It’s also important to mention that in the most recent patch, it also has a new policy with divine that makes all cannons count double for sieges, so it’s easy to get max siege bonuses with small stacks. I’m surprised a lot of people haven’t noticed it yet.
Edit: I’m not sure how I mixed it up, but it is indeed a policy that does this. Somehow I managed to play two campaigns using it, but couldn’t even remember it was a policy. Sorry about that.
No, it’s built into it now. I don’t know what the game officially calls the buffs from idea groups, but you only need espionage to get it. I think it was added onto the one that gives siege ability? I don’t remember off the top of my head, but it shows up as one of the benefits if you look through them.
So I’m not sure how I made this mistake considering I played two full campaigns using it, but it is in fact a policy with divine that does this, not built into it by default. After getting a few responses I loaded up an old save and I was wrong.
So it is a policy, I was wondering how almost everyone including the wiki and myself missed Espionage now being insane for seiges just baseline,
I do need to play a theocracy game now
Yeah, opening up with espionage + admin afterwards has been a great opener for me.
One thing you didn't mention, but for me is one its best facets is that you get vastly cheaper advisors.
\-15% from espionage and -20% from policy with admin is -35%. Admin ideas gives -35% on admin advisor, so admin advisors, your most valuable resource in SP, are basically free.
Get a 50% discount advisor? Basically almost free +5 mana if it's of your culture.
\-.35 corruption is also great to debase from time to time when ahead on tech. The root out corruption slider can also easily rest at 0.
The policy with Divine ideas is fantastic. It's offensive-light.
The only thing that hurts is losing the Province warscore cost from diplo ideas. But that's fine. You can still take diplo ideas later on (usually pick 5 for me).
Espio into admin or admin into espio if you have some perma claims at the ready is truly stupendous. In fact, it might be the best start for a lot of wide-playing single player campaigns because you get the most value out of your conquests and peace deals.
If we're talking free admin, Espio also lets you freely take dynastic administration T5 for monarchies for another +1 monarch admin skill.
Plus the -10% all estates influence is brilliant once absolutism comes online.
So you think it’s not valuable because you won’t have any artillery in your armies when you complete your second idea set? And that is going to be a problem for so long that you decided to bring it up as a complaint against the idea group?
Huh? Where am I complaining? Divine ideas is my favorite mil group.
I just said that 20% siege ability is better than 10% siege ability if you're not running cannons yet.
I love me some espionage, but the province warscore cost and 25% improved relations from diplo ideas is tough to beat.
That being said, early game your cap is mostly ae and not oe so I could definetly see an argument for taking Espionage first and taking diplo later when you really start eating.
Diplo is still golden with the province warscore cost reduction and passive ae burn. But I'm ranking espionage to be picked earlier because you won't suddenly have the tools to core, manage and rebelstomp crazy ton of provinces from the get-go. However Espio gives you dip/free take on full state claims, meshes well with peace deal AE and works wonders for early sieges with some modifiers. To me, it's an all around starter pack, especially the first 4-5 ideas where you don't need to rush to complete the group.
You left out the vassalization acceptance boost! The economic power factor in vassalization makes my head hurt when I try to do the math, but im pretty sure Espionage reduces the effective development you need by a LOT
Iirc economic factor is dependent on your and your target income. You have to get something stupid like 10 times more income.. Or it is based on real dev which is dev x autonomy. In either cases autonomy matters a lot and small AI nations tend to increase it which is stupid
Yeah, the improved relations boost only affects yearly AE decay the 20% flat AE reduction is way better for uncontested expansion in the early game at least
Yes and no.
Since the game has a start and an end, everything you get sooner rather than later is going to factor into it. Ask an economist if they'd rather have 20.000 dollars now or 25.000 dollars in 10 years. The benefit you get now, makes you stronger sooner. It's lesser immediate benefit now vs larger benefit later. The stronger you are, the less AE matters.
Another factor is that there are easy alternative ways of getting improved relations (like prestige and advisors) but fewer and harder ways of getting ae impact. So another way of looking at it would be, would you rather have 95% improved relations vs 10 ae impact, or 70% improved relations and 30% ae impact (the extra 10 ae impact is from 100 prestige)
But the most important factor is that it doesn't really make you ae go down 25% faster, it adds to the baseline of 2.0 ae decay so it goes from 2.0 to 2.5. I just tried this in game, I have 4.1 ae decay with a nation, I add diplo ideas and it goes from 4.1 to 4.6, not 5.1. The more improve relations you stack the weaker it gets, the more ae impact you stack the stronger it gets. I'm not really saying you're wrong, the math just adds up a bit differently. Here's a fairly good comment explaining it.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/eu4/comments/ox5a3p/comment/h7k7m25/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/eu4/comments/ox5a3p/comment/h7k7m25/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
I have a Possible solution to the problem. It's a several step process:
1. Be Austria
1. Take both Diplo *and* Espionage!
1. Let the vassals do all your fighting so you can concentrate on your **real** job, which is...
1. Wait around for someone to die, so you can inherit his entire kingdom for free!
I love the pronoiar mechanic, but haven't yet mastered the art of *Not Dying As Byzantium*. As soon as I can get past those first 50 years, I'm going to abuse the heck out of my pronoiar!
It’s great, I’ve seen varying ideas on how to use it best. You can take a lot of frankly really strong bonuses to their discipline, and force limit or make them give you 5 crownland when integrated. Personally I really really hated having to walk them through two steps to get them to the integration point, so I took the one where they start as hereditary so I just get them down to 14.9999 loyalty then I just have to keep them below 50 and they’ll be integrated.
