EU4 - Development Diary - 27th of October 2020

[HeyIAmInfinity]

Another thing worth mentioning is that this feature will become the best eu4 beginner trap. If a feature fills into this category i wonder if it should not have been cut at the design stage.

 

[Joei160.]

A very nice feature you guys could implement would be to relate governing capacity to crownland.

For example, a country with lots of crownland could have less governing capacity, because all provinces would seem more dense - more zones to be locally managed by a central state. Awarding more lands to estates - thus reducing crownland - could mean that the administration would become more decentralized, which should mean more governing capacity.

Concentrating more crownland would hence have this sense of malus attached to max absolutism and national tax bonuses. It would sound more like a choice instead of something to irrationally search for through mid and late game.

Decentralized States would obtain the ability to amass more territory having their estates as mediators of the central power. The more percentage of land delegated to the estates, the more governing capacity one would have.

For example: Poland, with its strong nobility, would be able to governate it's huge territory, as would Russia. Prussia, tending to be smaller, could profit from centralization in a more consistent way.

 

[Katrex]

This isn’t for tall countries it’s for wide countries that no longer wish to take land and just spend all their excess admin doing this in every single province and go 10s of thousands over gov cap

 

[IndigoRage]

I think that a flat 200 government capacity cost is a good number because as I understood reading this dev diary, the objective is make this mechanic only viable for tall play, if you deliberately are not expanding and have just one or few provinces your government capacity will naturally increase throughout the game and you can dump the excess of government capacity points investing in infrastructure, this is good and make tall play more rewarding.

If you are not playing tall this flat 200 government capacity cost is better spent in other things, but I think that this is intentional by design, one of main challanges of create mechanics for make tall play better is have certain that wide play will not be stronger using the same mechanic, I think that a flat 200 goverment capacity cost solve this problem.

The main issue is that you'd 9/10 times be better off just deving enough to be worth 200 GC rather than get this in its current form, even if you're playing tall.

 

[Pale Blue]

Never said it was particularly useful in its current iteration. Only that it was specifically designed not to be doable as a blob. I don't figure I'd ever use it more than once, maybe twice max if at all if I were playing tall though. (I suspect its final implementation may have an attached achievement) Not sure how I feel about it atm. I just like the spirit behind adding "tall" things.

I too like the idea behind it to make tall play better, but currently it is not really useful for tall players.

@Groogy with all do respect I would not click on that button even if I would play as a 1 province Ulm sandwiched between an austria that owns all of western europe and an Ottomans that owns all the balkans and reaches all the way down to Arabia. The reason is because the powerspike that this button gives me would not be enough to be a meaningful help in the situation even if I would not be in such a ridicilous position and just have a normal Ulm campaign. On the other hand 200 gov is a ridicilous investment that will hurt me till the rest of the game even if i manage to expand. Spending the gov is simply not worth it unless you literally planning on not expanding at all in the entire game which no player would do.

There needs to be a way to destroy it yourself otherwise you will never be able to expand if you change your mind sometimes later in the game.

 

[Katrex]

I too like the idea behind it to make tall play better, but currently it is not really useful for tall players.


There needs to be a way to destroy it yourself otherwise you will never be able to expand if you change your mind sometimes later in the game.

True but honestly who cares if you have 300 soldier houses what value is taking more land besides I wouldn’t do this until I had ideal borders and any land I took would be to make pretty looking marches

 

[JaxElite]

I have a small feature request, since you're working on the UI, @Groogy: When you are in the new states overview menu, could you make the name of the states clickable? (ie clicking on a state will move the map to its location). Would be very useful!

This! Also can we please see in states overview which state already has a state house?

 

[IndigoRage]

True but honestly who cares if you have 300 soldier houses what value is taking more land besides I wouldn’t do this until I had ideal borders and any land I took would be to make pretty looking marches

I agree, I love that kind of playstyle, but the edge cases are important should people change their minds or some mishap occurred.

 

[Sapa Inca]

The main issue is that you'd 9/10 times be better off just deving enough to be worth 200 GC rather than get this in its current form, even if you're playing tall.

I agree, but we must consider that development cost have increased cost for high developed provinces, this becomes less cost efficient the more the province is developed, the right number for balance would be a number that make invest in infrastructure better than development if the province have high development (or if the province have very bad development cost modifiers) and make invest in development better than infrascture if the province have low development.
We must have care to not make the government capacity cost too low because this would make wide play use the mechanic in the same way than tall play.

