Best Idea Group in EU4? Idea group tier list Europa Universalis 4 in 2022

Always stuck thinking what is the best idea group for your eu4 campaign? Are you always wishing you went a different idea group when playing your nations? Well this video is the solution for you, ranking the idea groups from best to worst in a tier list format.
This tier list includes all idea groups in EU4 from diplomatic, admin, quantity to even unique idea group sets like Indigenous or Horde ideas. I factor both single player and multi player aspects of each idea group weighing how strong it is overall compared to other idea groups and which idea groups are the best in most campaigns.
Do you agree or disagree with my categorization? Then let me know down below in the comments.
Ill be streaming Victoria 3 all day the day before launch, you can check it out here: / absolutehabibi starting 9am PST on Monday October 24th.
Chapters
Victoria 3 Teaser: 0:00
Intro: 0:45
Naval/Maritime: 1:28
Admin: 3:50
Aristocratic: 6:20
Divine: 7:55
Defensive: 9:22
Diplomatic: 10:35
Economic: 12:22
Innovative: 14:35
Exploration/Expansion: 16:31
Influence: 18:35
Offensive: 20:01
Espionage: 22:07
Plutocratic: 24:46
Humanist: 26:54
Religious: 28:40
Trade: 30:17
Quality: 33:05
Quantity: 36:16
Horde: 38:00
Indigenous: 40:00
Example Builds: 43:02
Outro: 48:05
What Ideas to go EU4? Best Ideas EU4? Which Ideas are the best to take EU4? Most overpowered ideas EU4?
Title of video: Best Idea Group in EU4? Idea group tier list Europa Universalis 4 in 2022
Title of Last Video: I played my favorite German nation and this happened
Absolute Habibi AbsoluteHabibi EU4 Ideas tier list

[@AbsoluteHabibi]

Ill be streaming Victoria 3 all day the day before launch, you can check it out here: www.twitch.tv/absolutehabibi -- starting 9am PST on Monday October 24th.

[@KarmaTheNarrator23]

You should review some mod idea groups just for fun, there us this one on Ante Bellum, Global Domination, its insane

[@vattghern257]

@@KarmaTheNarrator23 or Idea Variations, ideas

[@rmzmovie1152]

I'm still new to this game. I just played my second save game as France. Any suggestions on which trio idea group I should choose?

[@cmonimpro]

Correction: The Rule of God event got nerfed to +5% morale and +5% discipline in the recent update

[@TheUckActor]

You forgot the best policy in the entire game.The ability to recruit female generals with diplo+plutocratic.

[@thefutureisnowoldman7653]

#Herstory

[@anabe3785]

I still cant comprehend the point we profit from female generals

[@l.pietrobon3925]

​@Ferbujosbe what

[@martinvokurka6153]

Sounds like a debuff to me 😊

[@barbadolid5170]

😂

[@clementlefevre5384]

Espionnage is hands downs the best Idea set to expand as a minor nation : 20% AE réduction, 1 diplomat 10% siege ability -0.20 anual corruption, (btw, you Can combine that with dynastic administration to get +1 admin point for free) This plus the ability to make Spynetworks, and thus claims, and get siège ability extremely quickly. This make the HRE a expansion heaven, just a Quick reminder, Ulm, ditmarschen, frisia, and any free city, are considered republics, and Can therefore use plotocratic, to get +33% Manpower through policies. Test it asap.

[@trevor8726]

Great in the hre yeah annexing 3 nations a month as prussia for little to no ae during age of exploration

[@rubenbrouwer6897]

I did a ditchmarschen campaign with these ideas and I was easily able to take over all of germany before reaching tech 15. Then just wait for tech 20 and you will have a mega germany

[@gothia6515]

Seems like the Budget Monk crowd stormed the comments :) Its always nice to get diferent opinions.

[@niluscvp]

Its a fun one to stack with countries or wonders that give bonus to laying claims. Brandenburg has -20% on claims for example.

[@gustavosanches3454]

@@gothia6515 I was very skeptical when I saw that video of his but I tried Ino-Espionage in my Sweden run and holy moly that combo is absolutely amazing

[@maxmustermann5271]

Five years ago, I would never have believed anyone would ever rank espionage over quantity

[@jespoketheepic]

A nice thing about the trio of Innovative+Espionage+Offensive is that it stacks Siege Ability (+40%, +1 pip), Advisor Cost (-40%), and Diplomats (+3) all at the same time. All while also making for a balanced set, individually improving your Mana, AE, and Army respectively.

