I played Republics for thousands of hours and this is what I feel like it's important to add: -Sortition is the most efficient for small countries who can't afford taking the event options that reduce republican tradition; with sortition you can ignore rep trad and it's usually a lot of mana/money from the events -If you play a country that gets even more Reform Progress, like Aragon, you will get to Very Frequent Elections really fast and a 2 year Election Cycle is way better than Sortition, since at that point you should have enough Rep Trad income to sustain it (I still take Sortition first for the event ruler, but after he dies, i swap the reform)
@@hqiran3218 Aristocratic and Admin ideas give +0.25, Plutocratic and Economic give +0.2 and Court ideas give +0.2. You also get +0.2 for max power projection and having the Republicanism reform or +0.3 if you have the Tysyatsky Office reform (have to be East Slavic culture), +0.5 being Muslim with an Ismaili scholar. With all that you get +1.65 so quite the ways off...
@@hqiran3218 IMO the "Republican Traditions debated" event is the most reliable way to get more republican tradition. You can get 20 at the cost of 1 stability, and it's possible to get this event to fire consistently when staying between 40-50 tradition.
@@edim108 Doges Palace obviously and it's province is worth sniping anyways. The White House is also quite insane for anyone moving capital to the new world. Doesn't give republican tradition, but it reduces reelection cost by 20%.
I find that Sortion is great if you're not rolling in Republican Tradition and/or Reelection Cost Reductions. That, Political Dynasties, and something else I can't find right now, means that on average your rulers tend to be above average if not great most of the time. If worst comes to worst and you really can't spend the ~25 RT on the ruler you want, you can just hope for the best and still have a (presumably) one in three chance of getting him. I want to say if you got the RT cheese down and it costs 6 or less RT to reelect, then shorter terms are better from a purely monarch point generation standard. Getting someone young who can survive at least eighteen years means that you end up with at least 300 free monarch points as well as permanent 666 rulers.
Definitely a sortition enjoyer. Never have to worry about republican tradition since the "let the lottery decide" option is basically a toss up between two absolutely cracked rulers and one mid ruler. The plus one in each category alone beats out the other forms imo.
Same. The only time I pick one is when two of the options rolled very low and one rolled high, which doesn't happen often but does happen. It's just so nice not having to juggle rep trad all the time, I don't even care if it ends up being worse mana generation than a fully optimised re-election build.
Most of the times I just get a young ruler elected, get his stats up to 6/6/6 by having frequent elections, spent 50 Government Reform to flip to sortition and have the guy live 20% longer
You cannot do this very often... it costs 100 Reformprogress in total and even at max Rep. Tradition this means that you lose more than 5 years of Reformprogress (and as you keep reelecting probably it's way worse in reality)
@@benno895 If you get to the point where you have all Republican Reforms done then you don't need a little bit longer living rulers anyways as you will have won the Game already... But you can of course do that if you like it is just not as strong imo
I always look forward to your videos every Monday and you're honestly one of the major reasons i continue to play eu4 (much to the detriment of my productivity)
Worth to mention is that you can also have the forth option in sortition, to pick a family member, if i recall it costs 12 republic tradition to pick him and he is mostly the best candidate to choose + he is really young sometimes. It is also possible for normal elections but only in sortition I saw those family members having crazy good stats
In my Aragon Peasants Republic game, I just elected rulers normally, upgraded them to 6/6/6 and then switched to sortition to keep them alive as long as possible. Then, in their 70s, I switched back.
A few key points worth mentioning: Political dynasties allows you to select a beloved relative, which is on average younger than the other candidates. While often they have terrible stats, sometimes you can luck out and get someone comparable to the base 4/1/1 statline. Combined with the 3 year reelection cycle they can reach 6/6/6 fairly consistently. The 3 year re-election cycle also allows you to gain the 50 random mana from re-election every 3 years instead of 4, not sure if that was calculated during step 4. Now it's true that the 3 year re-election costs you a lot of mana, however utilizing the "Republican Traditions debated" event (below 50 rep. trad., 120 months mtth) it's possible to gain 20 tradition at the cost of 1 stability. You can consistently farm this event without running the risk of falling into a dictatorship by staying between 40-50 tradition. (it's easier to stay between this threshold if you are not using sortition) Overall, sortition is still quite a strong reform, especially for ai nations who are not able to abuse re-elections, and as you mentioned, republics with 8/12 year re-election cycles. However I'd still prefer the re-election republics over them.
But then if you are so exact with the Mana on the 3 years election then you also have to calculate that this event that balances the Tradition penalty loses you basically 300 Adm Mana because of the insane +200% penalty for stab cost from low Tradition...
@@thestudentYT sure thing, if you value admin mana you definitely have to calculate with that, or look for alternative sources of stability, like the papacy. edit: with around 50 tradition it's only a +100% penalty
With the italien republic on force reelection (per decision) you get a 5/5/5 ruler guarenteet. So if you are playing in Italy going for reelection is better imo. If you go for long terms it is basically sortition with slightly better stats. Nice video by the way. (Havent checkt if this is still in the game, at least a few patches ago it worked like that)
On my Florence run for Prince of Egypt achiev I literally went from their starting ruter into 5/4/6 into 4/6/6 which both ruled for over 40 years each with sortition, both were mid 30s reelected from the family so I guess they can be younger than the scripted ones in this case. Since then I usually swapped to sortition most of the times when I play republics, t2 family reform works with it too! Also its easy to max out rep trad with sortition to keep that sweet reform progress growth at maximum at most of the time, while at reelecting you need good idea set, venetian monument or both or you will need to sink tons of milpoints otherwise. Great vid as usual Mr Student, cheers! ^~^
Yeah the family option works well with Sortition but the generic Tier 2 one not really imo as they get a scripted -2/-2/-2 to their stats ... Italian Signoria is OP though because it is an average 3/3/3 so in the end an average 4/4/4 and he is way younger
Half the reason to take political dynasties is the +1 random stat bonus (it makes sortition slightly better in most cases, plus you could get a situation where the extra candidate is worth choosing instead of using the lottery), but you are correct that sortition with Italian signoria leads to very good leaders for little cost
Sortition is slightly more efficient than Frequent Elections, but also less flexible. If you are filling out two idea groups (often happens with 4 and 7 or 7 and 10), Frequent Elections lets you swap to the more focused ruler whenever you need to.
