Technology - Which ones do you take/prioritize?

[GurenGaaze]

I myself prioritize getting Legions (especially if playing a major power) (Only had Capital Legion thou). But after having achieved that, I have no real idea as to what to work towards.

So what do you prioritize? and why? Do you delay the Legions til later? Am very curius!

 

[TheBrilliantBoolean]

I like to push half and half into martial and civic so I get the important discipline and trade routes at game start and then I usually dip into religious and oratory to get grand temples/theatres and some AE reduction (occasionally martial for foundries too). Because you can get the Legions without the Cohorts law for your capital region (or just mercs if your wealthy enough) I tend to not prioritize it. Then again that's me, you could totally go Space marine Sparta or trade empire Carthage. Depends on what your playstyle is.

 

[IsaacCAT]

For me depends very much on the starting position, if you want to maximize.

But I tend to end up playing my own style always, and now this is oratory right tree almost all the time. Census Data, the +1 Diplo relations, the approved familia, the +monthly political influence, etc..

Then, later on the game, the right civic tree is the one for more assimilation and pop promotion speed.

But again, this is my play style.

PS: I do not care about legions until late game, for an extra oomph I use mercs (choosing high state general and unit composition)

 

[Herennius]

There was recently a fairly long discussion about initial research priorities:

Civic Inventions Tree Preference

Every time I start a run when I look at the inventions tree I always choose the civic one for the trade, assimilation, promotion and other bonuses. It is something related to my playstyle? Have you found yourself loving one tree also?

forum.paradoxplaza.com

 

[GurenGaaze]

Oh. Thanks, Will take a look at it @Herennius
I noticed Legions "seemed" to be very strong against light infantry levies, so figured many would rush it

 

[TheBrilliantBoolean]

Legions are great if your levy composition is bad and constitutes much of your population so Legions can give you back control over whats in your army to min max with those doomstacks of Elephants, HA and HC. Especially if you want to take on a nation with Legions its really helpful

 

[BarbarianHunter]

I'm increasingly fond of Temporary Office in the Civics tree. 10% character wages as well as +5% civil war threshold. It allows you to conservatively run a high tyranny and still have a civil war character loyalty threshold above 10%. The high tyranny gets you more slave output as well as an AE reduction. This is even better in conjunction with the character loyalty techs on right side of oratory.

 

[The_Sound_Of_Violence]

Since I mostly play smallish nations, I usually prioritize inventions that give free province investments, trade routes or diplomatic relations.
Having legions isn't a priority since pillaging cities with your leader gives more loot.

 

[Nostalgium]

Barring starts where money is tight, I tend to spend my opening points on Blacksmith Apprentices. That 25% output bonus for research is just too good to pass up. Beyond that, I'm with @BarbarianHunter on Temporary Office, as well as Petition of Minorities for province loyalty AND same culturegropup happiness. Those three are the only ones "set in stone" though. Beyond them, it tends to vary wildly from playthrough to playthrough.

 

[Less2]

Unlock the good wonder starting wonder bonuses (Expanding Culture, Honored Leader, Government Traditions), of which there's mostly good stuff along the same path and in the same region. Unlock the further good wonders as money permits. The first 2 or 3 wonders you can make are just absurdly overpowered and a far better RoI compared to any other similar investment trying to replicate their effects in all of your cities/provinces, assuming you are even moderately big. Unlock the holy trinity of city buildings (Theater, temple, foundry, in that order, plus academies) for spamming. Head down towards winning land by the spear.

Temporary office does look good, but man that's an awful part of the tree to go through.

Don't even use legions. Siege bonuses are OK though. I mostly ignore military otherwise.

 

[olivenkranz]

If I am a smaller state (or will conquer a lot) I take the siege tree (7 Inventions) to get the constant +2 Siege rolls.
Otherwise (or afterwards) I get the temple, the foundry and the theater (in the order I need in that particular playthrough). Thats ususally done in the first 30-50 years (if you got decent research). Then if necessary the +25% Research cap in both oratory and religious trees. After that and inbetween (depending on situation) its mostly civic and religious to get the conversion bonuses and money coming in. Mid to lategame its oratory (with a few exception where I go early for Imperial Challenge) and civic, focused on PI influence gain and found city cost modifiers (the best two starts for founding cheap cities are Heraclea Pontica and Bythinia). In between also get the starting exp. modifiers because its just too useful to get that sweet exp after a war (and in long times of peace I need to *drill* my troops).