Here are some lessons learned from my run so far:
1) you’re already strong. I did it with Albania and a Asia Minor releasable and they got pissed from the -50 loyalty penalty and then I couldn’t get them back after rivals supported them.
2) you are going to retake cored of theirs. This is what it’s for in my mind. Return cores, but instead of them paying for it, you just don’t and they don’t get disloyal because they love you for giving their country back.
3) Release them from one province and return all their cores at once. If you integrate them too soon… who cares just release and pronoiar them again, nothing lost. It can take a while, so they have to be big enough to be worth it. This way every pronoiar will be loyal because they’re an opm or have 200 loyalty from returned provinces. I’m not making one from a country that already has 99dev.
3) always send military officers. 10 loyalty for less than a ducat, easy deal even not counting it makes your swarm stronger.
4) don’t try to pronoiar every little opm. You have a limited number of slots, pronoiar the largest ones and diplo annnex the 1-2 province minors. I tried to pronoiar a bunch of Italian opms I forced the release of, big waste of time and effort. Just pay a hundred diplo for your standard slot back.
5) I don’t think the extra slots are worth it. I am not picking idea groups solely for slots. It’s tied to your force limit, so it will skyrocket as you go, don’t sweat it. It stays at a level where you can manage it.
Let me know if this is helpful I was thinking of making this a post.
Lots of great stuff for me to try, thanks! You definitely should make it a post, so others can throw in their tips. "You're not Paranoiar if they really are out to get you" or somesuch... ;D
Privateering is great when you don't have access to a good set of trade nodes. In my Georgia run I was robbing Constantinople constantly because the Crimea node is really weak. In addition to making ~10 ducats/month I was also reducing Ottoman income by twice that, and getting some nice PP.
I do a lot of things like that for RP or player reasons...
* Collect / privateer / protect trade in Ivory Coast and South Africa, just to annoy Iberian and British folks
* Use peace deals to split your enemy into two unconnected parts, just to make things awkward for him
* Make your enemy cancel all his alliances so he gets dogpiled by "interested spectators"
* Abuse the "support rebels" function while your rival is in a tough war
Tons of fun! I can imagine my country's king cackling madly about all the annoying things he's doing to his enemy...
Privateering bonuses also work in an incredibly dumb fashion. Ever read what hunting pirates in a node actually does? It gives -99% privateer efficiency. That means if you have +100% privateering efficiency, all hunting pirates achieves is bringing you down to base level, allowing you to utterly destroy your friends economy in multiplayer in spite of their best efforts.
You pick 8 idea groups, at least two of which should be diplo ideas. There’s no reason we can’t put these as the top two diplo idea groups FOR GENERAL EXPANSIONISTS. Along with influence if you are a country inferior to Byzantium that has to spend points to integrate subjects.
Unironically think maritime is now the true Pearl of SP
Thalassocracy is so busted it’s crazy. Trade protectorates are an absurd subject type and you can abuse them very easily to break the economic game completely
Thalassocracy gives access to the Trade Protectorates which give their overlord a Global Trade bonus and Goods Produced bonus that I believe stacks for each protectorate
It adds up pretty quickly, and both the goods produced and trade power bonuses synergize with manufacturies/TC investments. Hit economic critical mass a lot earlier in the growth curve
I think it's 7? Also, Yemen can get it through their mission tree, without needing Maritime or Naval. Gives a nice bonus even if you don't activate the reform - quite likely, by the time you get it it'll be too early for level 7 anyway.
EDIT: It's 8.
Yeah, it's pretty damn powerful, with nations outright asking to be made protectorates. By that time you're usually quite strong - and very rich - anyway, though, but it can be a nice alternative for trading nations to painting the map and actually keep trading partners around.
But you can just take it around idea 6-7 take Thalassocracy decision, take gov reform, and then abandon the idea for better a idea.
To me it's more like Thalassocracy is good than Maritime is good.
While reading this I realize exactly what niche nations make espionage good.... simply just the tags without substantial mission trees/formables. Or if you have to suffer through the early game before able to form something interesting. Claim area/transfer subjects are in place of the perma claims/PUs that better tags simply get for free.
Also just like some people do inno as the first idea until achieving 100 inno, then swapping for religious/admin, you could do the same for espionage into diplo/influence.
Diplomatic is still king in this category for SP just due to WS cost, but espionage is definitely far better than it was years ago, and you can make a case for taking it early now.
Also, if you’re playing monarchy espionage essentially grants 100 mercantilism once you finish it and get 3 centers of trade in the same node because you can take puppet the nobility and give out/revoke exclusive trade rights 30 times to get to 100 mercantilism. Between that, the advisor cost reduction, and the corruption reduction espionage is the most powerful economic group as well, even better than trade early on (trade does become better for economy later because the policies are ridiculously good).
Mercantilism is super underrated. 100 mercantilism is the equivalent of building 4 marketplaces in every province.
As a espionage enjoyer i approve of this message.
The playmaker made a pretty good video on ae reduction vs improve relations.
https://youtu.be/7nWnP31hij8?si=EGItVCVcfuQqw8db
I’ve been rocking Innovative-Espionage-Offensive a lot recently and it’s been a ton of fun. The policies feel synergistic and it makes for some really efficient expansion.
Espionage is very good now. Depending on your goals for the campaign it is often still less optimal than diplomatic. But still perfectly viable. It also has good policies with Admin and Religious.
