AI Jacking Up Dev Too Much in Mid-Late Game

[fawcv]

Forgot to include this one in my first thread

Don't know if this is intentional or not, but starting from around say 1550s, the AI starts to jack up the province dev to insane amounts. Each province has atleast 15 dev. By 1600, Silesia had a collective dev of about 80. Opole alone had 31. Not sure if this is applicable to other continents since I usually play in Europe, but as time passes, I can't expand anywhere because if I take even 3 provinces who just so happen to have 13 something dev, the entirety of Europe gets into a coalition. I can just "expand somewhere else," but what if my mission tree makes me own certain provinces that are coincidentally high dev which I can't own due to the aforementioned coalitions or because the nation owning them has a ludicrous amount of troops due to all of their provinces being high dev despite being twice as small as me (as an example.) If I can't occupy those certain provinces, then I am essentially locked out of the mission tree. I am not using any mods that could conceivably mess with dev, and am wondering how to mediate this issue.

Thank you for your time

 

[TheMeInTeam]

How much development by AI is "too much", and why?

 

[Opanashc]

Managing AE, truce-juggling, vassalizing - there are plenty of ways to go around it.

 

[Astalanian]

Forgot to include this one in my first thread

Don't know if this is intentional or not, but starting from around say 1550s, the AI starts to jack up the province dev to insane amounts. Each province has atleast 15 dev. By 1600, Silesia had a collective dev of about 80. Opole alone had 31. Not sure if this is applicable to other continents since I usually play in Europe, but as time passes, I can't expand anywhere because if I take even 3 provinces who just so happen to have 13 something dev, the entirety of Europe gets into a coalition. I can just "expand somewhere else," but what if my mission tree makes me own certain provinces that are coincidentally high dev which I can't own due to the aforementioned coalitions or because the nation owning them has a ludicrous amount of troops due to all of their provinces being high dev despite being twice as small as me (as an example.) If I can't occupy those certain provinces, then I am essentially locked out of the mission tree. I am not using any mods that could conceivably mess with dev, and am wondering how to mediate this issue.

I made a similar thread two days ago. Nice to see i'm not the only one.

Am i the only one bothered by the AI developing 20 times each province now ?

I was searching for threads adressing this matter but i can't find any, so here i am, asking you. With the AI rework i was hoping a change concerning this somewhat recent AI feature wich is for me, a total pain. I am an experienced player, and...

forum.paradoxplaza.com

The game is not fun anymore passed 1650, you can't expand, it is a nightmare. And you were asking, yes it applies to the entire world, not just Europe, In my Japan game you have provinces in Africa with 30 dev all around, asia, australia with 40 dev provinces, France developped Auvergne 41 times, Lorraine is a 57 dev province. This is nuts.
We need to talk about it.

 

[YellowPress]

Forgot to include this one in my first thread

Don't know if this is intentional or not, but starting from around say 1550s, the AI starts to jack up the province dev to insane amounts.

Mid to late game ai has lots of free mana. Its bought lots of ideas making tech cheaper so once tech is met it has so much more leftover mana. Its expanded so has more advisors so has more mana. It has more mana so can dev, if its granted supremacy over the crown then diets regularly fire so dev diet missions can chain fire. Leading to lots of dev
So mid to late game is where dev blooms, just as it does for players due to leftover mana and development efficency increasing

Each province has atleast 15 dev. By 1600, Silesia had a collective dev of about 80. Opole alone had 31.

Silesia is extremely rich at the time, it has several duchies made from the original one as such, with the protestant hohenzollerns even buying one using the wealth of either hunyadi or bathory forget which. So a high dev is suitable.
It has cloth farmlands so low dev cost. It also is divided between two vassals as bohemia tends to keep the two around due to strong duchies privilege. It also has coal. So ai will start devving it long before coal is available

Not sure if this is applicable to other continents since I usually play in Europe, but as time passes,

Europe has more opms than any other region sans japan

I can't expand anywhere because if I take even 3 provinces who just so happen to have 13 something dev, the entirety of Europe gets into a coalition. I can just "expand somewhere else," but what if my mission tree makes me own certain provinces that are coincidentally high dev which I can't own due to the aforementioned coalitions or because the nation owning them has a ludicrous amount of troops due to all of their provinces being high dev despite being twice as small as me (as an example.) If I can't occupy those certain provinces, then I am essentially locked out of the mission tree. I am not using any mods that could conceivably mess with dev, and am wondering how to mediate this issue.

