Isn't Mercantile diplo Stance just strait up the best?

[Ir0nSlug]

As a generalist Mercantile Stance seems so good, it gives you income AND maybe the best opinion boost overall. I can see others having their use, but not to the point being worth paying 30 IP to change, except maybe for appeasing. And I really don't see the point of the others. Bellicose stance is bad even if playing aggressively, everyone hate you and the bonuses are negligible. If at least it gave a good claim cost reduction or some military buff. Neutral with a single diplo slot is useless, you can exceed the cap if you need to anyway. Domineering is extremely situational and will probably give less opinion with your subjects than Mercantile. Am I wrong about this?

 

[IsaacCAT]

In MP games is always bellicose stance first to have the most out of your wars to expand very quickly, then switching to appeasing stance to reduce AE as soon as possible. Then you save some PI in case you want to expand again and you need the extra warscore to get more territories. Finally, you switch to mercantile when you have reduced enough your AE to make the most of your money.

 

[Herennius]

Yes, I tend to go with the Mercantile stance most of the time - and rarely switch out of it (because I either forget, don't deem the minor benefit of another stance worth or shy away from the PP costs of both switching our and back). The latter becomes even more of an issue, if you switch multiple times within the reign of the same ruler.

 

[Ir0nSlug]

In MP games is always bellicose stance first to have the most out of your wars to expand very quickly, then switching to appeasing stance to reduce AE as soon as possible. Then you save some PI in case you want to expand again and you need the extra warscore to get more territories. Finally, you switch to mercantile when you have reduced enough your AE to make the most of your money.

I can see things being different in MP, but as a noob I don't see yet the point to extra warscore in SP.

 

[Lamisatr]

I play the stance which best fits the role-play, so Bellicose form Rome, and Mercantile for a primarily at heart trading empire like Carthage.

 

[DukeLeto42]

Reduced AE from Bellicose matters when blobbing hard, since high AE is such a cost for your stab. Reduced warscore cost also makes big peace deals easy, particularly if you want to clean up the enemy vassal swarm (the increased warscore cost of subjects can mean even a handful of OPMs cost much of your peace deal). Appeasing is useful when trying to burn off massive AE (say, winning the Diadocchi Wars). Domineering is useful when you need to get a vassal swarm loyal.

 

[Ir0nSlug]

Reduced AE from Bellicose matters when blobbing hard, since high AE is such a cost for your stab. Reduced warscore cost also makes big peace deals easy, particularly if you want to clean up the enemy vassal swarm (the increased warscore cost of subjects can mean even a handful of OPMs cost much of your peace deal). Appeasing is useful when trying to burn off massive AE (say, winning the Diadocchi Wars). Domineering is useful when you need to get a vassal swarm loyal.

Yeah after playing more I have revised my stance a bit. I still think that Mercantile is overall the best, and that it should have given less opinion to balance it, but I have seen myself using bellicose and appeasing. I still think the neutral stance is useless tho and that you are generally better off using mercantile than domineering to please vassals, since mercantile opinion boost is not only massive, but applies also to non vassal, which helps diplo vasalizing.

 

[Treybor]

I found myself swapping between appeasing and bellicose for the AE reductions, Mercantile is great if your just chilling out

 

[DukeLeto42]

Yeah after playing more I have revised my stance a bit. I still think that Mercantile is overall the best, and that it should have given less opinion to balance it, but I have seen myself using bellicose and appeasing. I still think the neutral stance is useless tho and that you are generally better off using mercantile than domineering to please vassals, since mercantile opinion boost is not only massive, but applies also to non vassal, which helps diplo vasalizing.

Agreed that neutral is basically useless. As for domineering, I'm thinking of the specific use case of Rome in its early years - for the first couple of wars, your feudatory swarm is vital to win your wars efficiently, but to get them to join the wars they need to be loyal and domineering can give you that needed boost. Once you control most of the peninsula, though, its utility drops off hard.