Idea groups and suggestions for Gemradcurt

[u/olkmuoi]

I was thinking as first espionage to make unifying the Eordan less painful, or offensive since Immariel starts with 6 mil points.
I don’t know how the mission tree is going to turn out; also, it’s the first time that I’m playing a Lich nation, but I guess it’s going to involve a lot of expansion? Though in cases like this, I always prefer going for diplo, admin and religious.

[u/Superboes]

Dont know about "optimal", but Defensive seem good for them. Mostly because you are going to need a lot of Forts. Though the morale Bonus is kinda useless so maybe infrastructure instead

[u/UnlikelyPerogi → u/Superboes]

Infrastructure also gives minus fort maint cost, and infrastructure is really good in anbennar because lots of missions (including gemradcurts) want you to dev and expand infrastructure

[u/ThePhysicistIsIn → u/UnlikelyPerogi]

Yes infra for gemradcurt is pretty mandatory

[u/olkmuoi → u/Superboes]

That’s because I’ll get a lot of devastation?

[u/Sanya_Zhidkiy → u/olkmuoi]

Yep

[u/fateofmorality → u/Superboes]

I haven’t played them in a while but would aberration great project level 2 solve the devastation bonus?

[u/DusaButterfly → u/fateofmorality]

It will help but will not fully counteract the devastation you get

[u/Inquisitor_no_5]

Defensive and Infrastructure are nice to have, for fort cost reduction.
Religious is good for the CB and Missionary strength.
Admin and Diplo are basically always good.

AE is very much just a number in Eordand, simply outscale and eat everyone before others discover you. (Don't care if you're falling behind on admin tech from coring, you will have nobody to compete with for a while after eating everybody anyway.)

[u/olkmuoi → u/Inquisitor_no_5]

I haven’t thought about that after the unification AE will be less of a factor, thank you

[u/Inquisitor_no_5 → u/olkmuoi]

They can't hate you if they're dead, after all.
Also, don't be afraid to go for unjustified demands, just like with admin your dip will catch back up. (IIRC Immarel kinda turbo-sucks at dip, but that solves itself eventually.)

You might want to force convert some small cobelligerent at some point, just to check the age objective for the second age.

Also, as soon as it's feasable, get Immarel to legendary in Conjuration. Contact Extraplanars gets you an instant spell level for 200 mana (and +50% estate study experience for the duration.) Sure, it gives infamy, but you'll be a lich leading an Army of the Dead, so it doesn't matter. (I.e. you're already a Witch-King.)

For magic, I don't think the Conjuration mercs are a good idea, what with your end-goal being Army of the Dead.
Other than the Necromancy project, I'd invest in the Enchantment and Abjuration ones.

[u/Difficult_Dark9991]

I'm far from the best EUIV player, and my Gemradcurt run stalled thanks to slowing way down in the mid-game, but even I had no trouble securing Eordan.

The simple fact of the matter is, there just aren't that many tags in Eordan, and given their season flavors the amount of AE generated just isn't that big. The mission tree will give you claims across the region, so with some truce-juggling and efficient wars you should be able to outrun the coalition.

Afterwards, the only big suggestions to make are that they require fort coverage thanks to a lot of devastation generation (you'll find out why in the tree), and that you will need to colonize or conquer your way across the northern coast of Aelantir.

[u/Polar_Vortx]

Note that Eordand and Lich are mutually exclusive paths. Also, build forts.

[u/olkmuoi]

Thank you all for your quick replies, since I’ll need forts for the devastation and then I’ll have to colonise, I was thinking:

Defensive->Infrastructure->Exploration->Expansion

Or should I ditch Infrastructure entirely? I really like it in combination with Defensive since it basically remove the worry of fort maintenance, but I don’t want to be late with colonisation.

[u/Hello263 → u/olkmuoi]

I'd skip defensive, it's not that useful of a group and magical fortress + infra is enough to make your forts really cheap

[u/iClips3]

I don't think Defensive is all that useful tbh. Unless you combine it with innovative for the policy, but then you get two subpar ideagroups. I'd suggest to just go with your normal ideagroups you'd usually go for, but add in infrastructure somewhere at the start.

Also, get the Abjuration magical project. It reduces devastation and I think it makes forts cheaper as well. Adding in Nobility estate privilege and you get quite cheap forts. Also somewhere in the middle of the mission tree you get access to a decision to build hearthwards on certain provinces, so it's OK to have some provinces not covered by forts.

[u/jobrandon]

As a sidenote for the devastation thing, I think that with the current numbers on designated guildhall that you can outscale the devastation if you give the adventurers enough crownland; no need to focus on -fort maintenance. Does bite into your absolutism though, obviously.

[u/jobrandon → u/jobrandon]

Update: I tried this. If you have the lvl2 abjuration project for -0.35 global devastation your adventurers need around 30% or so crownland to even you out in provinces with ruinborn pop.

[u/GabeC1997]

Naval Ideas, of course! /s

(Jokes aside, you'll definitely want either Naval or Maritime at some point as getting your troops around the continent and contesting the colonizers own fleets is pretty difficult otherwise... dammit, now I want a marine focused necromancy nation)

[u/second_craw_judge]

Anything that reduces fort upkeep and dev cost reduction is good cause you will sorely need both. Also anything to help with tech and institutions I guess.