Doesn't Development end... very unrealistic?

[Will Steel]

We need to be able to sack provinces.

Remember, Delhi 1739 - a giant, rich and overwhelmingly wealthy city full of treasures that was in a matter of one week completely sacked to the last house, and nearly turned into wasteland village, and was never rebuilt to the same level. It proved to be a mortal blow to the Mughal Empire and their economy collapsed.

In the game, you can happily occupy it for years and once you leave it the city will become happy and opulent within 2 days. I recall there was a lot of city burning during the various European wars of 16th and 17th century too (and remember what happened to Tenochtitlan and Cuzco), so that is not a case exclusive to some location and can be made a full mechanic.

Also there really should be a system where you can sack/voluntarily degrade your own cities for quick cash. There are many historical cases - one Mughal prince sacked a huge city, which was his own empire's property, to get money to raise and reinforce his army during a massive civil war...sometimes around 1720s. He was condemned and then executed later on, but he was successful in this move as long as he was undefeated. This is a viable and authentic mechanic. There are many places where owned provinces have been sacked by states.

And this mechanic could also work well in terms of strategy. You annex a province, sack it heavily and then years later return the now useless piece of land back to the owner who'll have to develop it again.

It should cost a huge amount of military points, unrest and prestige, but should give you a lot of cash depending upon development level.

 

[Grand Pope Papa]

Also all this shows us that EU4 alltough my favourite game is not perfect, infact it has many flaws in its design (trade, development........) Flaws that will probally never be redesigned.

 

[Bavarian Steve]

We need to be able to sack provinces.

Remember, Delhi 1739 - a rich and overwhelmingly wealthy city full of treasures that was in a matter of one week completely sacked to the last house, and nearly turned into wasteland village, and was never rebuilt to the same level. It proved to be a mortal blow to the Mughal Empire and their economy collapsed.

In the game, you can happily occupy it for years and once you leave it the city will become happy and opulent within 2 days. I recall there was a lot of city burning during the various European wars of 16th and 17th century.

Also there should be a system where you can sack/voluntarily degrade your own cities for quick cash. There are many historical cases - one Mughal prince sacked a huge city, which was his own empire's property, to get money to raise and reinforce his army during a massive civil war...sometimes around 1720s. He was condemned and then killed later on, but he was successful in this move as long as he was undefeated. There are many places where owned provinces have been sacked by states.

And this mechanic could also work well in terms of strategy. You annex a province, sack it heavily and then years later return the now useless piece of land back to the owner who'll have to develop it again.

It should cost a huge amount of military points, unrest and prestige, but should give you a lot of cash depending upon development level.

Perhaps when we drain a provinces treasury bar, it should remove a point of development and then the bar goes back to full and the process repeats

 

[Bavarian Steve]

Also all this shows us that EU4 alltough my favourite game is not perfect, infact it has many flaws in its design (trade, development........) Flaws tha

COOLDOWN IS THE ANWSER!!!!!!!! Its a simple, elegant and historical solution. You can develop a province every 2 years. A similar fix was made to calling in allies to often. This way cities would grow slower over the years. Its not a perfect sollution but a good one.

cooldown of 2 years is not the answer. thats still 100 development at around the same time with no cool down at all.

 

[CNY10000]

OK, I'm going to run my own tests after the vacation but ultimately the whole point of this feature is to let countries that don't expand grow in power so I'm far from convinced there's an actual problem.

The current development system is penalizing being large instead of expansion. Development can mean a lot more for an OPM that expands into a 4-5 provinces nation than for a France that never expands.

How does the development mechanism awards "being small"? Developping a province has constant returns (Going from 3 to 4 means the same as going from 10 to 11) but its cost increases fast. Consequently, it is better to develop two undevelopped provinces (2*50 MP) than 1 highly developped province (100 MP).

A big country has many provinces and can spread development among them. An OPM will soon find itself paying a huge amount of MP for 1 base tax.

Even buildings (only +60% tax) do not reverse the conclusion.

You need to compare the cost of doubling a nation's development, instead of the cost of gaining 2 development, because this is what means the same for a large nation and an OPM. A large nation benefits almost nothing from barely gainging 1 development, while 1 development can mean 10% increase on its monthly income, or so.

