Aristocratic + Espionage + Religious is one of my openings

I remember doing this setup on an AQ run back before Domination to stack Cav combat ability. The State Claims are actually so useful, lets you claim quite a few states all at once before the spy network cost gets that high. Very overlooked.

Espionage + Aristocratic is my go to for Poland, Byzantium, AQ, etc. They synchronize so well with each other! They also work great with religious giving additional +3% missionary strength and -1 unrest from policies.

It is criminal that your channel has not yet reached 7k subscribers. Seriously, I feel like your channel is the modern-day Reman's Paradox. Thank you for this detailed analysis. I am thinking of trying this out with England, first ignoring France and then sniping Burgundy's subjects. They are almost always hostile to England, so getting the inheritance is not likely, and England is in a good position to own all of the Channel Node if they do this. England + Low countries on a colonization run would be huge money.

I have been saying to people Siege stack is pretty good. If you can Siege down Constanipole or Wien in one month in to the war that is huge effort. Not only that now that people are somewhat swimming in money more you can actually use way more Cavalry as any faction. I think Diplo + Offensive also give +Rep and +Leader Siege so there's even more when you unlock more Ideas. I want to give this build a try in my next France campaign.

Aristocratic has been one of my favourites for a few versions already; amazing video!

god why im always so hyped when i start off your video

florry use it so often, so I consider to use them too in my games

I did a AQ -> Persia run that Red Hawk reviewed, aristocratic & espionage were my openings. I took horde ideas once I became one with the final government reform for AQ then formed a horde Persia.

I'm always proud of myself when this channel does a video on something I've already been doing for quite a while. I'm not the kind of guy to always pick the same idea groups every playthrough, especially for my opening ones, but if I'm doing a run I know will be hard, like most OPM's, I'll almost always go Espionage, Aristocratic, Administrative. It's a surprisingly different style of play from the boilerplate Diplo-Admin opener.

As any cav nation, Aristo and Espionage is the go-to opener I would say. Stacking cav cost and combat ability is very fun

Keep up the work my G it will pay off. Nice videos You are the non toxic siu king xD

I went aristo espionage for my Poland game, and they went from horses to panzer divisions

Will try this out today ❤

Aristo-Espio sounds like the perfect combination for efficient planned conquest without creating massive coalitions. If you don’t care about coalitions or are completing an insane challenge then admin diplo is better at being faster but a lot harder

I click ur video even tho your channel picture changed. Truly shows you make good thumbnails

One of my fav combos! Hell yeah

Espionage ideas still finding ways to be underrated. Bravo!

Good video as usual. This is a very fun combo and I've used it in just about every game as a small and even great nation. Very underrated combo. Espionage especially has so many indirect effects that it's harder to appreciate vs +10% taxes. It does not get talked about often, but a spy network will reduce the AE you suffer by up to 30% in that country. This makes spy networks a good tool to use if you're surrounded by potential coalition members, especially dangerous ones, or just want to keep an alliance with BBB. Also as Russia I find it crucial to take Espionage at least. The AE and Claims stack well with your ideas, but if you take Aristocratic as well you can claim entire countries with ease. I forget which government reform it was, but it allows you to claim states without increasing the cost of the next claim action. I found this to be very viable recently as I did not need the permanent claims, so the CCR reduction one gets as Russia made Admin Ideas irrelevant until the late game rofl. Also, Aristocratic ideas allows you to run cav heavy armies like Student noted. In the early game you can run well trained cav supported by free company infantry to save manpower for a lot of conquests. Thanks for reading my blog

Yup, i love this combo. Found this while playjng byz too, while trying to stack number of pronoias

Very cool. Can't wait for next Monday's video.

Diplo+Merc is my fav with +2 Dip Relations also Mercs are just goated

For anyone going Aristocratic + Espionage = gross because zero end game advantage. Just remember, by mid game you'll usually have more mana than you know what to do with and you'll be wasting 400 mana chunks on ahead of time constantly. So instead of wasting it, you can always swap to different ideas. The AE reduction shouldn't be underestimated, especially within the HRE. Unless you're playing someone who is dependent on sniping specific states before Portugal or Spain does (for instance Netherlands, Scotland or Sweden), or in the case of the HRE, just the Netherlands, you'll want to go Espionage immediately for the Aggressive Expansion reduction alone (Holland gets a mission which reduces AE early if you focus on Dutch provinces first which is designed to stop everyone ganging up on you for 20+ years preventing expansion until you get the age bonus to reduce AE so you don't need to worry about it for them). The combo is also extremely useful for Byzantium, because early they are 100% dependent on having better Cav than the Ottomans as it is the only thing they have over them out the gate, not to mention, reduced AE means you can snipe territory from them more often and at bigger chunks so the Mamluks and Venice doesn't take advantage when you're not yet in a position to fight them.

