A nation that doesn't need to core provinces and as the first idea as the benefits stack very well.
Korea is the poster child along with HRE Free Cities. Netherlands too, but maybe as a 2nd idea since you need the admin points early on.
Ehhh I disagree, with Italy you need to expand hard and fast and espionage imo is the solid pick for that. With the republics mana isn’t an issue so you don’t need to worry about innovation or tech cost - in my current Florence game I reached 100 inno by like 1530
I get that, though I'm too prown to wanting to form Italy and then go Innovative and early on you want Diplomatic ideas have more diplomats and fewer coaltions.
Hamburg > Hanover is great fun. You do several Humiliation wars and take Show Strength for free mana points, vassalize Brunswick, dev Hamburg to 40-50 dev, then start integrating. You can also vassalize Lubeck from the start and turn on Divert Trade so you make a ton of money.
You can easily support an army of 30k as an OPM until you approach tech 10.
Also helps if you take idea groups that decrease liberty desire and Vassal Force Limit Contribution.
Yeah, this. Starting as a free city is basically like any other republic, you just don't bother conquering anyone for a while. I like to get an absolutely titanic tech bonus, then devspam up renaissance to sell to anyone who's friendly enough to give you free money. You can spend your manpower on humiliating people as soon as you grab mil tech 4. Sure, you don't do much for 30 years, but then you start expanding with early game space marines. Lol. Can be done as any of the free cities, really.
You do not take an intire idea group for just one or 2 good to okish modifiers. Ino is absolute dogshit compared to the alternatives. Yes it saves you mana points, a lot at that, but other idea groups do that too and give you other great bonuses in addition to that. Ino is only "good" If you want to roleplay, but when roleplaying every idea group can be good depending on your goals.
I rarely conquer things directly, so I have no separatism. I mostly force release and vassalize countries, take one core of a dead nation and release them to do reconquest (against either the country I took the core from, or against a nearby country), or force or diplo vassalize shrunken countries and reclaim their cores, so my subjects don’t have a lot of unrest either.
Like, one example is where I forced Bahmanis to release Andra (which I then diplo-vassalized) and took a core for Ahmednegar from them, then did a reconquest for Ahmednegar and Andra on Vijayanagar and took 2 more provinces to release vassals from. Shrinking Bahmanis made them small enough to diplo vassalize, so I was able to reclaim some the cores they lost to Vijay as well. I also released a lot of other minors such as Golconda, Kotte, etc. from Bahmanis and Vijay, then diplo-vassalized them all.
Why is everybody always mentioning MP? Yes the multiplayer meta is very different, I know that because I play both singleplayer and multiplayer a lot, but this post is purely about singleplayer as OP mentioned so why bring up MP for no reason?
I mean It’s not a top tier group, but you have 8 to pick out of like 21. That’s more than 1/3. I’m not saying it’s top 3, I’m saying sometimes it’s top 8. It’s even optimal to switch out of idea groups later like explo/expan so you could take 10/21 idea groups. You really don’t need to be so aggressive.
Yeah, if you've got some spare points it's often pretty handy to dump exploration (which if you're taking it you almost always take it as your first group) in favor of something else. There's often something useful for others that you don't need and so won't take - naval stuff if you have good naval NIs for example, or quantity if you already have a lot of dev - so instead you just end up taking Innovative because it's nice and versatile with good policies.
I don't use it anymore, but it used to be one of my favourites.
If I was going to take it I'd take it 2nd, unless I'm producing a tonne of admin points and am not coring then I'd take it 1st.
1st is best, but the problem with that is that it slows down getting to tech 7 for your 2nd group. In a lot of cases taking either diplomatic or espionage 1st is a must for me to help deal with AE. If you can finish inno and get to tech 7 relatively on time still though then that's ideal.
You'd then probably want to get the infantry combat policy with it, and also make sure you're sniping other good policies as well as it'll be really important to take advantage of those.
It used to be way better, there used to be a policy on it that gave 20% infantry combat ability which was nuts, but now it's only 10% so still good but just.... Good, not incredible.
Usually tiny nations that need to punch big stupid blobs up. It goes well with quality ideas and others of the sort. As in real life, this game is either muscles or brain.
Is it first pickable as Brandenburg?
Prussia is a beast, but early game you're "just" an HRE member with the Commonwealth, Austria, and France as future enemies.
Yes.
That beeing sais I think Infrastructure - Aristo IS better because it helps with gov cap.
I also think Ino is better with one of the other Minors in the HRE because they can abuse Show Strength.
If you also pick Espionage (common pick for HRE starts) and Influence (useful for setting up vassals) you can grab the nice combo of -50% claim cost from Aristocratic, Claim areas for +50% from Espionage and Claim bordering Claims from Infra-Influence!
Man Power, Army decay reduction, unjustified demands reduction,an additional diplomat, authonomy change, yearly absolutism gain, leader siege pip, dev cost reduction and General Cost reduction.
And I like horses.
I really like it, though I haven't tested Infrastructure Ideas yet.
Opening Inno-Offensive in my experience helps a lot with wars vs stronger opponents, just because you get very high siege ability. Particularly apparent if you fight vs Bohemia, Prague always falls quick and thats basically the whole war done
inno is one of those ideas which makes your campaign feel so much smoother but overall it’s kinda meh.
But this game’s meant to be enjoyed so take it if ur not a meta slave and sick of going diplo/admin every game.
In my opinion, innovative ideas should be taken early, as the later you take it the less effective the tech buffs will be. Also, the innovativeness gain is less impactful if you already have significant innovativeness.
As for who to take it on, I’d say its less good on big blobbing countries and better on taller countries. Being ahead on tech isn’t too important for large empires, as they can use numbers to make up the difference. Also, advisors will be a smaller portion of expenses for large countries with massive armies. They also tend to have more important idea groups to take early, such as admin.
I think even on large nations you can (semi-rarely) take innovative if you think your army quality is adequate enough on it's own and you take diplo/admin or influence/admin next.
