If there is one thing of this game which I dont like, it is the development system introduced by Common Sense expansion. The community has always been divided on this topic but I dont want to revamp the argument. I just want to share with you what I am thinking on how to improve development a bit, because you know sharing ideas doesn't cost anything.
One of the main characteristics of EU4 period is represented by the efforts of European nations to bring wealth from the new worlds (Americas and Far East) to Europe and the struggle of native nations to keep their wealth at home (this in particular for Eastern Asia nations). The trade map of the game represent this phenomenon quite well but i want to emphasize this concept by giving to trade not only the outcome of filling your monthly income but also to make your provinces grow.
So the main idea is to link development not only to monarchs point but also to wealth, in particular wealth from trade, and to make it dynamic, in a way that fits the game. Every province will grow at a different pace depending on different factors. Provinces will be also able to lose development in certain conditions. I won't do any maths because it would be tedious, time consuming and I probably won't be able to achieve a balanced result. So brave yourself because it will be quite a long reading!
Growth and devolopment of provinces
To keep things plain and simple the only parameter that we will take in consideration as a raw number is the TRADE VALUE (or retained trade value) of trade a node. Every month, all the provinces belonging to a certain trade node will receive a GROWTH SCORE equal to the trade value of that trade node (Other factors will act as a percentage modifier of this number and we will see them later). The growth score will fill up a GROWTH BAR that once is full (let's say at 1000 growth score) will give you the ability to develop the province once. Note that provinces won't develop automatically; once the growth bar is full you will still have to spend a certain amount of MP, much lower than the actual ingame amount, depending on which aspect of the province you want to improve. When one or more provinces are ready to develop, a green flag should notice you and you will be able to develop the provinces at any moment, except when you are at war. When a province has been developed the growth bar will empty and the process will start again.
Let's talk now more specificly about the province's growth score. The base number of it is still the trade value of each trade node disregarding which nation the province belongs to. Other factors will act as modifiers at nation level or at province level.
National level modifiers:
-The first modifier is the trade power each nation have in the trade node, because it makes sense that if a trade node is very rich and you can bring to your provinces tha major part of this wealth, then your provinces should grow faster then the other provinces in the same trade node. So, for example, if a nation has 40% of trade power in a trade node, the trade score of every province belonging to that nation and to that trade node will be increased by 40%.
-Ideas and administrative tech could act as modifiers both for increasing the growth score or to reduce the growth objective (which we put at 1000 just for instance).
Province level modifiers:
-Capital provinces should grow at faster rate so the growth score should be incresed by a certain percentage (let's say 50%)
-Centers of trade and natural harbors should also grow faster (won't guess any percentage from now on)
-Terrain types should also influence the growth rate or the growth objective of a province. For instance, whereas farmlands will give positive modifiers to growth, mountains will give negative ones.
-Climate should be taken in consideration with arid, arctic and tropical climates acting as negative modifiers
-Provinces that produce grain and fish as local good should see a minor boost to their growth score
-Universities will keep the same function they have now
Stagnation, starvation and losing development
Everytime a country is at war every province of that country will STAGNATE. This means that the growth bar progress will stop so it won't increase nor decrease.
If during a war a province is under siege, hostile army will loot it emptying the loot bar. Once the loot bar is empty the same mechanic will be applied to the growth bar and the province will start STARVING. During starvation the hostile army will suffer harsh attrition and once the growth bar will reach 0 there will be a monthly chance the province will lose 1 development. The population loss could regard the more improved of the three bases (tax, production, manpower) or it could be random. Once a province had lost one development, a modifier will trigger impeding any other development losses for a period of time. As a consequence you should be very careful on deciding when develop your provinces; if a war is incoming developing could be risky as developed provinces will have almost empty growth bar!
Indirect positive: Merchant republics
In most of my games merchant republics don't last very long and no one have a real interest in keeping them alive.
With this setup, instead, sharing a home trade node with a merchant republic will give a major boost to all provinces' growth, since merchant republic will bring a massive amount of wealth in their home trade nodes, and so you want to keep them around as much as possible. You could eventually ask or force them to give you their trade power to achieve even higher growth (and so the transfering trade power relationship could be eventually useful).