[@martinb4272]

Very astute observation.

[@David-bh7hs]

It's a perfect set tbh. You give up discipline but when is that ever a bottleneck?

[@gustavosanches3454]

@@David-bh7hs you don't really, you get 5% discipline from offensive. You dont really need to stack discipline in the first 100 years of a campaign

[@feelsbradman6793]

Something to add at 11:32 , improve relations modifier also affects how quickly aggressive expansion decays, so you can end up losing a fairly substantial amount of AE each year if you can stack it, typically via the merchant interaction and this idea, as well as the adviser and national ideas. It's not uncommon to be losing about 4 AE a year passively.

[@niluscvp]

you can stack it with humanist, influence and diplomatic ideas, you reach 5.5-6.0 yearly decay with those three ideas. Its very good for HRE emperor games or when your country ideas also has a improve relations buff.

[@PvtParking]

The bank event is its own event, it isn't tied to the Idea group events, however the pre-requisite is to have the 3rd idea, National Bank, for it to trigger.

[@theleontech1]

Inno+espionage is like god tier opener if you can secure show strenght early on + decent rulers. You will spend on lvl 5 advisors that are 50% in total for all 3 mana slots under 5 ducats. Especially if u have monument like korea, egypt, florence with advisor cost day 1

[@blyatguette]

Love the video, though I think it would be better as 2 separate tier lists for SP and MP.

[@AbsoluteHabibi]

My intention was to look at the ideas in both lenses since people who play vanilla multiplayer use the same ideas as people who play single player

[@theorixlux2605]

@@AbsoluteHabibi I like the idea. Maybe the execution is off? Mayhaps splitting the tier board in half, and placing each idea twice for each game style?

[@martinb4272]

Thorougly enjoyable to watch. This got me so calm, the music complementing the casual tone Habibi.

[@actualiygod6782]

Finally man I love your tierlists.. I would love an update on goverment reforms tho as it had a massive update.

[@dwightmayer7848]

LFG Habibi just dropped a 50 minute video and MADE MY DAY

[@Asrec_Leo]

Great video habibi! Really liked the depth you gave to all idea groups and the various different scenarios that you might use them in. And fun setups at the end.

[@joexalo6840]

damn yesterday i was wondering about this and looking for videos, perfect timing lmao

[@anthonyscott1997]

Very well structured video. Keep it up.

[@cjpy]

Really like the unique tier 2 goverment reform (for monarchy) which removes stability loss on monarch death, only available with aristocratic ideas. Very nice bonus considering you take the tier 2 goverment reform before your first king even dies. Saves you ton of admin power of not having to stab up and guarenteeing prosperity in all provinces.

[@moajjem04]

Actually loved the build examples

[@makasbtw]

The combination of Religious, Trade and Quantity is one of my favourites, 10% morale, 30% goods produced and +1% missionary strength

[@ryszardmaciek4240]

I recently got 6/6/6 heir from espionage ideas (it gives heir with +3 to each stat)

[@AbsoluteHabibi]

Wow

[@cirokistermann7834]

How??

[@ryszardmaciek4240]

I mean event obviously (monarch is a womanizer)

[@cromusician6153]

@@ryszardmaciek4240???

[@cirokistermann7834]

@@ryszardmaciek4240 Great event, but I will never forget how in a campaign with Aragon I disinherited the initial heir, I got the event of the female heiress 4/4/4, then I got a 6/6/6 without lux stella and then with that monarch I got another You see the female heiress event (sorry can't remember which one) it gave me another 4/4/4, the best luck I've ever had in this game, plus no one died early.

[@gustavosanches3454]

About espionage, they buffed supporting rebels by a lot. In my latest Scandinavia campaign I made 130k particularists pop in the middle of the Ottomans whilst they were fighting a massive war. They lost the war badly just because I decided to do a little trolling. There's also a massive -20% AE impact and spy network construction which makes you get claims and siege down faster. Imo espionage is basically a must have especially for expanding into the HRE

[@ALittleMessi]

The video I've been waiting for

[@yellowapples9478]

Innovative and offensive does give the nice plus 1 siege and 10% siege ability, which I like in sp, and certain situations in mp, when your opponent decides to play fortnite

[@kingfere]

YESSSSS WE LOVE YOU HABIBI

[@luke8205]

Plutocratic is a really nice first idea group if you are playing in Italy, since if you are fighting any war in that region during the age of discovery you gain the "Italian Wars" modifier, giving an extra -10% merc cost and +5% merc discipline

[@royalrugby4869]

I know you may have to play around a bit, but I would love to see something like this for Vic 3, since it's a brand new game, any helpful guides or tips are useful.