As I said in the Video: if you make your Sortition Ruler a General then he dies after 5 years VERY fast... and also as I literally said in the 2. Reason: The focussed Stats of the Sortition Rulers are literally 6 on average and not just 4 like a normal election... The point you made is literally the best argument for Sortition and not against it xD
@@demrandomonly if they die in battle, but being a general increases the chances of death even if just assigned to an army not in battle (possibly even by just making him a general without even assigning him to an army)
You are overestimating the effects of having the added points. If you roll a 5 for ADM and have +2 for the ADM candidate and +1 for all skills, you still only get a 6 for ADM. Plus, if you check the event info, you see that this also costs you -1 for the other two skills (DIP and MIL). The +3 bonus that you are applying flat to get an average of 6 on the focused stat actually guarantees a floor of 3 but still a ceiling of 6 for that one focus stat. The true average is 5.14, compared to a guaranteed 4. Plus, you get a random roll for the other two skills (the +1 cancels out the -1 debuff to DIP/MIL). Which means your average ruler is in fact a 5/3/3 instead at the cost of 25 RT. With your own stated calculations, 3 re-elections would cost 2.5*3*3 = 22.5 RT and offer a guaranteed 6/4/4.
If you played a lottery irl where the absolute minimum to win is 1 Million Dollars and the maximum is 3 Million then it would be on the same level as the Sortition in eu4
I actually found out how good Sortition is by playing Venice. The Venetian Government reform is so incredibly cracked and I've found by playing them (and other sortition republics) there isn't much risk with not selecting a candidate either, because all of them are basically completely usable.
So I played as Venice (which has the sortition election events) in a Saturday game and really liked it. Unfortunately I let republican tradition get too low and now I'm a monarchy but oh well
Not bad, but worth remembering that the regular republic does at t9 get another -1 years available, and there are several ways to extend ruler lifespans. As well as some random bonuses (at least 2). So at that point you usually start with a 5/1/2 who, after 8 years, will be a 6/5/6 (6/6/6 after 10 years, or in 8 if it started as a 4/2/2). If he was, say, 45 at the start and lives until 'just' 69, that's 24 years, 14 of which he'll be a 6/6/6. On the other 10 he'll have 8-11-13-15-17 generation. That's 64+7*18=190/12=15.83 monarch points average. You can also 'disinherit' him every 2 years if say he gets a horrid trait. It's then just a matter of gaining enough republican tradition. The main downside is that you'll have no absolutism, which is pretty significant, and it comes quite a bit later.
@@thestudentYT Fair view :). Republics do get reforms crazy fast but it'd be a limited time. Of course, absolutism isn't required, but it's a pretty huge boost to lose out on if you play a full wide game.
Interestingly. The best tier 1 republic reforms Russia gets tend to have both a lot of max absolutism and a long election time (though if I recall correctly also count as something like a merchant republic). This makes it well worth using sortition as Russia. However there still remains a question about sortition, political dynasties or Italian signoria? (Also you can keep in mind that the stat bonus will apply to the additional candidate and the additional candidate will also cost (if I recall correctly) 15 Republican tradition which makes them basically be on discount if you are choosing a specific person rather than use the lottery in addition to usually having a lower age than the other candidates in sortition)
I've been playing sortation for years, because you can pick any t1 gov reform and any t2 gov reform (Republicanism isn't necessary) and generally have to focus on Republic Tradition less overall, letting the lottery pick a cracked ruler no matter what is so so nice
1: You dont have to reelect every ruler, i usually reroll until i hit a ruler who is 35 or younger, also helps with tradition management. 2. Agreed 3. kind of agree. tradition management is sortitions biggest strength but its not that hard to balance this in the midgame. 4. Yes. if you just keep every ruler, this average production is a lot higher if you just are a bit picky with which ruler you keep. I am too lazy to do the math but i am pretty sure frequent elections kicks sortitions butt on mana generation i like going sortition from time to time but for minmaxing sortition is not ideal.
For mana generation I think you miss out on a lot of power by not considering electing another ruler. For example, a cut-off at the age of 55 makes the average of the ones you don't discard 35, which gives a lifespan of 25 years. Therefore you gain an expected value of 14.47 monthly mana instead of the 13.11 you calculated.
Last time i played republic frankfurt into germany, i made a random candidate bonus build and focused on getting as much reform progress as i could, got 6.2.3 rulers regularly on frequent elections, took civic republicanism as it was a righteous democracy playthrough, needless to say it was very fun, took espionage into plutocratic into infrastructure and offensive, in 1650 got like 2000 gov reform lying around, if i wanted to go absolutism i would just swap for monarchy or switch to sortition, without modifiers reelection is pointless and taking this reform that removes absolutism on death is such a bad feeling. Btw that much siege abillity and +120% spy network construction goes hard, i wish espionage was a bit more fleshed out tho it was very important in history.
Idk the math but I switch between sortation and elections in order to consistently get rulers with very high stats and the reform progress cost seems to be mostly accounted for by the high republican tradition I'm able to maintain.
@@christianwhite8877 I do, but that's a trade I'm very willing to make, especially in the early game. I've found that later reforms, especially the last three have very little game impact. Lots of mana to play around with in the early and mid game is way more valuable in my experience. Plus, if there's a particular government reform I'm going for, I just stay on sortition for a bit.
