EU4 1.35 Idea Groups TIER LIST (SHOCKING)

What is your top 3-4 idea groups and why?

is innovative still worth it as the 2nd pick? i like to pick the military one first like offensive because you sometimes you need to move fast in order to secure yourself in the game.

Admin at B is just silly man.

This tier list is freakishly based. Innovative and infrastructure are always underrated, glad they're represented here. Maritime and espionage are situational, not useless! People are too willing to throw these ideas into F tier.

That is a very controversial list

I like trade later to get eco hegemony asap. Diplo first for sure though

Inno is totally broken if you build your government to stack bonuses like advisor and tech cost. Every game I play inno I am swimming in mana, taking techs before ai even can, always get a miltech advantage on every war, I always slap the shit out of this game on inno.

Espionage against AE?
Diplo is still better in terms of AE management in addition to 20% province warscore cost and PU, trucebreak or no-CB shenanigans.
Diplo is S-tier bestest top 1.

Even if you only conquer like 1/4th of the world you save more total mana with Admin than with Innovative.
Considering that in any somewhat blobby game you always, always set the focus on admin mana "only" saving admin mana and not the other both types is not a good reasoning against Admin.
I understand that not everyone likes conquest but Admin still belongs at least into A and Inno also at most into A.

I generally agree.
I usually mod Having 12 idea groups.
Game isn't eaiser with 12 its actually harder due to tougher AI and having to use mana more efficiently. 🤣

Enjoying the logic and how you @chewbert examine the benefits of both changes and new ideas groups. Certainly agree with many, such as Innovative ideas early on, though the contrary to a couple, such as development, I do see the counter points (despite being a play style deference). These kind of videos say a ton about someone's play style from game to game, but also how someone would focus fire in life more times than not. I personally enjoy these videos and would love to see a 4 or 5 person play through with either RP elements or just a for fun play through. Keep it up!

I'm playing Milan hard Ironman and religious idea maybe could be ok at later part of the game so I would say it's medium

This is brutal advice for sp play. It depends on player goals though. For normal expansion focused games, highly rating miltary ideas is a meme, admin saves way more mana than inno, and stuff like infra is almost impossible to justify.

If you do take a military group, merc is strong, but the micro is awful.

Mercenary is the best military idea group in the game and benefits anyone that takes it. Especially when they also take Innovative (which they should because that also benefits everyone) because they synergize very well.
Before even getting into the mercenary aspect of it, which is incredibly broken,
Mercenary gives: Military Tech Cost -10%, Military Advisor cost -25%
Innovative gives: All tech cost -10%, all advisor cost -20%
The policy for combining them gives: Military tech cost -10%, Military advisor cost -33%
For a combined: Military tech cost -30%, Military advisor cost -78%
Add to this Aristocratic Counselors Nobility Privilege for another Military Advisor cost -15% and you're almost capped (which is 95%) with 93% cost reduction
This brings a level 5 military advisor's base cost of 25 ducats down to roughly 4 per month very early in the game.
This plus -30% mil tech cost and you will be hitting develop manpower quite a lot, which is great for your nation as it increases land and navy force limits, manpower and trade power.
Being ahead on military tech is also the best way to dominate engagements.

But now for the actual mercenary part of it:
I'll use the example of my current nation, Hamburg (which I'm playing tall.) I have a force limit of 74 (it's this high because of vassal force limit modifier), and a maximum manpower of 26650.
Instead of having all normal troops, I have 28,000 normal regiments, consisting of mostly cannons.
On top of this I have hired every mercenary army available to me, 10 different companies.
Many of these companies also have generals, which do not contribute to my leader limit. Notably, two of them are 3 star generals, and four of them have 2 or 3 siege. This is incredibly useful in carpet sieging, and these generals are reliably better than the ones you spawn at 50 or lower tradition.
Each company has its own manpower pool. The combined amount of all my mercenary companies is an additional 132,600 manpower, plus my own gives me just under 160,000 manpower total. In my case this is like a modifier that says +500% manpower, which is absurd and unlike any other bonus in the game. I have had long protracted wars where my personal manpower is actually higher by the end of the war despite constant sieges and battles.

With -25% mercenary cost they are relatively cheap to hire, roughly half to 3/4ths as expensive as normal troops. (You pay a little extra for stacks that have generals, but you save military points)
With -25% mercenary maintenance some of my stacks literally cost half as much as a normal unit to maintain - or the same as it costs a normal unit with maintenance off.
The idea group enables drilling of mercs, and since you can't reduce mercenary maintenance, if you aren't using them for battle you may as well especially if they have their own general. So from this they improve their own combat prowess, give constant progress on professionalism which also increases ability of all your armies, and gives you random chances to improve the drilling generals (and unlike normal drilling, these guys don't seem to die in the camp. But if they do they're replaced at no cost to you anyway.) Your professionalism will quickly cap, especially since hiring mercs doesn't reduce it thanks to the idea group and you'll never need to slacken standards for more manpower since your manpower is fixed thanks to the idea group.