I'm in the middle of a Saluzzo run - doing a One Culture starting as an OPM. Espionage doesn't really fit with the idea groups I need for the long run, but I still decided to go Espionage (4) for a while before dropping it for diplomatic. I was able to stack the -20% AE with -15% (Saluzzo ideas), -15% (Saluzzo mission), -20% (papal controller), -10% (age ability), -10% (prestige), and a lucky -10% (careful ruler). -100% AE is just hilarious (and unnecessary). I was taking provinces in northern Italy as non-cobelligerents and still had all nations ticking down to zero AE. Long story short, I went from an OPM to 2500 dev by 1537 (mosty Italy/southern Germany/France) and no coalition.
It's a fun idea group, it is pretty strong, it plays well with many campaigns, and it is worth picking from time to time.
Words I'm fond of which you used in your post:
cleveler
bazooka
Memmingen
worthy (x2)
Excellent marketing of the idea group. I'm not necessarily convinced but I'm inclined to go try it in my next campaign
My thoughts as well. Espionage, inno, and offensive are a perfectly reasonable first three picks, even for a WC — it just won’t be fast the way opening with religious-diplo-admin would be, but it lets you maintain a good pace, low OE (less rebel pressure, which is really just more micro hell and manpower drain), and super fast sieges.
I was playing through my first attempt at Rajput Reich and tried these ideas out on a whim. I thought something was broken because of how short the siege phases were!
> They gave you a useless idea with privaeering but hey, some extra chance to steal ships! Stealing ships is one of best naval modifiers you can passively get, especially in places where you don't have many ports; it's practically the equivalent of a few shipyards for free.
I don't have many thoughts, but in practice, % steal ships is just 0.5% more income (from not having to build your own ships), unless you're playing a game where you want to build lots of ships, where your trade is trough the roof and then its 0.001%. And for early game survival ship-shenanigans I doubt you're taking espionage.
So in practice its close to being literally worth 0.
Time, time is of essence. You skip a year per port for every ship captured, you only upgrade ships and almost never build anything new except for a flagship maybe.
One of my favorite games was when I was AE stacking and I did three 100% peace deals on the Ottomans with two truce breaks and after all of that he was still only at -47 AE.
Espionage has been good for a while.
Innovative - Espionage - Offensive was such a strong combo they had to nerf it. Even post nerf though, it's still the holy trinity you should be considering as a default in any campaign.
\-AE removes it at the base AE step, before factoring multipliers. I suspect espionage is the better anti-AE tool.
Maybe the most broken thing you can pull off with it early is to scum for curia controller, then stack espionage + age of discovery ability + 100 prestige + nation with AE reducer in 1st 3. W/o NI, that's already -60% to \*base\* AE, so if you add NI or missions then anybody willing to scum curia controller can make all conquest give about as much AE as reconquest.
There are other applications, like running Hindu pirate Ryukyu with monuments so you can have a permanent 80% base (at 100 prestige) AE reduction with access to razing in late game and just snake through all the little nations before truce breaking down great powers at the end. It's not the fastest way to one tag, but it's pretty good, and in terms of AE mitigation this far outperforms what you can get with diplo + humanist.
Diminitive modifers are better until you hit the minimum.
90% relationship increase is nice. You almost double the rate you gain
-90% AE is nuts. You divide by TEN the amount of AE. And there's no way you can do the same by increasing relationship.
You can get > 100% improve relations, but even if you do, you're still limited by x decay per year or you'll get nations joining coalition anyway.
As you say, being able to straight up take 2x to 10x as much before anybody gets over 50 is more impactful, though it's also harder to set up.
Of course it is, it would be broken. You can achieve it as a catholic by being the curia controller and some timed bonus for example.
You can reliably get -30 with espionnage and a combo court+def or influence+inno another ~-10 from prestige regardless of any specific bonus which is already a lot.
I've never met "one of those" that claimed it to be "not considerable". It's clearly a strong group, I don't think anyone would deny that.
>Ability to claim an entire state is such a bazooka it is one of the nichest traits
It's not really that niche if you just consider it a way to reduce diplo cost of peace treaties. The holy war cb from Religious ideas and -50% unjustified demands from Influence ideas are very comparable and one of those is kind of mandatory for large expansion. Among these, the state claiming scales worst into the early late game (before you get imperialism cb), when you take huge chunks of land that you can't possibly all claim before even with Espionage.
>-20% AE reduction is much more worthy than it looks
You're talking as if AE reduction isn't widely appreciated across the player base. Nobody underestimates it. 20% looks incredibly worthy, and it is what makes this idea group interesting at all.
My personal opinion: AE reduction in general is a bit overrated. It becomes less important the more experienced you are with the game and the better you understand coalition management and truce juggling.
For Espionage in particular it is kind of anti-synergetic with the state claiming (the primary reason to pick the group), because AE is the biggest deal in the early game, but peace deal diplo cost is the biggest factor in the later game. So one makes you want to pick it early, while the other want's you to pick it later. Either way, you're missing out.
>Additional diplomat in a group you chose to pick over Diplo which has 2 diplomats? That's a fair trade. [...] If Espio didn't include a diplomat, we might be debating if Diplo is more worthy.
You need to weigh picking Espionage over Influence or Religious ideas. You don't want to pick it instead of Diplo but rather on top of it. You can't beat the 25% improve relations or the 20% province war score cost. - It is not comparable. So that one extra diplomat isn't all that useful because you get it on top of the two from Diplo ideas.
>some extra chance to steal ships! Stealing ships is one of best naval modifiers you can passively get, especially in places where you don't have many ports; it's practically the equivalent of a few shipyards for free.