A 500 development mega-France needs to spend 25,000 mana to double its base tax without any development penalty or bonus. A 20 development OPM needs only about 2200 mana to double its development.

 

[Kamiran]

There is a reason why you see only OPM and very small nations skyrocketing their development. In first place small nation dont have much to do and rarely do conquest and use their points in coring or diplo annexing. Second, the development is paid with monarch power, which every nation gets from out of nowhere, no matter if your successful or not, no matter how big or small you are.
The fail of the development system is the payment by monarch power. But lets make some calculations to show what i mean:

Western technology, price of one technology level stay the same, no conquest, no war, monarchy, 376 years.
From level 3 to 31 (last level isnt useful) you have to unlock 28 level each, makes 84 Tech level (average tech level cost should be around 570) = 47880 points
8 idea groups with each 7 ideas = 56 ideas each 400 points make = 22400 points
Stability loss by ruler death all 30 years = 12*100 = 1200 points
Blanked loss by events over 376 years = 2000 points
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Makes 73480 total points needed to play 376 years as western nation, stay in technology, unlock all ideas and pay some unlucky events.

NOW the comparison:

5 nations with each 5 provinces VS 1 nation with 25 provinces
Each minor nation get 2/2/2 ruler and is able to pay 3 lvl 1 advisor + base monarch power = 18 points per month * 12 month * 376 years = 81216 points
The major nation get 2/2/2 ruler and is able to pay 3 lvl 2 advisor + base monarch power = 21 points per month * 12 month * 376 years = 94752 points

5 Nations need 5 * 73480 points and generate 5 * 81216 points = 38680 points to spend in development over 25 province = 1547 points available for every province
1 Nation need 1 * 73480 points and generate 5 * 94752 points = 21272 points to spend in development over 25 provinces = 850 points available for every province

As you can see, the major nation can improve their provinces only to 55% of the development of minor nations. This is a huge difference.
If you take 3/3/3 leader, the minor nations can spend 106360, the major 34808. Minor nations can spend THREE TIMES points for development then the major nation.

That is simply insane.. and really illogical, that minor nations can improve their splitted countries more then a well organized big nation. The reason is the payment.

If you take the 2/2/2 leader example, take 2/2/2 provinces, and a static development cost of 80, you can improve every major nation province by 11, every minor nation by 19. 8 difference in development means 3.2 trade power, the increased production by dip development will maybe lead to 4 more trade power. So the 25 minor nation provinces will have over 100 more trade power then the major nation. Also illogical.

In my opinion paradox wanted to give some players the illusion they can play it in different way and these player pay for the DLC but this development system is doomed to fail, if it stay in favor for minor states and is payed by monarch power. I spend only monarch power for development when i play nonwestern nations and have a gold province or when i hit the max monarch power and want to unlock building slots that is (in my opinion) also a shit new invention... having grasland or hills make a differne of 3 times building slots which is ridicoulos.

 

[Derp]

A cooldown would be a bad idea, because it's just another due-date you need to keep track of if you want to get the most out of it.

 

[net.split]

A few thoughts of some very minor tweaks that might help (versus larger-scale redesigns, including more or different currencies, etc):


Modifier: Government Rank (excludes Republics)
Duchy: +25% dev cost

This slows down development of OPMs without penalizing republics that should thematically stay small and build high. Notably, vassals / marches will eat the +25% penalty. I considered giving a bonus at Empire rank, but this could be counter-productive since hugely developed states could hit Empire without even expanding much, thus improving their ability to develop even further.


Modifier: Independence
Regular Vassal: +10% dev cost
March: +25% dev cost
Lesser Partner in Union: +5% dev cost
Protectorate: -5% dev cost

This stacks with the Duchy penalty. Protectorate bonuses will help offset the typical climate & terrain penalties found in their usual regions in mid-late game.


Modifier: Looted
+1% dev cost for every 1% of loot bar lost

A fully-depleted loot bar takes 16 months to recover. Frankly this should probably take longer to make this more meaningful.