 

[Napoleon1971]

I found the combination of the imperial casus belli (treats properly DOW'ed wars against other major or great powers like civil wars) with radical epicureanism (religion omens badly weakened but you can sack temples for +10 stab per sack) to be ridiculously powerful for finishing off a WC without stopping to breathe. I easily cleared a WC as Rome using that strategy. I'm going to try an actual challenging one now that I found the combo. Maybe I'll try Syracuse. I'll be just like a WC in EU IV as Byzantium, you'll probably have to start over a couple times. But, when you nail it, and kill Rome and Carthage early, the rest will be smooth sailing. Who doesn't want to be Sicily conquering Britain and India, right? There is no hopeless Byzantium start to compel the ancient history folks.....so yeah.

 

[Poliut]

I found the combination of the imperial casus belli (treats properly DOW'ed wars against other major or great powers like civil wars) with radical epicureanism (religion omens badly weakened but you can sack temples for +10 stab per sack) to be ridiculously powerful for finishing off a WC without stopping to breathe. I easily cleared a WC as Rome using that strategy. I'm going to try an actual challenging one now that I found the combo. Maybe I'll try Syracuse. I'll be just like a WC in EU IV as Byzantium, you'll probably have to start over a couple times. But, when you nail it, and kill Rome and Carthage early, the rest will be smooth sailing. Who doesn't want to be Sicily conquering Britain and India, right? There is no hopeless Byzantium start to compel the ancient history folks.....so yeah.

Sabinia, Apollonia, or Ancona?

 

[olivenkranz]

Sabinia, Apollonia, or Ancona?

I would say Sabinia is the most difficult of the three. Apollonia sometimes allies with Taulantia, and I've seen Ancona take over the Sena Gallica Tribe (no Idea wht they're called ingame), but Sabinia ususally gets killed quickly, if not by Rome, then by Etruria. I've seen it vassalized to Rome once though.

 

[Torugu]

I found the combination of the imperial casus belli (treats properly DOW'ed wars against other major or great powers like civil wars) with radical epicureanism (religion omens badly weakened but you can sack temples for +10 stab per sack) to be ridiculously powerful for finishing off a WC without stopping to breathe. I easily cleared a WC as Rome using that strategy. I'm going to try an actual challenging one now that I found the combo. Maybe I'll try Syracuse. I'll be just like a WC in EU IV as Byzantium, you'll probably have to start over a couple times. But, when you nail it, and kill Rome and Carthage early, the rest will be smooth sailing. Who doesn't want to be Sicily conquering Britain and India, right? There is no hopeless Byzantium start to compel the ancient history folks.....so yeah.

I think Heraclea Pontica is the closest thing you'll find to a Byzantine WC.

1) It's the last remnant of the Persian empire of old. (Well, sort of. But it's the only one that has an Achaemenid on the throne)
2) It has a (seemingly) truly hopeless start as a tiny minor surrounded by more powerful neighbours. (Unlike Sicily which is already a regional power of sorts)
3) Like Byz, the start will be somewhat difficult, but if you pull it off you can take a huge bite out of the collapsing Antigonids, and from there on it's all downhill. (I know this from experience, i did an accidental WC with Cappadocia, which is in a similar position)

 

[Phili]

I'm still in my first play through as Rome and learning those annoying little things like the way recruiting my first legion reduces the size of my levy.

I had a CB against a Gallic nation about to complete. My capital levy was in position to lead the invasion. I obtained Elephants through trade. changed my law to let me recruit legions and decided to recruit a legion of cavalry and War Elephants as a rapid reaction force. Then suddenly, just as I was about to declare war on some unfortunate Gallic soul, my levy, which was going to lead the invasion was reduced by the size of the legion I had just recruited.

My tech priorities at the start of a game, which will change in light of further unexpected annoyances; are:
1) Improve tax income so that I can recruit mercenaries.
2) Reduce AE so that I can keep expanding.
3) Improvements to the happiness of integrated and unintegrated pops. Unlock the Grand Theatre and Great Temple for the improvements to province loyalty they give.
4) Techs to let me recruit legions though I'm now rethinking just how important these are.

To make the most of Deities I like to cycle through periods of expansion; 10 - 15 years. Followed by periods of consolidation; 5 - 7 years long.

