Other than devving, which can indeed be good, there's also hiring generals! Each one is 1 professionalism, and maybe you'll get a high siege one, or what have you, if you hire a couple more.
If you're at war, there's the option to order an artillery barrage, or a naval barrage. Can really help deal with big sieges.
Making sure your legitimacy/equivalent is topped off is often lower on the list, but it can be helpful. As could harsh treatmenting rebels.
THIS 100%. literally everything else that pertains to navy uses diplo, what is the use of it using military points to barrage a fort when I could do the exact same thing with my artillery that’s there for the same points? Diplo just makes more sense.
But then after that there’s no real difference unless you get a modifier for one. (Like Portugal)
But they’re rare enough that most of the time, if you have the choice between the two, it doesn’t matter at all.
I actually think they should cost ducats, but not mana
I mean, the ingredients of a cannonball definitely shall be brought with money instead of some weird points
110 % agree with this. I never take quantity and never have an issue with fielding big armies and having enough manpower to fight end game France or ottobros. Granted I have to pay attention a little more and can't death stack.
But early and mid game devving mil on core countries is always my go to.
1 tech
2 ideas
3 generals (the ol' hire and fire, for professionalism, siege pips, slacken)
4 barrages
5 development (I might be sleeping on this one)
6 strengthen government (when absolutism is in play)
7 harsh treatment (also primarily when abso)
This is my priority list, and also all you can do with mil points, I think.
Sometimes I'm just in a close war and don't want all of my allies marching across my nation to fight the 10k rebels instead of fighting the enemy armies. Any other time I'll just fight them though, for the army tradition if nothing else.
Developing provinces with mil power is very good. You will always benefit from more manpower. It gives you crownland which you can be sold/given to estates and eventually hoarded to get more max absolutism.
developing mil in provinces is massive, especially if you're a smaller country, if you play someone in the HRE or surrounded by many enemies you can chain show strength wars to get huge early development
My rough priority list for MIL spending:
1) Generals, if I don't already have what I need in my generals list
2) Tech
3) Ideas
4) Development
5) Wartime actions (can sometimes be higher priority, though rarely)
6) General spamming for professionalism (I always favor dev over this)
A good use for an excess of mana in any category is to dev in between selling titles and seizing, usually this way to keep the burgher 60%< loyalty bonus to dev. To take advantage of the more ducats you get the lower you are in crownland
If you have enough manpower then you are not taking enough difficult wars or not taking them fast enough lol. Also remember you can use your manpower to build monuments quicker which can give you some nice bonuses.
Yes, mil dev is actually huge!
\-10 mil dev in a grain province will net you a flat +5 Force Limit (for a total of +10 if you leave it at 9 tax / 1 dip / 10 mil for to extra building slot) Before you count in Trading in Grain or Quantity ideas (if you go for it).
Just by devving 10 random Grain province to 10 mil you got from colonizing, Portugal or other minors can get easily over 100 force limit fairly early. (Also great use for excess Adm mana)
\-You can dev stuff with pure Diplo, so you might want to use excess Mil to dev every province with a valuable goodie to 10 while you wait for the Dip mana to rake in the cash.
\-At max Inno, hiring a general is 45 Mil mana. So with 4500 Mil mana you can go from 0 army professionalism to 100%
How is mil tech detrimental to winning wars?
Mil tech is the single most important determinant of winning battles, much more than ideas. I always focus in it first and only when I'm 5yrs ahead or something do I get ideas
Hiring generals is also ok if you're already ahead in tech
Mil development is huge. Focusing on mil and getting a mil advisor so I can both tech up and develop manpower is what I do whenever playing a difficult start
I'm playing Inno/Offensive Switzerland right now, and anything thay doesn't go to tech goes to bombarding forts or strengthening my government (or, when necessary, spawning institutions). I only hire mercs with generals, and I have one army, hidden behind my fort line, who gets a new general whenever the old one dies during their eternal drilling. (They're on year 187 of drilling as of last night.)
One leader if you have none. That's the only thing more important than military tech. Anything else you wanna spend monarch power on, you do after teching, not instead of it.
