Development

[holoween]

Development in its current implementation has several flaws:

1. Developing is too expensive. At 50mp/development and no good reductions compared to 10admin/development for coring (+10dip if you need to culture convert). This gap is only increased by the overall higher reductions for coring and culture converting in the ideas and tech.

2. Provinces develop too fast. In the current implementation the max development growth of a province is entirely dependant on how many mps can be spend on it by the owner. Since very small nations have a hard time spending their mps on conquering they tend to spend it all on developing with the result of weirdly high development numbers in randon regions.

3. Developing is boring. you wait for mps and then you cklick a button a few times. there is close to no planning or interesting decisionmaking involved in it.

So what would have to change to "fix" these problems?

1. Development should be cheaper. 20-25mp/development would allow for tall nations that can somewhat keep up with the development increase of wide nations without actually being better.

2. There should be a timecost for development. This would reduce the problem of opm spamming development and remove the possibility to double a provinces development in a day.

3. Add events to developing. this would make internal development more engaging and possibly give interesting choices. ex: a small chance to reduce unrest in a developing province could be used to try to stopp a rebelion at the cost of possibly making it stronger.


So this is how i think development should work:

Klicking the development button would start a timer similar to diplo annexing. Every month some mp get transferred to the province and once all required mp are accumulated the development is added to the province.
the rate at which mp get added is dependant on a money investment which size can be set by a slider.

to put some numbers to it 1level of development could cost 20mp which would acumulate at a rate between 0 and 2 per month depending on a money slider with 2 ducats per month as the highpoint.
so developing a province by 1 would cost 20mp 20 ducats and take at least 10 month to finish.

deitionally there are events with a small chance to fire each month a province is in development:
+5% tax/production/manpower efficiency for 2 years depending on which is developed.(province modifier)
-1 unrest for a year (province modifier)
1 extra development is added to the developing province but removedfrom a nearby one.(province modifier)
-2.5% idea cost for 1 year
etc.

 

[Martin_Mortyry]

To prevent, say, Wallachia from becoming a megalopolis, developing could also cost money. In contrary to mp cost through time, the later you develop, the more it should cost in money.

 

[holoween]

To prevent, say, Wallachia from becoming a megalopolis, developing could also cost money. In contrary to mp cost through time, the later you develop, the more it should cost in money.

you should probably read it again:

Klicking the development button would start a timer similar to diplo annexing. Every month some mp get transferred to the province and once all required mp are accumulated the development is added to the province.
the rate at which mp get added is dependant on a money investment which size can be set by a slider.

to put some numbers to it 1level of development could cost 20mp which would acumulate at a rate between 0 and 2 per month depending on a money slider with 2 ducats per month as the highpoint.
so developing a province by 1 would cost 20mp 20 ducats and take at least 10 month to finish.

So between the time it takes to develop and the money it requires to do it fast small nations would be unable to develop too fast. the only small nations to grow fast would be very rich ones (lübeck for example) which is somewhat realistic.

 

[Martin_Mortyry]

you should probably read it again:

Yeah, I somehow thought that slider will be for the MP drain. For the later part I have no excuse other than I've probably been doing other things while reading, and didn't read it thoroughly. Sorry.

 

[holoween]

Yeah, I somehow thought that slider will be for the MP drain.

well it does that aswell.

You can set the slider from 0 ducats per month to 2 per month multiplied by the ammount of provinces that are being developed.
When the slider is set to 0 ducats per month no MP will be drained. when you set it to 1 ducat per month 1 mp will be drained if you set it to 2 per month 2 will be drained.

So a poor country may not be able to afford 2 ducats per month so its development will take longer.

As a result the coutrys to benefit most from this development change would be rich countrys with 5-10 provinces. Poor coutrys will develop slower due to insufficient amouts of money.
Small coutrys will be limited by the ammount of mp they can spend at a time even if they have enough money. And large countrys will simply try to conquer as it sill would be more mp efficient.

