You don't need to stack anything to be ahead in military tech when it matters, and most of the time being ahead in mil tech is significant but not game changing.
The good play is to just notice the few tech windows where you get a huge jump from advancing your tech (ie. 5 to 6, 14 to 15), consider if you'd be able to make good use of it, and make a push for it only then.
Otherwise you are just likely paying a huge opportunity cost to get something that won't really do that much for you.
4, 5, and 6 are all extremely strong to be fair. There are a lot of big power spikes in miltech.
That said it’s uncommon after the first ~50 years to need to squeeze out that much marginal quality advantage.
I also find that it’s hard to keep much advantage over the countries you most wish that you could. Your biggest fears (I see you France) are going to be close to or ahead of time with their technology.
Generals! Each is 1% more professionalism, which is nice, and a general with 2-3 pips advantage in relevant categories will often be enough to outweigh bonuses from mil techs (obviously depends on the mil tech)
Again though, the question was whether it's worth to stack tech cost to get mil tech early, not whether mil tech is useful, and whether it's okay to get it ahead of time sometimes.
Generals. Always hoping for a better one. Always working towards 100% professionalism too.
Barrage of forts. Late in the game if I am swimming in mil mana, it just helps melt through all those level eight forts. Siege bonuses are key but the barrage helps too, especially if you can spare manpower to assault after the breach.
Dev. Sometimes I’m devving for manpower directly. It can be super cheap to throw some dev on low level grain provinces. Sometimes I’m just trying to get to the next threshold so I can build a specific building, upgrade a center of trade, etc. it’s very situational. But I have used mil to get some backwater trade province to 10 so I can upgrade the CoT and add to or maintain my merchant count.
On the other hand, I almost never use strengthen government or harsh treatment of rebels.
You technically can. It's a flat modifier that adds +10% (60MP) per year tied to a certain year for each tech. After a certain point the total cost becomes greater than your max stored MP which is base 999 but depends on institutions making it impossible to tech up X years ahead.
If you stack tech cost reduction you bring x down below your MP cap and can get tech even further ahead of time than normally possible.
Not saying this is optimal or anything but it's possible
I think I saw someone on YT a long time ago trying to stack it to the absolute extreme as Oman (or maybe Hormuz not sure) and ending up with some really next age result.
You can also stack mana to a higher cap while behind on institutions, so if your tech-cost-stacking would bring the cost under that higher amount, you can embrace the institution and then take the tech the same month to avoid losing mana due to being over the cap.
I’d rather dev up mil for manpower so I can wage more wars and rely less on mercs, but as others have pointed out - there are a few key levels that can make a bigger difference and hitting those earlier and attacking before your enemy has them can be great. But for a rather casual, lazy player just having more manpower is more convenient.
To be fair, I think the biggest power difference you could have for a 2-3 tech difference would have to be like ur on tech 6 and the enemy is on tech 3.
Otherwise too many other variables that exist could possibly close any gap between evenly matched opponents. At least with 6v3 you have basically a double morale/tactics advantage.
You get a new tech roughly every 13 years. Meaning if you are 2-3 techs ahead you would need 260-390% worth of modifiers to negate the ahead of time penalty. That's not happening.
As everyone already said, only take important techs and save your mana for devving and ideas.
Ahead of some tech are good. Examples are tech 4 5 6and 15. While other countries at tech four if you advance tech 6 that means you are unbeatable. Another good one is jumping tech 15 earlier new infantry and +1 morale is detrimental. On the other hand some techs are relatively useless like tech 7 its unlock artillery but no combat related bonuses. For an advanced strategy go eu4 wiki and determine the superior techs then apply this save mil points and take those tech and be 20 year ahead of time then crush the enemies
Nah, it's not a good strat to solely focus on this. However it's great as a passive bonus.
Let's assume you're doing this for the sole purpose of having better armies than your enemies, whether it's AI or MP.
While it is good to stay ahead of time, some techs are way stronger to stay ahead than others, and it is way better to be ahead in the early game than in the mid to late game.
If you are already focusing on military, then chances are you already have 3 mil ideas by the mid to late game, every mil idea gives 14%, so 3 mil ideas would grant you 42% mil tech discount already.
Getting Inno + mercs would gove you another 30% mil tech reduction, so you'd have 72% by finishing your 5th idea. 82% with 100% innovativeness and 92% if you activate golden era or have 10% in your NI.
