Hello and Welcome to another development diary for Europa Universalis IV. As it is another one written by me, it might be a bit shorter than you’d like, but I hope the information is interesting enough.

One of the things we wanted to focus on with Leviathan was to strengthen the ability to play “tall”,or in other words, how to become more powerful without necessarily expanding all the time. We talked in an earlier diary about the first of three new features regarding playing tall, Expand Infrastructure, which allowed you to stack multiple manufactories in the same province.

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Today we’ll be talking about the second of the ‘play tall’ features for Leviathan, as we delve into Concentrate Development.

Concentrate Development is an interaction that is done to either one of your territories or to one of your subjects states or territories.

This will reduce the development in that area by an amount comparable to a horde razing it, and then that development will be distributed to your country.

Fifty percent of that development will be going directly to your capital, while thirty percent will be distributed randomly among stated provinces, while the final twenty percent is lost.

There is a cooldown of 50 years for how often you can do this in an area.

Doing this to one of your subjects will upset them and also increase their liberty desire, so be careful.

There are also two government reforms that makes this loss less painful, as it removes the twenty percent lost, and instead adds that development to the capital.

• The Mandala Reform, available to the chinese techgroup and either dharmic, eastern or muslim religions.
• Siamese Absolutism - which is given from some missions.

Speaking of the Mandala Reform, it's a first tier reform, that besides giving you free development concentration also grants the following.

• +15% Vassal Income
• +1 Vassal Force Limit Bonus
• -33% Governing Capacity

Connected to this, is a new peace treaty called Pillage Capital!
As sometimes you want to grow your power, and weaken your enemy, but you do not want to take on more territory. In that case, just use the new “Pillage Capital”(™) peace treaty, which will concentrate development on their capital state, benefiting you!


Stay tuned for next week, when we will talk more about playing tall, and maybe something about canals.

 

[gronak]

This adds some good flavour - Britain should do this in the Highlands. Also makes for easier conversions if the provinces are too rich to convert.

Will the cool down for doing the relocating be moddable?

 

[krtk]

I fail to see how concentrate dev helps to play tall at all. (It only does if the definition of "tall" is max dev in capital but I see it as max dev/province)


You lose 20% of the dev and deving high dev is more expencive then low dev provinces. and creating a "super low devcost state" does not really matter at all, since you can use that state once every 50 years. Only exception might be to take land, steal the dev before coring (if that is possible) and then get rid of the land by selling it or releasing it. But we got the new peace deal to steal dev from nations.

I think, if it works like razing, so you can use it before coring, it does the exact opposite. it makes playing wide easier, since you move dev out of the state before coring it. But wedon't know that yet. If you have to core it first it does not matter much for playing wide.

And in contrast to people mentioning, it making it more expensive to spawn institutions, I object. depending on the modifiers, it might give to your state,it will make deving instituions cheaper, since you can move out dev from the state/province you want to dev the institution.

 

[Xetfield]

I fail to see how concentrate dev helps to play tall at all.

You lose 20% of the dev and deving high dev is more expencive then low dev provinces. and creating a "super low devcost state" does not really matter at all, since you can use that state once every 50 years. Only exception might be to take land, steal the dev before coring (if that is possible) and then get rid of the land by selling it or releasing it. But we got the new peace deal to steal dev from nations.

I think, if it works like razing, so you can use it before coring, it does the exact opposite. it makes playing wide easier, since you move dev out of the state before coring it. But wedon't know that yet. If you have to core it first it does not matter much for playing wide.

And in contrast to people mentioning, it making it more expensive to spawn institutions, I object. depending on the modifiers, it might give to your state,it will make deving instituions cheaper, since you can move out dev from the state/province you want to dev the institution.

I guess it's kinda tall since it drives your development to the capital (or capital state, which is still not clear), and it's will be more effective governing capacity-wise. Also it will be more effective if you have great capital province (or, again, state) and the land you will borrow will be trashy.

 

[Bandua_of_Gallaecia]

Sorry I fail to see how to raze one of your regions and distribute the development, further concentrating it in your capital which is high enough, and losing 20% along the way, is anything like playing tall.

I fail to see how concentrate dev helps to play tall at all. (It only does if the definition of "tall" is max dev in capital but I see it as max dev/province)


You lose 20% of the dev and deving high dev is more expencive then low dev provinces. and creating a "super low devcost state" does not really matter at all, since you can use that state once every 50 years. Only exception might be to take land, steal the dev before coring (if that is possible) and then get rid of the land by selling it or releasing it. But we got the new peace deal to steal dev from nations.

I think, if it works like razing, so you can use it before coring, it does the exact opposite. it makes playing wide easier, since you move dev out of the state before coring it. But wedon't know that yet. If you have to core it first it does not matter much for playing wide.

And in contrast to people mentioning, it making it more expensive to spawn institutions, I object. depending on the modifiers, it might give to your state,it will make deving instituions cheaper, since you can move out dev from the state/province you want to dev the institution.