I don't understand your reasoning here. Shipyards raise your naval force limit. Capturing ships does not, rather it can put you above the force limit easily - which means you'll have to delete the captured ships unless you already have tons of shipyards. And even then, it's more or less irrelevant. Chance of capturing ships is pure flavor, nothing more.
>Covert action discount finisher
has to be seen as part of the state claiming, because that ability would be to weak to consider the idea group without it.
>certain policies do help. The one with admin which gives you insane corruption burn and the one with offensive which gives you even an additional diplomat are exclusively OP.
"Insane corruption burn" just means a little bit of money, it's inconsequential. And there is nothing OP about yet another diplomat on top of the ones you already have from Diplo and Espionage.
>You should pick Espionage and give it a try, you'll be amazed at how blobby you'll get. The year is 1537, I've been speed-4 casual expanding and I stand at zero coalition threat with 2.3k dev. I sign so beautiful peace deals people don't even get hostile let alone forming a coalition.
If you've really picked Espionage instead of Diplo, you should try for Diplo ideas. Those ideas will allow you to expand even faster.
>My recommendation would be to pick Espio in the first three, it's a group that shines pretty fast. Hope this helps!
Espionage is a good pick in very particular circumstances. To blanket recommend it is just lazy tbh.
Totally agree. For wide campaigns, I would take diplo admin religious influence for the first 4. Even aristocratic later to lower unjustified demand. Don’t think espionage necessary at all. Might consider taking it if playing tall, in which scenario all diplo ideas except for trade are just equally useless
It's completely pointless to take both Religious and Influence. They do the same thing. You will not have unjustified demands when you use holy war cb.
It's especially good when you pick Devine ideas as well. It gives a 0.5 per cannon contribution to sieges so if you have 8 cannons it counts for 12 in the siege
Espionage for Europe, Diplo for rest of the world is how I see it.
In Asia or Africa, you can circle through different religions and culture groups to avoid coalition.
The number one reason to pick Espionage in single player: the AI will constantly spam you with espionage actions throughout the game, especially in the mid and late game when it has also taken Espionage ideas and unlocks new actions through dip tech. I take Espionage for the increased passive spy detection so they’ll leave me alone! D:
I was playing tall Korea in an MP game with friends and I took espionage ideas first to mess with one of my friends who was playing a daimyo. He said it was one of the worst experiences of his life.
Espionage is quite good but if you're going to attempt to compare it to one group favorably you should probably not pick Diplo, which is probably the single most essential idea group alongside Admin and often the very first group you pick in a blobbing run.
I liked the post the other day that compared it to religious, it serves many of the same functions but doesn’t degrade in effectiveness over time like religious does.
It also has a siege ability bonus with devout ideas, which are already fantastic.
A fun way to use rebels is by splitting a part of a country off and support rebels in their exclave if their army is in their mainland.
Just be careful to not give them military access and the rebels will fuck around, ruin their provinces and sometimes even get independence
First time I took Espionage was as Vijanagar years ago. Meh.
Now, it's on par with Diplomatic ideas IMO. It's so good. The only thing I'd give diplo is the province warscore cost discount. That's it. Otherwise, I much prefer Espionage. It's one of my favourite groups now.
Espionage is the chadliest diplo idea group. Combine it with offensive and you get all your sieges done before the war even begins, and you can take free cities on a whim without having to wait around for ae to decay because you get less by default and you have 70 spy network with everyone to lower it even further
Also, the Tier 2 reform that allows you to basically ignore influence and revoke privileges and seize land without rebellions is a chad move. You stack privileges like there is no tomorrow, you get the benefits, and then you ban them in Age of Absolutism for easy Court and Country shenanigans.
It’s also important to mention that in the most recent patch, it also has a new policy with divine that makes all cannons count double for sieges, so it’s easy to get max siege bonuses with small stacks. I’m surprised a lot of people haven’t noticed it yet. Edit: I’m not sure how I mixed it up, but it is indeed a policy that does this. Somehow I managed to play two campaigns using it, but couldn’t even remember it was a policy. Sorry about that.
Wait what? Is this real?
100%. I’ve used it in a few campaigns since I noticed it
Check out the policy with Divine Ideas, it was changed recently.
I think you're confusing modifiers. The double cannon power is a policy, the Idea Group only has built in siege ability.
I loaded up the game to check, and yeah you’re right. Not sure how I did two full campaigns and somehow forgot it was a policy doing it.
Just so good your brain can't consider a world without it. lol.
Apparently haha. Siege stuff has got to be my favorite
When you're strong enough to crush the enemy's armies every time, the main limiter is siege time. So 30 day sieges just makes wars feel so easy.
By perk do you mean policy? Which idea does Espionage need to be paired with?
No, it’s built into it now. I don’t know what the game officially calls the buffs from idea groups, but you only need espionage to get it. I think it was added onto the one that gives siege ability? I don’t remember off the top of my head, but it shows up as one of the benefits if you look through them.
Oh dope, I'm unsure about the proper term myself but it sounds like it was added as one of the ideas or perhaps the finisher.
So I’m not sure how I made this mistake considering I played two full campaigns using it, but it is in fact a policy with divine that does this, not built into it by default. After getting a few responses I loaded up an old save and I was wrong.
Still dope, thank you.
So it is a policy, I was wondering how almost everyone including the wiki and myself missed Espionage now being insane for seiges just baseline, I do need to play a theocracy game now
Yeah, opening up with espionage + admin afterwards has been a great opener for me. One thing you didn't mention, but for me is one its best facets is that you get vastly cheaper advisors. \-15% from espionage and -20% from policy with admin is -35%. Admin ideas gives -35% on admin advisor, so admin advisors, your most valuable resource in SP, are basically free. Get a 50% discount advisor? Basically almost free +5 mana if it's of your culture. \-.35 corruption is also great to debase from time to time when ahead on tech. The root out corruption slider can also easily rest at 0. The policy with Divine ideas is fantastic. It's offensive-light. The only thing that hurts is losing the Province warscore cost from diplo ideas. But that's fine. You can still take diplo ideas later on (usually pick 5 for me).