Can't wait to play Zaporozhie with those ideas as opening

i do use espionage with offensive for a while. I already tought of taking it with aristocratic, but i always tought that the cav bonus are kinda useless, so i always did use espionage + offensive to have fast siege and low AE, the AE helps a lot the early blobling in europe.

Aristocratic + Espionnage is very good. Both are good alone too but the problem is that none of them are as straightforwards as diplomatic, influence, trade, offensive, quality, quantity, admin etc. It's a little bit more complicated to know if you want it. Also you frequently want other things so you underestimate the power of these ideas. Espionnage was also recently reworked (aristocratic also I think) so its strengh is not fully apreciated yet. Also cavalry build are mostly not done by chill/begginer players but way more by quite experimented players. I have 1.2k hours and I never did a cav build (never played hordes also) because it's not as intuitive as infantry. For subjects, stealing sweden early in the game is a very viable strategy as england, france (not enough slots sadly), austria (same thing), poland, lithuania, muscovy (you will prefer finland over sweden but maybe good), also viable as the ottomans (lol).

Taking the goverment reform "Noble Officer Corps" of Tier 2 also helps a lot in early game, you get better generals, cavalry cost even less, the 2% loyalty, and 5% more influence to push up this scaling privilieges. Specially Cavalry cost is very important if you take Aristocratic. It makes a lot more reliable your army in early for a bit more of cost than infantry units, i think is way better than taking quality.

Oh damn, I never noticed how cool this combo works regarding claim cheapness and ability to maximise profits from the nobility estate. This thing is a savior for nations without tons of permaclaims. This could also work well for Mughals with their Mansabdar boni for almost full cavalry armies and with their lack of claims outside of South Asia

Espionage and Offensive is also really good for stacking siege ability

Interlinked

If you ever end up converting to a Theocracy (or start as one), I always loved Espionage + Divine for the extra Siege ability. Espionage became very viable when it got its buff way back when.

My Byz opener for the last patches was espionage+quantity: the idea is to have much pronoias and to drown them in mp to keep them loyal. +2 pronoia slots from quantity, but also it scales from land force limit. Its really challenging to keep them all loyal, and armies are trash, but you can partially compensate it with discipline from icon and advisor. The pronoia limit is further scaled by Themata bonus force limit, also it gives even more MP. So you balkanise, integrate and inherit like crazy. Just dont let yourself fall into deficit of troops and MP, which results in subject disloyalty black hole. One could raise the stakes by picking pronoia slots from mercenary army reform branch, but for me this is just too much.

Currently doing a RP run as Burgundy -> Lotharingia using a personal hardcore mod that nerfs ahistorical aspects of the game as GC, land FL, regiments costs and others. Fitting like a charm to stack CCA and siege without going that meta of Off-Esp-Ino. Third idea will be Ino ironically to represent how evolved the court was back in the late days of Phillip the Good and early days of Charles the Bold.

You could've even got the cossacks estate by simply owning a steppe province as well for more cav combat ability and many other bonuses like 15 army tradition every 10 years, leader pips and cossack cav...

This seems like an amazing opener as Lithuania, Hungary, QQ, AQ, Karaman, or Ruthenia, among many others.

I always grab economic-espionage-aristo as an Eastern Europe non-Russia nation. Add in the gov reforms and your cav will cost less maintenance than infantry and hit like a truck

Aristocratic + Espionage was always a good combo, really shocked it is considered "surprising approach", of course followed by religious,/ offensive in any order, maybe infrastr. Pretty obvious start for many east / centarl Europe or Middle Asia

I always loved Aristocratic, as long as I can remember it's always been a nice grab-bag, but I did indeed not realize how well it harmonized with Espionage, another idea group I always liked but just not that much, especially compared to Diplo and/or Influence. Anyway, I'm off to start me a Poland game.

I'm not new to the appeal of these two ideas since I used them as an opener for a long time. The issue is often that if your goal is to blob... Diplo-Admin-Influence (in one order or another) is just better. If you play a nation that get's claims on basically all the world as you go and you aim to conquer it, it's just better to go with these last ideas than espionnage and aristocratic. So I would say, depend of the nation you play and your campaign goal.

I almost always take Espionage (claims on whole states, aggressive expansion impact etc are too good) but hardly ever take Aristocratic (unless I'm playing Cav focussed nation) so wilm definitely have to try this.

