If EU4 is a map painter, then, absent player intervention, it paints incredibly ugly maps. And, lets be honest, a lot of the top tier players embrace that just for the sake of doing screwy things or min-maxing. Anyone else ever just look at the area/region/super-region/continent map modes and wish borders better adhered to them? Yes, we do. We're the same people whose biggest problem with vassals in CK2/3 are when they produce internal border gore. They can plot against us, kill our perfect heir, etc. but when they start fragmenting across the realm, that is unacceptable.
I think the area system (everything from areas on up to continents) could be a very useful tool in steering both AI and players toward prettier and - lets be honest - more believable borders. And the solution is to include various soft penalties to holding parts of areas-continents, or bonuses to consolidating them. I'm going to phrase this suggestion as bonuses, for demonstration, but either way will need to take balance into consideration. It may make sense to have some instances be penalties, and some be bonuses, depending on balancing and just ease of coding.
Scenario: You've won a war and can take 4 provinces. Let us assume that there are 4 provinces in 1 area you could ask for, or 4 provinces in 4 different areas, both options should nominally cost the same. If you take the 4 provinces in 1 area, then there will be a warscore cost reduction, making it easier to ask for just that area. Meanwhile, when you go to core these provinces, there will be a core cost reduction for provinces which are in areas you completely control. As far as administration of these provinces, there could be a variety of other bonuses that could be applied - I think autonomy is a nice neat one that would be relatively easy to apply. Scale this on up to regions and super-regions, as well (continents may be excessive). Again, this is going to need lots of balancing (or else it'll snowball into making it stupidly cheap to conquer the 'right' provinces). At the end of the day, this system should strongly encourage - but not force - countries to expand along the lines of 'filling out' the various areas and regions they have a presence in.
(also, I'm quite certain I suggested something like this many years ago, but it bears repeating)
I think the area system (everything from areas on up to continents) could be a very useful tool in steering both AI and players toward prettier and - lets be honest - more believable borders. And the solution is to include various soft penalties to holding parts of areas-continents, or bonuses to consolidating them. I'm going to phrase this suggestion as bonuses, for demonstration, but either way will need to take balance into consideration. It may make sense to have some instances be penalties, and some be bonuses, depending on balancing and just ease of coding.
Scenario: You've won a war and can take 4 provinces. Let us assume that there are 4 provinces in 1 area you could ask for, or 4 provinces in 4 different areas, both options should nominally cost the same. If you take the 4 provinces in 1 area, then there will be a warscore cost reduction, making it easier to ask for just that area. Meanwhile, when you go to core these provinces, there will be a core cost reduction for provinces which are in areas you completely control. As far as administration of these provinces, there could be a variety of other bonuses that could be applied - I think autonomy is a nice neat one that would be relatively easy to apply. Scale this on up to regions and super-regions, as well (continents may be excessive). Again, this is going to need lots of balancing (or else it'll snowball into making it stupidly cheap to conquer the 'right' provinces). At the end of the day, this system should strongly encourage - but not force - countries to expand along the lines of 'filling out' the various areas and regions they have a presence in.
(also, I'm quite certain I suggested something like this many years ago, but it bears repeating)
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