[@adamalomair]

u really got me with this one bud. im a lil high trying to learn eu4 but i also recently got v3. i was the Jacky Chan face xD

[@mertcanhacfazloglu4862]

It comes down to your style for some of them. I think Influence is the best because I use it a lot, especially combined with administrative.

[@GuyFromTheAnatolia]

Breakfast with tier list 😎

[@civi4ever460]

Quantity got done dirty, but love this siege ability stacking in the new patch

[@mostaverage_gamer]

Omg new tier list mr streamer

[@gothia6515]

I am currently on a Aragon playthrough in 1500 which turned out to be really disgusting. I took Byz as vassal, forced Naples to stay a subject of course, got a late wedding (good for Castille taking Exploration), forced the PU on Portugal (After they took Exploration), managed to get the burgundian inheritance by allying and marry them (fed them 3 provinces in Lorraine and denied France eating into them). And to top it all off, France fell under a scottish PU and i was able to start a succession war cause i was Frances rival. So i snatched the PU. Influence + Admin seemed to be the nobariner pick. But i made a little mistake, influence in the early game only helps to keep the PUs stable which isnt that hard as Aragon or some other big nation. I recommend to take it a bit later when you start to annex your big subjects. Offensive would ve helped more. Also Burgundy and Castille are free annexations. Anyways. Should i go culture shift into andalusian or castillian to get the proper spanish mission tree? I mean it has PU cbs on Great Britain and Austria (which has Bohemia and Hungary as subjects in my game). First i will use the aragonese to eat further into Italy and Egypt of course.

[@Soma_Cruz_]

Picking up naval ideas for the 10% goods produced from the naval/eco policy is pretty hot. Also tax meta with the maritime/humanist policy. Underrated af.

[@sasi5841]

Influence idea is quite op if you're into vassal play. In several of my runs I had like 5 to 8 vassals at any given time, with some of them being individually more powerful than some of the great powers. So I could win against a country with over .5 million soldiers while barely doing anything myself. Highly recommend getting the HRE electors and pope as vassals

[@duschidee702]

42:47 really moved me and changed how I view the game

[@Vincrand]

Maritime and Trade ideas are pretty much equal to me. If you depend on land trade, then trade ideas will be great for your eco. If you depend on naval trade, then maritime will do just as well. It might not have straight up trade steering, but the increased naval tradition from protecting trade will give more trade steering than trade ideas. Maritime doesn't have merchants, but you get enough free merchants anyway.

[@torhenryandreassen6144]

I wish I could use colonists like diplomats in the macro builder, that way I could use them to dev provinces. I often find myself wanting expansion ideas when I have a lot of trade companies - lets say I'm Japan for instance - but, as someone obsessed with cool borders, I don't always want to colonize everything within range. But I just can't justify it when the colonists are such a huge part of it, and it so fucking awful to micro them - cause other than the settler chance it isn't very new world or even Africa orientated. Def a feature I'd love in the future, or in a mod.

[@maras3naraz]

If you start as Crusader teuton. Finish the mission tree and become Poland, you can have insane cav combat ability ;) Even if the exploit with Holy horde + polish autocracy doesn't work anymore

[@jarjab2games]

Naval and maritime were great for my empire of mann run where you have to take every island in the game.

[@sasi5841]

In victorum universalis, annexing provinces cost an arm and a leg in diplo mana. So religious is a must have idea for any nation (barring hordes, and some small number of exceptions) in that mod, at least until tech 23.

[@jon_j__]

It would've been nice if you'd mentioned the various new 1.34 government reforms that are locked behind specific idea groups. (Or that are locked OUT because you took an idea group.) I haven't played EU4 enough since 1.34 to fully understand what's going on with all that, so I don't know if there's anything truly gamebreaking in there, but there were some that seemed pretty nice... Also, plutocratic ideas have policies that give yearly republic tradition, which are very nice if you want to cheese re-elections for perpetual 6/6/6 rulers. For me, that pushes pluto up to A tier. Obviously YMMV.