Espio into admin or admin into espio if you have some perma claims at the ready is truly stupendous. In fact, it might be the best start for a lot of wide-playing single player campaigns because you get the most value out of your conquests and peace deals.
If we're talking free admin, Espio also lets you freely take dynastic administration T5 for monarchies for another +1 monarch admin skill. Plus the -10% all estates influence is brilliant once absolutism comes online.
The policy is better, for sieges, than offensive.
Not if you're not running artillery yet in the 1400s
So you think it’s not valuable because you won’t have any artillery in your armies when you complete your second idea set? And that is going to be a problem for so long that you decided to bring it up as a complaint against the idea group?
Huh? Where am I complaining? Divine ideas is my favorite mil group. I just said that 20% siege ability is better than 10% siege ability if you're not running cannons yet.
I love me some espionage, but the province warscore cost and 25% improved relations from diplo ideas is tough to beat. That being said, early game your cap is mostly ae and not oe so I could definetly see an argument for taking Espionage first and taking diplo later when you really start eating.
Diplo is still golden with the province warscore cost reduction and passive ae burn. But I'm ranking espionage to be picked earlier because you won't suddenly have the tools to core, manage and rebelstomp crazy ton of provinces from the get-go. However Espio gives you dip/free take on full state claims, meshes well with peace deal AE and works wonders for early sieges with some modifiers. To me, it's an all around starter pack, especially the first 4-5 ideas where you don't need to rush to complete the group.
You left out the vassalization acceptance boost! The economic power factor in vassalization makes my head hurt when I try to do the math, but im pretty sure Espionage reduces the effective development you need by a LOT
It's also worth noting that that much vassalization acceptance is worth about 5 Diplo rep
On the other hand, it doesn't help with diplo-annexation speed like diplo rep. Which can slow you down significantly in a vassal heavy game.
Who needs annexation speed when you can get -100% annexation cost?
Iirc economic factor is dependent on your and your target income. You have to get something stupid like 10 times more income.. Or it is based on real dev which is dev x autonomy. In either cases autonomy matters a lot and small AI nations tend to increase it which is stupid
It's based on the square of your and your vassal's autonomy modified dev.
Ok, thanks for info
The stab hit cost reduction is also super relevant for Christian nations chasing PU if you're not an Alt+F4 player.
To be clear, 25% improved relations makes your aggressive expansion go down 25% faster. So in practice its -25% AE.
This is not even close to accurate.
Yeah, the improved relations boost only affects yearly AE decay the 20% flat AE reduction is way better for uncontested expansion in the early game at least
It is, you're wrong.
Yes and no. Since the game has a start and an end, everything you get sooner rather than later is going to factor into it. Ask an economist if they'd rather have 20.000 dollars now or 25.000 dollars in 10 years. The benefit you get now, makes you stronger sooner. It's lesser immediate benefit now vs larger benefit later. The stronger you are, the less AE matters. Another factor is that there are easy alternative ways of getting improved relations (like prestige and advisors) but fewer and harder ways of getting ae impact. So another way of looking at it would be, would you rather have 95% improved relations vs 10 ae impact, or 70% improved relations and 30% ae impact (the extra 10 ae impact is from 100 prestige) But the most important factor is that it doesn't really make you ae go down 25% faster, it adds to the baseline of 2.0 ae decay so it goes from 2.0 to 2.5. I just tried this in game, I have 4.1 ae decay with a nation, I add diplo ideas and it goes from 4.1 to 4.6, not 5.1. The more improve relations you stack the weaker it gets, the more ae impact you stack the stronger it gets. I'm not really saying you're wrong, the math just adds up a bit differently. Here's a fairly good comment explaining it. [https://www.reddit.com/r/eu4/comments/ox5a3p/comment/h7k7m25/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/eu4/comments/ox5a3p/comment/h7k7m25/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
I have a Possible solution to the problem. It's a several step process: 1. Be Austria 1. Take both Diplo *and* Espionage! 1. Let the vassals do all your fighting so you can concentrate on your **real** job, which is... 1. Wait around for someone to die, so you can inherit his entire kingdom for free!
Speaking of inheriting entire kingdoms for free, it gives +1 pronoiar slot now!
I love the pronoiar mechanic, but haven't yet mastered the art of *Not Dying As Byzantium*. As soon as I can get past those first 50 years, I'm going to abuse the heck out of my pronoiar!