 

[SignedName]

I don't know about sliders, but maybe size of the country can determine development speed, either determined through province count or previously existing development. I also disagree with costing ducats to develop over time. The whole point of developing provinces is to get more monthly income.

 

[holoween]

I don't know about sliders, but maybe size of the country can determine development speed, either determined through province count or previously existing development.

I probably should have clarified that i wouldnt change any of the currently existing modifiers so high province development still makes developing more expensive in that province and high development overall still reduces development cost in the capital.
Aside from that i think that tying the development cost to overall development or province count would have undesireable consequences. If high development/province count makes development cheaper it becomes a pure buff to blobs rather than offer an alternative. If on the other habd it would increase the cost it would make it completely useles for larger nations rather than just less optimal. it would also loose its value as something you can do as a large nation if you cant go to war due to regencys or truces.

I also disagree with costing ducats to develop over time. The whole point of developing provinces is to get more monthly income.

Same with buildings and they are significantly more expensive.
Also the ducat cost has several uses.
1. it makes development a peacetime mechanic as during wars you wont have ducats to spare but in peacetime just lowering the army maintenance can pay for some development. Or with condottieri rent your army to pay for the developing of your provinces.
2. it lets rich areas develop faster as they can afford to develop several provinces at the same time.
3. together with the time it takes to develop it limits the overly high developing of small nations

 

[SignedName]

I probably should have clarified that i wouldnt change any of the currently existing modifiers so high province development still makes developing more expensive in that province and high development overall still reduces development cost in the capital.
Aside from that i think that tying the development cost to overall development or province count would have undesireable consequences. If high development/province count makes development cheaper it becomes a pure buff to blobs rather than offer an alternative. If on the other habd it would increase the cost it would make it completely useles for larger nations rather than just less optimal. it would also loose its value as something you can do as a large nation if you cant go to war due to regencys or truces.

Oh, I should have been more specific. I mean based on overall development in the country, not development in the province, so countries will actually be able to develop their massive tracts of land. And I only meant speed, not cost. Similar to diplomatic annexation, it would just allocate more MP per month, representing the way larger countries could leverage their resources faster in developing their land. I assume the development over time is meant as a way to stop smaller nations from spamming the "develop province" button.

Same with buildings and they are significantly more expensive.
Also the ducat cost has several uses.
1. it makes development a peacetime mechanic as during wars you wont have ducats to spare but in peacetime just lowering the army maintenance can pay for some development. Or with condottieri rent your army to pay for the developing of your provinces.
2. it lets rich areas develop faster as they can afford to develop several provinces at the same time.
3. together with the time it takes to develop it limits the overly high developing of small nations

If a ducat cost is necessary, I think a lump sum is better. It's the same as buildings, and it lets you stockpile moneys. It also dispenses with sliders; I don't think development should be as granular a process as colonization, but should, as stated above, be more like diplo-annexation, with various factors influencing the monthly MP allocated to development.

 

[holoween]

Oh, I should have been more specific. I mean based on overall development in the country, not development in the province, so countries will actually be able to develop their massive tracts of land. And I only meant speed, not cost. Similar to diplomatic annexation, it would just allocate more MP per month, representing the way larger countries could leverage their resources faster in developing their land. I assume the development over time is meant as a way to stop smaller nations from spamming the "develop province" button.


If a ducat cost is necessary, I think a lump sum is better. It's the same as buildings, and it lets you stockpile moneys. It also dispenses with sliders; I don't think development should be as granular a process as colonization, but should, as stated above, be more like diplo-annexation, with various factors influencing the monthly MP allocated to development.