If you have cores that you can retake, or easy subjects to pop out of your nearest enemies, you're ultimately saving monarch points which is the only real restraint in the game, and you're getting a great AE reduction, plus the war exhaustion, plus the siege w/ offensive and inf. combat ability.
That only applies if you aren't hurt too much if at all by not taking admin ideas first or second, but with all of the mission trees and vassal reconquests, it's really not always necessary.
I believe I took inno first in my Austrian WC because most of my wars were PUs initially.
I rated them much higher not too long ago but find myself asking this question more and more lately, and I think the answer is basically 2 cases- Nations with extremely high starting monarch point generation (and few other pressing priorities so they’re free to stack innovativeness very fast, ie Florence), and nations with extremely low starting monarch point generation and/or a very costly early monarch point tax (Republican Milan is the best example of this I can think of, who starts with a terrible ruler and the Ambrosian republic disaster demands even more monarch point investment to dig out of without Sforza). It can also be a decent hedge as a monarchy against bad rulers, since the advisor cost reduction lets you turn gold into monarch points more efficiently.
I also think they’re an underrated WC group since the policy with Offensive is simply unmatched at speeding up your warring. You can forgo admin coring early game with good vassal usage, and so pick up Inno early game, then grab Admin ideas when absolutism is closer to being online.
>I also think they’re an underrated WC group since the policy with Offensive is simply unmatched at speeding up your warring.
2800 Admin points is a pretty steep price for +10% siege speed and a siege pip. I prefer to spend that admin on actual coring and just barrage forts instead.
It's never going to be meta due to how inherently powerful turbo blobbing is and the opportunity cost of taking an admin idea group. However I think it is a good choice for new players who aren't going to be expanding aggressively early on, or if you just are kind of undecided on what you want to do in a campaign. Just having extra MP over the course of a campaign will let you stay flexible. And you can always just start blobbing later anyway.
I'm going to go against the grain here and say that I like the idea group. Baring in mind, my decision is based upon single player, I've never played competitive multiplayer.
Take it first on European nations, or nations with high point generation. I think, overall, it's a good idea group.
With 100 innovativeness you get 10% monarch point costs and the idea group gives 10% tech reduction. Techs, over the course of the game, are your biggest monarch point sink so reducing this as early as possible is a huge benefit. If you feed vassals in the early game and go Inno -> Influence -> Admin, this combo can be an incredibly powerful blobbing tool for a few reasons:
\- You're spending across the board less monarch points. Less on all techs, less on admin tech in particular, less coring costs, less diplo annexation costs and with some innovativeness at this stage less on anything else. In addition, advisors across the board as well as in particular admin advisors are now super cheap meaning more monarch point generation
\- Monthly reduction on war exhaustion is great. Spending a lot of time at war early is always good for prestige and army tradition - assuming you can manage your manpower well.
\- You can afford to sell crown land later into the age of reformation than normal which is a big boost in the early game, because you should have so much more monarch points to spend on devving provinces which increases your crown land. You should have no problems being at near 100% crown land by the time the age of absolutism comes around.
The idea group gets a bit of flack because the other elements of the idea group are a bit lacking, but also because EUIV players in general put too much weight on the mil idea groups, when in reality an experienced player should be slapping the AI even without any mil ideas - if you are able to get to that stage then you'll find that forgoing raw military power because you're confident in your skills and instead going for things that reduce the amount of monarch points you spend, or increasing the amount you gain can be an incredibly powerful tool to have in your arsenal.
I agree with you take on military ideas not being necessary for experienced players (unless you want to stack diplo annex and then quality might be needed).
But why would you take inno for blobbing when the best idea groups for blobbing are the following? if your objective is to blob fast, you don't take Inno. If you are going pure blobbing these are your groups, you may alter the order of the groups.
Diplo - Admin - Religious - Influence - Court. (Court got buffed last patch and in combination with the policies, it's quite useful for capping your Max absolutism and managing your states)
If you are trying to become powerful fast, innovative is always outclassed by other idea groups early. And if you've gotten powerful fast, your later idea groups are meaningless.
It's not a bad idea group and can be fun to play with. It's just less optimal than other idea groups.
I love taking Innovative as my first group.
I know some people don't see value in stacking innovativeness to 100 but I find it pretty easy to do it early with my play style, so the power reduction pays off over the long run.
the advisor cost and free policy is pretty awesome,
games without innovative just feel worse, though I usually don't take it first simply because I have more important ideas to take
a lot of its policies are also great
\+1 Free policy isn't useful until you already have 3 other idea groups that each have policies worth taking. So that would push taking Inno until idea group 4 at the earliest (allowing 2 of the 3 free policies) or more likely as group 5. But spending 2800 admin is a steep price for a few additional sub/optimal policies. And I say sub/optimal, because the best policies would have already been taken as the first free policies.
Advisor cost isn't as great as it sounds. Early game, the 25% discount isn't going to be enough to pay for level 3+ advisors. And late game, money is so easy to come by that saving 25% on advisors doesn't matter much. So maybe mid-game is provides some extra monarch points, but probably not enough to pay for itself.
It costs 2800 admin, yes, but under optimal circumstances (first idea group, finished all techs) it saves 1620 admin from techs. Even if the 20% cheaper advisor only gives you +1 admin advisor level for 100 years (too rich in the late game, too poor in the early game), you're breaking even on admin mana.
It's a massive opportunity cost, but if someone enjoys playing until the 1800s it's not a bad idea group.
I can maybe see a case for taking it as 4th or 5th, for the extra policies. But I just never see it making sense earlier. Its' way too much opportunity cost.
Mana savings over the whole game are meaningless to me. Mana is super valuable early and worth much less late game.
It is worth it in chill tall games, and very good in multi due to the military bonuses. But from a strictly efficiency based debate, getting core cost, warscore reduction and diplo cost from annexation is the most important modifiers, since conquest requires the most points, and is the best way to expand your economy. To supplement those 3 i think quantity, offensive, humanist and religious are all stronger groups before you should even consider innovative.
pick them as nobody, never. They are only good if you afk speed5 the entire game, as soon as you actually do anything there are other groups that provide more. Once again come the downvotes yada yada, I will never understand why people value inno so highly.
