EU4 2024 UPDATED Admin Idea Groups GUIDE. What changed in 1.35? | EU4 ABC 

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LOL I literally just searched "EU4 domination idea groups tier list" and this popped up having been uploaded 6 minutes ago. This was meant to be.

Innovative is clutch for opening with Espionage and Offensive for siege meta. This is especially useful for achievements that require conquering a general area where wars slow you down. Big QoL improvement.

I think it's a good idea to re-do your 'best military in the game' series too. With the new idea sets and the mission trees for some of the big players, also considering the many new special units, I wonder as of this patch, who has the strongest military.

A good followup series might be showcasing how to pick and combine ideas for certain gamestyles. Like what ideas to consider when playing tall, wide or multiplayer and what to pick in scenario's like playing in HRE, colonizing, Far east, India, Hordes, Africa etc.

Here's hoping someone will finally put Espionage Ideas on S tier and give it the recognition it deserves

What i love about innovative ideas is the abundance of mana points you end up with after stacking advisor cost and tech cost which lets me develop a ton to get stronger and most importantly for crownland and developing institutions. Also after the first successful wars in a run i become lazy so stacking siege ability and having good generals by having in combination offensive ideas lets me just take my standard stacks and right click enemy forts without bothering with micromanagement

For me, Offensive + Innovative + Espionage (in no particular order) is one of the most fun combinations for SP. You get ridiculous siege ability, so right click forts and forget about them. And you get ridiculous advisor cost, making you drown in mana quite regularly :)

Yes, I definitely learned from this. I want to see the other idea group videos right now!!

I haven't watched the video yet but for me, administrative is a must have (along with influence for the influence + admin policy)

Love these videos Ziewikk!! So great to hear your thoughts on all these new changes!

If you take Innovative+Diplo or Innovative+ Influence among your three starting ideas you can run level 3 or 4 advisors from near the beggining of the game. Snag a monument that gives advisor cost reduction and level 5 advisors are trivial. That is a lot of mana over time

Very much appreciate these guides. I'm a classic EU4 player. Been playing 1.25 and 1.29 for years now and jumping into the newer patches to play Anbennar is a little overwhelming and it feels like all the idea groups are all new with how much theyve changed lol. Look forward to getting the crash course for all the idea sets!

It is always something I learn for your viedos. You got great knoweledge of this game.

The big reasons i love innovative is that it easily helps you up with all monarch power cost. and then helps to get a 100 innovatives as soon as possible and works great with offensive and espionage. To give 40% sigde ability. Which to me means super short wars and being able to easily expand like crazy. This usually ends up with nations such as france, spain and russia who become super strong late game means that I have eigher outexpanded them or crushed them already. These as the first three ideas really makes everything super easy to blob but also to have an easy start with advisor cost - 35 can easily help you get strong advisors early and therefore live in mana generation

i like the combo Innovation + offensive + espionage , did my first WC with that setup :)

I've spent dozens of hours testing all kind of idea groups the past few days for MP. Really excited for your mil video.

Idea groups and policies especially, really depend on the situation. Stacking reduction bonuses w/ national ideas can be key to building a nation (since effective reduction stacks stronger additively). So for example, as portugal, going exploration/expansion/aristo gets you an insane -55% construction cost, and +20% manpower. Aristo really gets buffed when paired w/ colonial portugal specifically. In the same vein, CCR works especially well when you already have CCR in your NI's, etc.

Nice tier list! Very good explanations. Hope the complete one comes soon! I wanna see where do you place Divine Ideas. For my tall Japan runs (simulating MP) I believe it is the best 3rd idea group. It has dev cost, army quality and manpower all in one. And a 10% morale policy with religious.

