time, especially if you drag Poland into war early game to prevent them from getting a PU with Lithuania (Not sure that it always does, but it always has for me) Biggest downfall of any Brandenburg game is getting greedy and turning several HRE members into OPM's, and then they join Lubeck or Genoa trade leagues and become a pain in your ass or letting Poland declare its own wars by waiting too long between yours and them getting stomped by Muscovy (Lithuania not in a PU has terrible tech, always) which slows you down even more. I will forever preach grabbing Innovative ideas first as Brandenburg to get the varied bonuses, although I've known some people to go into Humanist to prevent rebellions, or even a military idea tree.

Of course France is OP because of sheer starting size and the amount of food readily available to them as well as their ideas. I've actually joined the HRE as France and allied Austria to prevent English advances while eating away at the Empire from within and Castille through Navarra, which proved to be just enough distance to prevent stacking AE, except with Aragon.

I've yet to play as Sweden because of their neighborhood and I'm not sure I'm up to the level of frustration that comes with trying to eat at Muscovy, HRE, and Commonwealth. But I'm sure a Swedish independence and then eating Denmark, followed maybe by entry into the HRE to stave off Commonwealth and Muscovy until you decide to attack would be a good early strategy and a change to eat the HRE portion of the Baltic without Unlawful territory concerns.

But basically, any nation that you get a little bit lucky with can snowball hard as long as you avoid stacking AE, don't worry about accruing some debt, and have plenty of targets to eat at.