But like this video explains. Republic's that use sortition tend to get more monarch points than those that use normal elections, even taking into account the bonuses from reelection and short election terms (I'm not saying you have to or need to change your play style, but you could have been getting those reforms and have plenty of monarch points)
Some people just don't want to believe it's better. Some people just prefer normal elections for one reason or another, but I'm kind of open minded in this regard because I can see benefits from either side and I can respect either play style
I spent so much time either at 100 republican tradition getting rulers too old to reelect or at 30 republican tradition wondering if its worth reelecting this guy one more time for the mana generation. now I pick rule for life every time
2 year cycle is harder to get than you might think and honestly idk what you mean with "the bonus for election republics for rolling a good aged ruler"
@@thestudentYT For a sortition ruler to be very good you need a young age and good stats, for a very good base republic all they need for a good ruler is young age so more times the non sorition republic will roll a more optimal ruler. Also another thing you didn't mention is how the 25 republican tradition will cause a greater loss in buffs from republican tradition than a normal election of whatever the cost is, be it the sub-optimal 8 or optimal 5 which becomes more significant the closer you get to having enough republican tradition generation to reach 100 before the next election
Out of curiosity. When using sortition what republic reforms would you consider worth replacing the Italian signoria (and not counting the good Russian republic reform that has around 12 year election time), in my opinion political dynasties could help replace most of the Italian signoria (you get an additional election candidate (even if usually the worst option instead of among the best). Your election candidates get an additional +1 to a random stat (it's not quite what the Italian signoria has, but it's better in this regard), the only other thing is you don't get royal marriages and political dynasties isn't a tier 1 reform) and most other tier 1 republic reforms (Roman republic is a fairly decent example. The Ambrosian republic (While not necessarily amazing, you get free morale and extra taxes), and rather oddly civic Republicanism because it adds on extra bonuses for the initial election)
Also if you don't mind answering another question, is it worth taking admin as your first idea group while playing in Italy? Or is diplomatic the better choice? (As Milan I took the capital of Genoa and full annexed ferarra, to clarify they were both separate wars and I have high ae (around 48 ish in Italy and Switzerland) but I'm working on dealing with the ae) I'm not yet a republic after 10 in game years (the starting ruler doesn't seem to want to die. I have an heir with an additional mil point that spawned from a random event and happens to be 20 (which means they would become the first President do to eu4 logic), and I have plans for using sortition after I deal with the disaster but I don't have the dlc that would allow me to abdicate the ruler)
@@thestudentYT in my first question i asked what republic reforms you think are worth replacing Italian signoria and said some that i think could be worth it
It's worth noting that the +25% ruler lifespan modifier is basically worthless because of how EU4 calculates death by old age. It doesn't mean they live for 25% more, it means they have a +25% chance of surviving the death roll. Yet the deathroll keeps happening and the odds of them failling the roll increase regardless.
Math doesn't lie... it is exactly as I showed in the video: On average a ruler staring the rule with 62.5 years lives until he is 72.5 Without the +25% it would only last until 70.5
I've liked sortition for a while, given that it seems to give at least one fairly good choice every time. paired with candidate bonuses you can get some good options. it depends on what else you have access to, though
If you take requests. Could you do a video to show that Buddhism in eu4 isn't as bad as people think?. There are multiple government reforms that have karma decay. There are multiple estate privileges that help manage karma. Buddhist nations have access to several monuments/great. There are a decent amount of decisions that help Buddhist nations. There are ways to work around karma penalties that happen to be better because of being Buddhist that you realistically should be doing early on anyway (as an example. You can gain karma by releasing nations you own land from. And you lose karma from taking land in a war, however you don't gain or lose karma from diplomatically annexing subjects). There are also potential loopholes for gaining karma (you gain karma for converting people to Buddhism. Even if was a different branch of Buddhism. Each branch of Buddhism has tolerance of heretics, and it just so happens that you can switch to other branches of Buddhism), once you get going with Buddhism the only problem is the low amount of modifiers it gives and how small they are (I'm not asking for you to say something like 'Buddhism is amazing' or anything. Just that it's somewhat underrated because most people don't know how to manage karma properly or know about some reforms Buddhist nations can have, also most people don't seem to even know that Buddhist nations can get events that can help manage your karma)
Thank you as always for great content. Did you consider also potential max absolutism with the two options? Does sortition preclude high absolutism? What it the best republic build for wide game?
The Russian republic options have high max absolutism (enough to at least consider using them, or are very worth using if you also use sortition), and the best republic reform Russia has for absolutism also comes with a long election time (it can be very worth it to use sortition as a Russian republic)
The real reason Sortition is best is the ability to SPIN DA WHEEL Oooo who am i gunna get???? Giuseppe Guippes DanLuigi MontaForta Or Aubino Fartspomgaaa
can't really agree with you on this one, as these are "averages" and sortitition is quite inflexible, thus making it harder to adapt to bad/unforseen RnG at critical moments. Also sortition doesn't guarantee good rulers, you could have a string of bad/wrong stat rulers who live to be 80+ years old and give you a 100 years worth of low mana income
They do, they are more skilled and expert. But after they use that influence and experience to gain personal power inside the party instead of common wealth.
It really depends on the base form of republic you have. I trust your calculations for most of the bad ones but for instance for peasant republics your expected average age is way too high and more like 42. Also you expect rulers to die too early in your calculations. The expected ages on the wiki are for rulers that live from age 0. If you get him at 56 his life expectancy is a bit higher even though it's not much than if you get him at 32. From experience of about 6300 hours of eu4 my 3 year cycle rulers live on average longer on 6/6/6 stats than on their way there. For any republic that can't get to 3 years I'd agree that sortition is stronger.
The calculations are correct... I know that they are because I didn't care about anything the wiki says... I simply used the official Calculation used in the Game files so trust me, the calculation are right
I want to speak about the republics. I have about 3,000 hours of multiplayer experience. And I like to play on small republics like Lubick or Rothenburg. I believe that a regular republic is better than a sortition. 1460 you get a reform for 3 years of re-election. I think you're wrong about the average rule time of 16 years. Most often they die at 72. We use Skanderberg to check country statistics after the session. The average amount of mana a ruler has is about 17. Every session is like this. Also, let's not forget about 50 mana every re-election. I'm just speaking from experience.