Hey Zlewikk! Thanks a lot for this video! here is my case for innovative :P I think that, as you said, most idea groups are very "specific" for one type of gameplay. Infrastructure for tall, Admin for wide, etc. But Innovative IMO is a "jack of all trades". It is never the best pick in a given situation, but it is never a shit pick either, and i would say in most cases it is a solid pick. As you mentioned, many policies are really good, I would give a shoutout to +1 leader siege and +10% siege ability, it's really strong for single player (dunno about MP), so it means you can combine it with many different other idea groups, whereas, say Admin kinda forces you to pick influence as well, because most other policies are just meh. so, you could say, in a sense, innovative is also "enabling" to get more out of your other idea groups by getting really good policies on top. I'd say, if Admin ideas are worth it simply because of the CCR and Gov cap for wide gameplay, then Inno are worth it simply because of tech cost and advisor cost for tall gameplay. :)

early innovative ideas makes you cozy

5:35 Surprised you didn't at least mention the Economic-Quantity policy of +10% Land Force Limit, and -5% land maintenance. Either bonus on their own isn't much, but both together and the fact it's an admin policy (so it doesn't take up a spot for a better mil policy) makes it really good imo.

Great Britain can get four or five parliament issues that give colony development boosts. You get the debates from missions, so in theory you could click the missions at the same time, so with those bonuses, the exploration-infrastructure policy, and the age bonus, all of your colonies will start at something like 21 development minimum. Great Britain also gets to choose which trade goods their colonized provinces will have, so in theory you could get several 20+ dev cloves or gold provinces really easily.

I’m quite happy that they changed admin. I was never a fan of it before since I didn’t utilize mercs at all. But the ccr and governing cap are so good for map painters!

What do I like about Innovative Ideas: Inno + Espionage + Offensive opening. It lets you stack advisor costs, as well as the benefits of innovativeness and prestige EARLY. Espionage helps with less aggressive expansion impact, as well as saving you admin points from coring because you get more claims.

love this type of content

If you can manage to finish the innovative idea group really early, it feels amazing to have. No war exhaustion, dirt cheap advisors, good policies, and cheaper technologies. Even the 1+ advisor can be a surprisingly nice QoL feature. But I think there are two issues. There are already too many "must have" admin idea groups, and the bonuses becomes less useful if the country is already very powerful. So B is fair. Would also note that the infrastructure + aristocratic policy is really nice, and the two together are probably the best starting idea groups overall.

Innovative is something I typically only take when I play Muscovy into Russia or Prussia. Muscovy because I like taking institutions to keep tech cost down and Prussia so I can max out infantry combat ability. Muscovy however this doesn't really work so much because of the new system with the enforce serfdom mechanics.

Humanist can be a S tier idea group for confusian country because you can get external perfection cb ( deus vult cb for confucian) from humanist

Love this video Zlewikk!

I find innovative helps You punch above Your weight advisor-wise. Earlier lvl 3s mean more access to lvl 3 advisor events and more mana generation. It then allows to be ahead of time a lot faster, thus have more mana for devving up. Also I play the long game so +1 policy is ace

You just had your questionnaire about abc format like a day ago and you already dropped a long format abc? DAYUMMM! You're a madman 😀

Splitting up the videos per mana group is a good call. Looking forward to the others!

Seems that you missed inovative offensive policy combo? stacking siege speed is great getting one more point in seige for leaders is very good aswell.

inno ideas are my favorite 1st idea group (at least it was before 1.35, lets see how that changes), especially when playing as brandenburg or so, because it just lets you save a lot of mana, which imo is very important early

In my colonial games I almost always take aristocratic idea as the third (the first two are explo and expa) because it has one of the few holy trinity of the policies (which means with 3 idea group you unlock 1 bird, 1adm and 1 mil policies So you can enact each of them), and all of them are strong: +20 settlers as explo-expan is self explanatory +20% manpower as explo-arist (used to be +33% but its still pretty strong) -15 const cost as expan-arist (its huge, especially if you have another bonus és for ex as portugal which has another -15 in its nat ideas and -10 from chatolic edict)

My defense of Innovative Ideas is exactly that it allows you to get to 100 inno faster. Sure, you can get it as any nation, but the faster you get it, the more it impacts because the earlier you save points, the more you will save. Also, the tech cost and advisor cost greatly help remedy the fact it is an administrative opener, since they help you have a bit spare mana. Also, I might have a thing for stacking infantry combat ability and innovative ideas allow for it

