I'm a huge fan of the new development system, and I'm not surprised it's still a little 'finding its feet' (as it's a whole new way of doing things). Anyways, here's an idea in case it helps:
Basis for idea:
- Development is easy in a fairly undeveloped area, but getting meaningful returns past a certain point becomes more and more expensive. Basically, the idea of diminishing marginal returns to development, but because development is in fixed quantities (and likely more easily understood this way) this is proxied by higher costs for development past a certain point. This would be for each of the three types of development in each province. This also allows for a province that is well developed in one area to actually make it easier to develop in others, up to a point (again, this is more historically plausible than the current model - at the moment, having a large city with lots of basetax makes it harder to get troops from that area, which was the reverse of what tended to happen historically).
- As far as I can tell, this would support the development of far more balanced 'cities' in a more historically plausible way, while also steering
Actual idea:
- Each of the three types of development in a province has its cost worked out individually. You could change the display of development to show the cost for the type of development next to the development level for that type (with details in a tooltip).
- The cost of development starts off relatively low, and stays low to a certain point (this should vary by terrain), before becoming increasingly expensive at an increasing rate.
- A high level of development in one area actually reduces the overall development cost for the province - so say you've got a 15 (tax) -15 (production) - 5 (manpower) province, it would be cheaper to develop the next point of manpower here than in a province that was 3 - 3 - 5 (but much, much more expensive to develop the next points of tax or production). This models the benefits of large cities to different types of activities, and will encourage the development of more balanced, less 'gamey' cities.
- development costs are still affected by terrain, so it's still harder to develop a huge city in the mountains than it is on farmlands.
For example:
A scale of development costs - scale is to give an idea of how it progresses, actual numbers only suggestive (they're probably a bit high). The idea is 1-5 (or so) development is fairly easy, 6-10 not crazy hard, 11-15 getting difficult, and then anything after that very expensive, and more so. It's not a straight geometric function though, more one with a bunch of stages, but an overall trend of diminishing marginal returns (through higher costs) of development. The suggestion doesn't need to follow this pattern though - a simpler, general increasing function that was a bit more geometric than the current one would do the trick
.
1-3 40
4 42 (+2)
5 45 (+3)
6 51 (next tier - + 6)
7 58 (+7)
8 64 (+8)
9 73 (+9)
10 83 (+10)
11 99 (next tier +16)
12 117 (+18)
13 137 (+20)
14 159 (+22)
15 182 (+23)
16 212 (next tier - +30)
...and so on.
Random development-related ideas thrown in here because I don't want to spam the suggestions forum:
- More development-cost related events would go well - for example: 'noble supports development in local area, 20% cheaper development in province X for 12 months' or 'capital dries up, development stifled, 20% higher cost of development in province X for 12 months'. Capital dries-up, for example, could be far more likely when the nation is in high levels of debt. Noble supports development could be random (and perhaps linked to Govermnent type, with different but similar events for republics), and you could have others (Capitalist supports development, linked to the economics ideas, for example).
Basis for idea:
- Development is easy in a fairly undeveloped area, but getting meaningful returns past a certain point becomes more and more expensive. Basically, the idea of diminishing marginal returns to development, but because development is in fixed quantities (and likely more easily understood this way) this is proxied by higher costs for development past a certain point. This would be for each of the three types of development in each province. This also allows for a province that is well developed in one area to actually make it easier to develop in others, up to a point (again, this is more historically plausible than the current model - at the moment, having a large city with lots of basetax makes it harder to get troops from that area, which was the reverse of what tended to happen historically).
- As far as I can tell, this would support the development of far more balanced 'cities' in a more historically plausible way, while also steering
Actual idea:
- Each of the three types of development in a province has its cost worked out individually. You could change the display of development to show the cost for the type of development next to the development level for that type (with details in a tooltip).
- The cost of development starts off relatively low, and stays low to a certain point (this should vary by terrain), before becoming increasingly expensive at an increasing rate.
- A high level of development in one area actually reduces the overall development cost for the province - so say you've got a 15 (tax) -15 (production) - 5 (manpower) province, it would be cheaper to develop the next point of manpower here than in a province that was 3 - 3 - 5 (but much, much more expensive to develop the next points of tax or production). This models the benefits of large cities to different types of activities, and will encourage the development of more balanced, less 'gamey' cities.
- development costs are still affected by terrain, so it's still harder to develop a huge city in the mountains than it is on farmlands.
For example:
A scale of development costs - scale is to give an idea of how it progresses, actual numbers only suggestive (they're probably a bit high). The idea is 1-5 (or so) development is fairly easy, 6-10 not crazy hard, 11-15 getting difficult, and then anything after that very expensive, and more so. It's not a straight geometric function though, more one with a bunch of stages, but an overall trend of diminishing marginal returns (through higher costs) of development. The suggestion doesn't need to follow this pattern though - a simpler, general increasing function that was a bit more geometric than the current one would do the trick
.1-3 40
4 42 (+2)
5 45 (+3)
6 51 (next tier - + 6)
7 58 (+7)
8 64 (+8)
9 73 (+9)
10 83 (+10)
11 99 (next tier +16)
12 117 (+18)
13 137 (+20)
14 159 (+22)
15 182 (+23)
16 212 (next tier - +30)
...and so on.
Random development-related ideas thrown in here because I don't want to spam the suggestions forum:
- More development-cost related events would go well - for example: 'noble supports development in local area, 20% cheaper development in province X for 12 months' or 'capital dries up, development stifled, 20% higher cost of development in province X for 12 months'. Capital dries-up, for example, could be far more likely when the nation is in high levels of debt. Noble supports development could be random (and perhaps linked to Govermnent type, with different but similar events for republics), and you could have others (Capitalist supports development, linked to the economics ideas, for example).
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