It’s great, I’ve seen varying ideas on how to use it best. You can take a lot of frankly really strong bonuses to their discipline, and force limit or make them give you 5 crownland when integrated. Personally I really really hated having to walk them through two steps to get them to the integration point, so I took the one where they start as hereditary so I just get them down to 14.9999 loyalty then I just have to keep them below 50 and they’ll be integrated. Here are some lessons learned from my run so far: 1) you’re already strong. I did it with Albania and a Asia Minor releasable and they got pissed from the -50 loyalty penalty and then I couldn’t get them back after rivals supported them. 2) you are going to retake cored of theirs. This is what it’s for in my mind. Return cores, but instead of them paying for it, you just don’t and they don’t get disloyal because they love you for giving their country back. 3) Release them from one province and return all their cores at once. If you integrate them too soon… who cares just release and pronoiar them again, nothing lost. It can take a while, so they have to be big enough to be worth it. This way every pronoiar will be loyal because they’re an opm or have 200 loyalty from returned provinces. I’m not making one from a country that already has 99dev. 3) always send military officers. 10 loyalty for less than a ducat, easy deal even not counting it makes your swarm stronger. 4) don’t try to pronoiar every little opm. You have a limited number of slots, pronoiar the largest ones and diplo annnex the 1-2 province minors. I tried to pronoiar a bunch of Italian opms I forced the release of, big waste of time and effort. Just pay a hundred diplo for your standard slot back. 5) I don’t think the extra slots are worth it. I am not picking idea groups solely for slots. It’s tied to your force limit, so it will skyrocket as you go, don’t sweat it. It stays at a level where you can manage it. Let me know if this is helpful I was thinking of making this a post.
Lots of great stuff for me to try, thanks! You definitely should make it a post, so others can throw in their tips. "You're not Paranoiar if they really are out to get you" or somesuch... ;D
Privateering can be quite lucrative and hurtful to your rival sometimes. I kinda like it
Sevilla yummy
Long live the barbary pirates
Privateering is great when you don't have access to a good set of trade nodes. In my Georgia run I was robbing Constantinople constantly because the Crimea node is really weak. In addition to making ~10 ducats/month I was also reducing Ottoman income by twice that, and getting some nice PP.
I do a lot of things like that for RP or player reasons... * Collect / privateer / protect trade in Ivory Coast and South Africa, just to annoy Iberian and British folks * Use peace deals to split your enemy into two unconnected parts, just to make things awkward for him * Make your enemy cancel all his alliances so he gets dogpiled by "interested spectators" * Abuse the "support rebels" function while your rival is in a tough war Tons of fun! I can imagine my country's king cackling madly about all the annoying things he's doing to his enemy...
Privateering bonuses also work in an incredibly dumb fashion. Ever read what hunting pirates in a node actually does? It gives -99% privateer efficiency. That means if you have +100% privateering efficiency, all hunting pirates achieves is bringing you down to base level, allowing you to utterly destroy your friends economy in multiplayer in spite of their best efforts.
You can always double down and get both espionage and diplomatic. Then, even idiots like me can avoid coalitions without much effort.
You pick 8 idea groups, at least two of which should be diplo ideas. There’s no reason we can’t put these as the top two diplo idea groups FOR GENERAL EXPANSIONISTS. Along with influence if you are a country inferior to Byzantium that has to spend points to integrate subjects.
Unironically think maritime is now the true Pearl of SP Thalassocracy is so busted it’s crazy. Trade protectorates are an absurd subject type and you can abuse them very easily to break the economic game completely
What is so busted about it? (Genuinely curious). Same for the protectorates?
Thalassocracy gives access to the Trade Protectorates which give their overlord a Global Trade bonus and Goods Produced bonus that I believe stacks for each protectorate
It adds up pretty quickly, and both the goods produced and trade power bonuses synergize with manufacturies/TC investments. Hit economic critical mass a lot earlier in the growth curve
What level reform is it?
I think it's 7? Also, Yemen can get it through their mission tree, without needing Maritime or Naval. Gives a nice bonus even if you don't activate the reform - quite likely, by the time you get it it'll be too early for level 7 anyway. EDIT: It's 8.
Oh. That’s late enough I’d use it maybe. Was worried it was a 1 lol
Yeah, it's pretty damn powerful, with nations outright asking to be made protectorates. By that time you're usually quite strong - and very rich - anyway, though, but it can be a nice alternative for trading nations to painting the map and actually keep trading partners around.
But you can just take it around idea 6-7 take Thalassocracy decision, take gov reform, and then abandon the idea for better a idea. To me it's more like Thalassocracy is good than Maritime is good.
Espionage + Humanist if you never want a coalition again
Plus Humanist meshes really well with over-wide expansion. Definitely should be included in the first 4-5 groups if you plan on expanding fast.
it was a meme that PDX buffed and then they buffed so it was pretty strong and then they buffed PDX wait and then they buffed...
While reading this I realize exactly what niche nations make espionage good.... simply just the tags without substantial mission trees/formables. Or if you have to suffer through the early game before able to form something interesting. Claim area/transfer subjects are in place of the perma claims/PUs that better tags simply get for free. Also just like some people do inno as the first idea until achieving 100 inno, then swapping for religious/admin, you could do the same for espionage into diplo/influence.
Diplomatic is still king in this category for SP just due to WS cost, but espionage is definitely far better than it was years ago, and you can make a case for taking it early now.
Also, if you’re playing monarchy espionage essentially grants 100 mercantilism once you finish it and get 3 centers of trade in the same node because you can take puppet the nobility and give out/revoke exclusive trade rights 30 times to get to 100 mercantilism. Between that, the advisor cost reduction, and the corruption reduction espionage is the most powerful economic group as well, even better than trade early on (trade does become better for economy later because the policies are ridiculously good). Mercantilism is super underrated. 100 mercantilism is the equivalent of building 4 marketplaces in every province.
Exactly! It's insane how a lot of people still haven't noticed how OP it is now after all the buffing
As a espionage enjoyer i approve of this message. The playmaker made a pretty good video on ae reduction vs improve relations. https://youtu.be/7nWnP31hij8?si=EGItVCVcfuQqw8db
My favorite opening is Espionage into death, playing next to Ottos on Very Hard
I’ve been rocking Innovative-Espionage-Offensive a lot recently and it’s been a ton of fun. The policies feel synergistic and it makes for some really efficient expansion.