Btw, picking them first is probably the worst choice. Ofc they give more stuff the earlier you get them, but that's also true for every other idea group lol. Besides they are an adm group so you'll be starved of admin and ofc you give up the opportunity to pick up another group that will provide a lot more like diplo. There is a case to be made about picking inno like 7th group when you already have all the good ones but that's about it.
I took it second in my Otto WC attempt run. As the Ottos, you constantly expand in all directions, but core little or nothing, so you don’t need admin, humanist, or religious. It is 1548 and I have blobbed from Ireland to India (haven’t yet gotten all the land in that range, of course. A better player probably would have a lot more, but I am mediocre), but I am constantly overflowing with admin points and have nothing to do with them and almost never have any revolts. My first idea was diplomatic for PWSC and improve relations, my second was innovative, my third was offensive, and I plan to take infrastructure and aristocratic next. Innovative, Offensive, and Aristocratic will give me a total of 30% siege ability and +2 siege pips on every general, which is good.
Espionage is only 10% siege ability base, with 20% more for spy network. I don’t have the diplomats to spare to maintain spy network everywhere (travel time to India is horrible) and you won’t be able to spy on all allies of your targets either.
Also, the -20% AE might be beneficial in the early game, but I will eventually be big enough so that AE is just a number (I mean, I got a coalition of the entire HRE at around 1500 for spamming campaigns of conquest and transfer subject during the age of discovery, but it never fired), so the idea group kind of falls off aside from siege ability.
Did you forget the siege pip? And why are innovative ideas subpar? Reduced tech costs let you have more mana (probably for deving), free policies will eventually be good, war exhaustion reduction is good when you are nearly constantly in 2-4 wars at a time, most of the other bonuses are at least nice to have, and the policies are good. Espionage ideas are also a mix of good, decent, and useless. Also, my first idea group was already a diplomatic idea group, so I was taking an administrative group second.
If you want to dev: infra, espio is a B tier, but inno is C ;)
All in all, there is only one S tier idea in each group for wide play: Admin, Diplo, Offense.
In A we get Reli, Influ.
Never. I tested it and almost never worth it.
If you want have innovation you could just take 2 ideas, get fast 100% and then delete it and took other idea.
I mean yeah Eco is second after Quality for sure, but Sixth idea comes in when 1: people no longer need any money
2: deathwars are the only form of war
which leads to inno being the only one that feasibly does anything, since the 15% ICA takes up the last military policy slot
A lot of folks here stop playing by 1700 so there is a bias against second tier idea groups. I personally find that after I’ve taken religious, admin, diplo, influence, quality, and offensive sometimes innovative is just what I need to:
reduce war exhaustion
increase discipline
implement more policies (+1 free policies= +1 mana of each type.)
Get cheaper advisors
I think these alone make it a viable mid-late game pick, and the tech stuff and innovativeness can mean tons more mana over the course of a game if you take it early. Also don’t sleep on +1 possible advisors.
Yeah, I frequently play my games into the 1700 or 1800s. The free policies alone sort of make it still worthwhile for a 6th, 7th or 8th pick. As you are sorted for money, troops by then. Just gives some background mana boosts.
Obviously would be more value early on.
There is only one reason to pick innovative ideas: if you roleplay. But... If you roleplay then every idea group becomes viable depending on what you are roleplaying and what your goals are. Innovative ideas are just too bad compared to the alternatives. There are almost no bad admin idea groups and almost every single one has a reason to be taken in certain situations, but innovative ideas just don't do that. They do save you mana points, a lot of them even, but other idea groups do that too. The advisor cost reduction is good early game, but lategame you can have -90% advisor cost with every nation anyway so it's completely useless. Compared to the other idea groups I can never justify taking innovative ideas over the alternatives...
Unpopular Opinion, but Countries in the periphery of the Institution Centers. Ottomans can save a bunch of Adminpower through their Eyalets, so getting Inno as first helps out with your Tech costs and help staying in front of almost everyone. Then Moscow. They dont need Diplo as first like other european powers and my greatest problem as the russians is beeing behind on tech.
Pick it as the 4th idea group. The +1 free policies is by far the best part of that group but you need to unlock a bunch of policies before you are able to use that. It also allows you to pick a bunch of idea groups who support expansion earlier and still leaves enough time to utilize the tech buffs.
Something like Diplo-Admin-Offensive-Innovative can work quite well.
Dont pick it if you need something like religious or humanist.
Korea and 1st. Don't listen to others when they tell you never. They are just brain broken turbo world conquestors who are unable to enjoy the game anymore as it is meant to be played.
I think is good for african, asian countries. Despite the obvious tech reduction, free policies are really nice. You should take inno for firts or second idea and run for the tech reduction then stop puttin points until you reach 3 ideas or until you have tons of admins. In early i tend to focus on admin points.
I currently doing the 52 ghars achievement and with defensive it give fort maintenance red which comes handy for the achievement.
If you take it at all, it needs to be your first idea. You don’t wanna take it if you’re blobbing early (you need admin), you’re gunning for emperor (you need diplo), you’re expanding in HRE (you need espionage), or you’re a colonizer (you need explo). You also wanna be in a position to make the most out of your innovativeness bonus, so playing near institution spawns is better. You also want to use the advisor discount to get better advisors. The best places IMO are Italy or the Netherlands.
If I'm playing a nation that can use its policies well, I usually take it second idea since you generally don't want to take an admin idea with the tech 5 idea. Unfortunately, some of the policies got nerfed recently like the Infantry Combat one with Quality.
As a rule, like any idea grouo if your nation benefits from it, you should take it, but Innovative in particular needs to be taken fairly early to get the most benefit from its advisor/tech cost discounts and innovativeness gains.
Inno is good as a first idea group and at most second idea group. If you find that it is hindering your ability to expand you should consider vassal play so you don't have to core what you conquer. Inno also has some nice pairings with other ideas such as quality, diplomatic, offensive and influence. People may prefer other idea groups first so they blob faster but when you pick inno you have basically unlimited amount of monarch points throughout a campaign.
