Doesn't Development end... very unrealistic?

[Duke of Britain]

Real life cities are often arbitrarily measured by one number (population), and have also been measured by two (population and economic production). Statistics as a representation of the real world are neither new nor unrealistic . In fact, realism is important, in balance - as if you have something that's not realistic, then you will have issues with immersion and balancing - something that this particular issue demonstrates very well.

There's the problem: Base tax, "production" and manpower, the EUIV values, do not represent population or economic production. They are numbers of a game, chosen with game balance in mind, and thus do not truly reflect the wealth of a region (the province) had in real life in that time period.

I don't really understand what point you are trying to prove, honestly. I agree that realism is important (I love realism), but for the OP to argue that this mechanic should be changed because of "realism" when the entire basis of that mechanic (Base tax, production and manpower) are not realistic at all is pretty ridiculous. I would agree with that idea if we were talking about Population growth or production in Victoria II, where its statistics numbers at least try to be realistic, with actual population and goods produced, albeit the latter is naturally simplified.

However, I do think that realism should be taken into account, but people need to realize that the entire mechanic is an abstraction and simply calling out on a word (realism) is not the way to argue some change. What do base tax, production and manpower truly represent? Population? Economic power? And even if these numbers were to be realistic, how would the "click and grow a city in a single day" be realistic?

Either way, IMO the way to tackle this issue that would be both realistic and beneficial to gameplay would be to add ways for plague, wars and other issues to reduce development. That, and make development more gradual and fluid. Both of these suggestions are things that people suggest pretty often anyway.

 

[Axe99]

There's the problem: Base tax, "production" and manpower, the EUIV values, do not represent population or economic production. They are numbers of a game, chosen with game balance in mind, and thus do not truly reflect the wealth of a region (the province) had in real life in that time period.

I don't really understand what point you are trying to prove, honestly. I agree that realism is important (I love realism), but for the OP to argue that this mechanic should be changed because of "realism" when the entire basis of that mechanic (Base tax, production and manpower) are not realistic at all is pretty ridiculous. I would agree with that idea if we were talking about Population growth or production in Victoria II, where its statistics numbers at least try to be realistic, with actual population and goods produced, albeit the latter is naturally simplified.
...

Either way, IMO the way to tackle this issue that would be both realistic and beneficial to gameplay would be to add ways for plague, wars and other issues to reduce development. That, and make development more gradual and fluid. Both of these suggestions are things that people suggest pretty often anyway.

Sorry, I thought you were arguing that aiming for realism was stupid, rather than that 'realism' in the case of this argument was stupid (although, to be fair, the OP argues for it to be more realistic). I do agree that dividing development into the three MP types is taking their abstraction too far (as an abstraction for the capacity of a nation's government to effect change in military, economic and diplomatic/naval spheres, they're reasonable - but that doesn't hold true (as you say) once you take that to developing an area), and I'd be very surprised if that by the end of EU4's life we're looking at development 3.0 or 4.0, and that EU5 might have a different take on development altogether.

 

[MAHak]

How about some natural growth, every non-arid, tropical or artic, provinces grow + 1 in all three categories every 50 years, So if France uses all its MP's on expansion it's homeland provinces won't stay medieval in 1800. Laissez faire any one?

The ideas about spending money as well as MP's, cool downs and tying development to technology i support as well.
Also give Empires a development cost reduction in their capitals, as these normally tends to be rather big in empires.
Funny note: start a 1820 game then look at northern England, the industrial revolution should be in full swing there by now, but most provinces are at 5 production, not 100 +.

 

[Steph]

The most logical and easiest for me would be to divide the cost in Monarch point by two, and replace it by a cost in Ducat. And both would increase this the current development level.

 

[Duke of Britain]

Sorry, I thought you were arguing that aiming for realism was stupid, rather than that 'realism' in the case of this argument was stupid (although, to be fair, the OP argues for it to be more realistic). I do agree that dividing development into the three MP types is taking their abstraction too far (as an abstraction for the capacity of a nation's government to effect change in military, economic and diplomatic/naval spheres, they're reasonable - but that doesn't hold true (as you say) once you take that to developing an area), and I'd be very surprised if that by the end of EU4's life we're looking at development 3.0 or 4.0, and that EU5 might have a different take on development altogether.

Ah, I understand what you mean. My problem with the way people have been throwing the "realism" argument pretty damn often lately is because it is, more often than not, the community has seemingly taken to the practice of using "realism" to justify their own agenda of what the game should look like without actually caring for realism or the proper addition of realistic mechanics that fit for gameplay.

@OP did address a problem with the game works, but some of his arguments were (IMO) flawed. London is not destined to be great (It wasn't even that large in 1444!) and there's nothing weird with super-developed Wallachia compared to England or Italy (Which is what historically happened to England when compared to areas that stagnated or got poorer), but there's an obvious issue with the way Wallachia can magically grow because of magical monarch points which weren't wasted with much else, instead of actually having to create the circumstances to facilitate long-term growth.

Still, I should have been clearer in my previous posts, so sorry for the misunderstanding I have caused. I do agree with the general proposal of the thread, I just didn't entirely like the way it was presented.

 

[Axe99]

@Duke of Britain Cheers for a thoughtful and constructive discussion . I do agree that the poorly thought out 'but it's not realistic' critique is definitely over-used, and understand where you're coming from.

On the topic of development, one thought could be to maybe do it through policies? So you've got different development policies depending on idea groups you've unlocked, and those policies either trigger events allowing for development, or trigger the ability to do incremental improvements at certain times. I'd also like the policies to have a cost in MP and ducats (and event a way to adjust how much we spend on development). In dot points, for clarity - idea would be:

- Have a policy for development (or multiple, with different flavours of development) - cost both MP and ducats.
- With policy in place, player gets some choice over development at regular intervals, through events or some other mechanism.