You dont seem to actually have understood how this mechanic is supposed to work.
The development speed is inherently tied to its cost. If developing province a requires 20mp and province b requires 30mp province be takes 50% longer to develop (assuming same investments).
the "larger empires can develop faster" is already there in the monetary cost btw. except that its not larger but richer which makes far more sense.
so to come back to the example nation a develops a province at the cost of 20mp this is dependant on how much upkeep that nation is willing to spend. lets assume nation a spends 1 ducat per month upkeep. this will result in 1mp/month being added to the province and after 20 month the development goes up 1.
nation b which is richer could however spend 2 ducats per month and end up spending 2 mp/month and so finish in just 10 month.
if nation b still has more ducats and mp to spend and provinces it could develop it could also develop 2 at the same time spending 4 ducats a month and 4 mp/month and ending up with 2 developed provinces after 10 month.

so there are effectively 3 limitations to development:
1. mp cost
2. ducats cost
3. speed of developing (mp cost/ducats spend per month)
(btw currently there is only nr1)

so how do these limit differently sized countrys?
1. mp becomes more available the smaller a nation is as it cant spend mp on expanding as much as larger nation could.
2. the ducat per month cost limits how many mp a nation can spend developing. rich nations can spend a lot poor nations cant. this also limits the se of edevlopment during a war as a monthly upkeeps is a significant downside when at war and your army needs full maintenance. this maked developing more of a peacetime mechanic as only then will be enough money available. (that is why its not just a simple pay once and forget)
3. this limits the maximum speed at which a nation can develop individual provinces. and so limits the maximum growth of provinces.

 

[Canute VII]

Could that slider actually be the exact same one used for the "corruption mechanic"?

 

[holoween]

Could that slider actually be the exact same one used for the "corruption mechanic"?

Its probably technically possible but since corruption and development do verd differrnt things it wouldnt make much sence to combine the 2.

 

[Scottsman]

I'd love to see MEIOU's behind the scenes, passive development system become part of the base game. Hopefully in a much more transparent manner than in the mod, however, tooltips on province screen maybe?

Thinking of something like having stability, decisions, policies, religious unity, provincial unrest levels, roads, provincial modifiers (i.e., major river, historic trade node, mild winters, terrain type, etc.) all contribute to eventual development of a province, instead of requiring the player to manually do it. All of this would feed as modifiers to the MTTH of a hidden event that would has a base MTTH of say, 10 years, (just guessing there, that part is up to debate) at which point it would fire and increase one of the 3 development categories.

Also thinking that the type of trade good should affect the likelihood of which one gets increased (i.e. grains & fish make it more likely that when this event fires, it will more likely increase manpower than it would production or tax).

All that being said, still keep the ability to increase development with power points, just make it pretty costly (as it should be, undertaking such a direct, concerted action to improve a province).

EDIT ADD: Also, think that province capture/control by enemies or rebels should halt the development of said province during said control (since it's pretty hard to improve a province with armies rampaging all around).

Thoughts?

 

[holoween]

I'd love to see MEIOU's behind the scenes, passive development system become part of the base game. Hopefully in a much more transparent manner than in the mod, however, tooltips on province screen maybe?

Thinking of something like having stability, decisions, policies, religious unity, provincial unrest levels, roads, provincial modifiers (i.e., major river, historic trade node, mild winters, terrain type, etc.) all contribute to eventual development of a province, instead of requiring the player to manually do it. All of this would feed as modifiers to the MTTH of a hidden event that would has a base MTTH of say, 10 years, (just guessing there, that part is up to debate) at which point it would fire and increase one of the 3 development categories.

Also thinking that the type of trade good should affect the likelihood of which one gets increased (i.e. grains & fish make it more likely that when this event fires, it will more likely increase manpower than it would production or tax).

All that being said, still keep the ability to increase development with power points, just make it pretty costly (as it should be, undertaking such a direct, concerted action to improve a province).

EDIT ADD: Also, think that province capture/control by enemies or rebels should halt the development of said province during said control (since it's pretty hard to improve a province with armies rampaging all around).

Thoughts?

Im not a great fan of provinces passively developing as in the current game everything that happens to the gameworld happens due to ai/player actions and an automated development system would change that. it would also be something that highly benefits blobbing as you can take all the best developing areas and just benefit from it.

Stability increasing/decreasing development cost would be quite nice, decisions could potentially but i cant imangine any that would give an interesting decision they would tend to just be always taken and act as a straight discount, policies already affect development (economic+quantity), religious unity and provincial unrest seem to me rather disconnected from development so probably shouldnt affect the development cost and provincial modifiers already exist.