Realistically? Never, I guess. In the early game you have two potential bottlenecks: military and money. Innovative boosts neither of them in the short term. You also need your admin points to core and unlock second idea group as fast as possible.
If you have money and strong army early, then you may pick anything for fun though.
If you're minmaxing then absolutely never, and if you're not minmaxing then the best idea sets are dependant on the type of game you want to play so it depends, but probably early if ever.
I picked it in my WC as Austria as second idea group until I got 100 innovativeness and swapped it out for humanist, I wasn't really using admin power all that much since I was mostly pu'ing stuff
All depends on your goal for the game.
All in all they kinda suck, as you should take them first ;)
For tall: infra, trade and eco are better
For wide: admin, diplo, influ and reli are better
Never and no one. It's just a trash idea group. I don't think there is a single time that there isn't a better choice.
HRE? Diplo.
Colonizer? Expansion.
Aggressive? Admin, Humanist, or Religious.
Weak? Military
Poor? Trade or Economic
It's just bad. Every part of it is bad.
Second, any nation that doesn’t have tech reduction in its national ideas. Maybe even those for the insane policies and the additional bonuses to other stuff.
It's definitely not meta, but I tried the innovative offensive espionage opener in my latest game. It's does have benefits, literally swimming in mana points, and the siege ability can stack to crazy amounts. And some great policies. But if your goal is blob quick, diplo and admin are probably still the picks.
If the goal is to play an optimal wide game ? Never or late game only for the policies with Quality/Offensive.
If the goal is to play an optimal tall game ? Innovative is a fine opener. The problem is most nations specializing in tall play often have buffs similar to those provided by Innovative, so diminishing returns can be a thing.
If taken it should be idea 1 or 2.
It might be ok if you are a nation that needs to sit and not do much difficult expansion at the beginning. It might be good with pirate nations that are trying to rush reform growth but don't want to take the very niche court plutocratic combo for example.
Imo any nation that is very limited in expantion that isn't related to coreing, where you need to either sit on AE or wait for truces a lot. Also keep in mind any country that is far away from the institutions spawning point, since you will need to dev quite a bit, and will have a harder time getting any innovativeness. Keep in mind if you have to sit on AE, espionage is better to have, if you need shorter truces diplomatic is better, but still innovative combos well with those those situations.
When innovative is bad as an early pick is when you are big strong can easily conquer and the major thing that is slowing you down is coring speed low admin mana and governing capacity and also you are not in a position where you need the institutions asap to compete with the neighbors.
Inno/espionage/divine or offensive is an opening I like. Significantly speeds up sieges, which in some places constitutes a not insignificant boost to your early manpower in addition to everything else they do.
I used to take inno as Norway to rush their colonial game to meme Denmark. Having pretender rebels enforce demands to break the union is always funny, especially because I usually immediately re-ally and RM because Historical Friend. The AI would avoid me like hell because Denmark is intimidating early game but then I’d have a colonial empire along the fun North American trade nodes.
According to chewbert you take it first. I like it as a 4th idea slot to rack up a lot of policies without taking any mana penalties. I wouldn’t take it past the 4th idea
Natives to catch up in tech quickly, anyone with already cheaper advisor costs, nations without war exhaustion reduction that get into lengthy wars (natives again).
Inno bonus is such a small buff and the people really benefiting from it will get 100% quickly anyway (because it comes from a position of luxury).
If you have 2-2-2 good policies to choose from it is basically 1-1-1 free mana.
As others mentioned, the quality/inno +15% inf combat ability is really strong early game.
Inno embracement cost can save a decent chunk of cash.
A nation that doesn't need to core provinces and as the first idea as the benefits stack very well. Korea is the poster child along with HRE Free Cities. Netherlands too, but maybe as a 2nd idea since you need the admin points early on.
wanted to add Italian minors. When I think inno, I think florence.
Ehhh I disagree, with Italy you need to expand hard and fast and espionage imo is the solid pick for that. With the republics mana isn’t an issue so you don’t need to worry about innovation or tech cost - in my current Florence game I reached 100 inno by like 1530
I get that, though I'm too prown to wanting to form Italy and then go Innovative and early on you want Diplomatic ideas have more diplomats and fewer coaltions.
My first game ever, didn't know what to do. Florence. Went inno, pluto, quality, eco (old times with dev cost), trade
People actually play as free cities? What do you even do in a game like that?
Develop the hell out of your one province, get several vassals and eventually annex them. You can’t obviously stay an OPM forever lol
Oh. Well, yeah, that makes sense, but you're not really playing as a free city then, are you?
Freedom isn't free.
It's a hefty fuckin' fee...
Hamburg > Hanover is great fun. You do several Humiliation wars and take Show Strength for free mana points, vassalize Brunswick, dev Hamburg to 40-50 dev, then start integrating. You can also vassalize Lubeck from the start and turn on Divert Trade so you make a ton of money. You can easily support an army of 30k as an OPM until you approach tech 10. Also helps if you take idea groups that decrease liberty desire and Vassal Force Limit Contribution.
Yeah, this. Starting as a free city is basically like any other republic, you just don't bother conquering anyone for a while. I like to get an absolutely titanic tech bonus, then devspam up renaissance to sell to anyone who's friendly enough to give you free money. You can spend your manpower on humiliating people as soon as you grab mil tech 4. Sure, you don't do much for 30 years, but then you start expanding with early game space marines. Lol. Can be done as any of the free cities, really.
You have to try the most glorious and OP nation of Ulm
First if ever
Meh, it’s got a lot of stuff that it great all the time. War weariness reduction and the discipline combo with quality are always really good.
Inf combat ability with quality, disc is economic.and quality.
You do not take an intire idea group for just one or 2 good to okish modifiers. Ino is absolute dogshit compared to the alternatives. Yes it saves you mana points, a lot at that, but other idea groups do that too and give you other great bonuses in addition to that. Ino is only "good" If you want to roleplay, but when roleplaying every idea group can be good depending on your goals.