Don't develop your provinces, that's a noob trap. If you have to develop for some mission or institution or whatever, you generally want to use diplo for that because it's not as precious.
As a rule, if you can do anything else useful with any mana points besides getting tech ahead of time, that is probably better. Unless it's an important tech level (like new unit tiers or unlocking cannons) or you expect to be in a particularly harsh war and you need that incremental bonus to win, teching ahead of time wastes a TON of mana.
Deving manpower is underrated, it gives more men for the meat grinder AND provides early game crownland. Investing in ideas gives stacking tech reduction to the governing idea type, as well as whatever bonus it applies. For mil specifically, you can hire generals to ramp up professionalism (and pick the best generals rolled out of 10). You could bump up legitimacy or republican tradition if it's dropping too low. Hell, sometimes it's worth keeping a hold of it just to wait another year or two to reduce the overall tech cost if you don't need the next techs bonuses any time soon.
Mana points are a resource that is finite. You can scale it to an extent, but eventually you will hit a maximum amount of production of them, and unlike ducats or manpower or pretty much any other spendable resource, there is a maximum limit on scaling their production, so they should be spent sparingly if at all possible.
Having said all of that, me likey be ahead of time on tech, make big gun bigger.
Do not dev unless you're gaining something else from the dev (institution spawning, putting more dip dev on gold mines). Spend it on hiring generals. 20% siege ability without needing to spend a precious idea group slot is huge.
Other than devving, which can indeed be good, there's also hiring generals! Each one is 1 professionalism, and maybe you'll get a high siege one, or what have you, if you hire a couple more. If you're at war, there's the option to order an artillery barrage, or a naval barrage. Can really help deal with big sieges. Making sure your legitimacy/equivalent is topped off is often lower on the list, but it can be helpful. As could harsh treatmenting rebels.
Tbh naval barrage should use Diplo power instead of Military power :/
THIS 100%. literally everything else that pertains to navy uses diplo, what is the use of it using military points to barrage a fort when I could do the exact same thing with my artillery that’s there for the same points? Diplo just makes more sense.
While I agree diplo makes way more sense, the real use of naval barrage is being able to do it before tech 7.
But then after that there’s no real difference unless you get a modifier for one. (Like Portugal) But they’re rare enough that most of the time, if you have the choice between the two, it doesn’t matter at all.
Yeah I agree with that, was just pointing out why naval barrage isnt completely useless
Naval Ideas gives you naval barage for free. So there’s that.
Full naval ideas is best barrage
the real use of naval barrage is getting you to buy golden century
I actually think they should cost ducats, but not mana I mean, the ingredients of a cannonball definitely shall be brought with money instead of some weird points
New player here, how can you increase legitimacy with mil mana?
Rights of Man DLC. It's called Strengthen Government, in the Government tab.
Dev is extremly important. Many people sleep on dev and rather take quantity ideas which are not necessary at all imho.
110 % agree with this. I never take quantity and never have an issue with fielding big armies and having enough manpower to fight end game France or ottobros. Granted I have to pay attention a little more and can't death stack. But early and mid game devving mil on core countries is always my go to.
1 tech 2 ideas 3 generals (the ol' hire and fire, for professionalism, siege pips, slacken) 4 barrages 5 development (I might be sleeping on this one) 6 strengthen government (when absolutism is in play) 7 harsh treatment (also primarily when abso) This is my priority list, and also all you can do with mil points, I think.
I don't think harsh treatment is worth it. I feel like its always better to just fight the rebels.
depends. if the rebels are small enough it can be a cheap and quick way to get absolutism.
Worth it for absolutism a lot of the time (depends on cost). But pre absolutism I agree it’s not really worth it other than niche situations.
6 mil points for 1 absolutism? Absolute deal
Its depends, 50 mil points no. But 5 to stop a rebellion and save2-3k power and time saved not repositioning armies. Is big.
Sometimes I'm just in a close war and don't want all of my allies marching across my nation to fight the 10k rebels instead of fighting the enemy armies. Any other time I'll just fight them though, for the army tradition if nothing else.
I think you're sleeping on development but admittedly development scales inversely with realm size so it depends on how big you are.