[@MyVanir]

Re: Influence Vassal FL Contribution shenanigans - I remember seeing a vid of someone doing that with Ulm, while remaining a free city (so if land is conquered, must give it to vassals/release vassals the same day).

[@shrike_3588]

Aristo has had the leader siege for a while now. Some time around the emperor dlc.

[@Sniff420]

Could you do country ideas sometime? :)

[@carlosdumbratzen6332]

I recently broke a mp lobby, because I took naval as 2nd idea with malaya :x I allied with Japan and declared on Spain, who was allied with GB and Portugal. They couldnt compete against my navy and ragequit. It was my first mp lobby and there was no rule against naval, so I thought I rp a bit.

[@LoliPolice-bf7mw]

Trade is pretty nice for tall colonial players, as with an Ireland only game once I got some colonies up I was making 1k+ in trade(with idea completed) while only gettng about 100 in taxes+production.

[@javierperalta7648]

you can stack horde with aristocratic if you switch governments and become a monarchy, which means that you get space marine cavalry

[@Deducklo]

Hey, would you be interested in making an Anbennar ideas tier list? I don't think many people have done one (I couldn't find anyone) and the mod is so expanded that you could probably talk for hours about and can be overwhelming for a lot of newer players.

[@bardon1384]

Trade is very good if you pick it with religious and quantity, giving you 30% goods produced, was very good for my ethiopian game when fighting ottomans, though in 1.34 I would take quality instead of quantity if I played ethiopia again. Trade ideas can help you gain +10 siege ability and +1artilery vs fort bonus by taking tier 7 reform with trade power abroad.

[@Nerazmus]

Naval also has some very good policies. +10% goods produce and +10% production efficiency with Economic +40% ship tradepower with Trade Even +1 Merchant with Influence

[@andrewgreenwood9068]

I really love indigenous ideas. They make playing as a native nation so much more viable.

[@brandonlyon730]

I’m always hesitant in getting influence ideas as I always pick diplomatic ideas first since it provides better bonuses early on. Like I still see great benefit in having influence but I always felt like it was a type of idea where it is the most efficient when you have it early on when vassals were more important in conquests. Is the idea still worth taking around say the late 1500’s and 1600’s if you went diplomatic first?

[@joelp7665]

If you are speed running a world conquest, utilizing your Diplo points to save admin is always good, besides you get less OE from your vassals coring themselves.

[@Vincrand]

When I want a better army and have to decide which idea group to pick I do the following. 10% all CA (combat ability) = 5% discipline = 10% better army. 10% more manpower/ month = 5% better army (not as good for small nations, but better for big nations). 15% FL (force limit) = 10% better army. 10% morale = 5% better army (for small nations it's more like 10% better for big nations it won't do that much). There are some things that make the army stronger, but aren't as easy to quantify. These are general pips, national manpower, attrition things both reducing yours and increasing the enemy's and Siege ability/ Fort defence. The reason manpower is difficult to convert to manpower/month is because you'll always have other forms of manpower already (government type/reforms/estates), which will reduce the effective increase of a manpower from an idea. For now I'll use 2/3 of the value so 15% manpower = 10% better army. Quality: 10% all CA + 5% discipline = 20% better army. Quantity: 25% manpower, 20% recovery + 25% FL = 40% more manpower/month +25% FL = 37% better FL. Offensive: 15% FL + 5% discipline = 20% better army (excl general pips and siege ability). Defensive: 15% morale = 7,5% better army. Aristocratic: 15% manpower + 15% cav CA = from 10% to 17.5% better army (0 to 100 percent cav on frontline). Divine: 10% morale + -10% fire damage received + 20% manpower = 25% better army. Plutocratic: 10% morale, 20% recovery = 15% better army. Horde: 25% cav CA = 12,5% better army (I take it you'll have 100% cav front if you have horde ideas). Indigenous: 10% morale + 15% manpower = 15% better army. Quantity still scores higher than the others. You could argue my value is too high. You could say that 25% manpower/ month + 25% FL = 25% better army. This would make it 32.5% better army in total. Divine is often not really an option, making offensive the 2nd best in most cases. Policies you can choose will alter these numbers, but that depends on the campaign you are playing. zlewikk did do a series of epic blob battles. There you'll also see how much impact force limit has.