I calculated the 50 Mana per reelection already of course... otherwise Sortition would be way better... Also for the Ruler lifetime: I didn't just make this up here... this is exactly based on the chances that are exactly listed in the Game Code, so... it works as I showed in this video, everything else that you expierienced has to come either from luck or from a different Game version or Mods
I think that Japan has arguably one of the best unique theocracy tier 1 reforms (all it costs is converting to Buddhism at the earliest opportunity in the incidents, you don't even need to stay Buddhist when you get the reform). It has karma decay and harmony generation (something to consider if you stay Buddhist or convert to confusion). You get the standard missionary strength increase. You basically get a free theocracy reform baked into it (there is a theocracy reform that allows you to see the stats of the candidates, the Japanese Buddhist theocracy reform has this as a base feature). You get a free plus 10 morale of army's (which is exactly the same as Shinto gives). It has a theocratic republic option (it's not that practical, but it exists). It's restricted by culture rather than religion, and you can enjoy the benefits of being a theocracy
@@raiantonnyferreiraoliveira8198 Sure but you suggested "Theocracy" ... If I tell you to catch some Elephants with a Fishnet in the middle of the Pacific Ocean... then you would be basically in the same situation as I am with your suggestion here xD No offense here, it's just making fun of this situation here ;)
@@thestudentYT so topic? I think something that most nations can use if they flip to theocracy. Because for now, theocracy just seems balanced in everything tbh(if i got your question wrong i would like to say sorry)
You talk about ruler age and don't mention Political families reform that is available to both methods and is reliable way of getting young ruler of 20-30 years of age
Yes but they are -2/-2/-2 so even worse than normal Republic elections... the only exeption is the Italian Signoria which works very well with Sortition and very bad with normal elevtions because of the higher term duration... so another point for Sortition
@@thestudentYT for sortition I had pretty good results when I run it with Political Families, you can pick familly candidate for 12 traditions instead of 25 and they have the same stats, but again he is young, you wont have to risk to elect 5 0 0 that lives to 70 years For re-election strategy having 2/2/2 is more beneficial, you get more balanced mana points, and anyway you need to do couple reelections for your ruler to be considered good.
It's probably just you. It can't go to an already maxed stat, though it could be possible that it may go to a stat that becomes maxed from sortition (idk if this is the case though, let alone if it's even possible)
@@christianwhite8877 yeah, what i meant was that it tends to go to a stat that would already be 6 after sortition, or thats what happens to me at least LoL
All I can really say is to pay attention next time so you can figure it out (I would test this myself but the mouse for my laptop is low on power and I'm waiting on getting new batteries to replace it so it doesn't run out while I'm playing or something), hopefully it's actually going to a different stat and you aren't noticing or else you may have to contact paradox to explain the issue and see if anything can be done about it
@@thestudentYT Hmmm, I guess i'd need to see the PP per number of birds needed, lol. I generally only need to bird 2 or 3 times to get a 30 something ruler to then invest in for the next 30ish years. But I guess with unlimited birds sortition would be better.
@@THEFEZFEZ With unlimited birding frequent elections is better for monarch points since you get 50 extra points with every election. You will get more than a 6/6/6 if you keep reelecting for long enough. Also you get to benefit from more ruler traits since sortition rulers usually don't live too long.
weird. when i play republics , i always pick event options to lose republican tradition because i like unstable republics becoming monarchies and finally be BASED.
@@windhoek1675 Not that I knew, but I found it with the help of shazam bot in messenger with paper plane on the logo. True, it didn't recognize the melody in this video, but I remembered that in the video about PU with Ottomans there was a loud fragment with it without speech, and so bot understood it)
It's not that he's saying your bad or wrong for having a different play style, he's just explaining why some people could be playing more optimally and teaching people how to do better if they are willing to pay attention and want/need the help
I played Republics for thousands of hours and this is what I feel like it's important to add:
-Sortition is the most efficient for small countries who can't afford taking the event options that reduce republican tradition; with sortition you can ignore rep trad and it's usually a lot of mana/money from the events
-If you play a country that gets even more Reform Progress, like Aragon, you will get to Very Frequent Elections really fast and a 2 year Election Cycle is way better than Sortition, since at that point you should have enough Rep Trad income to sustain it (I still take Sortition first for the event ruler, but after he dies, i swap the reform)
false sortition is always the right choice because it's easier to manage
Re-election costs 2.5 republican traditions per year, is there a reliable way to get that amount of republican tradition income?
@@hqiran3218 Aristocratic and Admin ideas give +0.25, Plutocratic and Economic give +0.2 and Court ideas give +0.2. You also get +0.2 for max power projection and having the Republicanism reform or +0.3 if you have the Tysyatsky Office reform (have to be East Slavic culture), +0.5 being Muslim with an Ismaili scholar.
With all that you get +1.65 so quite the ways off...
@@hqiran3218 IMO the "Republican Traditions debated" event is the most reliable way to get more republican tradition. You can get 20 at the cost of 1 stability, and it's possible to get this event to fire consistently when staying between 40-50 tradition.
@@edim108 Doges Palace obviously and it's province is worth sniping anyways. The White House is also quite insane for anyone moving capital to the new world. Doesn't give republican tradition, but it reduces reelection cost by 20%.
I find that Sortion is great if you're not rolling in Republican Tradition and/or Reelection Cost Reductions. That, Political Dynasties, and something else I can't find right now, means that on average your rulers tend to be above average if not great most of the time. If worst comes to worst and you really can't spend the ~25 RT on the ruler you want, you can just hope for the best and still have a (presumably) one in three chance of getting him.
I want to say if you got the RT cheese down and it costs 6 or less RT to reelect, then shorter terms are better from a purely monarch point generation standard. Getting someone young who can survive at least eighteen years means that you end up with at least 300 free monarch points as well as permanent 666 rulers.
Definitely a sortition enjoyer. Never have to worry about republican tradition since the "let the lottery decide" option is basically a toss up between two absolutely cracked rulers and one mid ruler. The plus one in each category alone beats out the other forms imo.
Same. The only time I pick one is when two of the options rolled very low and one rolled high, which doesn't happen often but does happen. It's just so nice not having to juggle rep trad all the time, I don't even care if it ends up being worse mana generation than a fully optimised re-election build.
Most of the times I just get a young ruler elected, get his stats up to 6/6/6 by having frequent elections, spent 50 Government Reform to flip to sortition and have the guy live 20% longer
You cannot do this very often... it costs 100 Reformprogress in total and even at max Rep. Tradition this means that you lose more than 5 years of Reformprogress (and as you keep reelecting probably it's way worse in reality)
@@thestudentYT but what are you doing with your reform progress late game anyways? Spending 200 on 20 additional gov cap?
@@benno895 If you get to the point where you have all Republican Reforms done then you don't need a little bit longer living rulers anyways as you will have won the Game already... But you can of course do that if you like it is just not as strong imo
Still not a bad idea to do it once in the early game, then keep sortition from that point on
@@slinky6481 At that point, might as well just not take republicanism to begin with and just hold off on Sortition until you hit 6/6/6
I always look forward to your videos every Monday and you're honestly one of the major reasons i continue to play eu4 (much to the detriment of my productivity)
Worth to mention is that you can also have the forth option in sortition, to pick a family member, if i recall it costs 12 republic tradition to pick him and he is mostly the best candidate to choose + he is really young sometimes. It is also possible for normal elections but only in sortition I saw those family members having crazy good stats
Been a sortition fan both in game and irl for a while now.
In my Aragon Peasants Republic game, I just elected rulers normally, upgraded them to 6/6/6 and then switched to sortition to keep them alive as long as possible. Then, in their 70s, I switched back.
Sortition finally gets some love
A few key points worth mentioning:
Political dynasties allows you to select a beloved relative, which is on average younger than the other candidates. While often they have terrible stats, sometimes you can luck out and get someone comparable to the base 4/1/1 statline. Combined with the 3 year reelection cycle they can reach 6/6/6 fairly consistently.
The 3 year re-election cycle also allows you to gain the 50 random mana from re-election every 3 years instead of 4, not sure if that was calculated during step 4.
Now it's true that the 3 year re-election costs you a lot of mana, however utilizing the "Republican Traditions debated" event (below 50 rep. trad., 120 months mtth) it's possible to gain 20 tradition at the cost of 1 stability. You can consistently farm this event without running the risk of falling into a dictatorship by staying between 40-50 tradition. (it's easier to stay between this threshold if you are not using sortition)
Overall, sortition is still quite a strong reform, especially for ai nations who are not able to abuse re-elections, and as you mentioned, republics with 8/12 year re-election cycles. However I'd still prefer the re-election republics over them.
But then if you are so exact with the Mana on the 3 years election then you also have to calculate that this event that balances the Tradition penalty loses you basically 300 Adm Mana because of the insane +200% penalty for stab cost from low Tradition...
@@thestudentYT sure thing, if you value admin mana you definitely have to calculate with that, or look for alternative sources of stability, like the papacy.
edit: with around 50 tradition it's only a +100% penalty
With the italien republic on force reelection (per decision) you get a 5/5/5 ruler guarenteet. So if you are playing in Italy going for reelection is better imo. If you go for long terms it is basically sortition with slightly better stats. Nice video by the way. (Havent checkt if this is still in the game, at least a few patches ago it worked like that)
On my Florence run for Prince of Egypt achiev I literally went from their starting ruter into 5/4/6 into 4/6/6 which both ruled for over 40 years each with sortition, both were mid 30s reelected from the family so I guess they can be younger than the scripted ones in this case. Since then I usually swapped to sortition most of the times when I play republics, t2 family reform works with it too! Also its easy to max out rep trad with sortition to keep that sweet reform progress growth at maximum at most of the time, while at reelecting you need good idea set, venetian monument or both or you will need to sink tons of milpoints otherwise. Great vid as usual Mr Student, cheers! ^~^
Yeah the family option works well with Sortition but the generic Tier 2 one not really imo as they get a scripted -2/-2/-2 to their stats ... Italian Signoria is OP though because it is an average 3/3/3 so in the end an average 4/4/4 and he is way younger
Half the reason to take political dynasties is the +1 random stat bonus (it makes sortition slightly better in most cases, plus you could get a situation where the extra candidate is worth choosing instead of using the lottery), but you are correct that sortition with Italian signoria leads to very good leaders for little cost
Sortition is slightly more efficient than Frequent Elections, but also less flexible. If you are filling out two idea groups (often happens with 4 and 7 or 7 and 10), Frequent Elections lets you swap to the more focused ruler whenever you need to.
As I said in the Video: if you make your Sortition Ruler a General then he dies after 5 years VERY fast... and also as I literally said in the 2. Reason: The focussed Stats of the Sortition Rulers are literally 6 on average and not just 4 like a normal election... The point you made is literally the best argument for Sortition and not against it xD
@thestudentYT doesnt making them a general also cost you one stab when they die? As with any republic. Thus costing you quite a bit of admin points.
@@demrandomonly if they die in battle, but being a general increases the chances of death even if just assigned to an army not in battle (possibly even by just making him a general without even assigning him to an army)
@@demrandom No, only when they die in battle or on a siege
You are overestimating the effects of having the added points. If you roll a 5 for ADM and have +2 for the ADM candidate and +1 for all skills, you still only get a 6 for ADM. Plus, if you check the event info, you see that this also costs you -1 for the other two skills (DIP and MIL).
The +3 bonus that you are applying flat to get an average of 6 on the focused stat actually guarantees a floor of 3 but still a ceiling of 6 for that one focus stat.
The true average is 5.14, compared to a guaranteed 4. Plus, you get a random roll for the other two skills (the +1 cancels out the -1 debuff to DIP/MIL). Which means your average ruler is in fact a 5/3/3 instead at the cost of 25 RT.