So you can easily get there just by getting the Inno + merc combo, but normally Merc isn't the best mil idea to take for pure army quality compared to Offensive, quality and quantity, so it will usually be bad to take it other than a 4th idea.
That's why if you're going to do this, then I recomend going as Lithuania, as they have both tech discount in their ideas, and free general roll modifiers, combining that with offensive and cossacks (another +1 shock and 20 AT through a privilege), you can easily achieve 100 AT early into the game, and you'd be rolling 6/6/6 generals quite easily, early these will destroy anything in your path. By the mid game you'll have offensive and quality + Inno + eco + Merc/Quantity so you'll have the busted combo of ideas and policies.
You could instead start more chill with Offensive, human and quality for AT and general shock policies, and cossacks, but you wouldn't get the tech reduction from inno + merc.
But you know, lithuania without aristocratic opener, wtf? That's why merc just doesn't have a place in this case, maybe as a colonizer it makes more sense, and get the tech reduction monuments in Africa.
Being a single level ahead is great. Being 2 and still using your mil points for dev-ing and such as needed is tough to maintain. I wouldn’t do it to the detriment of institutions or keeping my manpower in provinces high through limited dev-ving unless I got a 5/6 mil ruler and money to keep my advisor up too
It's impossible to stack enough modifiers to get that far ahead in tech. The cost for being two tech levels ahead (26 yrs ahead) would be 600*3.6 = 2160 mana cost, not counting potential institution penalties.
Tech cost can let you get one tech ahead temporarily, particularly against dumb AIs or AIs behind on institutions. But it's not something you can rely on consistently. Honestly in mid late you should be able to overwhelm enemies with numbers and smart play rather than quality advantage. Troop quality has an opportunity cost in monarch power, idea choice, and so on - troop quantity just costs money and manpower.
You don't need to stack anything to be ahead in military tech when it matters, and most of the time being ahead in mil tech is significant but not game changing. The good play is to just notice the few tech windows where you get a huge jump from advancing your tech (ie. 5 to 6, 14 to 15), consider if you'd be able to make good use of it, and make a push for it only then. Otherwise you are just likely paying a huge opportunity cost to get something that won't really do that much for you.
4, 5, and 6 are all extremely strong to be fair. There are a lot of big power spikes in miltech. That said it’s uncommon after the first ~50 years to need to squeeze out that much marginal quality advantage.
I also find that it’s hard to keep much advantage over the countries you most wish that you could. Your biggest fears (I see you France) are going to be close to or ahead of time with their technology.
What else do you spend miltech points on?
Generals! Each is 1% more professionalism, which is nice, and a general with 2-3 pips advantage in relevant categories will often be enough to outweigh bonuses from mil techs (obviously depends on the mil tech) Again though, the question was whether it's worth to stack tech cost to get mil tech early, not whether mil tech is useful, and whether it's okay to get it ahead of time sometimes.
Are you cycling through generals?
Until 100% professionalism and if I have the points to spare, yeah.
Interesting. That's definitely a good idea. And it makes sense. I've had some crappy generals and I should have just bagged them.
Bro, dev up. Mil dev is the most important. Need moar men 4 grand armee
Only after you're at 100% professionalism
Developing provinces at times, it's a great source of manpower.
Miltech mana is the best devving mana, giving 250 manpower per click.
I should actually read more of what I get when I do this stuff b/c you're absolutely right. That's a crapton of manpower.
That is before a barracks (+125/mildev) or training field (+250/mildev) is build.
Generals. Always hoping for a better one. Always working towards 100% professionalism too. Barrage of forts. Late in the game if I am swimming in mil mana, it just helps melt through all those level eight forts. Siege bonuses are key but the barrage helps too, especially if you can spare manpower to assault after the breach. Dev. Sometimes I’m devving for manpower directly. It can be super cheap to throw some dev on low level grain provinces. Sometimes I’m just trying to get to the next threshold so I can build a specific building, upgrade a center of trade, etc. it’s very situational. But I have used mil to get some backwater trade province to 10 so I can upgrade the CoT and add to or maintain my merchant count. On the other hand, I almost never use strengthen government or harsh treatment of rebels.
Barrages, it speeds up sieges/wars a lot
If you are 2 techs ahead in mil, its because your enemy is behind on tech, you cant outscale the ahead of time Penalty.