Example: Genoa Trade Node
Let's take a few provinces belonging to the Genoa Trade Node at the start of the game as an exemple.
The trade value of the node is 18.6. This means that every province in the trade node will have 18.6 as base growth score.
Let's focus ont the provinces of Genoa, Barcelona, Novara and Montferrat singularly:
Province: Genoa (Genoa)
Base:18.6
Trade power in node (14%): +14%
Is capital: +50%
Is center of trade: +30%
Terrain type Hills: +10%
Total modifier: +104%
Monthly growth score: 37.9
With this growth score and a growth objective of 1000, you will be able to develop the province every 26 months.
Province: Barcelona (Aragon)
Base: 18.6
Trade power in node (29%): +29%
Terrain type Grasslands: +20%
Total modifier: +49%
Monthly growth score: 27.7
With this growth score and a growth objective of 1000, you will be able to develop the province every 36 months.
Province: Novara (Milan)
Base: 18.6
Trade power in node (1%): +1%
Terrain type Farmlands: +30%
Producing grain: +10%
Total modifier: +41%
Monthly growth score: 26.2
With this growth score and a growth objective of 1000, you will be able to develop the province every 38 months.
Province: Montferrat (Montferrat)
Base:18.6
Trade power in node (3%): +3%
Is capital:+50%
Terrain type Farmlands: +30%
Total modifier: +83%
Monthly growth score: 34.0
With this growth score and a growth objective of 1000, you will be able to develop the province every 29 months.
Consider that this is the start of the game and there are no ideas or technology influencing growth yet.
Conclusion
In conclusion I think that this overhaul of development could make the system more challenging, satisfying and generally more merged into the game. Development will be the outcome of an actual effort, which is the ability to bring the wealth home and to make good use of it. It will be easier for certain countries and more challenging for others, distant from wealthier trade nodes. It will also be dynamic and not completely arbitrary. Peace focused nations will still be advantaged, but isolated, crapy OPM won't be able to grow out of control and outside of any possible logic or reason.
If you have read so far I thank you and I'm happy to know your opinions.
One of the main characteristics of EU4 period is represented by the efforts of European nations to bring wealth from the new worlds (Americas and Far East) to Europe and the struggle of native nations to keep their wealth at home (this in particular for Eastern Asia nations). The trade map of the game represent this phenomenon quite well but i want to emphasize this concept by giving to trade not only the outcome of filling your monthly income but also to make your provinces grow.
So the main idea is to link development not only to monarchs point but also to wealth, in particular wealth from trade, and to make it dynamic, in a way that fits the game. Every province will grow at a different pace depending on different factors. Provinces will be also able to lose development in certain conditions. I won't do any maths because it would be tedious, time consuming and I probably won't be able to achieve a balanced result. So brave yourself because it will be quite a long reading!
Growth and devolopment of provinces
To keep things plain and simple the only parameter that we will take in consideration as a raw number is the TRADE VALUE (or retained trade value) of trade a node. Every month, all the provinces belonging to a certain trade node will receive a GROWTH SCORE equal to the trade value of that trade node (Other factors will act as a percentage modifier of this number and we will see them later). The growth score will fill up a GROWTH BAR that once is full (let's say at 1000 growth score) will give you the ability to develop the province once. Note that provinces won't develop automatically; once the growth bar is full you will still have to spend a certain amount of MP, much lower than the actual ingame amount, depending on which aspect of the province you want to improve. When one or more provinces are ready to develop, a green flag should notice you and you will be able to develop the provinces at any moment, except when you are at war. When a province has been developed the growth bar will empty and the process will start again.
Let's talk now more specificly about the province's growth score. The base number of it is still the trade value of each trade node disregarding which nation the province belongs to. Other factors will act as modifiers at nation level or at province level.
National level modifiers:
-The first modifier is the trade power each nation have in the trade node, because it makes sense that if a trade node is very rich and you can bring to your provinces tha major part of this wealth, then your provinces should grow faster then the other provinces in the same trade node. So, for example, if a nation has 40% of trade power in a trade node, the trade score of every province belonging to that nation and to that trade node will be increased by 40%.