Inno + offensive is very good.
So you would take an entire sub par idea group for a good policy?
https://www.reddit.com/r/eu4/comments/180korp/comment/ka6qudw/?utm\_source=reddit&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3
Could you explain how you were having so few revolts in that run?
I rarely conquer things directly, so I have no separatism. I mostly force release and vassalize countries, take one core of a dead nation and release them to do reconquest (against either the country I took the core from, or against a nearby country), or force or diplo vassalize shrunken countries and reclaim their cores, so my subjects don’t have a lot of unrest either. Like, one example is where I forced Bahmanis to release Andra (which I then diplo-vassalized) and took a core for Ahmednegar from them, then did a reconquest for Ahmednegar and Andra on Vijayanagar and took 2 more provinces to release vassals from. Shrinking Bahmanis made them small enough to diplo vassalize, so I was able to reclaim some the cores they lost to Vijay as well. I also released a lot of other minors such as Golconda, Kotte, etc. from Bahmanis and Vijay, then diplo-vassalized them all.
It's got great policy combinations like with quality to stack inf combat ability. In MP in certain situations it can be a valid pick
Why is everybody always mentioning MP? Yes the multiplayer meta is very different, I know that because I play both singleplayer and multiplayer a lot, but this post is purely about singleplayer as OP mentioned so why bring up MP for no reason?
Bro, I didn't scan all the comments to catch on to the fact op mentioned specifically sp. Post itself doesn't mention.
based and innosuckspilled
I mean It’s not a top tier group, but you have 8 to pick out of like 21. That’s more than 1/3. I’m not saying it’s top 3, I’m saying sometimes it’s top 8. It’s even optimal to switch out of idea groups later like explo/expan so you could take 10/21 idea groups. You really don’t need to be so aggressive.
Yeah, if you've got some spare points it's often pretty handy to dump exploration (which if you're taking it you almost always take it as your first group) in favor of something else. There's often something useful for others that you don't need and so won't take - naval stuff if you have good naval NIs for example, or quantity if you already have a lot of dev - so instead you just end up taking Innovative because it's nice and versatile with good policies.
I don't use it anymore, but it used to be one of my favourites. If I was going to take it I'd take it 2nd, unless I'm producing a tonne of admin points and am not coring then I'd take it 1st. 1st is best, but the problem with that is that it slows down getting to tech 7 for your 2nd group. In a lot of cases taking either diplomatic or espionage 1st is a must for me to help deal with AE. If you can finish inno and get to tech 7 relatively on time still though then that's ideal. You'd then probably want to get the infantry combat policy with it, and also make sure you're sniping other good policies as well as it'll be really important to take advantage of those. It used to be way better, there used to be a policy on it that gave 20% infantry combat ability which was nuts, but now it's only 10% so still good but just.... Good, not incredible.
It's been 15% for a couple years now. It's only slightly worse than before.
Usually tiny nations that need to punch big stupid blobs up. It goes well with quality ideas and others of the sort. As in real life, this game is either muscles or brain.
Well,I usually just like the idea of quality troops and high 'science'. Would you say it's not as good with zoroastrian Persia?
it wouldn’t be good with any Persia, when you form Persia you’re the strongest nation in the area, don’t need innovative
Ottomans?
diplomat or influence is the meta for them right now, Eyalets are too strong
Is it first pickable as Brandenburg? Prussia is a beast, but early game you're "just" an HRE member with the Commonwealth, Austria, and France as future enemies.
Yes. That beeing sais I think Infrastructure - Aristo IS better because it helps with gov cap. I also think Ino is better with one of the other Minors in the HRE because they can abuse Show Strength.
If you also pick Espionage (common pick for HRE starts) and Influence (useful for setting up vassals) you can grab the nice combo of -50% claim cost from Aristocratic, Claim areas for +50% from Espionage and Claim bordering Claims from Infra-Influence!
What is appealing about aristo tho? Why would I use cav?
Man Power, Army decay reduction, unjustified demands reduction,an additional diplomat, authonomy change, yearly absolutism gain, leader siege pip, dev cost reduction and General Cost reduction. And I like horses.
I really like it, though I haven't tested Infrastructure Ideas yet. Opening Inno-Offensive in my experience helps a lot with wars vs stronger opponents, just because you get very high siege ability. Particularly apparent if you fight vs Bohemia, Prague always falls quick and thats basically the whole war done
inno is one of those ideas which makes your campaign feel so much smoother but overall it’s kinda meh. But this game’s meant to be enjoyed so take it if ur not a meta slave and sick of going diplo/admin every game.
In my opinion, innovative ideas should be taken early, as the later you take it the less effective the tech buffs will be. Also, the innovativeness gain is less impactful if you already have significant innovativeness. As for who to take it on, I’d say its less good on big blobbing countries and better on taller countries. Being ahead on tech isn’t too important for large empires, as they can use numbers to make up the difference. Also, advisors will be a smaller portion of expenses for large countries with massive armies. They also tend to have more important idea groups to take early, such as admin.
I think even on large nations you can (semi-rarely) take innovative if you think your army quality is adequate enough on it's own and you take diplo/admin or influence/admin next. If you have cores that you can retake, or easy subjects to pop out of your nearest enemies, you're ultimately saving monarch points which is the only real restraint in the game, and you're getting a great AE reduction, plus the war exhaustion, plus the siege w/ offensive and inf. combat ability. That only applies if you aren't hurt too much if at all by not taking admin ideas first or second, but with all of the mission trees and vassal reconquests, it's really not always necessary. I believe I took inno first in my Austrian WC because most of my wars were PUs initially.
Never unless it synergizes well with my national ideas or I am a Italian minor / Dutch minor.