Effect: Looting
Chance of -1 to highest development value when loot bar is fully depleted (cannot happen again until loot bar has fully recovered). Base chance is 10%, +1 per total development value in the province (0% in a 1/1/1 province).

A sacking system! There is some exploit potential here, so perhaps you can only lose 1 development per war in this manner. That could be difficult to track, though, and causes other problems by incentivizing constant war.


Effect: Autonomy
Increasing development also increases local autonomy by 2%.

Mildly diminishing returns, short-term. Can be punishing if you rapid-fire development, but see the next item for the complete story.


Modifier: Local Autonomy
+1% dev cost per point of LA

Develop a province too quickly and you'll just keep increasing the cost of doing so due to LA. Nations at peace can thus develop faster.


Event: Economic Migration
If a province is developed much larger than its neighbors, there is a chance for an event to fire that moves 1 development point from that province to a neighbor province. This can happen whether or not a neighbor province is the same tag, so an over-developing minor will end up leeching some of its development to its neighbors. The greater the discrepancy the faster the event will fire. There would be an option to prevent this, but it would cost a point of stability.

This actually creates incentives to leave independent minors at your nation's borders. I am perfectly fine with that.

 

[No idea]

But that's because it was the capital of the British empire, not because of some unique property the city has. If Baden becomes the capital of a great centralised HRE there's no reason why it should develop slower than historical capitals from our timeline.

The whole point of development is that the greatest cities aren't all predetermined in 1444, but instead depend on how the alternate history played out.

Nobody contests that. The problem is that Baden becomes far more developed than London BECAUSE it is usually a minor. I think there should be a better way to make tall empires.

 

[No idea]

A cooldown would be a bad idea, because it's just another due-date you need to keep track of if you want to get the most out of it.

I think an ahead of time penalty, like the tech one, would be better. You want to be top dog in develoement? Ok, but the more ahead of time the more you will pay

 

[Nuklearius]

I

 

[Nassau]

One of the problems with development is that EU4 isn't that much about monarchs like CK is. Yet development seems to be tied to the skills of one person and his advisors plus some events.

Want to make sure those who deserve it get the most development? Well grant points for colonies and actual trade power in the tradenodes then.

 

[Baindread]

I very rarely post anything at all as a reaction to a statement but I kinda feel I need to give my opinion to this matter.

What exactly is the point of overdeveloping OPM or minor countries in this game at the moment, gameplay/realism/immersion or otherwise? For weak countries to be unrealistically/ahistorically strong? To enforce unrealistic/ahistorical results? To hamstring player expansion or AI-blobbing?

I don't see a reason for the AI to develop at all except at some predetermined linear rate to reflect historical overall development in the world, since it´s the player making the decisions in the world and having the experience of maybe making ahistorical decisions as a result of that. If you're trying to make a game to cater to our AI overlords so their decisions matter as well, sure, go ahead, but it's not pleasing to human players at all.

 

[Kamiran]

Modifier: Government Rank (excludes Republics)
Duchy: +25% dev cost

Modifier: Independence
Regular Vassal: +10% dev cost
March: +25% dev cost
Lesser Partner in Union: +5% dev cost
Protectorate: -5% dev cost

Increasing cost dont solve the general problem. It only decrease the maximum development minor nations will get and also reduce the intended fun to play tall.

Effect: Autonomy
Increasing development also increases local autonomy by 2%.

I like this idea, its different to "increase cost". With autonomy reduction of 0.15 (0.10 from peace and around 0.5 from government) you need 14 month to get back to zero. Its like a soft cap you can ignore in first place but dont want to push up too much too, cause you dont want to have a 80 development province with 50 autonomy. But 14 month isnt that big to a nation, that never tend to conquer or colonize. Your still able to increase 80 per century and all you do is reducing income and manpower only a bit.
It also dont solve the general problem.

Modifier: Local Autonomy
+1% dev cost per point of LA

.... which will lead to ZERO development in oversea provinces (that have 75% autonomy minimum).

Effect: Looting
Chance of -1 to highest development value when loot bar is fully depleted (cannot happen again until loot bar has fully recovered). Base chance is 10%, +1 per total development value in the province (0% in a 1/1/1 province).

