• We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.

SonofWinter

007
46 Badges
Jun 28, 2004
4.884
1.176
  • Europa Universalis IV: Golden Century
  • Europa Universalis IV: Pre-order
  • Europa Universalis: Rome Collectors Edition
  • Europa Universalis IV: Common Sense
  • Europa Universalis IV: Cossacks
  • Europa Universalis IV: Mare Nostrum
  • Hearts of Iron IV: Cadet
  • Hearts of Iron IV: Together for Victory
  • Europa Universalis IV: Third Rome
  • Hearts of Iron IV: Death or Dishonor
  • Hearts of Iron IV: Expansion Pass
  • Europa Universalis IV: Dharma
  • Europa Universalis IV: El Dorado
  • Imperator: Rome Deluxe Edition
  • Imperator: Rome
  • Hearts of Iron IV: Expansion Pass
  • Hearts of Iron IV: La Resistance
  • Imperator: Rome - Magna Graecia
  • Crusader Kings III
  • Battle for Bosporus
  • Europa Universalis 4: Emperor
  • Hearts of Iron IV: By Blood Alone
  • Hearts of Iron IV: No Step Back
  • Heir to the Throne
  • Crusader Kings II: Charlemagne
  • Crusader Kings II: The Old Gods
  • Crusader Kings II: Sword of Islam
  • Europa Universalis III
  • Divine Wind
  • Europa Universalis IV
  • Europa Universalis IV: Art of War
  • Europa Universalis IV: Conquest of Paradise
  • Europa Universalis IV: Wealth of Nations
  • Europa Universalis IV: Call to arms event
  • Hearts of Iron III Collection
  • Crusader Kings II
  • Europa Universalis III Complete
  • Europa Universalis III Complete
  • Europa Universalis IV: Res Publica
  • Europa Universalis: Rome
  • Victoria 2
  • Victoria 2: A House Divided
  • Victoria 2: Heart of Darkness
  • Rome: Vae Victis
  • 500k Club
  • Europa Universalis III: Collection
Does it matter if your demense is connected for techs to spread from your provinces. For example, I'm wondering if I should give up my Capital and move to the Coast or if it doesn't really matter? My current capital is inland.
 
It will kinda matter if they are connected. If you look at the tech rates, there is a bonus for higher tech levels in your demesne and also a bonus for neighbors. So, if they are connected it is easier for your other counties to keep up. Personally, I dont think I would be in a position to allow that to influence which holdings I keep.
 
It helps to keep your demense together.

Among the bonuses to tech spread are a demense bonus (25% per holding in your demense with the next complete tech level) and a neighbor bonus (30% per neighboring county with the next complete tech level).

Normally, a smart player is going to be a tech leader. He's going to use his advisers to increase tech in his capital, he's going to build university buildings and rush town infra to improve them, and he's going to have much better than average kings and advisers to increase tech rate. So counties in your demense are going to be much higher tech than neighbors and are going to increase faster.

What this means is that when you split up your demense, counties hit a "wall" of slow tech when somebody else borders you. Your neighbor is not going to get your massive demense bonuses. He's not going to build universities. His advisers are going to be mediocre. Your high tech counties next to his help with the neighbor bonus, but they increase tech much much slower than they would if you held them with all your additional bonuses.

Splitting up your demense therefore puts massive tech slowdown zones between your counties. It effectively depirves you of the substantial neighbor bonuses because your neighbors are laggards. So you'll increase tech slower overall.

You can decide how much this matters to you. It's not the worst thing to build two compact duchies of high tech separated from each other -- although the one without your capital will always advance slower than the one with it. But splitting your demense up all over the place is tech suicide.
 
It helps to keep your demense together.

Among the bonuses to tech spread are a demense bonus (25% per holding in your demense with the next complete tech level) and a neighbor bonus (30% per neighboring county with the next complete tech level).

Normally, a smart player is going to be a tech leader. He's going to use his advisers to increase tech in his capital, he's going to build university buildings and rush town infra to improve them, and he's going to have much better than average kings and advisers to increase tech rate. So counties in your demense are going to be much higher tech than neighbors and are going to increase faster.

What this means is that when you split up your demense, counties hit a "wall" of slow tech when somebody else borders you. Your neighbor is not going to get your massive demense bonuses. He's not going to build universities. His advisers are going to be mediocre. Your high tech counties next to his help with the neighbor bonus, but they increase tech much much slower than they would if you held them with all your additional bonuses.

Splitting up your demense therefore puts massive tech slowdown zones between your counties. It effectively depirves you of the substantial neighbor bonuses because your neighbors are laggards. So you'll increase tech slower overall.

You can decide how much this matters to you. It's not the worst thing to build two compact duchies of high tech separated from each other -- although the one without your capital will always advance slower than the one with it. But splitting your demense up all over the place is tech suicide.

On the other hand as a king it can help to spread out as that way your supertech can give a +30% bonus to tech to more of your vassals.
 
On the other hand as a king it can help to spread out as that way your supertech can give a +30% bonus to tech to more of your vassals.

It can make sense to "seed" a few personal demense counties in low tech parts of your empire. That way you can make make one county in the area catch up, giving a neighbor bonus to a lagging area. But you do that at a cost of hurting your own personal tech. Because you're going to have one less demense bonus / neighbor bonus county working on your base area.

So you can stick a few around once you're a clear tech leader. But it's a bad strategy to do more than that. It worth far more to trade that lagging county for one in a high tech area to then drag high tech back to your heartland.
 
It can make sense to "seed" a few personal demense counties in low tech parts of your empire. That way you can make make one county in the area catch up, giving a neighbor bonus to a lagging area. But you do that at a cost of hurting your own personal tech. Because you're going to have one less demense bonus / neighbor bonus county working on your base area.

So you can stick a few around once you're a clear tech leader. But it's a bad strategy to do more than that. It worth far more to trade that lagging county for one in a high tech area to then drag high tech back to your heartland.
That last sentence is my strategy so far, pick a one or two duchy core, add Sicily, or an Iberian or Levantine duchy, then let the high tech spread to my homeland.
 
You get bonuses to tech development from having neighbouring counties with higher rating in that tech in addition to getting a bonus if any county in your demense has a higher tech. This is only full tech levels, not individual points. I think, and I could easily be wrong, the tech of your capital is all that matters in terms of how the rest of the game is effected by tech. In practice I think that means, if you want to invest in tech, there is an advantage to having your demense clustered because it speeds up the spread of any tech advance to the rest of the demense. So if you have a "lucky" county that isn't your capital get in front, its more likely to spread to your captial, where it makes a difference, if they are adjacent.

If its correct that only your capital's tech matters, then I can't see much benefit to trying to raise the tech level anywhere else in your kingdom.
 
Culture tech only capital tech matters, but econ and military is province based.

edit -
You get a 30% neighbor bonus for each province that is one full tech level ahead of a province, same for the 25% demesne bonuses, so compacting a demesne will stack bonuses much faster than distributing your provinces to help vassals. With around 30 techs moving independently, you can have a situation where five or six provinces clustered together are all pulling each other up in different techs at the same time, potentially more than doubling overall tech speed at times.

example - a province with two neighboring provinces better in a given tech equals 60% neighbor bonus and 50% demesne bonus... 1.6 X 1.5 = 2.4, more than doubling that tech discovery chance.

Early in the game, the demesne bonus from adding high tech lands to your demesne is really the only way to get any of this bonus, but once you start jumping to the next tech level at home (mid-1100s at the earliest from what I can tell), the clustering starts to dominate.
 
Last edited: