2.)Make it possible to change the culture until a population level of 5000 inhabitans. Will make for much more competition and allow other powers to attack the Portugese/Spanish empire lateron.
I kinda like the idea proposed earlier of changing both culture & religion by sending a missionary to a non-European minus-5000-population colony.
In fact, I already use that rule in my own games by editing the save file.
4.) Make Mercantilism and option through increasing production when choosing it as less competition strengthened the industry. Makes free trade less a no-brainer.
Great idea! Though I think there should be a similar advantage for going free trade. How about +10% Production when going full Mercantilist, and +5% Trade (only 5 since players usually gain more money from trade than production; doubling the production bonus should level an inbalance between the slider options) for going full Free Trade. Or perhaps double it to +20% production and +10% trade.
To make the Naval-Land slider balanced again, I would then suggest completely removing the 10% Trade bonus and malus for Naval/Land.
To add a new feature as replacement I would rework this rule added in one of the betas:
- The income penalty on Overseas provinces are now modified by the land/naval slider from 5-15% for areas with ports.
How about this:
If you go fully Naval, you get an income bonus of 10% or 20% for ALL coastal provinces (provinces with a port).
And the opposite for full Land: 10% or 20% income bonus for all non-coastal provinces.
This would balance the slider again I think. It would be beneficial for countries like England, the Netherlands, Denmark and Portugal to go Naval, while for continental countries like France, Russia and Poland it would be logical to be a land power. Now I think everyone goes Naval no matter what.