-Ideas and administrative tech could act as modifiers both for increasing the growth score or to reduce the growth objective (which we put at 1000 just for instance).
Province level modifiers:
-Capital provinces should grow at faster rate so the growth score should be incresed by a certain percentage (let's say 50%)
-Centers of trade and natural harbors should also grow faster (won't guess any percentage from now on)
-Terrain types should also influence the growth rate or the growth objective of a province. For instance, whereas farmlands will give positive modifiers to growth, mountains will give negative ones.
-Climate should be taken in consideration with arid, arctic and tropical climates acting as negative modifiers
-Provinces that produce grain and fish as local good should see a minor boost to their growth score
-Universities will keep the same function they have now
Stagnation, starvation and losing development
Everytime a country is at war every province of that country will STAGNATE. This means that the growth bar progress will stop so it won't increase nor decrease.
If during a war a province is under siege, hostile army will loot it emptying the loot bar. Once the loot bar is empty the same mechanic will be applied to the growth bar and the province will start STARVING. During starvation the hostile army will suffer harsh attrition and once the growth bar will reach 0 there will be a monthly chance the province will lose 1 development. The population loss could regard the more improved of the three bases (tax, production, manpower) or it could be random. Once a province had lost one development, a modifier will trigger impeding any other development losses for a period of time. As a consequence you should be very careful on deciding when develop your provinces; if a war is incoming developing could be risky as developed provinces will have almost empty growth bar!
Indirect positive: Merchant republics
In most of my games merchant republics don't last very long and no one have a real interest in keeping them alive.
With this setup, instead, sharing a home trade node with a merchant republic will give a major boost to all provinces' growth, since merchant republic will bring a massive amount of wealth in their home trade nodes, and so you want to keep them around as much as possible. You could eventually ask or force them to give you their trade power to achieve even higher growth (and so the transfering trade power relationship could be eventually useful).
Example: Genoa Trade Node
Let's take a few provinces belonging to the Genoa Trade Node at the start of the game as an exemple.
The trade value of the node is 18.6. This means that every province in the trade node will have 18.6 as base growth score.
Let's focus ont the provinces of Genoa, Barcelona, Novara and Montferrat singularly:
Province: Genoa (Genoa)
Base:18.6
Trade power in node (14%): +14%
Is capital: +50%
Is center of trade: +30%
Terrain type Hills: +10%
Total modifier: +104%
Monthly growth score: 37.9
With this growth score and a growth objective of 1000, you will be able to develop the province every 26 months.
Province: Barcelona (Aragon)
Base: 18.6
Trade power in node (29%): +29%
Terrain type Grasslands: +20%
Total modifier: +49%
Monthly growth score: 27.7
With this growth score and a growth objective of 1000, you will be able to develop the province every 36 months.
Province: Novara (Milan)
Base: 18.6
Trade power in node (1%): +1%
Terrain type Farmlands: +30%
Producing grain: +10%
Total modifier: +41%
Monthly growth score: 26.2
With this growth score and a growth objective of 1000, you will be able to develop the province every 38 months.
Province: Montferrat (Montferrat)
Base:18.6
Trade power in node (3%): +3%
Is capital:+50%
Terrain type Farmlands: +30%
Total modifier: +83%
Monthly growth score: 34.0
With this growth score and a growth objective of 1000, you will be able to develop the province every 29 months.
Consider that this is the start of the game and there are no ideas or technology influencing growth yet.
Conclusion
In conclusion I think that this overhaul of development could make the system more challenging, satisfying and generally more merged into the game. Development will be the outcome of an actual effort, which is the ability to bring the wealth home and to make good use of it. It will be easier for certain countries and more challenging for others, distant from wealthier trade nodes. It will also be dynamic and not completely arbitrary. Peace focused nations will still be advantaged, but isolated, crapy OPM won't be able to grow out of control and outside of any possible logic or reason.
If you have read so far I thank you and I'm happy to know your opinions.
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