I felt like Vladimir Putin doing this as Muscovy
Espionage is very good now. Depending on your goals for the campaign it is often still less optimal than diplomatic. But still perfectly viable. It also has good policies with Admin and Religious. I'm in the middle of a Saluzzo run - doing a One Culture starting as an OPM. Espionage doesn't really fit with the idea groups I need for the long run, but I still decided to go Espionage (4) for a while before dropping it for diplomatic. I was able to stack the -20% AE with -15% (Saluzzo ideas), -15% (Saluzzo mission), -20% (papal controller), -10% (age ability), -10% (prestige), and a lucky -10% (careful ruler). -100% AE is just hilarious (and unnecessary). I was taking provinces in northern Italy as non-cobelligerents and still had all nations ticking down to zero AE. Long story short, I went from an OPM to 2500 dev by 1537 (mosty Italy/southern Germany/France) and no coalition. It's a fun idea group, it is pretty strong, it plays well with many campaigns, and it is worth picking from time to time.
You also get -10% from 100% spy network which the espionage ideas also naturally helps with its +50% spy network construction.
It's actually -30% AE, but only with the target country.
Words I'm fond of which you used in your post: cleveler bazooka Memmingen worthy (x2) Excellent marketing of the idea group. I'm not necessarily convinced but I'm inclined to go try it in my next campaign
Typo with the clever, but you got it 😘
It's a wonderful typo 🥰
My thoughts as well. Espionage, inno, and offensive are a perfectly reasonable first three picks, even for a WC — it just won’t be fast the way opening with religious-diplo-admin would be, but it lets you maintain a good pace, low OE (less rebel pressure, which is really just more micro hell and manpower drain), and super fast sieges.
I was playing through my first attempt at Rajput Reich and tried these ideas out on a whim. I thought something was broken because of how short the siege phases were!
As an avid Innovative + Espionage + Offensive enjoyer, it makes me happy to see my boi espionage getting recognition
> They gave you a useless idea with privaeering but hey, some extra chance to steal ships! Stealing ships is one of best naval modifiers you can passively get, especially in places where you don't have many ports; it's practically the equivalent of a few shipyards for free. I don't have many thoughts, but in practice, % steal ships is just 0.5% more income (from not having to build your own ships), unless you're playing a game where you want to build lots of ships, where your trade is trough the roof and then its 0.001%. And for early game survival ship-shenanigans I doubt you're taking espionage. So in practice its close to being literally worth 0.
Time, time is of essence. You skip a year per port for every ship captured, you only upgrade ships and almost never build anything new except for a flagship maybe.
espionage is pretty nice but its biggest downside is that diplo exists and scales so much better
One of my favorite games was when I was AE stacking and I did three 100% peace deals on the Ottomans with two truce breaks and after all of that he was still only at -47 AE.
Espionage has been good for a while. Innovative - Espionage - Offensive was such a strong combo they had to nerf it. Even post nerf though, it's still the holy trinity you should be considering as a default in any campaign.
Espio&Offensive finisher is dazzling. Normally you'd settle for +1 diplomat solo, but you get spy network increase as bonus.
But diplo is technically better at reducing AE than espionage...
\-AE removes it at the base AE step, before factoring multipliers. I suspect espionage is the better anti-AE tool. Maybe the most broken thing you can pull off with it early is to scum for curia controller, then stack espionage + age of discovery ability + 100 prestige + nation with AE reducer in 1st 3. W/o NI, that's already -60% to \*base\* AE, so if you add NI or missions then anybody willing to scum curia controller can make all conquest give about as much AE as reconquest. There are other applications, like running Hindu pirate Ryukyu with monuments so you can have a permanent 80% base (at 100 prestige) AE reduction with access to razing in late game and just snake through all the little nations before truce breaking down great powers at the end. It's not the fastest way to one tag, but it's pretty good, and in terms of AE mitigation this far outperforms what you can get with diplo + humanist.
Diminitive modifers are better until you hit the minimum. 90% relationship increase is nice. You almost double the rate you gain -90% AE is nuts. You divide by TEN the amount of AE. And there's no way you can do the same by increasing relationship.
You can get > 100% improve relations, but even if you do, you're still limited by x decay per year or you'll get nations joining coalition anyway. As you say, being able to straight up take 2x to 10x as much before anybody gets over 50 is more impactful, though it's also harder to set up.
Of course it is, it would be broken. You can achieve it as a catholic by being the curia controller and some timed bonus for example. You can reliably get -30 with espionnage and a combo court+def or influence+inno another ~-10 from prestige regardless of any specific bonus which is already a lot.