On top of the above totally broken mechanics, your mercenaries, which are probably half of your army if you're playing this way, get +5% discipline, 30% boost to manpower, and all of your troops get +10% infantry combat ability (most of your mercenaries will be infantry)

Now let's say you're fighting somewhere far away, maybe your colonies or your enemy has an ally halfway across the world. Maybe you only run a few cogs because many like to ignore navy. No problem, send your small force, take a single non fort province quickly, and thanks to the idea group you can recruit as many mercs as you need wherever you land and have a massive army in a matter of months.

And on top of that, like with innovative, mercenary has some of the best policies in the game that are very relevant to many of your S and A tier groups:
Merc+Trade gives +33% ship trade power(!) and -10% light ship cost
Merc+Diplomatic gives an extra 2 diplomatic relations for extra allies or vassals
Merc+Religious gives 10% morale and 2% missionary strength, insane
Merc+Influence gives 50% vassal force limit contribution and allows you to create client states which you normally can't do until dip tech 23

In my humble opinion i believe that divine should in low A-tier and Religious in S-tier.

Ideas on map game gone sexual ?

I thought you should always exploit tax to cheapen dev cost.

The only other way to get a guaranteed siege pip outside of Aristo ideas, that I know of, is to have Oda National Ideas. Their ideas are so flipping strong for conquests!

Overall i agree with that list, except for one thing. Trade Ideas are never S Tier for me since we have Trade Companies. With all the great Ideas we got in Diplo i always find myself looking at Trade and think "Nope. I go with the good ones and scale my trade with Trade Companies."
Niche roleplay pick these days. Id say C.

If you also take policies into account, Influence and Admin get a big bonus. Because together they re amazing for expanding by both annexing land and using Vassals and PUs. The Policy gives you another -15% diplo annexation cost on top of Influences -25%. If you stack that with the priviledge for nobles, the papal blessing, national ideas like Austrias and mission bonuses like from Provence, Spain, Sardinia-Piemont or Bohemia you ll absorb your Vassals and PUs in no time.
Provence into Sardinia-Piemont into Austria for example can really go wild here.

Economic is better than court and especially maritime.

Martime is so situational and many of the bonuses verge on useless in most playthroughs.

The Interest reduction from econ along with the goods produced and production efficiency can help boost your income in the midgame by way more than maritime ever could. Plus the tax as a first idea early on can be very strong. (Many other useful but not crazy good ideas in economic)


point is that almost all the economic ideas are usefull in every game (maybe not always crazy useful), whereas most maritime ideas are useless in most games.

I really disagree with the innovative praise, throut the entire playthrough (till tech 32 in 1820) it would save maybe some 4000 powerpoints, in around 350 years of having the idea group that is avarege of around 1 power points per month, while good it's not that great. Also Indiginous is absolute S tier if you can take it

Artillery Barrage is behind a paywall (Mandate of Heaven), which makes siege ability far, far more important. The idea groups are quite different without various DLCs.

I quite enjoyed this video thanks.

For me offense, trade and inno are the only S tier.

I miss econom ideas and defense is off after the late defbuffs.

Thank you for your video. I can not only learn the best EU4 ideas in 1.35, but also practice my English listening through your clear speaking. Your pronunciation is one of the best and most friendly for foreigners in EU4 videos. You speak fast but each word sounds very clear, which helps a lot in my Eu4 and English learning. Thank you very much. 🙂

I think you may wanna look at those S-tier trade ideas and think to yourself "Why tf would I ever need bonus merchants when I get those for free with trade companies?"

Trade steering is very weak. +15 trade power on merchants is weak. None of it is really strong or changing trade significantly, and the 2 merchant slots are just waste since they allowed TCs everywhere. Trade isn't just weak, it's one of the worst idea groups in the game. I get the idea of making more money, but it's not actually making you more money. The bonuses sound better and more significant then they are in practice.

gov cap is not an issue unless you play to wc
ı was germany and had all german culture plus poland bohemia and france
even with %50 reduction state houses and courthouses make it up

Byzantium runs i always go quality economic (so that the gold mine in kosovo doesn't deplete and +5 dicipline policy) then diplo and religious

Innovative, Espionage, Court, Administrative

XDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

I think exploration is D, cause as long as you have 1 colonist, colonization privilege is alavible, which gives decision to recruit explorer

IMO
I feel like expansion ideas are highly underrated. That ten percent autonomy reduction alone makes them worth the group to me.