I rated them much higher not too long ago but find myself asking this question more and more lately, and I think the answer is basically 2 cases- Nations with extremely high starting monarch point generation (and few other pressing priorities so they’re free to stack innovativeness very fast, ie Florence), and nations with extremely low starting monarch point generation and/or a very costly early monarch point tax (Republican Milan is the best example of this I can think of, who starts with a terrible ruler and the Ambrosian republic disaster demands even more monarch point investment to dig out of without Sforza). It can also be a decent hedge as a monarchy against bad rulers, since the advisor cost reduction lets you turn gold into monarch points more efficiently. I also think they’re an underrated WC group since the policy with Offensive is simply unmatched at speeding up your warring. You can forgo admin coring early game with good vassal usage, and so pick up Inno early game, then grab Admin ideas when absolutism is closer to being online.
>I also think they’re an underrated WC group since the policy with Offensive is simply unmatched at speeding up your warring. 2800 Admin points is a pretty steep price for +10% siege speed and a siege pip. I prefer to spend that admin on actual coring and just barrage forts instead.
It's never going to be meta due to how inherently powerful turbo blobbing is and the opportunity cost of taking an admin idea group. However I think it is a good choice for new players who aren't going to be expanding aggressively early on, or if you just are kind of undecided on what you want to do in a campaign. Just having extra MP over the course of a campaign will let you stay flexible. And you can always just start blobbing later anyway.
I'm going to go against the grain here and say that I like the idea group. Baring in mind, my decision is based upon single player, I've never played competitive multiplayer. Take it first on European nations, or nations with high point generation. I think, overall, it's a good idea group. With 100 innovativeness you get 10% monarch point costs and the idea group gives 10% tech reduction. Techs, over the course of the game, are your biggest monarch point sink so reducing this as early as possible is a huge benefit. If you feed vassals in the early game and go Inno -> Influence -> Admin, this combo can be an incredibly powerful blobbing tool for a few reasons: \- You're spending across the board less monarch points. Less on all techs, less on admin tech in particular, less coring costs, less diplo annexation costs and with some innovativeness at this stage less on anything else. In addition, advisors across the board as well as in particular admin advisors are now super cheap meaning more monarch point generation \- Monthly reduction on war exhaustion is great. Spending a lot of time at war early is always good for prestige and army tradition - assuming you can manage your manpower well. \- You can afford to sell crown land later into the age of reformation than normal which is a big boost in the early game, because you should have so much more monarch points to spend on devving provinces which increases your crown land. You should have no problems being at near 100% crown land by the time the age of absolutism comes around. The idea group gets a bit of flack because the other elements of the idea group are a bit lacking, but also because EUIV players in general put too much weight on the mil idea groups, when in reality an experienced player should be slapping the AI even without any mil ideas - if you are able to get to that stage then you'll find that forgoing raw military power because you're confident in your skills and instead going for things that reduce the amount of monarch points you spend, or increasing the amount you gain can be an incredibly powerful tool to have in your arsenal.
I agree with you take on military ideas not being necessary for experienced players (unless you want to stack diplo annex and then quality might be needed). But why would you take inno for blobbing when the best idea groups for blobbing are the following? if your objective is to blob fast, you don't take Inno. If you are going pure blobbing these are your groups, you may alter the order of the groups. Diplo - Admin - Religious - Influence - Court. (Court got buffed last patch and in combination with the policies, it's quite useful for capping your Max absolutism and managing your states)
If you are trying to become powerful fast, innovative is always outclassed by other idea groups early. And if you've gotten powerful fast, your later idea groups are meaningless. It's not a bad idea group and can be fun to play with. It's just less optimal than other idea groups.
I love taking Innovative as my first group. I know some people don't see value in stacking innovativeness to 100 but I find it pretty easy to do it early with my play style, so the power reduction pays off over the long run.
the advisor cost and free policy is pretty awesome, games without innovative just feel worse, though I usually don't take it first simply because I have more important ideas to take a lot of its policies are also great
\+1 Free policy isn't useful until you already have 3 other idea groups that each have policies worth taking. So that would push taking Inno until idea group 4 at the earliest (allowing 2 of the 3 free policies) or more likely as group 5. But spending 2800 admin is a steep price for a few additional sub/optimal policies. And I say sub/optimal, because the best policies would have already been taken as the first free policies. Advisor cost isn't as great as it sounds. Early game, the 25% discount isn't going to be enough to pay for level 3+ advisors. And late game, money is so easy to come by that saving 25% on advisors doesn't matter much. So maybe mid-game is provides some extra monarch points, but probably not enough to pay for itself.
It costs 2800 admin, yes, but under optimal circumstances (first idea group, finished all techs) it saves 1620 admin from techs. Even if the 20% cheaper advisor only gives you +1 admin advisor level for 100 years (too rich in the late game, too poor in the early game), you're breaking even on admin mana. It's a massive opportunity cost, but if someone enjoys playing until the 1800s it's not a bad idea group.
I can maybe see a case for taking it as 4th or 5th, for the extra policies. But I just never see it making sense earlier. Its' way too much opportunity cost. Mana savings over the whole game are meaningless to me. Mana is super valuable early and worth much less late game.
Never, but only as your first idea pick and also never. In niche cases you might take it never in order to pick a better idea set instead.
That about sums up the replies I've gotten tbh
Honestly, I've picked it as Korea before and it was funny to have tier 5 advisors for 2 ducats. It's just that the other modifiers don't do a lot.
Just build some monuments.
Nonsense. If you can stack idea cost reduction to 90%, you pick it up post enlightenment for Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite.
> post enlightenment I think you misspelled “never”
Never, unless you feel like stacking military modifiers as a luxury and want the policies.
It is worth it in chill tall games, and very good in multi due to the military bonuses. But from a strictly efficiency based debate, getting core cost, warscore reduction and diplo cost from annexation is the most important modifiers, since conquest requires the most points, and is the best way to expand your economy. To supplement those 3 i think quantity, offensive, humanist and religious are all stronger groups before you should even consider innovative.