Orrrr (another random idea that popped into my head)......

You could have a whole new 'development' window. You could 'spend' MP and ducats into the development pool, which then allows you to set up development projects in provinces (players choosing the province, and focus and strength of project). Project then has to run for a period of time to achieve its outcomes, which are mostly as expected but with some variation just to keep people guessing/allow for players to have to react to circumstances.

 

[Xendance]

Maybe trade node values and the trade areas could influence the cost of development somehow? That way all the rich areas like the low countries and british isles and such would be somewhat cheaper to develop, while the steppes in eurasia would be relatively more costly.

 

[Linvega]

Dev loss doesn't solve anything imo, it just favors countries that don't go to war even more. It's also problematic for the AI.

Imo, a cooldown is absolutely necessary, as well as a ducat cost. Maybe a discount on the MP cost though. Also, make an extra ducat cost from terrain instead of MP.
That ensures that reasonably sized rich countries like the Hansa or Netherlands, non-blobbing England etc. can develop decently, but neither OPMs nor poor ROTW countries reach crazy dev levels. In other words, playing tall would still be viable, but with a more reasonable implementation.

 

[Canute VII]

Just to add some new thougths to this topic:

1. Colonist style development seems to be very reasonable to me. Unless a new type would be introduced which required some thorough thinking and re-balancing, the existing guys could be equipped with additional capacities:
- diplomats would lend a hand in admin dev and diplo dev
- similar for missionaries and traders
However, this would really stretch these roles..., therefore:

2. Equip advisors with the ability to develop provinces. You would need an advisor to develop in his respective MP category. The number of provinces and the speed/the efficiency of development would depend on the monarch points the advisor can muster. This seems to be very appealing in that it would enrich advisor functionality, restrict unrealistic development and link development at least indirectly via advisor costs to spending ducats.

3. Still better, but not necessary, would be adding a new bonus to the very first idea introduced from each of the three idea groups. The bonus would consist in being able to develop the specific aspect - admin, diplo, military - in ones provinces. This would add a tactical aspect.

4. Introduce a development modifier that relies on the average development of all the neighboring provinces (somewhat similar to the modelling of technology development bonuses and maluses within a tech group). If a province advances too much in development in comparison to all the neighboring provinces, regardless of to which natio they belong, then a dev malus applies. If it is behind the others a bonus applies. This would ascertain a more balanced regional development.

5. Then of course again: allow development to (be) decrease (d) through
through acts and events.

 

[Canute VII]

As for the destruction in war thing, I would be happy with an event that fires while siegeing that causes destruction to buildings and development. could have a number of different ones that vary depending on size of the army, length of the siege, the faction doing it (hordes were much more inclined to burn everything). You could even add an option to burn military points to burn development, but make it random what gets dropped by 1.

Finally Paradox - ESPIONAGE - here is your chance to make it useful - SABOTAGE DEVELOPMENT -> either increase the cost OR lower a random developement by 1.......MIND BLOW!

YES! Especially linking the probability of the event to the faction causing it deserves attention (though I like all these ideas in the post). It should also depend on the faction suffering the event, where the probability increases if the factions come from different culture groups, religious groups, tech groups. E.g. ottomans vs. austrians would cause more severe events more often. austrian vs. Bavaria rather less severe events and less often. Therefore, countries that are situated at the crosslines of cultures and religions, like wallachia, baluchistan, etc. would probably be more negatively effected.

 

[Galaahd]

I hate that it depends on RNG, aka what kind of monarchs you obtain.

It's stupid gameplay.

But overall I agree with the thread starter.

 

[Morwys]

+Rep to the OP for calling attention to this and +rep for everyone else for a nice discussion.

Many good ideas have been put forward here, but the simplest solution seems to be adding a (scaling) ducat cost to development. I say 'scaling' because to trading nations like Hansa or Portugal ducats eventually become a non-issue and because weak OPM need a help in early game to properly develop and play tall.

I didn't found anything on the suggestions forum, so I've started a thread there linking here.

 

[Ranemoraken]

This is a cool thread, man. Interesting ideas.

I do find that an interesting issue in the development is that the modifier for diplo-annexing some nations becomes relatively impossible. For instance, as Poland, I never managed to diplo-annex Wallachia, because it would add one development, which required me to get several more to overcome.

I suppose, however, that is the point. It's not a complaint, but an observation.

 

[jebates]

The current cloud civilization Wallachia problem seems like the return of the previous pop mechanic that had crazy population growth where you'd see 999,999 cities and some stuck on 4,000 due to constant 'plague' events which really took me out of the game immersion. There need to be limits to how tall a OPM can build, or maybe a random event where if your province is occupied and you have high war exhaustion, that makes you lose development.

 

[DukeWilleo1630]

They should probably just have a cooldown on developing each province. One that scales as well. So if you have 10 dev in a province, you only have to wait like 3 or 5 years before developing there again. If you have 50 development in a province, then you have to wait 20-25 years or something. Obviously I haven't thought about exactly how many years you should have to wait for development and how it should scale, but I think that in theory it would solve the problem. If you have loads of provinces, monarch points would still be the limiting factor. But, for things like wallachia, they simply wouldn't be able to develop single provinces so high due to a development cooldown.

I'd rather not see the ducat cost. Instead a cooldown.

 

[Morwys]

Here it is, posted on the suggestions forum.

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/balancing-development-Über-opms.872357/

 

[Nuklearius]

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[Nuklearius]

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[LikeNothing]

I feel like a broken record player but...

Development should cost mostly money (which scales sharply upwards) and a fixed but low value (around 10) of MPs.

 

[Nuklearius]

I