It's playing tall because:
1- It can be used on enemies instead of simply taking the provinces (the wide choice)

2- It can be used on vassals, instead of rushing integration (the wide choice)

3- And when done on your provinces, it is mostly worthwhile if you intend on improving development anyway (develop cheap provinces -> relocate to expensive ones -> cheaper deving) otherwise it's not very worthwhile.

Also, there is this weird kind of Tall-Wide hybrid which involves playing relatively wide worldwide, but only really investing on your core homeland. Where you don't really care about keeping your oversees territory intact. This also helps that

While it can help wide play too (using before coring, for cheaper coring costs, hopefully this won't be allowed to happen) one cannot deny it does help tall as well.

 

[Ru8bin]

Connected to this, is a new peace treaty called Pillage Capital!
As sometimes you want to grow your power, and weaken your enemy, but you do not want to take on more territory. In that case, just use the new “Pillage Capital”(™) peace treaty, which will concentrate development on their capital state, benefiting you!

I don't understand what this means?How does concentrating development one their capital benefit me?Am i missing something?

 

[Sapa Inca]

I hope that AIs will not spam this.
Otherwise, cool change, have potential to be interesting.

 

[IndigoRage]

Also, there is this weird kind of Tall-Wide hybrid which involves playing relatively wide worldwide, but only really investing on your core homeland. Where you don't really care about keeping your oversees territory intact. This also helps that

I like to stay 'plausible' by which I mean having a relatively compact core country but with a bit of a colonial empire, some trading posts, some vassals and Client States. I use this to play "world police" by which I mean I essentially force the world to have a certain balance of power instead of dominating it as a massive empire.

This may just be my love of converting to Victoria 2 talking though.

 

[Bandua_of_Gallaecia]

I don't understand what this means?How does concentrating development one their capital benefit me?Am i missing something?

You are probably missing the key factor that concentrating development on their capital siphons their capital state's development to you.

 

[IndigoRage]

I don't understand what this means?How does concentrating development one their capital benefit me?Am i missing something?

It will use the "Concentrate Development" feature on their capital which reduces the capital's (I assume capital state's) development and boosts your own development.

 

[Bandua_of_Gallaecia]

I like to stay 'plausible' by which I mean having a relatively compact core country but with a bit of a colonial empire, some trading posts, some vassals and Client States. I use this to play "world police" by which I mean I essentially force the world to have a certain balance of power instead of dominating it as a massive empire.

This may just be my love of converting to Victoria 2 talking though.

This is exactly my playstyle as well.

 

[FrogCrusher]

And in contrast to people mentioning, it making it more expensive to spawn institutions, I object. depending on the modifiers, it might give to your state,it will make deving instituions cheaper, since you can move out dev from the state/province you want to dev the institution.

I agree with your statement. To be more precise, I was saying in fact that it will be more expensive to dev push in your capital, which is true. And I used that example to explain that it is the opposite of tall play. Deving a 3/3/3 clothes province on farmland miles away to have institutions will indeed be cheaper but it is more wide wise to have such a territory province to begin with (concentrate cannot be done on state, only on territory).

 

[Drogan]

Pillage Capital sounds awesome.

 

[krtk]

I guess it's kinda tall since it drives your development to the capital (or capital state, which is still not clear), and it's will be more effective governing capacity-wise. Also it will be more effective if you have great capital province (or, again, state) and the land you will borrow will be trashy.

yea thats why I said it depends on how your defintion of playing tall is. If you say its all about the capital, you are correct it helps. Though government cap on playing tall is usually not an issue except for prussia and pirates. And government cap is just a number anyhow. You can easily be 50% above your limit and still have a net profit in early game. In late game it really does not matter at all.

I think, this button is a major noob trap, for newer players to destroy dev in =D

It's playing tall because:
1- It can be used on enemies instead of simply taking the provinces (the wide choice)

2- It can be used in vassals, instead of rushing integration (the wide choice)

3- And when done on your provinces, it is mostly worthwhile if you intend on improving development anyway (develop cheap provinces -> relocate to expensive ones -> cheaper deving) otherwise it's not very worthwhile.

Also, there is this weird kind of Tall-Wide hybrid which involves playing relatively wide worldwide, but only really investing on your core homeland. Where you don't really care about keeping your oversees territory intact. This also helps that

While it can help wide play too (using before coring, for cheaper coring costs, hopefully this won't be allowed to happen) one cannot deny it does help tall as well.

1 I assume you are talking about the newe peace deal. I fully agree, though i was talking about the concentrate dev button for your own state
2 This could be right. but why make a vassal, that is unfriendly towards you, when you can just take dev in the peace deal?
3 For that you really have to do some math to see what is more efficient. And since you can only use it once every 50 years it does not matter too much over the entire game. I think, this button is a major noob trap, for newer players to destroy dev/ mana in =(
4 In this i see it working maybe. you just state your home region and make the rest trade companies. but I am unsure if that makes your nation stronger or not.


