EU4 - Development Diary - 27th of October 2020

[Katrex]

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.

Nice idea but still requires making the downsides of going over cap more significant I just ignore gov capacity and go over it honestly

 

[master_kong]

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.

In fact, this is represented in the game with the estate privileges. Every estate has a land right privilege that gives +100 GC while taking away crown land besides reducing max absolutism and increasing that estate's loyalty and influence. Your suggestion seems more organic but the mechanic is there regardless and more linked with the current estates.

 

[PrussicAcid]

Hopefully, AI will not spam "expand infrastructures" until being stuck in its own frontiers because it got no more available governing capacity... Please pay attention to the AI priority management here before introducing this new feature!

 

[master_kong]

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.

I loved this suggestion and this is the only good one in this thread regarding the new expand infrastructure, no offense. It's about time we could finally have a distance-based mechanic in our realm. May autonomy's turn comes next after that.

 

[Breiastel777]

Would the 200 flat cost be affected by having a courthouse in the province or not?

 

[Canute VII]

yearly_army_professionalism = 0.2

Wait, that's locked to Cradle of Civilization DLC, right?

 

[AlleyTheToaster]

Interesting.

Also, any plants for Africa? New mission trees, governments? This update/expansion? Or maybe next?

 

[Jarvin]

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

>competitive MP
>is fine with having lvl 1 advisors
naisu

 

[Limbojack]

200 GC seems a bit harsh, but oh well. It would be even cooler if it allowed us to stack normal buildings as well, and not just manufactories, even though that might be a bit OP. Interesting news anyway!

 

[Kapi96]

Cor, 200 governing capacity? An extra manufactory sounds nice and all, but unless the amount of GC you get has been massively increased it's no way worth it!

 

[Glaeken]

can you guys add another quality of life improvement for trade centers? upgrading/downgrading, comparative trade values in one ui page, so we dont neeed to choose them one by one on trade map?

 

[Skagzill]

Maybe instead of being per province make it per state? So you press button and whole state gets the buff while costs increases? That was its incentivies to invest in larger states instead of randomass 3 province states in middle of nowhere.

I also second distance from capital modifier, and would like to add that this should go cheaper with Adm tech (maybe replace one of the merc ideas in Admin group with some bonus to it)

 

[WARenie]

Would be cool if province development was softlocked under such a button, so province could not be developed higher than X dev until you expand infrastructure to corresponding level that unlock it. If your infrastructure can't support your province dev, you get some unrest or whatever suitable. Also infrastructure should have a maintenance, not just a governing cost, right?

 

[antonbarin]

Lot of people here is missing the point that this is for tall games. Of course it is suboptimal to use it but in some cases where you are roleplaying a tall free city, a tall switzerland (as groogy said) or something like that, you might be in a scenario where you don’t have where to spend the points, and it feels bad to have something going to waste in a game about optimization.
We don’t need something overpowered, not everything in the game has to lead to being overpowered, I like being weak and I like having a way to spend my resources while roleplaying

 

[Rule Britannia]

Hello everyone! Today we are going to talk about some improvements in some interfaces for how you deal with governing capacity and one new feature that uses a lot of governing capacity but also let you “keep growing” on the land you already own.

First to make it easier to manage your governing capacity we’ve been adding needed information in two places. First we have added so when a building affects governing capacity it will now show that so you can get a sense of where you will get most value out of it in your realm, helping players with larger empires.

View attachment 646643

This means buildings such as courthouses will now show how much governing capacity they will remove if built in that specific province.

Next is a little help to everyone who have been amassing a lot of vassals to hold land for them. Previously there was no way to see how much governing capacity a vassal had or how much was being used.

View attachment 646644

We’ve now added so that can be viewed under the subject interface when you go into the details window for that subject.


Now to the new feature, for the one that has extra governing capacity, a Switzerland hiding in the mountains wanting to play tall. So in a province that is at least 15 development you can expand its infrastructure to allow for another building and manufactory in it. This increases the governing cost of the province by a flat 200 which can not be reduced by province modifiers.

View attachment 646645

Then for every 15 development of the province and further 200 governing capacity you can expand the infrastructure more for more slots of buildings and manufactories.