I do think Innovative ideas are A-tier for casual or tall gameplay, which isn't the most common. For wide play, other things are more important. But if you want to unite a region, but no much else, and play the rest with diplomacy and army quality, it's great: - I don't know how anyone who's not a republic (or Ottomans or something) is getting 100 innovativeness early, I really don't. OPMs and other small, non-expansionist countries buy techs at steep prices and can't realistically be kept up with. Around 50 innovativeness is pretty standard for me without Innovative ideas, so this is effectively -5% all powers cost. (And I am good at the game in SP, having got One faiths, True Heir, etc.) - Tech cost discount is a huge mana saver. - Reduced monthly war exhaustion means more money, less unrest, virtually all of the time. This is a couple hundred diplo mana saved for any major war. - Advisor cost is huge, it really is. If you want advisor cost for wider gameplay, just take Espionage, but for taller play you don't care as much about AE, but you want the innovativeness, mana saving, etc. So for tall play without colonizing (Prussia is an obvious choice if it weren't for the AE of the HRE), I'd honestly suggest opening with Innovative, then Offensive, then Infrastructure, then Quality (throw Espionage in first or second if you are playing in the HRE). You end up with tons of mana generation and saving and great army quality.

Love such videos

I think Inno is a B tier idea group in Europe, I think it’s better out of Europe, where innovativeness is harder to come by and getting the institutions faster is a bigger deal.

you are a legend

I really enjoy inno as a complementary idea group. It really synergies with quality/influence. I wish more groups could synergize better.

Infra ideas is a must for wide gameplay too thanks to the policy with aristrocratic & the gov cost reduction

My favorite is in the S tier.. Good to see💪🏻

As someone who really likes Innovative ideas, I agree with its B rating. One thing you did not mention which is massively underrated is the Offensive+Innovative Policy, it gives you +10% Siege Ability(30% with offensive), but most importantly 1 Siege Pip on your generals. Which is massive because the Siege Pip generation for generals is way lower than for the other pips. But i do agree atm Innovative ideas doesn't work well, i think they should replace the +1 Free Policies with something else.

Have to agree on all of your picks. I really wanted to put Humanist in S tier, but you're right it's not quite there. Religious was an EZPZ pick for S tier. At least they got rid of all the mercenary crap from Admin ideas, but the stuff other than Gov cap and CCR cost is pretty meh. Expansion is niche, essential if you're colonizing, but not really useful otherwise. Eco is pretty situational now, and Inno isn't worth the point spend at all. I would have C tiered it personally, but I understand boosting it for its decent policies.

inno+offensive has two rare modifiers - siege ability and leader siege. late game all you're doign is sieges so late game super powerful idea

i just recently realized how good espionage ideas are when i was playing as emperor of HRE (milan, interesting story)

So if i understand it correctly expansion is S tier if you are going colonial, but since its use is so limited it is B tier, right?

How do you rate the Infra/Horde policy that gives 0.25 devastation reduction globally? It seems very useful for wide hordes.

Only in the context of MP, I think for your second idea group you have three choices, Eco, Inno and Infrastructure. IMO Infrastructure is the worst choice because it has no military quality policy (unless you're going Merc-Infra). So you have a choice between eco with its bonuses to scaling your economy and 5% disc vs inno with its mana saving (advisor cost is mana gen in the early game, tech cost is very strong) and 15% ICA. I think its pretty close, but probably Eco is still best for helping you stay alive.

I think inno is best as part of an inno-espionage-offensive/divine core, especially on small nations. inno-offensive is giving you siege ability and leader siege, which stacks extremely well with the siege from espionage and offensive, and means you're winning siege races that you wouldn't be otherwise, making your wars faster, saving manpower, and just all around expanding more effectively. Divine also accomplishes this to some extent but I think offensive is generally better. While a single advisor cost reduction isn't the biggest thing in the world, being able to stack it like you're doing with espionage makes it so you're going to be getting your higher level advisors a lot sooner than you'd otherwise be able to afford to, especially if you can also get external sources like national ideas/estates/whatever. The possible advisor doesn't scale super well later, but it does make getting the advisor you want early a lot less painful, when you don't have the money to be cycling all of them every month. With the combo of those 3 you're also immediately getting 2 extra diplomats, which can help to deal with your AE quite a bit, or can be used to get spy networks and more improved siege ability to continue stacking that. All of this also stacks with the fact that you're opening it early to actually make effective use of that innovativeness gain, and if you don't want it later then you can always swap it out what with the super strong base you've built for yourself opening with these. I opened the divine variant of this on my teutonic order > KHAAAAAAAAN run and I genuinely had more monarch points than I knew what to do with even before flipping holy horde, which helped a lot dealing with pushing through a strong ottomans and muscovy to actually get the horde reform. I don't think it's S tier by any stretch of the imagination, but I think it offers the potential for a uniquely strong opening here that other combinations aren't able to match.