With your own stated calculations, 3 re-elections would cost 2.5*3*3 = 22.5 RT and offer a guaranteed 6/4/4.
"The lottery is way less RNG dependant"
If you played a lottery irl where the absolute minimum to win is 1 Million Dollars and the maximum is 3 Million then it would be on the same level as the Sortition in eu4
I actually found out how good Sortition is by playing Venice. The Venetian Government reform is so incredibly cracked and I've found by playing them (and other sortition republics) there isn't much risk with not selecting a candidate either, because all of them are basically completely usable.
So I played as Venice (which has the sortition election events) in a Saturday game and really liked it. Unfortunately I let republican tradition get too low and now I'm a monarchy but oh well
In practice it's not that different, the main difference is republic's tend to have rulers with better stats on average
The titles are amazing. Did not even want to watch the video but the title made me do it.
Not bad, but worth remembering that the regular republic does at t9 get another -1 years available, and there are several ways to extend ruler lifespans. As well as some random bonuses (at least 2). So at that point you usually start with a 5/1/2 who, after 8 years, will be a 6/5/6 (6/6/6 after 10 years, or in 8 if it started as a 4/2/2).
If he was, say, 45 at the start and lives until 'just' 69, that's 24 years, 14 of which he'll be a 6/6/6. On the other 10 he'll have 8-11-13-15-17 generation. That's 64+7*18=190/12=15.83 monarch points average. You can also 'disinherit' him every 2 years if say he gets a horrid trait. It's then just a matter of gaining enough republican tradition. The main downside is that you'll have no absolutism, which is pretty significant, and it comes quite a bit later.
See: until you reach Tier 9 you should be a Sortion because of Mana Points and after Tier 9 you should be a Sortition because of Absolutism ;)
@@thestudentYT
Fair view :). Republics do get reforms crazy fast but it'd be a limited time.
Of course, absolutism isn't required, but it's a pretty huge boost to lose out on if you play a full wide game.
unless you have a unique gov or you are totemist, sortition is better. great video
Interestingly. The best tier 1 republic reforms Russia gets tend to have both a lot of max absolutism and a long election time (though if I recall correctly also count as something like a merchant republic). This makes it well worth using sortition as Russia. However there still remains a question about sortition, political dynasties or Italian signoria? (Also you can keep in mind that the stat bonus will apply to the additional candidate and the additional candidate will also cost (if I recall correctly) 15 Republican tradition which makes them basically be on discount if you are choosing a specific person rather than use the lottery in addition to usually having a lower age than the other candidates in sortition)
I've been playing sortation for years, because you can pick any t1 gov reform and any t2 gov reform (Republicanism isn't necessary) and generally have to focus on Republic Tradition less overall, letting the lottery pick a cracked ruler no matter what is so so nice
1: You dont have to reelect every ruler, i usually reroll until i hit a ruler who is 35 or younger, also helps with tradition management.
2. Agreed
3. kind of agree. tradition management is sortitions biggest strength but its not that hard to balance this in the midgame.
4. Yes. if you just keep every ruler, this average production is a lot higher if you just are a bit picky with which ruler you keep. I am too lazy to do the math but i am pretty sure frequent elections kicks sortitions butt on mana generation
i like going sortition from time to time but for minmaxing sortition is not ideal.
For mana generation I think you miss out on a lot of power by not considering electing another ruler.
For example, a cut-off at the age of 55 makes the average of the ones you don't discard 35, which gives a lifespan of 25 years.
Therefore you gain an expected value of 14.47 monthly mana instead of the 13.11 you calculated.
Inside me are two wolves - one of them is Smugly Sortition, the other is Calvinist Republic Bologna.
You can be a Calvinist-Sortition Republic Bologna and unite the two wolves
I just intentionally tank my republican tradition so I can switch to a monarchy:P
Last time i played republic frankfurt into germany, i made a random candidate bonus build and focused on getting as much reform progress as i could, got 6.2.3 rulers regularly on frequent elections, took civic republicanism as it was a righteous democracy playthrough, needless to say it was very fun, took espionage into plutocratic into infrastructure and offensive, in 1650 got like 2000 gov reform lying around, if i wanted to go absolutism i would just swap for monarchy or switch to sortition, without modifiers reelection is pointless and taking this reform that removes absolutism on death is such a bad feeling. Btw that much siege abillity and +120% spy network construction goes hard, i wish espionage was a bit more fleshed out tho it was very important in history.
Idk the math but I switch between sortation and elections in order to consistently get rulers with very high stats and the reform progress cost seems to be mostly accounted for by the high republican tradition I'm able to maintain.
It can have long term affects though, you might get your last reforms later than you normally should
@@christianwhite8877 I do, but that's a trade I'm very willing to make, especially in the early game. I've found that later reforms, especially the last three have very little game impact. Lots of mana to play around with in the early and mid game is way more valuable in my experience. Plus, if there's a particular government reform I'm going for, I just stay on sortition for a bit.
But like this video explains. Republic's that use sortition tend to get more monarch points than those that use normal elections, even taking into account the bonuses from reelection and short election terms (I'm not saying you have to or need to change your play style, but you could have been getting those reforms and have plenty of monarch points)
I've been aware of how powerful sortition is for awhile but good luck changing EU4 dogma. These guys don't want to listen.
