Capital City Development

[User4035]

There have been many complaints regarding development, one of which was that OPM's make super cities while places like London, Paris, Milan, don't. Which is the opposite of history. ...you can diverge from history a bit but not go exact opposite.

Anyway, lots of suggestions out there for sweeping changes, but mine is just a small adjustment.

Change the Capital City -20% cost for development to be -1% per province you directly control.

So if you control 20 provinces then your capital is at -20%. And since this can keep increasing it has potential to keep up with the rising cost of your capital getting big.
Also it represents your Empire funneling everything to your capital region, which is historically accurate.


You could also add reduction for centers of trade based on how many other centers of trade you control if your capital is a center of trade or something. This also represents and empire or trade republic funneling its resources back to the captial.

 

[frolix42]

I suspect the reason small nations massively develop is because they have fewer MP drains, they have fewer provinces to develop, they tend to develop the same provinces over and over again. For example, Ulm and France generate roughly the same amount of MPs. If France and Ulm spend the same # of points on development over the course of the game, Ulm is going to be ridiculously overdeveloped. So the-20% Capital Development cost has something to do with it, but not all. If you remove this bonus for OPMs, I suspect it will not have a large effect on their (over)development.

It's pretty common for the player to get over 100 provinces, which would stack to -100% development cost for large nations. You would have to have some hard cap or scaling to make that a workable buff.

 

[Woifee]

Didn't the community ask for a way to grow tall instead of wide? Now tje people wants for big nations also to grow tall. This would cancel any way to grow tall as small nation.

 

[rizla7]

super cities? bit of an exaggeration i believe. why shouldn't they get a buff anyways? they're weak as is.

anyways, not sure i understand the point of this thread, except that: yes, smaller nations do have more MP/gold to spend on provinces. that's why vassalizing is a good option, they develop, you annex...

 

[BFTeixeira]

If you want to abstract funneling to the capital then you also increase dev increase cost in every non-capital provinces. In your example, -20% for the capital and +20% for all others. Otherwise is just another major buff for big nations and make it easier to snowball.

 

[Sian]

Didn't the community ask for a way to grow tall instead of wide? Now tje people wants for big nations also to grow tall. This would cancel any way to grow tall as small nation.

Its not that people wants big nations to grow tall as well, its that the AI fairly consistently grows too tall too fast with OPMs

 

[BFTeixeira]

Its not that people wants big nations to grow tall as well, its that the AI fairly consistently grows too tall too fast with OPMs

That's not the OP's suggestion. He's suggesting lower the dev costs in your capital related to the number of provinces of the nation. That's in line with wanting to grow wide AND tall.

 

[BrokenSky]

I suspect the reason small nations massively develop is because they have fewer MP drains, they have fewer provinces to develop, they tend to develop the same provinces over and over again. For example, Ulm and France generate roughly the same amount of MPs. If France and Ulm spend the same # of points on development over the course of the game, Ulm is going to be ridiculously overdeveloped. So the-20% Capital Development cost has something to do with it, but not all. If you remove this bonus for OPMs, I suspect it will not have a large effect on their (over)development.

It's pretty common for the player to get over 100 provinces, which would stack to -100% development cost for large nations. You would have to have some hard cap or scaling to make that a workable buff.

To be fair that's gonna be -100% +20% since you have (for example) 20 development which increases the cost. I see your point though; some formular which starts out fairly linear and then tends to 100% as provinces tend to infinite would be better.

 

[User4035]

That's not the OP's suggestion. He's suggesting lower the dev costs in your capital related to the number of provinces of the nation. That's in line with wanting to grow wide AND tall.

It's about realism as best can be had with the mechanics that are there.

I don't really care about wide and tall as some kind of win con.
I like EU4 for its historical simulation that is also fun.

 

[Woifee]

The game is as much a historical simulation as Warcraft 3.

 

[BrokenSky]

The game is as much a historical simulation as Warcraft 3.

Are you serious? That's objectively wrong.

 

[IHateThisCo]

I like this. I also still support putting a cap on province development based on admin tech level. I am actually okay with a very large power being able to increase the capital by 1 dev point each admin tech level for very reduced prices. By the time it reaches Paris or London levels, it will still be costing some MP.

Maybe there should just be a minimum development cost equal to the current development. Exactly like the coring cost minimums. So even at -100% or more, it still costs something. For all I know, there actually is a minimum, I've never gotten my development cost below about 20 point cost.

 

[BFTeixeira]

It's about realism as best can be had with the mechanics that are there.

I don't really care about wide and tall as some kind of win con.
I like EU4 for its historical simulation that is also fun.

What's realistic about bigger nations (number of provinces) having larger and more developed capitals? That would mean that by the end of the XVI century, Moskva should be by far the more developed province of them all. Is that realistic?

 

[freedavebrown]

I think the problem is that nothing was added that makes the AI covet the new mega provinces. If uou wanna be an OPM and build some mega city you should expect your neighbors to come in and try to conquer your ridiculously rich province.

Seems like they added a feature without changing that aspect of AI behavior towards the feature.

Just need to add a scaling -X (covets your rich city) malus for neighbors of provinces over 25-30 development.