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First of all, I very much like your reworked treatment of progress. Some very good thinking here. 
I also generally like the fact that being at war slows down (especially) your culture progress speed but boost your army and navy progress.
I would like to suggest a few additional features, though:
I would like to see an allowance made for acquiring an advance from another, more advanced realm. And ideally, this should not be allowed as a diplomatic action, as in “buying” a technology, but rather as an event. When civilisations have good relations, there also is some cultural exchange, and the less advanced civilisation starts to adopt the ideas of the more advanced civilisation. That’s a natural process, and I think it should be reflected by events with a “mean time to happen” influenced by several factors:
Geographical Proximity: Civilisations that have a common land border or border on the same ocean region have a higher rate of traffic between them and thus a stronger exchange of ideas.
Cultural Proximity: Civilisations with the same culture and/or religion are more on a common ground than those of different ones, and have conversely an easier time exchanging ideas.
Relations: Civilisations with good relations have closer dealings and thus a stronger exchange of ideas. I’d suggest minimum relations of +100 for the event to fire at all, with increased chances for better relations and tributary relationship.
Open-mindedness: Civilisations that have more liberal, open-minded ideologies (i.e. national ideas) are likelier to adopt foreign, new-fangled ideas. The settings of the sliders for Protectionism, Censorship, Militarism and Piety should all have an effect on the likelihood of the event. If censorship, militarism and piety seem strange choices I’d like to say that the first one reflects how uninhibited new ideas can spread, and that the latter two have a connection to how conservative a people is and thus how ready or reluctant to adopt new ideas.
Then, and on an entirely different note, I would really like to see some possibility for the player of putting minor emphasis on one area of research at the expense of others – if not overall, then at least in the army/navy branch of research. I would like to be able to either develop sea power at the expense of land power, or land power at the expense of sea power, or to develop both equally.
I also generally like the fact that being at war slows down (especially) your culture progress speed but boost your army and navy progress.I would like to suggest a few additional features, though:
I would like to see an allowance made for acquiring an advance from another, more advanced realm. And ideally, this should not be allowed as a diplomatic action, as in “buying” a technology, but rather as an event. When civilisations have good relations, there also is some cultural exchange, and the less advanced civilisation starts to adopt the ideas of the more advanced civilisation. That’s a natural process, and I think it should be reflected by events with a “mean time to happen” influenced by several factors:
Geographical Proximity: Civilisations that have a common land border or border on the same ocean region have a higher rate of traffic between them and thus a stronger exchange of ideas.
Cultural Proximity: Civilisations with the same culture and/or religion are more on a common ground than those of different ones, and have conversely an easier time exchanging ideas.
Relations: Civilisations with good relations have closer dealings and thus a stronger exchange of ideas. I’d suggest minimum relations of +100 for the event to fire at all, with increased chances for better relations and tributary relationship.
Open-mindedness: Civilisations that have more liberal, open-minded ideologies (i.e. national ideas) are likelier to adopt foreign, new-fangled ideas. The settings of the sliders for Protectionism, Censorship, Militarism and Piety should all have an effect on the likelihood of the event. If censorship, militarism and piety seem strange choices I’d like to say that the first one reflects how uninhibited new ideas can spread, and that the latter two have a connection to how conservative a people is and thus how ready or reluctant to adopt new ideas.
Then, and on an entirely different note, I would really like to see some possibility for the player of putting minor emphasis on one area of research at the expense of others – if not overall, then at least in the army/navy branch of research. I would like to be able to either develop sea power at the expense of land power, or land power at the expense of sea power, or to develop both equally.
Very interesting approach. I've pondered over something along those lines for EUIII, now it seems to me this could work very well for EUR.
I agree, cultural exchange via events would make perfect sense. The MTTH modifiers you've listed seem logical as well, so these events will probably look very much like you picture them.
One idea is to link army and navy size percentage to triggered modifiers. A nation with a small navy and a big army would be considered as having put "minor emphasis" on the army, giving a boost to army progress at the expense of navy progress. Having a small army and a big navy would give the opposite effect.
Descartes said:
This could present an issue when you get your arse whipped in a war. Perhaps an event with three choices (bias army/navy, no bias) or a law/decision that you can make would be better?
I’m glad that I was able to contribute a useful suggestion.I agree, cultural exchange via events would make perfect sense. The MTTH modifiers you've listed seem logical as well, so these events will probably look very much like you picture them.
Rather embarassingly, I have changed my mind since the previous post.
oIn it, I suggested minimum relations of +100 as prerequisite for cultural exchange. Now I am quite convinced that this is rubbish and that the real indispensible prerequisite should be geographical proximity. As long as two provinces share a land border or border the same ocean region, cultural exchange should be possible, no matter what the relations; if there is no such neighbourhodd, exchange should not be possible at all.
If neighbourhood isn’t a prerequisite this will mean that even remote barbarian provinces will adopt the higher culture of some Mediterranean ally of them as long as they have good relations with them – not quite what really happened, as evidenced by the good relations of the east Alpine Celts with the Romans from the earliest times; in spite of that, these Celts did not adopt Roman ways. Proximity is certainly the single most important factor for cultural exchange, leading to a spread like ripples in a pond instead of in leaps and bounds.
Relations on the other hand should hardly be a prerequisite. As long as cultures are at all in contact with each other – and even relations –200 neighbouring cultures certainly are – there is bound to be some exchange of idea. For game purposes, though, one might want to make relations of no worse than –150 or even –100 a prerequisite for the cultural spread event.
But that’s of course entirely up to you. Just letting you know that I have reconsidered, and why.
Geographical proximity would make more sense in this time frame than political relations.