I would love to see roads added to the building list and affect supply limit and troop speed and maybe a minor development discount.

I wouldnt tie developmend halt to occupation but the loot meter instead as simply being occupied shouldnt have much of an effect but actual looting should.

 

[Canute VII]

Its probably technically possible but since corruption and development do verd differrnt things it wouldnt make much sence to combine the 2.

Actually that relies on your interpretation of why development (with minimal upkeep) lasts 20 months instead of 10 months. If it is because it suffers from inefficiency and corruption, then it wouldn't be so very different a things at all, would it?

 

[Canute VII]

There are two more threads on development that I'm currently aware of, maybe you could have a look at these?

• Development using manpower and ducats by myself: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...ich-ressource-to-spend-on-development.912520/

• Development with a timed reduction referencing trade value by Baxil: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/dynamic-development.911091/

Maybe you could integrate some of those ideas into your proposal? Don't really know how to do it and if it makes any sense, but would be cool if there emerged some new and cool idea from all those discussions, since our goal of making development more realistic and interesting is basically the same.

 

[holoween]

There are two more threads on development that I'm currently aware of, maybe you could have a look at these?

• Development using manpower and ducats by myself: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...ich-ressource-to-spend-on-development.912520/

• Development with a timed reduction referencing trade value by Baxil: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/dynamic-development.911091/

Maybe you could integrate some of those ideas into your proposal? Don't really know how to do it and if it makes any sense, but would be cool if there emerged some new and cool idea from all those discussions, since our goal of making development more realistic and interesting is basically the same.

I have to say i dislike both sugestions.

For the first one both ideas go contrary to the goal of making tall nations viable to play as in it the possible development growth decreases the higher developed a province is.
additionaly the manpower part gives the highest benefit to nations which have lots of low development provinces and high ammounts of manpower to spare (russia anyone?).
If you really wanted to use manpower to influence development it could be done way better by having a -5% development modifier when at more than 90% manpower.
Thematically it doesnt really fit however since what the military was if ever used for was to clear marshes or forests so building of citys was possible. having an event that could fire when developing that would give the choice of loosing X manpower for changing the terrain type (marsh to grassland or woods to grassland) would be somewhat make sense but afaik terrain type is set and cant be changed.
the money part would work the same except that it would always be cheaper to just hire advisors to gaign the mp in the first place and if you had already all level 3 advisors then it would still be more effective to build buildings.

The second suggestion falls flat once you realize that not only does it take any player decision making out of the development mechanic it also directly links development to trade income which menas only high tradepower provinces in endnodes will ever develop.
There is no suggestion there that isnt already in the game or would be happening with my sugested system anyways.

 

[Scottsman]

Im not a great fan of provinces passively developing as in the current game everything that happens to the gameworld happens due to ai/player actions and an automated development system would change that. it would also be something that highly benefits blobbing as you can take all the best developing areas and just benefit from it.

Stability increasing/decreasing development cost would be quite nice, decisions could potentially but i cant imangine any that would give an interesting decision they would tend to just be always taken and act as a straight discount, policies already affect development (economic+quantity), religious unity and provincial unrest seem to me rather disconnected from development so probably shouldnt affect the development cost and provincial modifiers already exist.

I would love to see roads added to the building list and affect supply limit and troop speed and maybe a minor development discount.

I wouldnt tie developmend halt to occupation but the loot meter instead as simply being occupied shouldnt have much of an effect but actual looting should.

Eh, I don't think it'll increase blobbing; it will, though, definitely increase competition for specific locations (aka provinces that have a great combination of factors that I previously mentioned). And like I said, you can still add to the development manually, just at a higher cost. (Not to mention, by "blobbing", don't you mean "empire building"? Pretty sure that's one of the main play modes of this game for a lot of players. Not something that could/should be dismissed so quickly.)

I'd say provincial unrest definitely has an effect on development...kinda hard to develop a province while there's rioting going on/population is just itching for a riot/revolution.