Some people just don't want to believe it's better. Some people just prefer normal elections for one reason or another, but I'm kind of open minded in this regard because I can see benefits from either side and I can respect either play style
Referencing table 2.4a, then linking database alpha, don't forget to multiply by 0.023, the Doge will kick ass! Can't you see it? 😅
I spent so much time either at 100 republican tradition getting rulers too old to reelect or at 30 republican tradition wondering if its worth reelecting this guy one more time for the mana generation. now I pick rule for life every time
Ok but the bonus for election republics for rolling a good aged ruler is way better and the 2 year election cycle is very OP
2 year cycle is harder to get than you might think and honestly idk what you mean with "the bonus for election republics for rolling a good aged ruler"
@@thestudentYT For a sortition ruler to be very good you need a young age and good stats, for a very good base republic all they need for a good ruler is young age so more times the non sorition republic will roll a more optimal ruler. Also another thing you didn't mention is how the 25 republican tradition will cause a greater loss in buffs from republican tradition than a normal election of whatever the cost is, be it the sub-optimal 8 or optimal 5 which becomes more significant the closer you get to having enough republican tradition generation to reach 100 before the next election
Out of curiosity. When using sortition what republic reforms would you consider worth replacing the Italian signoria (and not counting the good Russian republic reform that has around 12 year election time), in my opinion political dynasties could help replace most of the Italian signoria (you get an additional election candidate (even if usually the worst option instead of among the best). Your election candidates get an additional +1 to a random stat (it's not quite what the Italian signoria has, but it's better in this regard), the only other thing is you don't get royal marriages and political dynasties isn't a tier 1 reform) and most other tier 1 republic reforms (Roman republic is a fairly decent example. The Ambrosian republic (While not necessarily amazing, you get free morale and extra taxes), and rather oddly civic Republicanism because it adds on extra bonuses for the initial election)
Also if you don't mind answering another question, is it worth taking admin as your first idea group while playing in Italy? Or is diplomatic the better choice? (As Milan I took the capital of Genoa and full annexed ferarra, to clarify they were both separate wars and I have high ae (around 48 ish in Italy and Switzerland) but I'm working on dealing with the ae) I'm not yet a republic after 10 in game years (the starting ruler doesn't seem to want to die. I have an heir with an additional mil point that spawned from a random event and happens to be 20 (which means they would become the first President do to eu4 logic), and I have plans for using sortition after I deal with the disaster but I don't have the dlc that would allow me to abdicate the ruler)
Diplomatic is better than Admin in Italy and I honestly couldn't see a straight up question in your first question
@@thestudentYT in my first question i asked what republic reforms you think are worth replacing Italian signoria and said some that i think could be worth it
Italian Signoria is best if you play with Sortition... otherwise Plutocracy is by far the best Generic Republic
It's worth noting that the +25% ruler lifespan modifier is basically worthless because of how EU4 calculates death by old age. It doesn't mean they live for 25% more, it means they have a +25% chance of surviving the death roll. Yet the deathroll keeps happening and the odds of them failling the roll increase regardless.
Math doesn't lie... it is exactly as I showed in the video: On average a ruler staring the rule with 62.5 years lives until he is 72.5
Without the +25% it would only last until 70.5
I've liked sortition for a while, given that it seems to give at least one fairly good choice every time. paired with candidate bonuses you can get some good options. it depends on what else you have access to, though
Naval republic Madyas is the best republic IMO for mana generation
im a fan of your videos but you over use the word "literally"
He literally doesn’t stfu 🙄
He literally doesn’t stfu 🙄
English is obviously not his first language. A slight quirk is fine
I literally meant to do that xD
He's Robin from HIMYM
Music is a bit too loud in some part of the video
If you take requests. Could you do a video to show that Buddhism in eu4 isn't as bad as people think?. There are multiple government reforms that have karma decay. There are multiple estate privileges that help manage karma. Buddhist nations have access to several monuments/great. There are a decent amount of decisions that help Buddhist nations. There are ways to work around karma penalties that happen to be better because of being Buddhist that you realistically should be doing early on anyway (as an example. You can gain karma by releasing nations you own land from. And you lose karma from taking land in a war, however you don't gain or lose karma from diplomatically annexing subjects). There are also potential loopholes for gaining karma (you gain karma for converting people to Buddhism. Even if was a different branch of Buddhism. Each branch of Buddhism has tolerance of heretics, and it just so happens that you can switch to other branches of Buddhism), once you get going with Buddhism the only problem is the low amount of modifiers it gives and how small they are (I'm not asking for you to say something like 'Buddhism is amazing' or anything. Just that it's somewhat underrated because most people don't know how to manage karma properly or know about some reforms Buddhist nations can have, also most people don't seem to even know that Buddhist nations can get events that can help manage your karma)
Thanks for you comment, I will think about that
Apparently auto correct decided to remove the word 'projects' from great projects when I said it
Thank you as always for great content.
Did you consider also potential max absolutism with the two options? Does sortition preclude high absolutism? What it the best republic build for wide game?
The Russian republic options have high max absolutism (enough to at least consider using them, or are very worth using if you also use sortition), and the best republic reform Russia has for absolutism also comes with a long election time (it can be very worth it to use sortition as a Russian republic)
As a republic enjoyer, i didn't know this
The real reason Sortition is best is the ability to SPIN DA WHEEL
Oooo who am i gunna get????
Giuseppe Guippes
DanLuigi MontaForta
Or
Aubino Fartspomgaaa
You just convince me to give a serious try to the "horrible" italian signoria republic.
I only do Sortition for the f- it we ball mindset
can't really agree with you on this one, as these are "averages" and sortitition is quite inflexible, thus making it harder to adapt to bad/unforseen RnG at critical moments. Also sortition doesn't guarantee good rulers, you could have a string of bad/wrong stat rulers who live to be 80+ years old and give you a 100 years worth of low mana income
If you try Sortition just once in a Game for 50+ years then you'll see that this is the reality and not just some random numbers
I knew I was onto something with sortition
How Serene!
so my play style when i begun EU4 was more correct than now after almost 3k hours
If only real politicians would become better with a re-election lmao
They do, they are more skilled and expert. But after they use that influence and experience to gain personal power inside the party instead of common wealth.
@@Jalinar861 more skilled and expert in shoving money into their own pockets at least.
I think i have ever chosen sortition .
Thank you!
I love sortition
I just disperse power across the cities and be done with it.
It really depends on the base form of republic you have. I trust your calculations for most of the bad ones but for instance for peasant republics your expected average age is way too high and more like 42. Also you expect rulers to die too early in your calculations. The expected ages on the wiki are for rulers that live from age 0. If you get him at 56 his life expectancy is a bit higher even though it's not much than if you get him at 32. From experience of about 6300 hours of eu4 my 3 year cycle rulers live on average longer on 6/6/6 stats than on their way there. For any republic that can't get to 3 years I'd agree that sortition is stronger.