Paradox will never integrate a mechanic that decrease development by war. Every nation, especially minor nations in europe get involved in a lot of wars, even they tend to get white peace in 80%, their territories get looted or conquered. If you integrate a mechanic that decrease development by looting or conquering, your fucked up when you play a big nation (which players tend to) or have lot of islands or oversea provinces. You simply cant defend all your provinces, especially after they changed the conquering time of none fortress provinces to one month. Everyone will be scared to loose a 100 monarch power development, cause a 2000 army stack conquered one of your border provinces or landed with some ships in a minor oversea province. Europe will end in development like middle east.
Additionally you will destroy development of provinces you maybe want to conquer. If you face france and get some provinces with value you have to conquer half france to get 4 provinces, effectivly destroying hundreds of monarch power by one war.
This is maybe more accurate and logic then the actual or former system but it simply destroys the fun to play, Imagine you play a multiplayer game and have 100 provinces, half your territory get looted and development decreased by one point each. This one war will cost you atleast 2500 monarch power to recover.

You can talk about development decrease when development isnt paid anymore with such a valuable currency like monarch power. Till then it will never come.

 

[wingzero890]

Paradox will never integrate a mechanic that decrease development by war.

You can talk about development decrease when development isnt paid anymore with such a valuable currency like monarch power. Till then it will never come.

Then if Paradox does not uncouple development from MP they have effectively ruined the game. Wallachia's capital should never be able to exceed a city like Constantinople in development, ever.

But since the AI has nowhere to expand to it just keeps spamming the 'add development' button over and over again, until you get the hilarity of a 50+ development capital in a backwards Balkan state. It's completely implausible.

I've also seen it even worse in ROTW, where the AI literally will not tech for decades because it's spending all its mana on development. Indefensible.

 

[WeissRaben]

That is simply insane.. and really illogical, that minor nations can improve their splitted countries more then a well organized big nation.

The keyword, here, is "well organized". I honestly have no qualms with a small nation, whose (still inefficient) bureaucracy is still able to control its whole territory because of its small size, being on a whole able to do more centralized stuff compared to a big nation (where the arm of bureaucracy is pretty short and sputters to almost nothing in little time). As others said, the problems are twofold: development never recedes, and the state of the nation doesn't have an effect on its costs. I wouldn't go as far as to put a money cost on development, but improving poor land with no resources should be costly (MP cost scaling with national income). And sacking reducing development (in change of a steep AE cost) would do some good to regions like the HRE.

 

[Kljunas]

Nobody contests that. The problem is that Baden becomes far more developed than London BECAUSE it is usually a minor. I think there should be a better way to make tall empires.

Yes the person I'm replying to contests that since he was suggesting giving historical large cities like Paris, London, and Constantinople a modifier to make them easier to develop.

I'm not denying there's something wrong with development, I was just addressing that one point.

 

[CNY10000]

Why? When something needs to fail, it is already a railroading that—you say—can beistinguished from strategic realism.

let's make it so that a 1000 army wins a combat against a 100 doom stack happens more often, or Albania can never fight against Ottoman, which is historocal railroading.

The trade centers were not always at the locations as EU4 shows. The trade routs, especially land routs, were evolving to hop from one TC to another, or better to say: from one relatively safe place to another. Moreover, EU4 does not include ALL major trade routs, but only some of them.
The TCs appeared because of development (Timbuktu, Krakow, Wien, Kiev, Nizhniy Novgorod, Moscow, Frankfurt et al.). By that time, development required some safety measures to protect it. Some of the TCs had incredibly harsh climate, but they were relatively safe, and traders decided to hop to those specific cities.
Virtually, any other place up and downstream of the river—if there was one—could also become a TC provided it was safe and developed enough. The traders would bring even more development to the city.

Then implement dynamic trade center position first. If Wallachia can manage to take the trade center away from Venice, it does make sense for Wallachia to develop and Venice should then fail. And, of course, there can be more trade centers possible, but absolutely not for every small nation.