Hope you’ve enjoyed today's development diary! Next week we’ll be back with a new diary which will be written by Johan!

The first change where we can now see the reduction in governing capacity taken up by a province when building a building is a much needed addition. I am less sold on the ability for adding extra building slots in a province using governing capacity. Why would you not just built up the province using MP since you are not using them for expansion and then get both the extra development and the new building slot, probably while using less governing capacity?

Also how is this new feature going to work when I conquer a province, will I be stuck with the extra building slot and the hit to my governing capacity or will it get destroyed (or be possible to undo) after conquest? It really should be possible to undo this decision as otherwise it would make it prohibitively costly to conquer certain provinces for large empires.

 

[klingonadmiral]

So in a province that is at least 15 development you can expand its infrastructure to allow for another building and manufactory in it. This increases the governing cost of the province by a flat 200 which can not be reduced by province modifiers.

Considering that most countries cap out at ~4-5k GC, what exactly is the point of that mechanic outside of MP?

Also, will the AI be able to use it? Because I sure as hell don't want a random province taking an entire tech's worth of GC to hold.

 

[Twoflower]

I like the idea of infrastructure.

The thing to keep in mind when discussing the benefits, is that when you are truly playing tall, after a certain point you have excess governing capacity and at that point, spending GC on something essentially does not cost you anything.
Take, say, tall Netherlands. My concept of that would be owning
- as stated land all provinces in the Lowlands region + maybe the Picardy and Champagne states. That is a grand total of 29 provinces. If you develop the CoT provinces (Antwerpen, Amsterdam, Bruges, Calais and Reims) to 60 and all others to 30, that adds up to a total development in states of 1020. For simplicity's sake, let's not consider discounts from courthouse/town hall/state house and just subtract the 150 dev in the capital state of Holland. Governing cost from states would be 870

- 25 provinces in trade companies around the world with an average dev of 20 would add 250 governing cost (25*20*0,5). Your total governing cost is 1120.

As the Netherlands, you have a baseline governing capacity of:
200 (base) +200 (Kingdom rank)+50 (Dutch republic) = 450

ADM techs 8, 12, and 17 will take you to 900 GC, ADM 20 will put you at 1150. Once you have reached 1150 GC at ADM 20, you basically do not need GC to cover conquests anymore because you have conquered everything that you "wanted"/"needed" to conquer in a tall game.
Hence, at ADM 20, you will have all the GC you need for this tall playthrough. You get 250 additional GC from ADM 24 and 27 and 500 from ADM 31, and once you have filled government reforms, reform progress will give additional "free" governing capacity. Spending this excess governing capacity on infrastructure actually doesn't cost you anything, not even an opportunity cost. This is the whole point: while 200 GC are pretty precious for a world conqueror and also for basically all "wide" campaigns, they can and do become excess currency in a tall game.

That said, a GC cost of 200 for infrastructure is equivalent to 10 clicks to expand the administration and to 80 percent of the 250 GC gained from the later admin techs (those 500 from ADM are not particularly relevant, consider that this late in the game it will be hard to find a building with a reasonable ROI for the remaining time).
If it is supposed to be a relevant instrument for a tall country, that cost seems a bit excessive. 100 or perhaps even 50 would seem more reasonable.

 

[Choorus]

Considering that most countries cap out at ~4-5k GC, what exactly is the point of that mechanic outside of MP?

Also, will the AI be able to use it? Because I sure as hell don't want a random province taking an entire tech's worth of GC to hold.

The expanded infrastructure upgrade and the newest building will be destroyed upon owner's change.

 

[Taylor_]

I also think 200 is a bit much. Maybe 100 or 125 or 150?

The benefit is mostly just an additional manufactory slot - very appreciated, but it does make the 200 cost questionable. By having the requisite development, you tend to unlock a building slot for most types anyway, especially by mid-late game when I imagine these are intended to be used.

Maybe add something else, like a +10% tax/production/manpower/sailors modifier like parliament seats? Makes 200 GC cost seem a lot better.

Regardless, love the attention to tall play!

 

[Zaldun]

Does the +200GC get added to your total value or the value of the province? Basically if you were to do it to a province in your capital region would it still increase by +200?