[@grandfathernurgle2840]

Once the mercenary ideas come out, I see myself taking admin more often for the mercenary buffs since it won't hurt my professionalism to use mercenaries.

[@sokyu7723]

Also my Eora build Indigenous innovative religious exploration quantity quality offensive diplomatic Absolutely cracked

[@rimanpele]

naval ideas buffs your admirals. - If youre a pirate kingdom (pirate republic with the pirate king reform) it means more mana (since the mana is based on the pips it have), whats clearly based. - If you play on any island i think both are good (as japan for example, you can make tons of money by simply making ships to destroy ming/korea's economy and colonize the pacific/americas, with the bonus of spawning colonialism), the point is theyre more defensive since you wont be able to invade anywhere with boats, youll need army.

[@sokyu7723]

I’ve played a lot of natives: Indigenous is *cracked.* Policies too

[@crazychazers6060]

bruh at like 7:40 am i saw this video come out, but i couldnt watch coz i had an exam to cram for......Macbeth moment

[@jonasnee]

idk, 20% production efficiency seems pretty good for aristocratic, 10% cav combat on top isn't bad either. generally i think aristocratic is specific to some factions, *Cough* poland *Cough*, but they do have some nice aspects.

[@sneed457]

Do one for anbennar please, I'm intrigued by your elf comment.

[@HyperScorpio8688]

Maritime does have thassalocracy going for it (although it's not that much of an advantage, +0.25 yearly navy tradition, −10% light ship cost, +1 merchants and −5% diplomatic technology cost isn't great, but more merchants are good, right?)

[@Kyle_Schaff]

Please do this tier list for government reforms and I won’t ask for anything more this patch

[@jesuschrist9513]

Pro tip: spam support Ming rebels when you're trying to either invade China (i did it as Yuan) or remove the great powerhouse (came in handy for my Malaccan dominance). Ming instantly shatters into like 12 smaller states with no alliances and no troops yet

[@sidneygray51]

In single player, that aristocratic diplomat currying favors in France or Austria alone matters more than any other military idea set combined. You use your own armies for prestige wars to get better heirs and more mana, and let your allies do conquests for you. And a single strategic bankruptcy can create more wealth than all of economic ideas.

[@Ugapiku]

Defensive for Elves in Anbennar... QUICK WRITE IT DOWN, WRITE IT DOOOOOWN!!!

[@trivane626]

Anbennar related tier lists when???

[@rmzmovie1152]

I'm still new to this game. I just played my second save game as France. Any suggestions on which trio idea group I should choose?

[@leaflotus6726]

Ok but what's the best idea set for multiplayer world conquest?

[@nathanieltalcott8171]

Aristocratic is great when you are going Exploration. +15% manpower from the idea and +33% from the policy. It's more total manpower than Quantity though lacking in early force limit. The cav bonus helps early and the absolutism helps late. The yearly army tradition helps throughout, -10% mil tech, and an extra seige pip for every leader is very strong. Reduce dev cost and you seem to always get 14 innovation from the ideas if you open with it. Aristocratic/Exploration is a great open. You get both the colonization range and the second idea group at tech 7. Great way to play especially as France or England so you can jump to West Africa or Bermuda depending on strategy.

[@istrukalya]

Habibi what is your opinion on Republics in multi and single

[@viorp5267]

I wonder how stacking fire Damage received works. So you can get 10% from Baku atesh, 10% from divine and 10% from Rajputs, professionalism and drill. If you have -50% from multiple sources does it actually reduce it by 50% or by less?

[@mastercrash0683]

Personally I prefer expansion over exploration especially for nations in east Asia as well as the Mamluks as usually you will have all of the land discovered by the time you can start expanding.

[@jasonyun1158]

I tried expansion first with Portugal, before I can start colonizing my explorer died and I didn’t realize he died because I was attacking Castile so I couldn’t even save scum it :(

[@janmantsch6675]

I used maritime to beat the chinese and korean fleets as japan plus the ncreased naval size helps you beat european colonial powers

[@theschisack]

Sleeping on Naval and maritime they are good for tall costal nations like the Dutch and Lubeck. The free naval bombardment in my lubeck game paid for itself in mill pts.

[@cromusician6153]

What build should a brexit GBR go and what build should a continental GBR go?