innovative for me has great policies but bad ideas other than the advisor cost and free policies, the tons of advisor cost from policies are super nice and it pairs well with other idea groups i like to take like offensive in singleplayer for fast sieges, but its normal bonuses definitely need a big buff

Main exploration bonus is - 10 min autonomy, it give a lot potential for trade companies and territories. 90 percent territory gives 2 times less than 80 percent one. Plus dharma monument and gov reform. You can have 75 percent territory without buildings.

Where did you get that printed 1444 map? Also, I love these discussion videos.

Innovative is great when paired with diplo, and you play for HRE. Feels great to have 3x 5* advisors in early 1500s. the mana generation&low cost of them + 10% cost cut on everything from innovativeness is very OP. You don't conquer as much early on as Emperor(tested as Provence), and you can easily take admin 3rd to pair it with 25% war score vs other religions age bonus and finish WC by early 1600s if you push hard. I'm not saying it's the most optimal setup, but it worked for me just fine.

Humanist now also has a CB as a finisher for Confucians: External Perfectionism...

For a no dlc player like me the +1 advisors Is accually really good since you can't Fire advisors nord promote them. From a no DLC perspective where innovativness doesn't exist, you can buy or sell institutions and things like that innovative can be occasionally super useful. Admin too since playing tall whit no DLC usually Isn't an option.

Military ideas tierlist when? Really wanna see your opinion on whether offensive, quality, or quantity is better

As Great Britain you can potentially get +9 development. +3 from age bonus, +3 from the policy and +3 from either Sugar, Gold or Spice Act from the parliament.

Great video!

What should be my first 3 idea groups for my Muscovy play through?

I see alot of people trashing on inno but i will always love it for tall play

In single player, I think inno is good if you are ahead in mil tech in the early game, since it will allow you to take it first UpTo the reduced tech bonus, then get admin 7 and take your mil idea with a big tech lead. Being ahead of time in mil tech is where inno is best since you have a big tech cost penalty for being 5+ years ahead, and can punch ahead of your weight as a middle size country that needs to fight against ming or something, like horde or Korea.

Stacking cost reductions is vary powerful because when you already have a large modifier you get more than it appears on your modifiers. ex adviser cost you already have stacked up -50% so an adviser with base cost of 16 turns in to 8 but if you add another -25% it now turns in to 4. which is 1/2 the price. which means you are getting twice the bang for your buck as it would get in isolation. this affect can get more extreme as you approach 0.

What are your thoughts on nerfing prestige gain? I feel like it is currently far too easy to be maxed out at 100 prestige

Zlewikk what idea groups would you recomment for an tall Italy mp Game?

you can pretty easily get 90% fort maintanance now. petty funny to have a lvl 8 fort in every province if you ask me.

Eco is op with tall and expand infastructure . +1 dev is op when you can spam all the differente manifacturies in the same spot . Also 500 ducats are cheaper than devving a tall province

Innovative is an all in or all out idea group. You either grab it first (or second if you're crimped on admin) or not at all. The tech cost reduction helps you stay ahead of other nations in tech, and if you are playing prussia inno->quality is a must for prussian space marines. I still feel like its the best idea group in the game, but the opportunity cost is really really high.

For infra ideas, i think you undersold the expand administration cost reduction a bit. Imho its easier to just think of it as "costs -20 reform progress", which is huge for the first few clicks.