Horde planning goes Horde Ideas into Mandate into Espio + Aristo. Fun times ahead with OP Cavalry modifiers from both Aristo+Espio / Horde+Espio policies. Way better than ever going quality. Swarm those baddies with ur 100% Cav inf ratio and improved cav flanking range :) ( Yeah I know staying horde is much better for snowballing reasons, but I hate razing provinces and I'd rather put everything into trade comp from the start).

Does the Transfer Subject/Chain Claims age ability and the one in ideas stack?

but where is Inno?

In my games i`ll use esp+adm for first pick , just for fast blobbing , a lot of vassalization etc. , and for 3 idea influence. It`s pretty good for low cost advisors , so even with bad ruler i can dev and have mil tech above AI mil tech. (and i love esp. idea that you got somebody vassal or PU for 50% cost , so if i play in europe , i`ll take sweden , norway , aragon , and somethimes bohemia if someone pu him as a vassalls , and do some vassall sworm)

could you please add links to songs you use in background? they are always soo good.

I’ve always felt aristo is underrated

Huh, my hre opening is always, innovative>espionage>aristocratic

What map graphics mod is that?

So the meta would be (in order) admin, diplo, aristro, espionage?

adm+esp is really good one too. Cheap advisor, less ae, ccr

lol ive been running this combo since 1.36

Are you trying to prevent the reformation from happening?

inno + espionage +aristro = stronk

Espionage+Horde gives you 50% more flanking on cav :3

I go espionage almost every game, aristo always feels a little underwhelming unless i'm going heavy cav, though it is funny if you can pick up petra/khami projects for the claim cost reductions. Bonus points for starting as Muscovy or forming Russia for their insane espionage bonuses via their first mission. Now please paradox just give me a way to automate my diplomats to fabricate claims on all the things.

The main weakness of this is an overpowered combo of admin+diplo.

Infrastructure and Aristocratic are good too

Florry said cavalry bad.

Espionage + anything is good because espionage ideas are just overtuned

Honestly I think literally anything can be used for ideas and it would work in single player, i feel like this is still pretty bad for any non-cav nation in MP though

You seem confused, cav is not 'more than double the efficient already by base, than the infantry in terms of combat quality' On the screen you got there, 2 is not more than double of 1.75. Also, people know this is ok for cav, but it's way stronger to go something like inno->quality->eco

Espionage + Offensive probably ok, in some point good in some not that powerfull, but aristocratic is just a waste of points and idea slot (cav will be good only on start and from 16 it really bad, and can not so efficient for economy, with other military ideas you could do good start too with +morale, infantry combat ability, etc. Other buffs from aristocratic presented in other ideas, ( diplomatic or admin ) but that ideas good anytime). All idead could be valid in propper hands and with some gimmick, but best ideas good on any time any nation in any hand.

Any other options than Diplo 1st playing in Europe is no-go zone for me, it's just too OP with lowered province warscore cost and +2 diplomats improving relations :/

Sometimes he really butchers the English speech xD Also you have a crazy German dialect but i like it

I went espionage + expansion as the netherlands it also has a nice policy. And i dislike exploration i prefer to steal my maps ;) sadly the age of discovery is over and claims bordering claims is over now. Now waiting for reformed and erasmus mission to make even more claims faster :D

I knew the Ideas just by the Thumbnail. I have played too much eu4... Maritime still better though :3

I feel like Inno - Espionage - Influence is better. -30% ae and various other bonuses

I play Polaks, I know this combination very well :D

al;way been a fan of these two and with the past few buffs they given it people sleep on it to much

Esp+Aristo+Infra used to be my go to opening for OPMs without overpowered mission trees, nice balance for tall blobbing (claims, gov cap, AE, diplomats), scaling (dev cost, expand infrastructure), and mil (cav combat, army tradition, professionalism)… since latest patch buffed the standard mission tree to give a lot of claims it’s a little less appealing but still makes for nice smooth stress free gameplay

I dont think its underrated, just worse than Espionage + offensive, so no reason to pick it (unless youre like, poland and love horses. I pick it when playing Teut to get both Aristocratic and Horde ideas)

1525 year and it s still age of discovery. What happened to colonizers?

cool discusion propably but what the fuck is that campaign why are you in portugal

Your videos are always interesting when they appear in my feed, but the scuffed audio is the one big negative I cannot overlook, sometimes I just cannot hear what you're saying

ThE MoST UndErRaTeD iDEa coMbO- a guy who only plays sp Like yea lmao come play mp its not underrated at all, every single cav nation takes it

ThE MoSt UndRRatEd IdEA ComBo Alright kiddie. Maybe try playing a hardcore multiplayer game some day. my three year old daughter could do a world conquest in sp. WHO CARES? Trump 2024

Interlinked