• 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.

Quaade

Field Marshal
70 Badges
Mar 28, 2007
3.716
1.978
  • Hearts of Iron IV Sign-up
  • Cities: Skylines Deluxe Edition
  • Europa Universalis IV: El Dorado
  • Europa Universalis IV: Pre-order
  • Crusader Kings II: Way of Life
  • Europa Universalis IV: Common Sense
  • Crusader Kings II: Horse Lords
  • Cities: Skylines - After Dark
  • Europa Universalis IV: Cossacks
  • Crusader Kings II: Conclave
  • Cities: Skylines - Snowfall
  • Europa Universalis IV: Mare Nostrum
  • Stellaris
  • Cities: Skylines
  • Stellaris Sign-up
  • Hearts of Iron IV: Cadet
  • Crusader Kings II: Reapers Due
  • Europa Universalis IV: Rights of Man
  • Stellaris: Leviathans Story Pack
  • Cities: Skylines - Natural Disasters
  • Hearts of Iron IV: Together for Victory
  • Crusader Kings II: Monks and Mystics
  • Stellaris - Path to Destruction bundle
  • Cities: Skylines - Mass Transit
  • Europa Universalis IV: Mandate of Heaven
  • Victoria 3 Sign Up
  • Europa Universalis IV: Conquest of Paradise
  • Crusader Kings II: Charlemagne
  • Crusader Kings II: Legacy of Rome
  • Crusader Kings II: The Old Gods
  • Crusader Kings II: Rajas of India
  • Crusader Kings II: The Republic
  • Crusader Kings II: Sons of Abraham
  • Crusader Kings II: Sunset Invasion
  • Crusader Kings II: Sword of Islam
  • Europa Universalis III
  • Divine Wind
  • Europa Universalis IV
  • Europa Universalis IV: Art of War
  • Crusader Kings II
  • Europa Universalis IV: Wealth of Nations
  • Europa Universalis IV: Call to arms event
  • Impire
  • The Kings Crusade
  • Majesty 2 Collection
  • Europa Universalis IV: Res Publica
  • Victoria 2
  • Victoria 2: A House Divided
  • Victoria 2: Heart of Darkness
  • War of the Roses
Currently technology and institution spread is off, and goes with PDX relying on static over dynamic mechanics. To embrace an institution and remove penalty you have to either wait, dev up or pay up. In that regard it´s clear that dev up is broken since it creates paris-like provinces in the middle of nowhere, not because of a large sprawling empire that would argueable be the reason for it but for AI having spare monarch points to spend so they can embrace institutions.

So... Basically there are a few bigger issues with how institutions are handled:
  1. Provinces need to have institutions fully embraced before taking any effect (okayish, but explain in a bit).
  2. Deving up only benefits locally, not nationwide.
  3. No benefits for having multiple provinces "influencing" one province.
  4. No benefit for having 50% embraced in country while not having it embraced nationally.

1) This issue is okayish, since it makes sort of sense, but then again. How come a province with 99% insti doesn´t do anything to the province next to it? This also furthers the issue of being forced to dev up a single province to extreme heights simply in order to trigger the spread. Going from 3-7 dev province you need to develop it 35 times, especially if you don´t have it spreading "naturally".

But what if it started to spread slowly simply because it´s already present, very slowly mind you, and started to spread very slowly into it´s neigbouring provinces at... say 50 % and could only "aid" up until half it´s value, so up to 25 %. First off it would not require you to dev up completely in order to spread it slowly, you could but that would be cost-benefit choice.

What if spread started very, very slow and increased as more ppl in province embraced it and "rubbed off" on the others. Deving up early would mean it would tick up faster earlier and start spreading to a few individuals in the neighbouring provinces, slowly... Of course this would mean that scale to dev should be tweaked so that it´s a bit easier with lower dev provinces and a bit harder with high dev, but still benefits from having high dev provinces since they would still spread faster by proximity.

2) By implementing a "per province" system the 50% mark is neglected even though de facto 50% of all dev have been embraced, but not by province basis. This furthers the dev up tactic since you need to dev up at least one province to be able to embrace anything, perhaps even 1-2 more to get past the 10 % mark, even though all of your provinces have it past 50% anyway, meaning 50% of your population already embrace it.

This way you don´t benefit at all from spreading out dev, but are forced into concentrating those 35 devs into 1 province, which also makes AI dev up only in capitol and doesn´t benefit AI from spreading them out. I can´t be the only one tired of seeing Paris-level in Madagascar for no other apparent reason than spare monarch points. This would require a rework of how institution spread is recoignized but would make the system more dynamic and sensible since it would count your entire dev vs dev currently embraced.

3) When you have 5 provinces surrounding that last province, there are no benefits from it. From a standpoint that it would spread exponentially as more ppl embrace new ideas they would also benefit from having more provinces influencing it. Of course this would also mean that spread per adjacent provinces should be tweaked, but would add a nice snowball effect when more and more provinces touch the same province and you would again have the benefit of spreading out dev a little (along with spread happening at, say 50% instead of 100%).

4) Why on earth must it be this static?... You have to wait or pay to remove the tech penalty... To put it up in extremes... When 50% of your provinces have embraced insti, you still occur 50% penalty... Why on earth does your ruler only listen to the stone axe men in caves when the other half walks around with laser cannons... Why doesn´t you benefit from having 50% in your entire nation embraced?

By being more dynamic it would mean that 50 % embraced would mean 50% of penalty, so in effect you would still have 25% penalty while benefitting from half your country not being cavemen. You could then be presented with a real choice... do I pay the 25% or do I wait until it´s cheaper... Currently you are forced to save up ducats, take loans or corruption since you don´t benefit at all for having 10% or 50% embraced, you still suffer the exact same penalty as nations in the far east that has 0% spread in any provinces... Does that makes sense?

Conclusion: By making institutions spread slower and benefit you earlier you get a more dynamic system with more cost-benefit choices than currently. You would actually be able to prevent the spread to asia more easily since spread is slower and you are not forced to embrace it as early as now, 50% of 20% penalty would be 10%... Do I wait and suffer the penalty or embrace it risking it spreading faster to Ming, and pay the added cost to stay ahead and let embracing happen naturally instead. Or do I need the edge against France and have to embrace it to tech up faster...

As my group pointed out, it could be neat if this was accompanied by a mini-westernization... Where paying to embrace would spread insti faster, but events would happen until it had been fully embraced... At lower levels they would be mostly negative with public backlash to the new ideas, but at later levels when the minority are cavemen they impact you less (wow... again a cost-benefit choice, do I wait to make the transition easier or do I do it now to get an edge with a chance of crippling my nation).

Sry for the tag @Trin Tragula I know you are the map-guy, but I know you are active and should have easier access to letting this slip into the office than me. These are solutions that I believe are sensible and makes more interesting playing with greater strategic depth. I´m just tired of sitting down and trying to enjoy EU4 (for 4k hours until now) and being bummed by a static system that only seems to feed the dev-up tactic that the devs also seems to dislike. I really did enjoy EU4 and still love it to some extent, but really need it to make more sense to become truly enjoyable again.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and embracing it by pay, would not remove the penalty instantly but the faster spread would make it tickle down faster :)
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0