Here's why I love Inno: say you start as a tag with no good mil bonuses and you play in or near a coastal area. Quality+Inno gives you both early game and mid-game bonuses, and it scales well late-game too. And no matter what idea groups you take after, the policies are very nice. If you dont play near the coast, you can take offensive or diplo with Inno and still snowball hard. Easy A+ tier for me But also, Inno+Espionage+Offensive is insanely good. I play a LOT of Anbennar, and it's one of my favourite set of ideas because you can punch WAY above your weight (starting as small tags and taking down GPs is my funtime). I will admit most Inno bonuses are meh, but the +35% ICA or Advisor costs or siege bonuses with offensive are just insanely good! Edit: I've also taken tech like 10 yrs ahead of time for just 500 mana after picking Inno and getting close to 100 innovativeness. It just snowballs very well over time imo

I like innovative ideas, just for the guaranteed siege pips, otherwise it's kind of a bad idea group. However I think it's must if you are playing a theocracy, because if you go inno, religious, espionage, divine, and offensive, towers melt like butter. On one of my play throughs I was at 86% siege didn't care about mil mana because i was ahead in tech so i was able to full carpet siege the ottomans plus their allies extremely quickly. This was in patch 1.34. also helps to have 100 spy Network too, but you're economy is not the best if you go with those idea groups.

I take innovation most games i love the policies and the fact that I do not have min max my monarchs because it basically makes monarch point generation so easy. Personally I think its A tier because it is so versatile unlike other idea groups which many are niche.

Worth noting that for Confucian countries Humanist is S++ tier, as their version of the Deus Vult CB, External Perfectionism, is not only gained from completing Religious ideas, but is also gained from completing Humanist ideas. Plus Humanist obviously synergizes wonderfully with how Confucian works.

Infastructure is for deving up wide

If u pick innovative your War exhaustion will be 0 always. Also tech cost is nice. And the free policies, and paired with offensive is a good policy for siege. I typically pick innovative every run at some point

I think Innovative/Offensive/Diplo (switch first 2 depending on nation), is the best for new players (less than 3000 hours?), it lowers the micro and the "invisible" stuff. You See advisor count, See advisors monthly pay, you See general pips, you See and Get extra diplomat, Relation, you get Tech cost (bad rulers), Siege, Discpline, Improved, War Exhauiston, and Diprep (offset dishonor Call to arms, or annex vassal) as the "invisible". There is just overall less micro and "stuff" that is the web of many other ideas. Its kind of easy mode for good players (SP) (5k hours+), and can help hybrid tall/war for medium players (whatever that means, 3-6k hours?). I mean all these things are stuff everyone just *have* to deal with, the construction cost, dev cost and the economy fools, it will come later with hours and experience. This combo is more forgiving, and less micro. Its not "bad" to go mana cap for new players as it is not having any mana for tech.

I almost always take Innovative Ideas very first, but usually just unlocking the first 3 ideas unless I'm able to maintain Admin Tech. -1% Prestige Decay is useful to help max out 100 Prestige and maintain it early. Better unit morale and better expansion impacts are a must. 50% Innovativeness Gain is highly underrated. Quickly achieving 100 Innovativeness can greatly help you power past your rivals. 1% unit tradition decay keeps your units ahead of the pack. 10% cheaper mana costs on everything speaks for itself. Can be reached within 100 years in most cases. -10% Tech Cost synergizes extremely well with Innovativeness Gain. -10% Institution Cost allows you to spend some of your ducats elsewhere. The remaining ideas are probably why it falls in most rankings, but they do have their situational uses. Innovative Ideas work well with Exploration, Influence, Quality, Offensive, Aristocratic and Diplomatic Ideas, which does allow you to spread out your policies very easily. Due to this fact as well as the first 3 ideas you get with it, I think it deserves to be in A Tier as the overall impact of the bonuses and policies you get typically do put it ahead of most other idea groups imo. That said, maybe we can compromise to a B+/A- ? 🤣

Having played mostly monarchies, I wanted to start my recent ambrosian republic Milan campaign with a combination of pluto + inno. That was my plan. But I don't know if they changed innovative in the recent patch, but it didn't seem to be that good when it came to picking it. So my opener changed to aristo + admin + pluto. I think all the government specific idea groups are pretty good, so I'm always happy when I can cheese it like that and take both aristo as a monarchy and later pluto as a republic. And I never liked admin that much, because it had too much mercenary stuff, but it's one of my favourite groups now.