Agree on the roads thing...either a discount on your system or a decrease in MTTH in my proposed system. Improved transportation systems are a default boon to development and growth, and army movement, both in real life, and should be so in game.

As for the occupation thing, I would say it depends on the system either of us is proposing. For your non-automated system, occupation only hitting loot meter makes sense. For my proposal, it would make sense to halt/increase MTTH of this process, since occupied territory isn't going to flourish whilst under enemy military occupation.

Think the whole gist of this comes down to play style. I can infer that you don't like to mess with a whole lot of provinces, you prefer power through other means. Myself, I do like seeing a good bit of the map in my color, lol. Tends to make having to develop provinces manually a tedious chore.

 

[Baxil]

I have to say i dislike both sugestions.


The second suggestion falls flat once you realize that not only does it take any player decision making out of the development mechanic it also directly links development to trade income which menas only high tradepower provinces in endnodes will ever develop.
There is no suggestion there that isnt already in the game or would be happening with my sugested system anyways.

I can only talk about my own suggestion, so I will just reply to your last objection.

Firstly, the mechanic proposed ought to set up a timer that will pace the development of provinces. It won't take away from the player any decisional possibility since development won't happen automatically or for free, you will still have to decide whether to develop or not to develop a province once it is ready to do it.

Secondly, note that the growth rate is not linked to trade income but to the trade value of each trade node, so even countries with little trade power can grow faster if provinces are in a rich trade node. If it is true that provinces in wealthy trade nodes will grow faster then province in poor trade nodes (which makes sense for me), this also adds a challenge to the game, so playing tall won't just mean to waste a bunch of MP but it will be the outcome of an actual effort of bringing wealth to the trade node of your interest.
As a final note consider that endnode are not the only rich ones (infact, there are plenty of wealthy trade nodes as Sevilla, the Baltic Sea, Constantinople, Persia etc.) and you can actually influence the richness of trade nodes, if you want, during the game.

 

[holoween]

Eh, I don't think it'll increase blobbing; it will, though, definitely increase competition for specific locations (aka provinces that have a great combination of factors that I previously mentioned). And like I said, you can still add to the development manually, just at a higher cost. (Not to mention, by "blobbing", don't you mean "empire building"? Pretty sure that's one of the main play modes of this game for a lot of players. Not something that could/should be dismissed so quickly.)

I'd say provincial unrest definitely has an effect on development...kinda hard to develop a province while there's rioting going on/population is just itching for a riot/revolution.

Agree on the roads thing...either a discount on your system or a decrease in MTTH in my proposed system. Improved transportation systems are a default boon to development and growth, and army movement, both in real life, and should be so in game.

As for the occupation thing, I would say it depends on the system either of us is proposing. For your non-automated system, occupation only hitting loot meter makes sense. For my proposal, it would make sense to halt/increase MTTH of this process, since occupied territory isn't going to flourish whilst under enemy military occupation.

Think the whole gist of this comes down to play style. I can infer that you don't like to mess with a whole lot of provinces, you prefer power through other means. Myself, I do like seeing a good bit of the map in my color, lol. Tends to make having to develop provinces manually a tedious chore.

The reason why automated development disproportionally benefits large empires is that it will accumulate additional development faster than a smaller empire. For example a 40 province Nation with an average mtth of 20month for each province will gaign 40 development every 20 month. A nation with half the provinces but otherwise identical stats would grow half as fast. So in sich a system a nation with more provinces will automatically grow faster than a nation with fewer provinces even if both started with the same amount of development after some time the larger one would end up with more develpoment without any work.

The reason i dont think unrest should directly effect development (in my system at least) is that even a province close tor ebellion would still happyly take your money.
So a government investing money and attention to a province would if anything have the effect of lowering unrest and increasing it again if that money flow stopps.
Developing a high unrest province is something you still dont really want to do as it would make a revlot happening stronger so its best to wait until unrest is low. The nice thing about Full player agency in the development is that you can make that choice you otherwise wouldnt have.

