Concentrate Development - Is It Always Worth It

[Damedius]

I notice that most people that play EU 4 say that you should always concentrate development, but is it always worth it?

If you are going to state that land and it's rich land with great trade goods, isn't counter productive to concentrate development? You are trading 9 development for 2 or 3 in your capital. I can see if it's poor land or you never intend to state that land, concentrating development. However a lot of the time at the beginning of the game when you are taking valuable territory that will be stated and an important part of your economic base, it seems wrong.

 

[Jespoke]

I don't think many people are saying that anymore now that it has been nerfed. You can still sometimes use it to lower coring cost of land you don't really care about, especially when you are moving your capital around as Ethiopia or Mewar.

 

[Nostalgium]

Like @Jespoke says, it's more situational now than it used to be. It really comes down to how important ADM is to you: If you're playing in a relatively restrained fashion, like the HRE or similar, you can probably make do, but when conquering huge swathes of rich territory as part of a bigger conquest - say Mughals rolling into India - the ADM saved on coring might be more valuable to you than the wealth of the province. After all, the sheer quantity of provinces you're aiming for conquering in the (relatively) short term will vastly make up for it.

 

[Blizzrd33]

You're generally correct in that if you intend to state the province, concentrating development is probably not the right call. However there are some situational exceptions that I can think of:

• It's worth it if you need dev in your capital such as for the first Age goal to get your capital to 30 dev.
• It also helps if you need to rush integration of a vassal (e.g. if you have a time limited bonus such as Loyal Subjects and would otherwise not complete integration within the time period).

 

[MachopPower69]

It's as useful as Sarig Yogir, so it is a joke.

 

[Ferdinand_Bardamu]

I feel pain when I see people concentrate land that is in their same culture group or home trade node just so that it's "cheaper to core".

I'm a wide player, I'm not saying this from any tall perspective, you do not want to diminish development in the provinces that are your base.

I've never used concentrate development other than for the Ayutthaya mission that requires you to do so.

 

[necro84]

I feel pain when I see people concentrate land that is in their same culture group or home trade node just so that it's "cheaper to core".

I'm a wide player, I'm not saying this from any tall perspective, you do not want to diminish development in the provinces that are your base.

I've never used concentrate development other than for the Ayutthaya mission that requires you to do so.

It's not just cheaper coring but taking more land - you can take more land and transfer some of the dev to your capital to still have 100 OE or take land you wouldn't be able to core otherwise because of lack of admin.
Sometimes it helps with gov capacity - the capital state doesn't need it.
It can be helpful with religious and cultural conversion, even when provinces are your culture group it doesn't mean you want to be that culture for the entire game

I'm not saying you should always do it but never doing it is equally as bad for me.

 

[Ferdinand_Bardamu]

It's not just cheaper coring but taking more land - you can take more land and transfer some of the dev to your capital to still have 100 OE or take land you wouldn't be able to core otherwise because of lack of admin.
Sometimes it helps with gov capacity - the capital state doesn't need it.
It can be helpful with religious and cultural conversion, even when provinces are your culture group it doesn't mean you want to be that culture for the entire game

I'm not saying you should always do it but never doing it is equally as bad for me.

Well to be honest I just don't like the feature.

If I want to burn land I'll play as a horde or exploit development. I consider 'Concentrate Development' up there with Expel Minorities for features I'd rather forget exist.

 

[cywang86]

Don't forget they've also changed the capital movement formula, so as long as you're not big, it can still be decently cheap to move your capital around the Capital Area, so you can turn every province in the Area into 50 dev that cost 1% GC.

This also puts a better use of Centralize State that takes reform progress and ADM to reduce GC cost in the entire Area, if just doing it to your Capital Area doesn't satisfy you.

The formula for capital movement is currently (difference of dev between origin and destination) * (national dev) / 1000 + distance. So even if you're 500 in dev, the ADM cost can still be 125, and allow you to shift the useless freshly conquered devs in wrong culture territories to primary culture capital provinces while reducing the total ADM coring and GC cost.

If you're Ethiopia that plan on keeping the government reform for -75% movement cost, because why not, it can be even more ridiculous. You can then swap to the better reform whenever you're bored of the mechanic.