[@markpiper6382]

19:45, I don't know why, but I really love going influence & religious for my 3/4 idea groups as a colonizer. The culture conversion cost reduction makes it so that it's worth full stating africa, and also colonies will be extremely loyal.

[@rabbaniazzahra1784]

me with maratime ideas "spamming light ships on genoa, venice and english straight"

[@lumpydark6173]

I usually win against ottomans using attrition. Melting them away on mountain forts. Like, 25k-30k a month in attrition death is common for me in the mid 1500's. religious+defensive to ensure its always 4-6% attrition.

[@wasallai]

Prussia has space marines. But naval/maritime with Great Britain gives you invincible British spaceships.

[@catalyst772]

Naval or Maritime are good for uhh, Marines only Norway?

[@GrishaPutin]

🥳

[@radbagpuss7872]

I believe maritime ideas is very undervalued in general. After the buffs to marines forcelimit modifiers + quantity nerfs, it's a reasonable alternative to quantity ideas if you can make use of the extra strategic maneuverability that's afforded by being able to safely transport huge numbers of troops around. Since it's essentialy allowing you to use sailors as a secondary manpower pool, you can also turn tax dev on coastal provinces into more troops instead of just being a waste. Naval isn't as good (as partial as I may be to fucking with people using the naval/trade policy), but free artillery barrage and +1 to coastal sieges isn't to be sniffed at, and it still gives you access to marines for most of the same benefit you get from maritime.

[@griffinhunter3206]

I would argue that Plutocratic-Economic +0.2 yearly Republican tradition is a good policy, as well as the diplo-pluto -10% reelection cost. Republic mana generation is very fun in singleplayer

[@user-zg4bk6rv1q]

Man maritime gives you marines and combined with offensive you get a huge army and your trade ships become super effective and you get a lot of money so they are good, especially if you play in Mediterranean sea Edit: My point is that maritime ideas are also good for single player

[@matthewcarroll2533]

Yeah imho unless you're landlocked, Maritime is strictly better than Trade - it's essentially the same while also providing massive QoL features and overwhelming trade power via ships, or just massive amounts of warships.

[@tigrecito48]

i recently played using an OP set of idea groups that unless playing a colonial nation i would probably always go for these ideas now... this set of ideas gives you amazing money, & mana first - Innovative, second Espionage, third - Offensive, fourth - Diplomatic.... having these and trying to get max advisor cost reduction and if you get a good leader (luk or save scumming) i ended up with the best economy ive ever had with +5 advisors early game 17 14 13 mana per month with minimal costs, -80% advisor cost, -20% core creation cost i think? 9 diplomats, constant cbs made, & improving relations & 100% spy networks against enemies, plus amazing siege ability... always finishing sieges before a cheating ai - even with their cheats on sieges i was often beating them even without save scumming.. in my experience so far.. those 4 ideas in that order have been the best set ive ever had... especially with the added policies for those ideas

[@carlosdumbratzen6332]

I like money which is why I like trade ideas

[@Darwidx]

Maritime ideas give you not only another admiral but also general, what in my opinion give them a small atute to take them.

[@badass6300]

Ever since development started giving extra leaders, it's worthless to get ideas that give extra free leaders.

[@Darwidx]

@@badass6300 Idk, I don't played from 1.31

[@triplesharigan]

@Absolute Habibi Let me teach you some secrets of Maritime ideas you think that it's a naval military idea group... wrong. It's an alternative to Trade Idea (thats why its a diplo), where trade focuses on land trade, Maritime focuses on sea trade. The strongest idea in that set by far is the +100% naval tradition from protecting trade. Why is that sooo important? Naval tradition grants multiple bonuses including naval morale. But most importantly it boosts TRADE STEERING and sailor recovery speed which allows you to have a large fleet out. Rule of thumb if your trade flows (majority) over water take maritime, if it goes over land take trade. Caravan Power will help you a great 0% to get that trade out the Caribbean. Like trade idea's there are ways to get your eco going without any idea group to help you out. So I don't want to over sell it. In general if you go Colonial, you start in Africa/India/Indonesia area's Maritime will be better if you feel the need to take an economic focused idea group. If you start as a Horde, North Africa, in the HRE take trade idea's. If you start in the new world your trade is fcked anyway but i guess trade would be better. Some quick facts: Light ships are there pure for trade/exploration ppl who believe they are combat ships are dreaming, even with better ca your better of using heavy's or galleys. Light ships are economic investments like a workshop or a market place, even if you don't wanna do anything with naval combat i'd advice you to at least build some light ships (even without maritime) Maritime will help with your naval power not gonna deny it, but thats mostly because movement pips on admirals increases naval combat width which is one of the strongest naval modifiers in the game. And with a guaranteed 100% naval tradition you'll be recruiting 3 star admirals all the time. Which also further increases the income generated with your trade fleet.