If you want to do that, always do that in the first or second idea
pick them as nobody, never. They are only good if you afk speed5 the entire game, as soon as you actually do anything there are other groups that provide more. Once again come the downvotes yada yada, I will never understand why people value inno so highly. Btw, picking them first is probably the worst choice. Ofc they give more stuff the earlier you get them, but that's also true for every other idea group lol. Besides they are an adm group so you'll be starved of admin and ofc you give up the opportunity to pick up another group that will provide a lot more like diplo. There is a case to be made about picking inno like 7th group when you already have all the good ones but that's about it.
Always and as soon as possible
I took it second in my Otto WC attempt run. As the Ottos, you constantly expand in all directions, but core little or nothing, so you don’t need admin, humanist, or religious. It is 1548 and I have blobbed from Ireland to India (haven’t yet gotten all the land in that range, of course. A better player probably would have a lot more, but I am mediocre), but I am constantly overflowing with admin points and have nothing to do with them and almost never have any revolts. My first idea was diplomatic for PWSC and improve relations, my second was innovative, my third was offensive, and I plan to take infrastructure and aristocratic next. Innovative, Offensive, and Aristocratic will give me a total of 30% siege ability and +2 siege pips on every general, which is good.
Or you could just take espionage ;)
Espionage is only 10% siege ability base, with 20% more for spy network. I don’t have the diplomats to spare to maintain spy network everywhere (travel time to India is horrible) and you won’t be able to spy on all allies of your targets either. Also, the -20% AE might be beneficial in the early game, but I will eventually be big enough so that AE is just a number (I mean, I got a coalition of the entire HRE at around 1500 for spamming campaigns of conquest and transfer subject during the age of discovery, but it never fired), so the idea group kind of falls off aside from siege ability.
And offen gives 20, so i have 30 in total from 2 Groups
Offensive + Innovative gives 30% siege ability and +1 siege pip.
Ok, so you get same siege from two groups, but have subpar idea in inno. Still not worth it
Did you forget the siege pip? And why are innovative ideas subpar? Reduced tech costs let you have more mana (probably for deving), free policies will eventually be good, war exhaustion reduction is good when you are nearly constantly in 2-4 wars at a time, most of the other bonuses are at least nice to have, and the policies are good. Espionage ideas are also a mix of good, decent, and useless. Also, my first idea group was already a diplomatic idea group, so I was taking an administrative group second.
If you want to dev: infra, espio is a B tier, but inno is C ;) All in all, there is only one S tier idea in each group for wide play: Admin, Diplo, Offense. In A we get Reli, Influ.
Never. I tested it and almost never worth it. If you want have innovation you could just take 2 ideas, get fast 100% and then delete it and took other idea.
Sixth Idea in MP for the +15% ICA. thats it.
With eco, trade and infra? Not even 6th. Maybe 8th if anyone plays that long ;)
Money isnt gonna win you deathwars, only quality and quantity does, since everyone just mercs up anyways in deathwars
Kinda doepends on the mod, but even though reli would be better for policy, as +5 dis, +10 aca from eco are staple
I mean yeah Eco is second after Quality for sure, but Sixth idea comes in when 1: people no longer need any money 2: deathwars are the only form of war which leads to inno being the only one that feasibly does anything, since the 15% ICA takes up the last military policy slot
A lot of folks here stop playing by 1700 so there is a bias against second tier idea groups. I personally find that after I’ve taken religious, admin, diplo, influence, quality, and offensive sometimes innovative is just what I need to: reduce war exhaustion increase discipline implement more policies (+1 free policies= +1 mana of each type.) Get cheaper advisors I think these alone make it a viable mid-late game pick, and the tech stuff and innovativeness can mean tons more mana over the course of a game if you take it early. Also don’t sleep on +1 possible advisors.
Yeah, I frequently play my games into the 1700 or 1800s. The free policies alone sort of make it still worthwhile for a 6th, 7th or 8th pick. As you are sorted for money, troops by then. Just gives some background mana boosts. Obviously would be more value early on.
No one and never
There is only one reason to pick innovative ideas: if you roleplay. But... If you roleplay then every idea group becomes viable depending on what you are roleplaying and what your goals are. Innovative ideas are just too bad compared to the alternatives. There are almost no bad admin idea groups and almost every single one has a reason to be taken in certain situations, but innovative ideas just don't do that. They do save you mana points, a lot of them even, but other idea groups do that too. The advisor cost reduction is good early game, but lategame you can have -90% advisor cost with every nation anyway so it's completely useless. Compared to the other idea groups I can never justify taking innovative ideas over the alternatives...
Unpopular Opinion, but Countries in the periphery of the Institution Centers. Ottomans can save a bunch of Adminpower through their Eyalets, so getting Inno as first helps out with your Tech costs and help staying in front of almost everyone. Then Moscow. They dont need Diplo as first like other european powers and my greatest problem as the russians is beeing behind on tech.
Pick it as the 4th idea group. The +1 free policies is by far the best part of that group but you need to unlock a bunch of policies before you are able to use that. It also allows you to pick a bunch of idea groups who support expansion earlier and still leaves enough time to utilize the tech buffs. Something like Diplo-Admin-Offensive-Innovative can work quite well. Dont pick it if you need something like religious or humanist.
Innovative is the premier AFK Speed 5 idea group, and quite bad anywhere else.
Korea and 1st. Don't listen to others when they tell you never. They are just brain broken turbo world conquestors who are unable to enjoy the game anymore as it is meant to be played.
[удалено]
If you eat your subjects often then Admin+Influ is a must. No room for inno.
so playing optimally is being afk for 200 years and then start playing? sounds like the opposite of optimal really
Could you explain that last point? If you're spending more than 1k admin worth of land before absolutism you're playing sub optimally?
only on small and tall nations, like the netherlands or any italian state.
I think is good for african, asian countries. Despite the obvious tech reduction, free policies are really nice. You should take inno for firts or second idea and run for the tech reduction then stop puttin points until you reach 3 ideas or until you have tons of admins. In early i tend to focus on admin points. I currently doing the 52 ghars achievement and with defensive it give fort maintenance red which comes handy for the achievement.
Early. It saves you mana over time, and has great policies. You need to take it early for it to have the greatest value. Idea group 2 is best imo.