Trade is not that good -you can get merchants easily by conquering a bit of colonial land

I think indigenous ideas are actually pretty good and they also have some of the best policies in the game. And I think natives are really fun. Also quantity for me is still an S tier. In SP you really don't need super soliders to win wars. All you need is manpower. For me quantity is the only idea I always peak. Rest of them depends on the nation I'm playing. Diplomatic is also an S tier for me and maybe offensive.

> sees Offensive in D tier at the start

justifying claim with malicious intent

expansion also gives minimum autonomy in territories which is also essential for blobbing making your territories 2x as effective, even if you are not planning on colonization with your blob, this idea alone gives you massive boost to your economy and manpower,and extra merchant and global trade power is also a nice economic bonus, and if you dont plan tocolonize you can still leave colonists in your stated provinces to boost your development, and the policies are solid and best one is with expansion-trade which gives not only 20% trade steering (best money making modifier together with goods produced) but also trade efficiency, expansion (unless im playing tall) is always a pick for me and definetly S tier

Small correction, Admin bonus has been slightly nerfed to +20% gov cap. Seems most people haven't seen this change.

What would you suggest for the first 2-3 ideas for my two most often played nations, Ottomans and France (no becoming emperor, Vienna Delenda Est!). Am currently just before 1500 as the Otto's and man am I loving the influence + quality combo: +50% income from vassals/eyalids equals ALL OF THE MONEYS! I can fight wars on 5 fronts and reinforce half a hundred jannisary regiments fighting non-stop battles and STILL make over a hundred ducats a month PROFIT! Thank you hungary, tunis, morocco and Venice for funding the proper succesors of Rome, even if you all have at least -100 opinion of me. :)

I think court ideas have some value playing with the mandate of heaven as it gives you mandate and estate things that help with the missions

I would argue Innovative WILL save you more than the dev discount from Infrastructure simply from the idea that you are pressing way more powers-buttons than developing on most accounts, even when playing tall. While I don't believe Innovative is strong enough to be top tier, the 100% innovativeness you can get before 1500 and maintain forever and thus 10% off everything is pretty wild. The issue with Innovativeness is that it slows down a lot of games, especially if you have conquering requirements. For slow roll games it is way more acceptable - like Florence or any North-Italian state can use it since they will be so hampered by the high dev that the usefulness of Diplo/Espionage/Offensive as a first idea may not be as useful as the first idea group so taking a slow-burn idea like Innovative won't stall them very much. That being said, an italian state with Diplo/Offensive will absolutely crush and expand way faster, but has a much higher skill threshold.

S-Tier to me is an Idea that is a must have for any playstyle and should usually land in the first 3 idea slots. Offensive, Diplomatic, and Administrative are really the only ideas that come to mind. If Indigenous was available to everyone then that one as well.

Back to Innovative, Innovative is strong also because the policies it matches up with the other very strong with early ideas like Diplo/Esp/Off and it pairs well with circumstantial strong ideas like Influence and Quality.

If you take innovative but not court, you are missing out. 25% longer monarch life expectancy and no stab loss on death are huge. That's preventing disasters and saving you so much admin mana, which I always struggle with. As someone who prefers full privileges to absoluteism, the +1 possible privileges also buffs the nation. Rushing gov reforms also is super useful in most cases, albeit, you do end up at the end with a glut of reform progress.

You don't mention the policies, religious has one of the best of all, also, no one plays till late 1600 max till 1650-60. Which means Deus vult is a must (if you are not a horde or confucian). For quantity it gives you manpower! You don't have that thing in abundancy in EU4 now, like it was pre leviathan. Also , it gives you opportunity to not waste you government reforms and state privileges on mp ,ones. Defensive is now op if you stack it. and after 1,35 you can stack it in absolute insane numbers like over 200, which mean you can win wars without single battle. Aristo is crap, no every one of junk of all trades like court ideas are trash, because they give you everything but in a small quantities. Which is useless. Because it steals valuable idea slot position.

You have ideas that bring you bonuses (inno, trade, ...), that are nice, and ideas that enable you to do more things (colonist for ex). Those are the best for me.
If you aim for a fast conquest, THE slowing down factor is AE (except for some few countries like hordes). So diplo + humanist brings you the best plateform to bring down AE (> -4 / year with advisor). Combined with the other benefits (diplos, war cost, break mariages, and NO rebels), this gives a wonderful combo.
The only case when I wouldn’t go for it, is when I want to go colonial. Expansion then (using the estate decision to spawn explorers), or Explo + expansion for a pure colonial game.

I take inno + offensive first almost every single time just for the siege ability stuff, because it makes everything so insanely much easier, then almost always diplo after.

Humanist is D, is there anyone who actually uses it except new players who can't deal with rebels?