Thank you for your time

You have so many ways to stop coalitions
Brethren of faith, piecemeal wars, being allied to the majors that would be pissed off, brethren of the faith, using vassal cores, improve relations, influence nation, guarantee independence.
You can also just take the league war on its face, as in the case of France and Burgundy, coalition wars are very historical

 

[fawcv]

So mid to late game is where dev blooms, just as it does for players due to leftover mana and development efficency increasing

I beg to differ. I need mana to keep up on tech and ideas. I haven't ever got time or the surplus mana points to invest into devving.

 

[fawcv]

How much development by AI is "too much", and why?

Example from one of my games. They belonged to the ai at some point. The states that I started off with or the ones that I got early game, even with 5 provinces, have 30~ max.

 

[fawcv]

Small note: The insane dev causes AI to build massive armies. Problem is, I am barely getting by at the lowest settings and other hacky workarounds to have a stable FPS on my potato PC and 500K Ottomans aren't helping.

 

[YellowPress]

Example from one of my games. They belonged to the ai at some point. The states that I started off with or the ones that I got early game, even with 5 provinces, have 30~ max.

Who are you playing as to have such a diverse variety of states?

I beg to differ. I need mana to keep up on tech and ideas. I haven't ever got time or the surplus mana points to invest into devving.

What are your rulers like, what are your advisors like, what is your national focus

 

[fawcv]

Who are you playing as to have such a diverse variety of states?

What are your rulers like, what are your advisors like, what is your national focus

Doing a Hungary game. I PU'ed PC, fought off Ottos, got Naples as PU, and expanded a bit into Russia.

My problem isn't with what is happening specifically in this run, but overall, in any run. As such, I don't think it's necessary, but I usually get 10~ mana for each category.

 

[YellowPress]

Doing a Hungary game. I PU'ed PC, fought off Ottos, got Naples as PU, and expanded a bit into Russia.

Congrats on beating ottos in current patch I'll give you that

My problem isn't with what is happening specifically in this run, but overall, in any run. As such, I don't think it's necessary, but I usually get 10~ mana for each category.

Ten mana should be sufficient. Whats your corruption? Are you waiting for it to be the year a tech unlocks? How much of an institution do you eat up front? Are you using breach button all the time? Are you taking lots of unclaimed lands in peace deals? Are you getting lots of bad stab events/coring lots and lots of land yourself?

 

[fawcv]

Congrats on beating ottos in current patch I'll give you that

Ten mana should be sufficient. Whats your corruption? Are you waiting for it to be the year a tech unlocks? How much of an institution do you eat up front? Are you using breach button all the time? Are you taking lots of unclaimed lands in peace deals? Are you getting lots of bad stab events/coring lots and lots of land yourself?

Corruption 0 all the time
I am going ahead in tech when possible
Not sure about the third question, but ass I see it, I adopt an institution only when I think I can recover monetarily (i.e. I won't take an institution if I sold land or got money from an ally and was already losing money)
No
Yes (but that's mostly because I'm not far seeing when it comes to people I might fight)
No

 

[YellowPress]

Corruption 0 all the time
I am going ahead in tech when possible

By how much? You should only do mil tech or an admin tech that lets you form your tag. Mil tech you can also wait a bit if you have a truce with majors you border and are at peace

Not sure about the third question, but ass I see it, I adopt an institution only when I think I can recover monetarily (i.e. I won't take an institution if I sold land or got money from an ally and was already losing money)
No
Yes (but that's mostly because I'm not far seeing when it comes to people I might fight)
No

If you're down on dip have you been able to develop your hungarian and Serbian gold mine yet? That will likely help

 

[Elia_Valkyr]

I think that the issue here is that the development mechanics were balanced with the "dumb ai" in mind. Development is an abstract concept, but I do think that it is unrealistic that half of europe ends up at 30+ dev by the end of the game, that would mean that every province has more population/production than 1444 constantinople.

