Administrative Regions - Replacement for Continents

[VampireBoot]

Since wiz is still looking for a good way to replace the continents system, here's my suggestion:

Instead of determining distant overseas using continents (and the associated distance and capital connection exceptions), use an "administrative region" system which divides the world into smaller regions (e.g. British Isles, Scandinavia, France, Northern Italy, etc). Provinces outside of your capital region, any adjacent regions, and any regions adjacent to those (so two regions away from your capital region) would be considered distant overseas.

Example of how to divide the map: Link

The white lines indicate regions which are adjacent to each other even if their provinces are not. This is a rough map that can use a lot of balancing and polish, but it gives a good example of how this system can work out. For example, this is what your "home continent" would look like for a country ruled from Constantinople. Administrative regions need to be balanced so that most regions are somewhat comparable to each other in terms of desirability. If you want to make them easier to balance, you can even divide the regions smaller and have the home continent reach three regions away instead of two.

With this system, you would be allowed to freely move your capital across continents, but with a scaling cost based on how far you move it. Moving within the same region would only cost 100 adm, but moving across regions costs an additional 100 adm per region that you're moving across (so adjacent region = 200, next one over = 300, etc), to a maximum of 400 adm. Since there are no region connections between the old and new worlds, moving between them always costs the full 400 adm. In addition, only allow moving capital once per ten years to prevent "move here, move away" exploits. The cost and cooldown discourage moving too far from your starting position without completely preventing creative actions.

Advantages of this system:

1. No longer need the "close to capital, not overseas" rule, which feels too arbitrary and inelegant.
2. No longer need the "connected to capital, not overseas" rule, which was always full of wonky issues. For example, Ottomans can currently take India as distant overseas first for cheaper coring, then conquer a path to connect the land and make it all home continent. Similarly, places like Panama and Sinai are ridiculously important to ensure capital connection across continents. This system avoids all of those issues.
3. In relation to the previous point, we can now have a Strait of Gibraltar without Spain making all of Africa home continent. In my example setup, the Castile and Portugal would consider North Africa and the Sahara region home continent, but West Africa and everything beyond would still be distant overseas. A different region setup in Africa can restrict it even more if need be.
4. Provinces that are distant from your capital, but happen to be on the same continent, are no longer magically protected from distant overseas. Sweden cannot administer Iberia efficiently, and Genoa's Crimean colonies are treated as exactly that.
5. Administrative regions are very malleable to balance changes. Continents have cultural associations that make it very difficult to e.g. partition Asia because it is too large. Administrative regions, on the other hand, don't have any such associations and can be shaped as balance dictates.
6. Massive land empires are balanced a bit more, since after a certain point you run out of home continent provinces. No combination of regions can match the might of a massive Eurasian Empire that relies upon capital connections.
7. Gradual cost for capital movement is less arbitrarily restrictive than the current "can't move capital to different continent unless only one province left" requirement.