The calculations are correct... I know that they are because I didn't care about anything the wiki says... I simply used the official Calculation used in the Game files so trust me, the calculation are right
@@thestudentYT Then I cannot believe that you didn't make significant mistakes.
@@karlp2277 No need for believing here xD
Just calculate it yourself :)
I want to speak about the republics. I have about 3,000 hours of multiplayer experience. And I like to play on small republics like Lubick or Rothenburg. I believe that a regular republic is better than a sortition. 1460 you get a reform for 3 years of re-election. I think you're wrong about the average rule time of 16 years. Most often they die at 72. We use Skanderberg to check country statistics after the session. The average amount of mana a ruler has is about 17. Every session is like this. Also, let's not forget about 50 mana every re-election. I'm just speaking from experience.
I calculated the 50 Mana per reelection already of course... otherwise Sortition would be way better...
Also for the Ruler lifetime: I didn't just make this up here... this is exactly based on the chances that are exactly listed in the Game Code, so... it works as I showed in this video, everything else that you expierienced has to come either from luck or from a different Game version or Mods
Long live to autocracy
what if you form maghrebi pirate republic and enact this 50% loot is it better than the normal maghreb nation?
Sure
Can you make a video about theocracies?
For what Topic?
@@thestudentYT well, i don't know. You are the one supposed to teach us, i think.(probably just something we could use)
I think that Japan has arguably one of the best unique theocracy tier 1 reforms (all it costs is converting to Buddhism at the earliest opportunity in the incidents, you don't even need to stay Buddhist when you get the reform). It has karma decay and harmony generation (something to consider if you stay Buddhist or convert to confusion). You get the standard missionary strength increase. You basically get a free theocracy reform baked into it (there is a theocracy reform that allows you to see the stats of the candidates, the Japanese Buddhist theocracy reform has this as a base feature). You get a free plus 10 morale of army's (which is exactly the same as Shinto gives). It has a theocratic republic option (it's not that practical, but it exists). It's restricted by culture rather than religion, and you can enjoy the benefits of being a theocracy
@@raiantonnyferreiraoliveira8198 Sure but you suggested "Theocracy" ... If I tell you to catch some Elephants with a Fishnet in the middle of the Pacific Ocean... then you would be basically in the same situation as I am with your suggestion here xD
No offense here, it's just making fun of this situation here ;)
@@thestudentYT so topic? I think something that most nations can use if they flip to theocracy. Because for now, theocracy just seems balanced in everything tbh(if i got your question wrong i would like to say sorry)
*sigh*
Time to renew my eu4 subscription...
Sortition doesn't require any dlc
You talk about ruler age and don't mention Political families reform that is available to both methods and is reliable way of getting young ruler of 20-30 years of age
Yes but they are -2/-2/-2 so even worse than normal Republic elections... the only exeption is the Italian Signoria which works very well with Sortition and very bad with normal elevtions because of the higher term duration... so another point for Sortition
@@thestudentYT for sortition I had pretty good results when I run it with Political Families, you can pick familly candidate for 12 traditions instead of 25 and they have the same stats, but again he is young, you wont have to risk to elect 5 0 0 that lives to 70 years
For re-election strategy having 2/2/2 is more beneficial, you get more balanced mana points, and anyway you need to do couple reelections for your ruler to be considered good.
just a small thing, is it me or the political dinasty +1 always ends up buffing the already +6 stat of the ruler?
It's probably just you. It can't go to an already maxed stat, though it could be possible that it may go to a stat that becomes maxed from sortition (idk if this is the case though, let alone if it's even possible)
@@christianwhite8877 yeah, what i meant was that it tends to go to a stat that would already be 6 after sortition, or thats what happens to me at least LoL
All I can really say is to pay attention next time so you can figure it out (I would test this myself but the mouse for my laptop is low on power and I'm waiting on getting new batteries to replace it so it doesn't run out while I'm playing or something), hopefully it's actually going to a different stat and you aren't noticing or else you may have to contact paradox to explain the issue and see if anything can be done about it
and 99%play Mali ineficient))
So new Venetian Government is far better, because the +3 instead of the +2 to top skill?
Not "way" better but yes
Guess this is better if you don't just bird to get a young ruler from the regular election. But I bird, so....
But you could do the same for Sortition then as well
@@thestudentYT Hmmm, I guess i'd need to see the PP per number of birds needed, lol. I generally only need to bird 2 or 3 times to get a 30 something ruler to then invest in for the next 30ish years. But I guess with unlimited birds sortition would be better.
@@THEFEZFEZ With unlimited birding frequent elections is better for monarch points since you get 50 extra points with every election. You will get more than a 6/6/6 if you keep reelecting for long enough. Also you get to benefit from more ruler traits since sortition rulers usually don't live too long.
weird. when i play republics , i always pick event options to lose republican tradition because i like unstable republics becoming monarchies and finally be BASED.
Did you count that re-elections in 3 or 4 years gives 50 manapoints each time? really lowers the difference
No it doesn't lower the difference at all... because I calculated it already xD
@@thestudentYT that’s nice
Which music do you use at 9:50?
Red Hour - Jharee
@@user-br5ew6rv2f thanks, how did you know about the track?
@@windhoek1675 Not that I knew, but I found it with the help of shazam bot in messenger with paper plane on the logo. True, it didn't recognize the melody in this video, but I remembered that in the video about PU with Ottomans there was a loud fragment with it without speech, and so bot understood it)
Now come on you all with the Joe Biden comments
Nah dude, these comments are Joever.
“I’m the student and here are 5 reasons you are bad!” 🫣
It's not that he's saying your bad or wrong for having a different play style, he's just explaining why some people could be playing more optimally and teaching people how to do better if they are willing to pay attention and want/need the help