On roads and occupation i agree with you though it may be more interesting in your system to have the mtth dependant on how looted a province is rather than weather its occupied or not.

Also you are right to a good part the development question comes down to playstyle and this is why i have problems with a lot of other suggestions:
The default eu4 playstyle is get as much territory as possible as quick as possible. This finds its extreme end in players who do world conquest games and has since the beginning of eu4 been the only real way to play.
With the introducton of development a second possible playstyle has been officially acknoledged and given mechanics to play and that is to only take a limited ammount of provinces but invest into them to make them more valuable.
So wide empires are defined by having lots of provinces with relatively low development and tall empires have few provinces with relatively high development.
So a nation with 100 development would be considered wide if it has say 100 provinces and so an average development per province of 10 whereas if it had 25 provinces and so an average development of 40 it would be considered tall.

The current problem with this is that playing wide is significantly more effective. effective in this case means for the same ammount of mp spend investing it into conquest will yield higher returns in development for your nation. With the current balace Playing wide is somewhere between 2.5 to 7 times more effective with it usualy being about 5 times as effective(i can write you a full analysis if you want).
I think that playing tall shouldnt be at such a severe disadvantedge and so the possibilities to balance that would be to suggest making coring and culture converting more expensive and be hated by 90% of the forum for suggesting it or by bringing the price of developing down to a more reasonable level (which i see somewhere between 20 and 25 mp/development).
The problem with a simple mp cost reduction for development is that the only thing determining how much a province will develop is the average mp available to develop each province which leads to small natons having unrealistically large development.
The time cost puts a limit to how fast any individual province can develop so opm cant grow to unrealistically high levels.
the money cost basically limits how fast very small nations can grow as otherwise 2-5 province minors would end up massively overdeveloped. The only exception there wold be high income nations which essentially means hih trade income nations. which leads to the realistic effect of rich areas of the world developing on average faster than poor areas.
this also effects how viable developing is during wartime.

So overall you could say that my suggestion is more of a tweak to the current development mechanic to allow it to be balanced better rather than being a complete redo of the mechanic.

Also since you brought up playstyle nowadays i play 90+% mp with 10+ players and have played just about any nation size (from hre minors to ottomans). I used to play a good ammount of singleplayer aswell and did play blobby there it just became boring after a while since the ai inst a challenge at all and i dont see much point in doing world conquest. And in mp you simply cant expand forever and so developing becomes more important especially if you start as a small nation which i like to play for the challenge.

 

[holoween]

I can only talk about my own suggestion, so I will just reply to your last objection.

Firstly, the mechanic proposed ought to set up a timer that will pace the development of provinces. It won't take away from the player any decisional possibility since development won't happen automatically or for free, you will still have to decide whether to develop or not to develop a province once it is ready to do it.

Secondly, note that the growth rate is not linked to trade income but to the trade value of each trade node, so even countries with little trade power can grow faster if provinces are in a rich trade node. If it is true that provinces in wealthy trade nodes will grow faster then province in poor trade nodes (which makes sense for me), this also adds a challenge to the game, so playing tall won't just mean to waste a bunch of MP but it will be the outcome of an actual effort of bringing wealth to the trade node of your interest.
As a final note consider that endnode are not the only rich ones (infact, there are plenty of wealthy trade nodes as Sevilla, the Baltic Sea, Constantinople, Persia etc.) and you can actually influence the richness of trade nodes, if you want, during the game.

The rason i say your suggestion boild down to trade income determining your development is that trade value in a node time the ammount of power you have in it determines how much money you make from it.
Also since trade value only flows downstream every node that isnt an end node would be almost impossible to develop in.
youve based your examples on a trade node with 18.6 trade value without realizing that almost no tradenode that isnt an end node will ever reach close to that ammount and a huge ammount will actually be reduced to nothing and with your suggestion never be able to develop at all and where is the player choice then?
For your suggestion to work well it would require trade to not be a one way stream which lets face it will never happen in eu4 even though it would be far more interesting than the current system.