[EU4] Maritime Ideas are for real a top tier Idea Group! Here is why: [Guide][1.34]

I don't see it at all. your average adjusted battle roll is a 7.5 (4.5 on the dice, and you get a static 3 added). Reducing that by 1, is taking about 13% more damage, or dealing about 13% less.

But I don't know about you, but I almost never take crossing penalties when it matters, AT ALL, because that's a big penalty. So taking 10% more damage in the more important early phase, is a BIG DEAL. Trying to clutch out a fight with sailors is not gonna work, when land combat is a grindy affair of roughly evenly matched sides.

Blockading is also not hard. this is because shipyards exist. A 10 dev province gives you one naval force limit, and a caravel can blockade 10 dev of costal provinces… but that neglects an admiral, the static "just for existing" force limit countries get, and forgets the shipyard. Shipyards skew things massively in favor of the attacker, because they make a 10 dev coastal province effectively 30 dev for the purpose of blockading the enemy. This is a huge disparity. The game is already rigged in favor of the blockading working, you don't need help to blockade. Especially because blockade efficiency scales with navy tradition.

Next, sheltered ports is just trash. you get absurd numbers of sailors. A 10 dev coastal province gives you 3 force limit and 5 sailors a month. But 3 caravels only cost you 3 sailors per month, and this neglects that this only scales in your favor with higher dev costal provinces, and that centers of trade give you more sailor modifiers. and of course, sailor recovery scales with, you guessed it, navy tradition. If you don't run marines, you will not run out of sailors.

Seahawks is neat, but I just don't find single player, I need admirals that badly, and while I love more leaders, an idea that just says "1 leader without upkeep" would be terrible. A policy that gives you 1 diplomat and 1 leader without upkeep is a disappointment for me (diplomatic-aristocracy).

I have always found being caught with ships is a function of dropped micro, not movement speed. Nonissue to me.

Also, there is an oppportunity cost here. If you are taking the idea for marines, why not take another idea group to fight harder? like say, offensive? +1 shock, +1 fire? that's like a crossing bonus that ALWAYS APPLIES, even on defense. But you also get siege ability and discipline. Or defensive. I would argue 10% infantry combat ability is just flat out better than an idea that lets you build marines, and that's the FIRST IDEA, not the entire group.

Marines may be better than useless, but you aren't giving up nothing to get them. You are giving up an entire idea group, to get something that quality and offensive ideas compete directly with and do a MUCH better job.

In short, I like doubling the resting point of naval tradition from 40 to 80 a lot, especially because it's so hard to get naval tradition from other sources. But that's not an idea group, that's a single good idea. Marines may be useful in multiplayer, but I have never encountered a situation where they were worth even considering in single player.

Just found your channel. Great stuff man

Paradox interactive explaining why maritime idea group is actually useful because money:

This could be really good with the Knights Hospitaller. They can stack sailors far over natural limit with raiding everywhere every ten years.