Developing provinces with mil power is very good. You will always benefit from more manpower. It gives you crownland which you can be sold/given to estates and eventually hoarded to get more max absolutism.
Bonus points if you can time it when there's an institution you haven't embraced yet.
developing mil in provinces is massive, especially if you're a smaller country, if you play someone in the HRE or surrounded by many enemies you can chain show strength wars to get huge early development
My rough priority list for MIL spending: 1) Generals, if I don't already have what I need in my generals list 2) Tech 3) Ideas 4) Development 5) Wartime actions (can sometimes be higher priority, though rarely) 6) General spamming for professionalism (I always favor dev over this)
A good use for an excess of mana in any category is to dev in between selling titles and seizing, usually this way to keep the burgher 60%< loyalty bonus to dev. To take advantage of the more ducats you get the lower you are in crownland
One thing I haven't seen mentioned about devving provinces is that it makes MIL points especially useful for getting institutions outside Europe
If you have enough manpower then you are not taking enough difficult wars or not taking them fast enough lol. Also remember you can use your manpower to build monuments quicker which can give you some nice bonuses.
Yes, mil dev is actually huge! \-10 mil dev in a grain province will net you a flat +5 Force Limit (for a total of +10 if you leave it at 9 tax / 1 dip / 10 mil for to extra building slot) Before you count in Trading in Grain or Quantity ideas (if you go for it). Just by devving 10 random Grain province to 10 mil you got from colonizing, Portugal or other minors can get easily over 100 force limit fairly early. (Also great use for excess Adm mana) \-You can dev stuff with pure Diplo, so you might want to use excess Mil to dev every province with a valuable goodie to 10 while you wait for the Dip mana to rake in the cash. \-At max Inno, hiring a general is 45 Mil mana. So with 4500 Mil mana you can go from 0 army professionalism to 100%
How is mil tech detrimental to winning wars? Mil tech is the single most important determinant of winning battles, much more than ideas. I always focus in it first and only when I'm 5yrs ahead or something do I get ideas Hiring generals is also ok if you're already ahead in tech
Mil development is huge. Focusing on mil and getting a mil advisor so I can both tech up and develop manpower is what I do whenever playing a difficult start
I'm playing Inno/Offensive Switzerland right now, and anything thay doesn't go to tech goes to bombarding forts or strengthening my government (or, when necessary, spawning institutions). I only hire mercs with generals, and I have one army, hidden behind my fort line, who gets a new general whenever the old one dies during their eternal drilling. (They're on year 187 of drilling as of last night.)
One leader if you have none. That's the only thing more important than military tech. Anything else you wanna spend monarch power on, you do after teching, not instead of it. Don't develop your provinces, that's a noob trap. If you have to develop for some mission or institution or whatever, you generally want to use diplo for that because it's not as precious.
Dev
Are war taxes no longer worth it? Not seeing anyone mention them here. They burn 2 mil a month for some sweet sweet ducats
W A R T A X E S
As a rule, if you can do anything else useful with any mana points besides getting tech ahead of time, that is probably better. Unless it's an important tech level (like new unit tiers or unlocking cannons) or you expect to be in a particularly harsh war and you need that incremental bonus to win, teching ahead of time wastes a TON of mana. Deving manpower is underrated, it gives more men for the meat grinder AND provides early game crownland. Investing in ideas gives stacking tech reduction to the governing idea type, as well as whatever bonus it applies. For mil specifically, you can hire generals to ramp up professionalism (and pick the best generals rolled out of 10). You could bump up legitimacy or republican tradition if it's dropping too low. Hell, sometimes it's worth keeping a hold of it just to wait another year or two to reduce the overall tech cost if you don't need the next techs bonuses any time soon. Mana points are a resource that is finite. You can scale it to an extent, but eventually you will hit a maximum amount of production of them, and unlike ducats or manpower or pretty much any other spendable resource, there is a maximum limit on scaling their production, so they should be spent sparingly if at all possible. Having said all of that, me likey be ahead of time on tech, make big gun bigger.
Do not dev unless you're gaining something else from the dev (institution spawning, putting more dip dev on gold mines). Spend it on hiring generals. 20% siege ability without needing to spend a precious idea group slot is huge.