In the expansion period everything is about invading, conquering, recruiting and paying for mercenaries. I spend nothing on my cities or settlements.

The switch to a period of Consolidation is dependent on a mix of how much AE, War Exhaustion, Manpower I have and how dis-loyal my provinces are.
Everything is geared towards reducing AE, War Exhaustion; improving Manpower and province loyalty.
I'll disband all levies and mercenaries. In the diplomatic screen I change my stance to "Appeasing", set taxes and tributes to their lowest to improve province loyalties and the opinion of my tributes so that I can integrate them. I now spend money to improve my cities and re-assign province capitols. A low tax rate now will soon take care of the 20% hit to your province loyalty that changing capitol causes. I have a set menu of about 6 builds I give every city and this is the time to pay for it.

As it takes about 10 years to research techs I'm always looking for techs that will be useful in the next period, which ever it is; Expansion or Consolidation.

 

[Torugu]

I had a CB against a Gallic nation about to complete. My capital levy was in position to lead the invasion. I obtained Elephants through trade. changed my law to let me recruit legions and decided to recruit a legion of cavalry and War Elephants as a rapid reaction force. Then suddenly, just as I was about to declare war on some unfortunate Gallic soul, my levy, which was going to lead the invasion was reduced by the size of the legion I had just recruited.

Yup, that's how legions work. Think about it this way: You're raising part of your levies as permanent legionaries instead.

 

[Phili]

Yup, that's how legions work. Think about it this way: You're raising part of your levies as permanent legionaries instead.

If my levy was 13,000 am I restricted to recruiting 13,000 as legionaries or can I recruit more?
At the time I had 30,000 Manpower.

 

[Torugu]

If my levy was 13,000 am I restricted to recruiting 13,000 as legionaries or can I recruit more?
At the time I had 30,000 Manpower.

Yup, in fact your maximum legion will be a bit smaller than the corresponding levy because a) you lose a bit of levy size when you switch to the law that allows legions and b) levies get free supply trains that don't count towards your legion capacity.

Manpower is unrelated to legion size, except that every legion you raise consumes a tiny bit of manpower.

 

[sr999]

I tend to play either tiny city-states, or "difficult" very large and sprawling/diverse empires, notably the Seleukids.

If the former: it depends on my expansion strategy, or not. Typically this will mean focusing on civics (primarily for minmaxing money/trade) and/or oratory (for minmaxing various other currencies). And, of course, taking research efficiency to its cap ASAP.

For the latter, however, I'll focus on religion, especially to mitigate the inherent diversity penalties and thus save the empire from internal collapse. And either:

• take it all the way to Militant Epicureanism so I can give myself a stability boost by desecrating a temple whenever I run into (or foolishly create!) an otherwise insuperable problem (e.g. a downward stability spiral following an "over-successful" war!); or, if I want to make it a bit harder again,
• getting some oratory (loyalty etc) bonuses instead to try to offset said problems. This is preferable because imv temple desecration is a bit too easy to exploit, especially in already diverse empires - maybe the benefit should have a cooldown, and/or have a temporary happiness penalty to all "desecrated" pops within the nation, or some other nerf.

Meanwhile "maximizing" research efficiency for such a diverse empire case means consistently improving from its dire start of 30% or so. Just keeping up with competitors is highly satisfying.

This latter strategy used to work well with vanilla. But now I'm playing the truly fabulous Imperator Invictus mod, which takes IR to a whole new level of sophistication. Unfortunately, I still haven't figured out how to get any decent conversion or assimilation going (of the order of 1% or more), even in the capital province. Even pulling all the stops out (laws/policies/pop mixes etc), more than Seleukos himself ever did despite his hilariously consistent ability to outwit the Babylonian priesthood's cunning plans! Arguably this is exactly as it should be. But I'm still having trouble figuring it out a way around, short of converting my ruler - which carries its own dangers as well! . Otherwise my next move is to play Ptolemy and see if it's any easier there under each of his three religious options: Hellenistic, Kemetic, or syncretic (Isis/whatever?)
[Otherwise I find Ptolemy a bit too easy: after defeating Antigonus, with my initial superior Navy and Aegean presence for naval range, I just go straight for the Antipatrids and and grab all those lovely Makedonian/Hellenistic pops. ]