SAFETY: What could prohibit a country—say, Wallachia—to find somewhat 'diplomatic immunity' to avoid wars? If it is not history railroading, then the answer is 'nothing at all': example from history could be Ruykyu that was considered a double vassal of China and Japan simultaneously for centuries, and it was rather independent, but protected. So, for virtual Wallachians at least one criterion of TC is guaranteed.

So Ryukyu was still not a trade center depite the fact that Ryukyu was peaceful. And, that you gurantee Wallachia a TC is clearly an ahistorical railroading, which is even worse than historical railroading.

DEVELOPMENT: Back again, what could prohibit Wallachia to have an incredibly smart young king? Again, if it is not history railroading any country could pray God and obtain an incredibly smart ruler on occasion.

Digging deeper, virtual Wallachia has the diploimmunity and a god-tier monarch. What could prohibit this ruler to successfully fight corruption and bureaucracy? There is no reason to say definitely that the monarch fails in any case (say “Hi!” to Singapore), unless you are railroading the events. So, for virtual Wallachians, we have a smart ruler who takes all his efforts to make an effective administration in the country, or in other words: the second criterion will be met in several decades (probably a century).

And eventually coming to an event that needs to be fixed—as you cited.
CHANGING GOVERNMENT FORM: In a century, virtual Wallachia sits on the traderout with a city that became a TC, What could prohibit rich traders from this country to plot to displace a poor administrator king? Nothing again.

This is exactly the same as staying in hospital for 2 months after being shot in an FPS game. Luck changes everything in realism, but not in a strategy game. What is preventing Wallachia from getting a super-smart engineer who invented a tank in EU4 time period? Also, the more randomness there is, the less strategy matters.

If you want realism, give me a reason for why being small should mean being able to develop. And you can't, because Ryukyu is a firm counter-example.

It seems that you throw-in a concept of 'strategic realism', then imagine some identifiers and borders of the concepts, but eventually do not look beyond the box of 'historical railroading'.
And it is not unusual, many people here at the forum behave the same way.

Strategic realism means that for every strategy that is used, there is a reasonable outcome.

For example, a small nation does not survive for no reason when against a large nation in a strategically realistic game. When dealing with a large nation, a small nation can survive by finding strong alliance, by forming coalation, or by becoming vassal for now. Making the small nation survive by arbitrary buffs because they survive in history is historical railroading.

And this:.

But now, Paris and London are bound to fail to be the developed city. Still, this is ahistorical railroading.

 

[Thrac]

1.Cap the development at 20 for duchys, 25 for kingdoms and 30 for empires
2.Capitals dont get a cap.
3.Implement a Metropolis mechanic.... wher every country tier gives a specific number... ex: Duchy +1, Kingdom +3, Empire +5.... desegnaiting a province beeing a Metropolis removes the cap

 

[Kamiran]

But since the AI has nowhere to expand to it just keeps spamming the 'add development' button over and over again, until you get the hilarity of a 50+ development capital in a backwards Balkan state. It's completely implausible.

I wonder what minor western nations have done with their monarch points, before we get the development system. But be fair, if you were the walachei and have no ambitions to conquer, you would spend all your excess points in develeopment too. Why shouldn the AI not use all their skill as the player can do?
Using monarch power in small nations early to improve developent is indeed really intelligent. Some technologies only increase production efficency by 10% or unlock a building (you maybe dont need), for the price of 600. If you have a 10/10/10 province and improve production by 1, together with a workshop, you gain 15% more production + tradepower + some minor advantages for the price of around 140. So its more intelligent to improve province then gaining technology. And when your behind in technology you gain neighbor bonus, which effectivly reduce the cost of technology and saves you monarch power. Which you can spend more in development.

In this case.... well done minor nations.....

1.Cap the development at 20 for duchys, 25 for kingdoms and 30 for empires
2.Capitals dont get a cap.
3.Implement a Metropolis mechanic.... wher every country tier gives a specific number... ex: Duchy +1, Kingdom +3, Empire +5.... desegnaiting a province beeing a Metropolis removes the cap

Intresting idea... but you forgot the building slot restriction.... a NON-grassland province will now never have more then 4 slots.
It also dont solve the problem cause we are talking about OPM with only one province = capitol and small nations which get 2 provinc without cap.