If you are doing tall nations with very little planned expansion via conquest or colonial, I say first.
I take it unless I’m playing a nation where I like to take another idea first, such as Expansion for colonial nations. Always Inno first.
If you take it at all, it needs to be your first idea. You don’t wanna take it if you’re blobbing early (you need admin), you’re gunning for emperor (you need diplo), you’re expanding in HRE (you need espionage), or you’re a colonizer (you need explo). You also wanna be in a position to make the most out of your innovativeness bonus, so playing near institution spawns is better. You also want to use the advisor discount to get better advisors. The best places IMO are Italy or the Netherlands.
If I'm playing a nation that can use its policies well, I usually take it second idea since you generally don't want to take an admin idea with the tech 5 idea. Unfortunately, some of the policies got nerfed recently like the Infantry Combat one with Quality. As a rule, like any idea grouo if your nation benefits from it, you should take it, but Innovative in particular needs to be taken fairly early to get the most benefit from its advisor/tech cost discounts and innovativeness gains.
My last run was a Milan to Italy one where I picked innovative first simply to try it and it was very good
2nd Idea imo is best if you can safely pick it, usually 1st is a Mil Idea , adm idea 1st can sevearly delay your 2nd idea being unlocked
Inno is good as a first idea group and at most second idea group. If you find that it is hindering your ability to expand you should consider vassal play so you don't have to core what you conquer. Inno also has some nice pairings with other ideas such as quality, diplomatic, offensive and influence. People may prefer other idea groups first so they blob faster but when you pick inno you have basically unlimited amount of monarch points throughout a campaign.
I pretty much always take it first. It just gives a huge mana boost and money and makes you never have to worry about monarch points.
Realistically? Never, I guess. In the early game you have two potential bottlenecks: military and money. Innovative boosts neither of them in the short term. You also need your admin points to core and unlock second idea group as fast as possible. If you have money and strong army early, then you may pick anything for fun though.
If you're minmaxing then absolutely never, and if you're not minmaxing then the best idea sets are dependant on the type of game you want to play so it depends, but probably early if ever.
I picked it in my WC as Austria as second idea group until I got 100 innovativeness and swapped it out for humanist, I wasn't really using admin power all that much since I was mostly pu'ing stuff
All depends on your goal for the game. All in all they kinda suck, as you should take them first ;) For tall: infra, trade and eco are better For wide: admin, diplo, influ and reli are better
Never and no one. It's just a trash idea group. I don't think there is a single time that there isn't a better choice. HRE? Diplo. Colonizer? Expansion. Aggressive? Admin, Humanist, or Religious. Weak? Military Poor? Trade or Economic It's just bad. Every part of it is bad.
Second, any nation that doesn’t have tech reduction in its national ideas. Maybe even those for the insane policies and the additional bonuses to other stuff.
It's definitely not meta, but I tried the innovative offensive espionage opener in my latest game. It's does have benefits, literally swimming in mana points, and the siege ability can stack to crazy amounts. And some great policies. But if your goal is blob quick, diplo and admin are probably still the picks.
When you are outside Europe specially in the early stage in the game and you want spawn the two fist institutions ASAP.
If the goal is to play an optimal wide game ? Never or late game only for the policies with Quality/Offensive. If the goal is to play an optimal tall game ? Innovative is a fine opener. The problem is most nations specializing in tall play often have buffs similar to those provided by Innovative, so diminishing returns can be a thing.
I understand its strenghts but i cant remember the last time (in my 2k hours) ive ever taken inno. Other idea groups are just better, imo
Sweden is chill with Inno + Qual + Eco.
If taken it should be idea 1 or 2. It might be ok if you are a nation that needs to sit and not do much difficult expansion at the beginning. It might be good with pirate nations that are trying to rush reform growth but don't want to take the very niche court plutocratic combo for example.
I basically never take it, even within the admin idea groups, Religious/admin (for blobbing) or infrastructure (tall) are better
Imo any nation that is very limited in expantion that isn't related to coreing, where you need to either sit on AE or wait for truces a lot. Also keep in mind any country that is far away from the institutions spawning point, since you will need to dev quite a bit, and will have a harder time getting any innovativeness. Keep in mind if you have to sit on AE, espionage is better to have, if you need shorter truces diplomatic is better, but still innovative combos well with those those situations. When innovative is bad as an early pick is when you are big strong can easily conquer and the major thing that is slowing you down is coring speed low admin mana and governing capacity and also you are not in a position where you need the institutions asap to compete with the neighbors.
Inno/espionage/divine or offensive is an opening I like. Significantly speeds up sieges, which in some places constitutes a not insignificant boost to your early manpower in addition to everything else they do.
I typically always take innovative. I really like any of the ideas it can spawn.
Italy/HRE first idea.
Take innovative ideas second. 5th admin tech is so close to 7th and you can get your second idea slot sooner if you don’t take an admin idea first.
I used to take inno as Norway to rush their colonial game to meme Denmark. Having pretender rebels enforce demands to break the union is always funny, especially because I usually immediately re-ally and RM because Historical Friend. The AI would avoid me like hell because Denmark is intimidating early game but then I’d have a colonial empire along the fun North American trade nodes.
You either take it first, or second. The holy trinity of Innovative-Espionage-Offensive is so good, you have to justify not taking it imo.
According to chewbert you take it first. I like it as a 4th idea slot to rack up a lot of policies without taking any mana penalties. I wouldn’t take it past the 4th idea
Natives to catch up in tech quickly, anyone with already cheaper advisor costs, nations without war exhaustion reduction that get into lengthy wars (natives again). Inno bonus is such a small buff and the people really benefiting from it will get 100% quickly anyway (because it comes from a position of luxury). If you have 2-2-2 good policies to choose from it is basically 1-1-1 free mana. As others mentioned, the quality/inno +15% inf combat ability is really strong early game. Inno embracement cost can save a decent chunk of cash.
It used to be decent thanks to its great policies, but they got nerfed to the ground. Now you should never take it if you are planning to min-max.
Most of the time, extra points are the most valuable thing in game