[@Supermash13]

i disagree for aristocratic idea. Because you forgot one very important point that's the last patch added : New governement reform. Actually if you take aristocratic idea, you get on tier 2 gov reform for monarchy a strong reform that's prevent stability hit on ruler death. I made a long run with this governement reform and these saved me (over this 400 years) average 5000 adm point on stability as i could stay on stability 3 almost all the game (so it is also very usefull mid game with diplo idea to truce break and don't have negativity stability everytime). So maybe in multiplayer this won't change much as game don't go over 1600 most of the time but for single player for world conquest it is very strong. highly recommand you to test Habibi.

[@johnconnor8206]

Now you have to play as an indigenous tribe

[@notbryan255]

aristocratic stacks insanely with any country with at decay modifiers prussia is a BIG example albania is one probably mewar or some other indian country i forgot these for example gain from aristocratic very well prussia + its bonuses, ideas, hussite, and aristocratic can get either -4% or -5%, if even -4% thats only -1.00 per year. as prussia you already have 0.5+ at and can get another 0.5 from quality

[@Brandon-yr3nj]

i either take trade ideas and regret it or I don’t and I regret it. just give me merchants I’m so tired

[@kylord20001]

Policy tierlist when

[@robertalaverdov8147]

Recently my favorite first two ideas have been religious and espionage. It's especially strong as Muscovy, a little bit less when it comes to playing Byzantines. The Deus Vult CB gives only 75% aggressive expansion, -20% from espionage, -10% from St Nicholas, -10% from prestige, -10% from 100% spy network and you have the -10 discovery age bonus plus when you form Russia you get another -10% as a starting idea. That's only 15% aggressive expansion. And if you're really lucky you can get another -5% from an event and -10% from your ruler being careful. Basically take all the land you want and by the time a coalition forms you own half of Eurasia.

[@Supermash13]

the AOE reduction from CB doesn't apply with global modifier. it is similar to adm efficiency for AOE reduction reducing the base AOE from a province from dev and not the total after all modifier you said. so for a province of 10 AOE of base it become 7.5 X 0.40 (60%) from your bonuses and not 10 X 0.20 (80%).

[@robertalaverdov8147]

@@Supermash13 Hey, that’s still pretty good. Honestly I’ve gone on to do a WC run this way and I didn’t get a coalition going against me until 1640. I was halfway into the former HRE, it was France, Spain, England and their subjects. And this was after I removed the Ottos from the great powers list. I eventually declared and steamrolled them too. The only thing stopping me from going faster was coring time and admin points. Despite admin being my third idea, Diplo 4th. Mill ideas after that. Though I honestly didn’t feel like I needed a mil idea. After a certain point I had so much money, manpower and force limit that it didn’t matter. Military hedgemon goes Brrt!

[@Random-World-Eater]

Me last time i played Port Royal: Pick both naval and maritime ideas, noone can land troops on my islands because my fleets are so op thay cant be sunk.

[@Mrkubikx]

Insane cav moddifier build wouldnt be better if you reform from a kingdom to a horde?

[@AbsoluteHabibi]

Yea it would be but there’s only one way to do it and it’s by forming Tibet

[@ozisponas1593]

Novgorod into russian empire and novgorod type republic tsardom + espionage + quantity + plutocratic = INFINITE MANPOWER (lots of economy to spam buildings,lots of mana from republic, ridiculous amount of manpower stackng with orthodox and tsardom and the ideas)

[@torgomaghanyan7633]

So you can stuck province war score cost and take huge amounth of land without absolutism shenanigans

[@mr_bluesky9436]

Should I take Horde+Espionage as first two idea groups playing for Horde? Or better take economic first?

[@eon6898]

imo horde's economic doesn't rely by themselves, you most likely will be on constant war and always max cash + razing goes brrrrrr

[@flimpeenflarmpoon1353]

Go dip adm hum

[@mr_bluesky9436]

@@flimpeenflarmpoon1353 thanks