1.33 brought nice ai improvements but those improvements also have made more apparent what the flaws of the current development system are. It doesn't really make sense that if a region is full of opms, they will each develop their province like crazy while a large, prosperous nation such as castile will have to split its mana points in developing all of their provinces, resulting in a much lower average dev overall.

I'm not sure what the solution can be, but I think that development should "matter less" as the game goes on - I'm referring to things like aggressive expansion and war score cost. I know there is admin efficiency and absolutism but I think that after the ai dev changes this mechanic alone just doesn't cut it.

 

[YellowPress]

I think that the issue here is that the development mechanics were balanced with the "dumb ai" in mind. Development is an abstract concept, but I do think that it is unrealistic that half of europe ends up at 30+ dev by the end of the game, that would mean that every province has more population/production than 1444 constantinople.

1.33 brought nice ai improvements but those improvements also have made more apparent what the flaws of the current development system are. It doesn't really make sense that if a region is full of opms, they will each develop their province like crazy while a large, prosperous nation such as castile will have to split its mana points in developing all of their provinces, resulting in a much lower average dev overall.

But that's how human history works. Decentralisation brings about heightened shared development. Compare the large cities of spain with the large cities of Germany, the latter has far more. Compare southern and northern italy, the south has Naples and Palermo, thats it

I'm not sure what the solution can be, but I think that development should "matter less" as the game goes on - I'm referring to things like aggressive expansion and war score cost. I know there is admin efficiency and absolutism but I think that after the ai dev changes this mechanic alone just doesn't cut it.

It does already, because you can bite the bullet more easily as time goes on.

 

[annulen]

I know there is admin efficiency and absolutism but I think that after the ai dev changes this mechanic alone just doesn't cut it.

If this is still not sufficient for your goals, there are ideas, age bonuses and CBs that reduce war score cost,

 

[annulen]

I think biggest problems of existing development mechanic are:

• provinces in the middle of nowhere can grow as easily (or almost as easily) as important centers, provided they have appropriate terrain, and country has a good ruler and advisors;
• as development of EU4 proceeds we get more and more ways to increase mana generation, and more and more ways to reduce development cost, that can be stacked together to obtain ridiculously low development costs.

 

[Hermerico]

Compare the large cities of spain with the large cities of Germany, the latter has far more

Bad example.
Spain has a higher percentage of urban population than Germany.
The two largest cities in Spain, Madrid and Barcelona are about just as big as the two largest cities in Germany, Berlin and Hamburg, despite the fact that Germany has twice the population of Spain.

Spain is more centralised and urbanised than Germany, but Germany has a much more developed countryside while Spain has a sparse and underpopulated countryside.

 

[Nostalgium]

But that's how human history works. Decentralisation brings about heightened shared development. Compare the large cities of spain with the large cities of Germany, the latter has far more. Compare southern and northern italy, the south has Naples and Palermo, thats it

This has many more factors than simply centralization VS not. Southern Italy is more hilly, and has fewer large rivers than the north, which is dominated by the very fertile Po River valley. This allows for more food, and throughout the vast majority of human history, people have to live where the food is. If you produce more food, you sustain more people, as a general rule.

You can also see this in other centralized VS decentralized areas around the world. Population density, until very recently (historically speaking) follows food production, not centralization VS decentralization. Agriculturally productive areas around the world also tend to have higher shared development, as you say, because there's more surplus, and more people, which leads to more specialization and the ability to support more settlements throughout the regions themselves.

 

[Less2]

Dev inflation is a serious problem. The development mechanics simply don't work properly if they are actually utilized by either an intelligent player or AI that is just sitting still for most of the game clicking the dev button when they have excess mana. Everything ends up absurdly strong, province WS is ridiculous, supply limit has no way to keep up with the armies getting fielded, and so on.