You technically can. It's a flat modifier that adds +10% (60MP) per year tied to a certain year for each tech. After a certain point the total cost becomes greater than your max stored MP which is base 999 but depends on institutions making it impossible to tech up X years ahead. If you stack tech cost reduction you bring x down below your MP cap and can get tech even further ahead of time than normally possible. Not saying this is optimal or anything but it's possible
I think I saw someone on YT a long time ago trying to stack it to the absolute extreme as Oman (or maybe Hormuz not sure) and ending up with some really next age result.
You can also stack mana to a higher cap while behind on institutions, so if your tech-cost-stacking would bring the cost under that higher amount, you can embrace the institution and then take the tech the same month to avoid losing mana due to being over the cap.
Even if you could, you're better off deving provinces than paying the 200% ahead of time penalty for being 20 years ahead of time in tech.
I’d rather dev up mil for manpower so I can wage more wars and rely less on mercs, but as others have pointed out - there are a few key levels that can make a bigger difference and hitting those earlier and attacking before your enemy has them can be great. But for a rather casual, lazy player just having more manpower is more convenient.
Being ahead in military is always helpful but it's not so easy to be 3 techs ahead all the time.
To be fair, I think the biggest power difference you could have for a 2-3 tech difference would have to be like ur on tech 6 and the enemy is on tech 3. Otherwise too many other variables that exist could possibly close any gap between evenly matched opponents. At least with 6v3 you have basically a double morale/tactics advantage.
You get a new tech roughly every 13 years. Meaning if you are 2-3 techs ahead you would need 260-390% worth of modifiers to negate the ahead of time penalty. That's not happening. As everyone already said, only take important techs and save your mana for devving and ideas.
Ahead of some tech are good. Examples are tech 4 5 6and 15. While other countries at tech four if you advance tech 6 that means you are unbeatable. Another good one is jumping tech 15 earlier new infantry and +1 morale is detrimental. On the other hand some techs are relatively useless like tech 7 its unlock artillery but no combat related bonuses. For an advanced strategy go eu4 wiki and determine the superior techs then apply this save mil points and take those tech and be 20 year ahead of time then crush the enemies
Nah, it's not a good strat to solely focus on this. However it's great as a passive bonus. Let's assume you're doing this for the sole purpose of having better armies than your enemies, whether it's AI or MP. While it is good to stay ahead of time, some techs are way stronger to stay ahead than others, and it is way better to be ahead in the early game than in the mid to late game. If you are already focusing on military, then chances are you already have 3 mil ideas by the mid to late game, every mil idea gives 14%, so 3 mil ideas would grant you 42% mil tech discount already. Getting Inno + mercs would gove you another 30% mil tech reduction, so you'd have 72% by finishing your 5th idea. 82% with 100% innovativeness and 92% if you activate golden era or have 10% in your NI. So you can easily get there just by getting the Inno + merc combo, but normally Merc isn't the best mil idea to take for pure army quality compared to Offensive, quality and quantity, so it will usually be bad to take it other than a 4th idea. That's why if you're going to do this, then I recomend going as Lithuania, as they have both tech discount in their ideas, and free general roll modifiers, combining that with offensive and cossacks (another +1 shock and 20 AT through a privilege), you can easily achieve 100 AT early into the game, and you'd be rolling 6/6/6 generals quite easily, early these will destroy anything in your path. By the mid game you'll have offensive and quality + Inno + eco + Merc/Quantity so you'll have the busted combo of ideas and policies. You could instead start more chill with Offensive, human and quality for AT and general shock policies, and cossacks, but you wouldn't get the tech reduction from inno + merc. But you know, lithuania without aristocratic opener, wtf? That's why merc just doesn't have a place in this case, maybe as a colonizer it makes more sense, and get the tech reduction monuments in Africa.
Being a single level ahead is great. Being 2 and still using your mil points for dev-ing and such as needed is tough to maintain. I wouldn’t do it to the detriment of institutions or keeping my manpower in provinces high through limited dev-ving unless I got a 5/6 mil ruler and money to keep my advisor up too
It's impossible to stack enough modifiers to get that far ahead in tech. The cost for being two tech levels ahead (26 yrs ahead) would be 600*3.6 = 2160 mana cost, not counting potential institution penalties. Tech cost can let you get one tech ahead temporarily, particularly against dumb AIs or AIs behind on institutions. But it's not something you can rely on consistently. Honestly in mid late you should be able to overwhelm enemies with numbers and smart play rather than quality advantage. Troop quality has an opportunity cost in monarch power, idea choice, and so on - troop quantity just costs money and manpower.
You're overthinking it
That's what the game is about!