Europa Universalis IV

[Average Manatee]

Threaten war is the best way to chip away at the HRE without slamming into the hardest coalition wall in the game. And before nationalism, using charter company is how you spread out in the world, and threaten war in those areas is basically free real estate when the opportunity presents itself. The highest developed province I took with threaten war had 50 development, some place in Bohemia. It's easily worth over 1000 free development over a game. And it doesn't require nearly as much muscle as you think if you manage your vassals well. Threatening war for vassal core provinces while warring for exclusive provinces is straight based play.

Threaten war gives +50% AE, so it's actually the worst way to chip away at anywhere without a coalition. You also can't see who will coalition you after you do it, so unless you are some savant neo who can read the code you'll have no idea if you are going to have half the HRE coalition you as soon as you do it.

Innovative is worth using until it isn't, and then switching to religion later when the blog gets going is best. And I don't see why humanism is so good when quantity gives you plenty of manpower to stomp all the rebels you need to. It's good after religion, yeah, when you can combine religion, humanism, military hegemony, and trade company use to virtually eliminate rebellions in that late game sprint.

There's no reason to use religious later on, you have nationalism and imperialism CBs. If you aren't taking religious in the first 3 or 4 idea groups there's practically no point. Humanism practically stops all rebellions as soon as you finish it, and since you don't really need to go past the first 2 ideas of admin you can take it right after admin without much trouble. Of course, quantity is good, but running 30k stack around the world to stop rebellions while also wanting those 30k stacks to use in wars gets computationally complex.

Listen, I've seen this several times before. "innovation is good, look at my long-term mana-based argument and this youtube video" is practically the mating call for players who have theory crafted a lot without actually playing it out.

 

[Higher Game]

Threaten war gives +50% AE, so it's actually the worst way to chip away at anywhere without a coalition. You also can't see who will coalition you after you do it, so unless you are some savant neo who can read the code you'll have no idea if you are going to have half the HRE coalition you as soon as you do it.

Context matters though. That extra AE is worth accepting if it means softening them up for 40-50 years before jumping in. It ultimately helps spread out AE.

There's no reason to use religious later on, you have nationalism and imperialism CBs. If you aren't taking religious in the first 3 or 4 idea groups there's practically no point. Humanism practically stops all rebellions as soon as you finish it, and since you don't really need to go past the first 2 ideas of admin you can take it right after admin without much trouble. Of course, quantity is good, but running 30k stack around the world to stop rebellions while also wanting those 30k stacks to use in wars gets computationally complex.

Listen, I've seen this several times before. "innovation is good, look at my long-term mana-based argument and this youtube video" is practically the mating call for players who have theory crafted a lot without actually playing it out.

Religious can be delayed if you aim for Mecca, Jerusalem, etc early on, but later on it becomes necessary. The point is stopping "separatist sentiment" rebellions and you need all the unrest reduction you can get for that. Religious first, then humanism once you go from regular 150+ overextension to 250+ or worse.

And the governing capacity bonus of admin is boss sauce.

 

[Average Manatee]

Threaten war gives +50% AE, so it's actually the worst way to chip away at anywhere without a coalition. You also can't see who will coalition you after you do it, so unless you are some savant neo who can read the code you'll have no idea if you are going to have half the HRE coalition you as soon as you do it.

Context matters though. That extra AE is worth accepting if it means softening them up for 40-50 years before jumping in. It ultimately helps spread out AE.

HRE is literally pussies, if you can demand their provinces you can effortlessly kill them and take more for less AE. If you want to dismantle the HRE over time with less AE then you want to vassalize and feed them vassal cores anyway.

Religious can be delayed if you aim for Mecca, Jerusalem, etc early on, but later on it becomes necessary. The point is stopping "separatist sentiment" rebellions and you need all the unrest reduction you can get for that. Religious first, then humanism once you go from regular 150+ overextension to 250+ or worse.

And the governing capacity bonus of admin is boss sauce.

At no time do you need religious. Not taking humanist as your first or second admin idea group is just stupid.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

religious is pretty mandatory if you want the 1001 provinces achievement. other than that, please don't scoff at the guilty pleasure of being able to go allahuackbar on heathens.
i haven't played eu4 in... let me check... holy crap 3 years and a half! has it improved in the meantime?
oh, yes, noob question i always forget to ask: about giving land to clergy, nobles and that other stuff, you know what i mean. does it make any difference what i give to whom? do they give a bonus or stuff or is it fine to just randomly give this and that to satisfy the minimum percentage and be done with it?

 

[Higher Game]

HRE is literally pussies, if you can demand their provinces you can effortlessly kill them and take more for less AE. If you want to dismantle the HRE over time with less AE then you want to vassalize and feed them vassal cores anyway.

Saving strength to wrestle with the great powers makes more sense because HRE is so easy to trim down over time without war, but it's not a cakewalk like Africa or America. They're a perfect fit for using war threats, and Italy usually is too.

At no time do you need religious. Not taking humanist as your first or second admin idea group is just stupid.

Missionary strength is the one thing I am always thirsty for, more than money or manpower or mana. It's the Big M. There are simply so many provinces to convert and the payoff is so great that I don't see how religious ideas aren't always top tier. You can delay the idea group if you always roll with an inquisitor, enforced unity of faith, beelining key provinces, releasing the right vassals for conversions, etc, but at some point it's just begging to be picked. And it offers some very nice policies...

Humanist is a late game policy when you want lots of unrest reduction to offset lots of overextension, and calming down massive aggressive expansion. It's just not needed before nationalism.

 

[Average Manatee]

You don't need to convert anything at all in a WC. 3 tolerance = 100% unity.

Literally everyone who is doing lots of conquest will tell you that humanist is a top tier idea group. Find me a single person who isn't using it.

 

[Higher Game]

You don't need to convert anything at all in a WC. 3 tolerance = 100% unity.

Literally everyone who is doing lots of conquest will tell you that humanist is a top tier idea group. Find me a single person who isn't using it.

You need a conversion and assignment to a trade company (or culture conversion/acceptance) to shut down rebellions for good, and with more overextension you need wine, incense, policies, a theologian, etc. That +15 unrest from separatist sentiment and 300% rebel progression is just brutal on top of the overextension penalty.

 

[Zariusz]

Hell yeah! Imperium Universalis is back baby!
Finally updated to current version
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=679204773

 

[Heroic Liberator]

Glorious will Silesia be.

Hopefully I can maintain my Emperorship, push for the decentralized imperial reform path and maintain the Catholic faith throughout the Empire (+ integrate the Papacy as an electorate).

 

[Monk]

 

[Riddler]

Why are there two identically named eu4 threads?

 

[HeroMarine]

Why are there two identically named eu4 threads?

Riddle me this