 

[Katrex]

Just uh make sure you’re a republic (Rev repub ideally) because stabing up for 999 admin when your ruler dies would suck

 

[Metz]

Can administrative tech help lower the base GC cost? This would help show how as countries got more advanced and centralized, their populations were managed better and grew.

 

[Alblaka]

200 gc is, as people have said, obviously too much, but most absurd numbers in dev diaries are basically just floating them out to see a reaction and then adjusting accordingly.

Sounds reasonable, so I'll simply add another voice repeating that it's indeed a bit high.

Simply assuming a 2k government cap lategame, and something like 500 dev in a tall switzerland, that's ~8 additional buildings (worthless, because if you never expand, you'll have all the developement in few provinces anyways, allowing you to fill them with all buildings) and ~8 additional manufactories (which is actually legitimately useful. Stacking Manufactories with Household/Ramparts could be neat).
I don't think that impact is significant enough to give tall play a relevant buff.

Make it 100 GC and we'll see. It's not like you'll invent a way to make tall play OP in EUIV anyways

 

[Skyfus]

Any reason half the reactions are soft-locked?

 

[MarkS00N]

Yeah, after some of these discussion I still think to make the feature worth it you have to gives boost to building efficiency (so, +100% Local Tax become +200% or something) every time you expand infrastructure. Building's bonus is just not powerful enough to compete with the benefit of annexing more provinces. Which make sense, because you can still build building when expanding, so if buildings are too powerful, it will still benefit the wide gameplay over the tall gameplay. But I think this is where expanding infrastructure mechanic should come in and make buildings (in that particular province) more powerful.

 

[Hohadonc]

I think my issue with this is when playing developmentally tall in the current game my limit is not the number of slots I can unlock it's that the game hits a cap on how many buildings they allow in a single province. Particularly in trade center provinces where the UI for the trade center takes up 2 of the slots you would otherwise have.

 

[Scayser]

A very nice feature you guys could implement would be to relate governing capacity to crownland.

For example, a country with lots of crownland could have less governing capacity, because all provinces would seem more dense - more zones to be locally managed by a central state. Awarding more lands to estates - thus reducing crownland - could mean that the administration would become more decentralized, which should mean more governing capacity.

Concentrating more crownland would hence have this sense of malus attached to max absolutism and national tax bonuses. It would sound more like a choice instead of something to irrationally search for through mid and late game.

Decentralized States would obtain the ability to amass more territory having their estates as mediators of the central power. The more percentage of land delegated to the estates, the more governing capacity one would have.

For example: Poland, with its strong nobility, would be able to governate it's huge territory, as would Russia. Prussia, tending to be smaller, could profit from centralization in a more consistent way.

Dude...
Governing capacity - it`s actually your administative office, and giving your lands to nobility or other estates doesn`t give any bonuses for your capacity, because estates don`t have any motivation to maintain your country.
All the countries with strong nobility were too weak, and i don`t think that you can fine some сontradictionary example.

 

[Dragonquack]

200 GC seems a little excessive? I think somewhere between 50 and 100 would be fair

 

[Katrex]

Doing the maths on this. Russia 100 steppe provinces

100 provinces at 30 dev each with 1-14-15 distribution

3000 dev.

3000 base manpower in each province x100 300000 base manpower
Use this twice on every province to build 300 total soldiers houses fir 1500 manpower each for another
450000 base manpower

Now we add multipliers quantity Barack’s orthodox etc estate let’s say 300% multiplier

Were looking at 3million manpower .

At the cost of 40000 gov capacity which is 20x over limit giving 40 x increased cost of advisors so you could still run level 1 advisors at 80 ducats per month

40x stab cost increase caps at 999 admin so go republic

Coring also costs 999 and taking a province coalitions the entire world.

Honestly... these downsides are not enough to stop me doing it in competitive mp

 

[Sapa Inca]

Thinking about the new mechanic and the cost, what if instead of try balance this reducing the cost we leave the cost remains high but infrasctructure give more beneifts beyond 1 building slot?

 

[ImAdrian]

Just throwing an idea out there:

What if the GC cost of expanding infrastructure would be based on the distance to your capital?
So you can improve the heart of your realm (such as your capital state) at a relatively moderate GC penalty, but as you expand this option gets too expensive for further away provinces.