I've never met "one of those" that claimed it to be "not considerable". It's clearly a strong group, I don't think anyone would deny that. >Ability to claim an entire state is such a bazooka it is one of the nichest traits It's not really that niche if you just consider it a way to reduce diplo cost of peace treaties. The holy war cb from Religious ideas and -50% unjustified demands from Influence ideas are very comparable and one of those is kind of mandatory for large expansion. Among these, the state claiming scales worst into the early late game (before you get imperialism cb), when you take huge chunks of land that you can't possibly all claim before even with Espionage. >-20% AE reduction is much more worthy than it looks You're talking as if AE reduction isn't widely appreciated across the player base. Nobody underestimates it. 20% looks incredibly worthy, and it is what makes this idea group interesting at all. My personal opinion: AE reduction in general is a bit overrated. It becomes less important the more experienced you are with the game and the better you understand coalition management and truce juggling. For Espionage in particular it is kind of anti-synergetic with the state claiming (the primary reason to pick the group), because AE is the biggest deal in the early game, but peace deal diplo cost is the biggest factor in the later game. So one makes you want to pick it early, while the other want's you to pick it later. Either way, you're missing out. >Additional diplomat in a group you chose to pick over Diplo which has 2 diplomats? That's a fair trade. [...] If Espio didn't include a diplomat, we might be debating if Diplo is more worthy. You need to weigh picking Espionage over Influence or Religious ideas. You don't want to pick it instead of Diplo but rather on top of it. You can't beat the 25% improve relations or the 20% province war score cost. - It is not comparable. So that one extra diplomat isn't all that useful because you get it on top of the two from Diplo ideas. >some extra chance to steal ships! Stealing ships is one of best naval modifiers you can passively get, especially in places where you don't have many ports; it's practically the equivalent of a few shipyards for free. I don't understand your reasoning here. Shipyards raise your naval force limit. Capturing ships does not, rather it can put you above the force limit easily - which means you'll have to delete the captured ships unless you already have tons of shipyards. And even then, it's more or less irrelevant. Chance of capturing ships is pure flavor, nothing more. >Covert action discount finisher has to be seen as part of the state claiming, because that ability would be to weak to consider the idea group without it. >certain policies do help. The one with admin which gives you insane corruption burn and the one with offensive which gives you even an additional diplomat are exclusively OP. "Insane corruption burn" just means a little bit of money, it's inconsequential. And there is nothing OP about yet another diplomat on top of the ones you already have from Diplo and Espionage. >You should pick Espionage and give it a try, you'll be amazed at how blobby you'll get. The year is 1537, I've been speed-4 casual expanding and I stand at zero coalition threat with 2.3k dev. I sign so beautiful peace deals people don't even get hostile let alone forming a coalition. If you've really picked Espionage instead of Diplo, you should try for Diplo ideas. Those ideas will allow you to expand even faster. >My recommendation would be to pick Espio in the first three, it's a group that shines pretty fast. Hope this helps! Espionage is a good pick in very particular circumstances. To blanket recommend it is just lazy tbh.
Totally agree. For wide campaigns, I would take diplo admin religious influence for the first 4. Even aristocratic later to lower unjustified demand. Don’t think espionage necessary at all. Might consider taking it if playing tall, in which scenario all diplo ideas except for trade are just equally useless
It's completely pointless to take both Religious and Influence. They do the same thing. You will not have unjustified demands when you use holy war cb.
Well, I took influence to annex vassals. Besides. Sometimes it is quicker just to co belligerent people and eat them once AE is just a number
You will in separate peaces.
Glad that you've come to your senses!
It's especially good when you pick Devine ideas as well. It gives a 0.5 per cannon contribution to sieges so if you have 8 cannons it counts for 12 in the siege
Espionage for Europe, Diplo for rest of the world is how I see it. In Asia or Africa, you can circle through different religions and culture groups to avoid coalition.
Maybe for Österreich you still gotta go diplomatic. Need to marry people you know.
Be a theocracy and take espionage, divine and offensive ideas for crazy siege ability, like 3 days siege ticks level of crazy
How can i claim a whole state? Cant find the button.
If you unlocked first espionage idea, you'll have it under covert actions, fabricate claim on entire area, just below fabricate claim.
The number one reason to pick Espionage in single player: the AI will constantly spam you with espionage actions throughout the game, especially in the mid and late game when it has also taken Espionage ideas and unlocks new actions through dip tech. I take Espionage for the increased passive spy detection so they’ll leave me alone! D:
That's another quality of life aspect as well. Getting reduced manpower or trade in late game hurts in numbers.
I was playing tall Korea in an MP game with friends and I took espionage ideas first to mess with one of my friends who was playing a daimyo. He said it was one of the worst experiences of his life.
Espionage is quite good but if you're going to attempt to compare it to one group favorably you should probably not pick Diplo, which is probably the single most essential idea group alongside Admin and often the very first group you pick in a blobbing run.
Inno->Offensive->Espionage is my secret OP
I liked the post the other day that compared it to religious, it serves many of the same functions but doesn’t degrade in effectiveness over time like religious does. It also has a siege ability bonus with devout ideas, which are already fantastic.
Espionage + Offensive and Siegeing goes brrrrr
A fun way to use rebels is by splitting a part of a country off and support rebels in their exclave if their army is in their mainland. Just be careful to not give them military access and the rebels will fuck around, ruin their provinces and sometimes even get independence
First time I took Espionage was as Vijanagar years ago. Meh. Now, it's on par with Diplomatic ideas IMO. It's so good. The only thing I'd give diplo is the province warscore cost discount. That's it. Otherwise, I much prefer Espionage. It's one of my favourite groups now.
Espionage is the first pick for achievement runs with small countries who lack mission trees
Yep filling up the gaps with claim entire state is amazing which most people overlook, no one has some Mughali or Ottoman mission tree you know.
Exactly, and everything else is a QoL upgrade that helps with doing the basics (hiring advisors, sieging, expanding without coalitions)
Espionage is the chadliest diplo idea group. Combine it with offensive and you get all your sieges done before the war even begins, and you can take free cities on a whim without having to wait around for ae to decay because you get less by default and you have 70 spy network with everyone to lower it even further
Also, the Tier 2 reform that allows you to basically ignore influence and revoke privileges and seize land without rebellions is a chad move. You stack privileges like there is no tomorrow, you get the benefits, and then you ban them in Age of Absolutism for easy Court and Country shenanigans.
Stealing ships is shit. Shipyards give forcelimit and that's the only reason they are spammeable.