Though for role playing purposes it is great. you can now build your colonial GB with a metropolis London and high dev british provinces.

 

[Dsingis]

This sounds so AMAZING! This is really going to change how tall play works. I mean, I have recently tried for memes and laughter to play the glorious world city of Ulm, just holding Ulm and nothing else but vassals. I managed to get to over 100 dev on that city, but it was very expensive. With that feature, I can do that again, and concentrate development of my vassals. Since I own just one city, 80% of that goes directly to that I assume?
Amazing, gonna try the World City of Ulm again, but with that patch it will probably hit 500 or so development.

 

[Chazb5046]

This honestly sounds amazing! The first thing I'm going to do is start a new campaign as England; consolidate all the mainland territory before selling it off, and then pillage the entirety of Europe. Never mind the AE; what are they gonna do, invade me?

I usually reach some point in every campaign where I'm content with my borders (typically quite early, to be honest), so this mechanic gives a great incentive to keep waging wars!

Same! This is gonna be great ! No one can get past the wooden wall.
Gonna be some great options for a Norse country in Europe as well

 

[Metz]

How about when you take the development, you get the development as free points to put wherever you want? That way you can direct them to your most valuable provinces as opposed to your capital.

 

[Bandua_of_Gallaecia]

yea thats why I said it depends on how your defintion of playing tall is. If you say its all about the capital, you are correct it helps. Though government cap on playing tall is usually not an issue except for prussia and pirates. And government cap is just a number anyhow. You can easily be 50% above your limit and still have a net profit in early game. In late game it really does not matter at all.

I think, this button is a major noob trap, for newer players to destroy dev in =D

1 I assume you are talking about the newe peace deal. I fully agree, though i was talking about the concentrate dev button for your own state
2 This could be right. but why make a vassal, that is unfriendly towards you, when you can just take dev in the peace deal?
3 For that you really have to do some math to see what is more efficient. And since you can only use it once every 50 years it does not matter too much over the entire game. I think, this button is a major noob trap, for newer players to destroy dev/ mana in =(
4 In this i see it working maybe. you just state your home region and make the rest trade companies. but I am unsure if that makes your nation stronger or not.

Well, if it was a worthwhile mechanic on all situations 100% of the time it wouldn't be well designed mechanic would it?

In point number 2 you have to make a choice: Maximize profit or vassal loyalty?

In point number 3 you could make the math if you are into min-maxing or you can just do it based on RP (your example of GB is a good one) and you can use rules of thumb like i usually do (or you can not do it at all).

In point number 4, again this is more of a playstyle decision of how you are building your Empire and not a universal situation every play will necessarily face itself with.

 

[ianchen12345]

Wait wait wait i'm so confused. Why would you want to do that? ( I guess you could use it on your vassals....) But why would you sabotage your own land and gain less back in total??? Would this increase/decrease government capacity? Since it's initially just a territory (you only use 25% gov cav for it) but when you move the development to the capital it uses 100% gov cav) So this would result in a net gain in Gov Capacity usage?

I guess... it might be useful either in Single Player when you know you will lose those lands to coalition or in Multiplayer? Besides these two scenarios, i don't think people will ever use this function.

Wait a sec, does this dev increase help spawn institutions???

 

[edwardlego]

"improved by the wealth drawn from the hinterland"

you gave us a clue already about this

 

[Vohen]

This seems like an interesting idea on paper, but it looks waaaay too unbalanced.

Taking 16 development from a 43 dev state?
That's well over a third of the total!
This means you can turn literally anywhere into Siberian wastelands by 1600.
This leaves me with several questions:

Does development from theses states recover over time?
Does the AI even try to dev them back?
At the very least the affected area should get massive dev cost reduction to compensate.

How trigger happy is the AI with this feature?
Will we see another Golden Century situation where they kept expelling minorities and stuff like Spanish Naples and English Ireland kept popping up?
I sincerely hope not.

Is there any drawback whatsoever in using this button in your own land?
The way it is, I could see it being very much worth it to use this without restriction in wrong culture/religion provinces as soon as you get them, turning any such land into 1/1/1 wastelands in 150 years.
At the very least, this should create unholy amounts of unrest, perhaps even a stab hit, give AE even if at peace or some other cost to prevent you from using this like that.

It's nice that it gives you a reason to go to war even when you don't want to take land, but it would be much better to buff the "humiliate rival" cb instead.
Something like having "show strength" warsscore cost reduced from 100% to maybe 60 or 75%, while making it impossible to take it alongside any other peace term, and buffing the power you get from 100 each to maybe 150.

I was hesitant to buy Leviathan as it is, but this convinced me 100% to wait a few months after release to see how the AI handles this mechanics.
Needless to say, this worries me a lot.