I would love to see if you think maritime ides are good now with the new government reform it brings (thaly something ocracy)

Innovative is good for its policies, plus early game. Like you said in the video it’s even better if you play long games. I like to play till 1700’s most games so I probably see a lot more usefulness with it. But it’s policies are some of the best. Combined with espionage and offensive, you have killer siege bonuses and you get extra diplomats so it helps with keeping AE in check, also you can manage relations much better. On its own it’s not great, but combined with its policies is where it shines. Also with the bonus free policies you can worry less about sacrificing mana for strong policies.

can you do that with dip and mil ideas too?

I am confused on why you didn't mention the NEW humanist Holy War CB "External Perfectionism"... I think its huge if starting in the east and planing on going Confucian. makes holy war vs everyone who isn't Confucian even targets who you have accepted their religion.

I always take offensive and quality as my military ideas so innovative is a must have, the policies are insanely good

I love using innovativnes ideas... For country that can stack infantry ca + gaining money from trade

I think for me innovative is nostaglic. Years ago when I played my favorite nation Prussia, Inno-Quality was almost a must, so I always got it primarily for the policy. I agree now, it's ok

I realise Innovatives is a B tier group but i'm just in love with the -0.05 monthly war exaustion. Really helpful if you don't want to sit there and birdwatch and to spare admin points to core provinces.

Inno is S tier in my mod because I allow more than eight idea groups and promoting advisors past level 5, so its bonuses compound harder

Innovative basically lets me get to 100 inno really fast, like with good nations such as Florence you can get to 100 within like 40 years if not faster with humiliate rival wars and being efficient with mana

16:42 i play almost every campaign to the end because of having not other purpose than wc, so free policies is very good. Except that I almost never took inno in that type of campaigns

Well, i'd always start with a military idea group first - barring special cases like ex. Portugal. With that said most of the time its Religious or Humanist in second or third slot. Humanist for places like western europe or middle east(w/e persian region) and Religious for anything else. Of course there are times where fitting diplo or influ in the second slot is necessary. The only other thing i want to comment on: i only take Inno later in the game, exclusively for the advisor cost and consider the other stats from it as a bonus

Can you spoil which ideas you would rate as S-tier (including diplo+mil)? Specifically, my favorite wide nations are otto's and france and my favorite tall nations are england and netherlands if you need that context. Love your videos btw, please keep making them!

Humanist is S+ tier for Confucian nations. They get yearly harmony, harmonization speed and the external perfection casus beli.

I do find Innovative ideas do work better without DLC, as the innovativeness bonus replaced an idea cost reduction, though the free policy is just replaced by another 10 advisor discount, which stacks with the last bonus. It does also work better outside of Europe, especially if you do not want to take Infrastructure ideas, if you are playing wide and a loss of bonuses without DLC. I still feel it is B, but it can work pretty well, the bigger problem is just strong competition.

Finally :)

Eco ideas look like a good first or second idea group, for the early tax and loans boost. However, winning wars and conquering provinces is still generally a more efficient investment, and military ideas never decline in importance. Maybe it's good for like, colonial Portugal? Edit: also, possible advisors is not entirely useless, if you have tons of cash you can shuffle advisors in and out depending on immediate need, you can buy some mana and win some wars that way

Great Britain gets +1 colony development throw its missions so you cam get up to 9 dev making it EXTREMELY OP of used corectly

Honestly I'm not sure how leader siege +1 works but it feels like without it on 90-100 army tradition you constantly get 1-2, rarely 3 or 4 siege pips on a general. While with leader siege +1 you keep getting those 4-5 siege pip guys

If you playing wide OUTSIDE of europe getting new instutions is pain in the ass even with deving. Innovative ideas is a must be if you play outside of europe for me. Also the policy with offensive that gives you 10% siege ability is very very useful as well as 15% inf combat.