EU4 Leviathan - Development Diary 23rd of February 2021

[moxica]

Can't wait to pillage all the Americas with my Spanish Empire every 50 years. nice

(I think the 50 years limit is a bit too much tho, it should be more like 20 years or something)

 

[JPGM22]

Somehow it looks like an interesting mechanic, but honestly, I don't see myself using it. And I think it does not work simply because the development system needs to be redrawn. It is really bad and artificial. It should be something organic and not button-centric. Development shouldn't be something that you just click a button and it happens. It should be controlled by events like wars, pillage, earthquakes, fires, rebellions, invasions, plagues, migration, etc. - through the entire game your develops just goes up, never down! Of course in a different system, the player can manage policies or build infrastructure to promote the development of that province but never paying to build up development by just clicking a button. In real life no one creates development - you can just promote it or facilitate it. It would make more sense if you would pay monarch points on building construction and then those buildings would generate development over time. For example, the development mechanic could be replaced by a development chance that would be either positive or negative and many modifiers would contribute to it. And I understand that manpower might be representative of the population of that province, production base related to the production outcome of that province but base tax seems to do not have any meaning to be part of "development". I am tired of seeing in the middle-late game every single OPM in Germany or Italy having their provinces with 50 or 60 dev while London or Paris only have 30 or 40. It is because the AI of these OPMs does not have anything else to do with the monarch points so they spend it the only way they can.

Overall this is a mechanic that will not worth to have a price tag in my honest opinion.

 

[MachopPower69]

I like this feature, but is it useful for if you want to move your capital to, say, the New World for an Exodus game?

 

[Brianus]

Will there be anyway to get a similar effect to the Mandala Reform as a European Nation?

 

[Koos]

Will using either mechanic move 50% of development in absolute numbers to your capital (and 30% to the rest), or is it based on the existing development in the receiving states - just like increasing development in your own provinces becomes more expensive as its development increases?
Like, if my capital is at 20 dev or 70 dev, would this impact the number by which the development increases when pillaging the same enemy capital / consolidating from the same territories?

 

[Ninking]

Will the AI logic for what territories to concentrate from be moddable with the usual "ai_will_do:s" and modifiers?

 

[Ixal]

This seems like an interesting idea on paper, but it looks waaaay too unbalanced.

Taking 16 development from a 43 dev state?
That's well over a third of the total!
This means you can turn literally anywhere into Siberian wastelands by 1600.
This leaves me with several questions:

Does development from theses states recover over time?
Does the AI even try to dev them back?
At the very least the affected area should get massive dev cost reduction to compensate.

How trigger happy is the AI with this feature?
Will we see another Golden Century situation where they kept expelling minorities and stuff like Spanish Naples and English Ireland kept popping up?
I sincerely hope not.

Is there any drawback whatsoever in using this button in your own land?
The way it is, I could see it being very much worth it to use this without restriction in wrong culture/religion provinces as soon as you get them, turning any such land into 1/1/1 wastelands in 150 years.
At the very least, this should create unholy amounts of unrest, perhaps even a stab hit, give AE even if at peace or some other cost to prevent you from using this like that.

It's nice that it gives you a reason to go to war even when you don't want to take land, but it would be much better to buff the "humiliate rival" cb instead.
Something like having "show strength" warsscore cost reduced from 100% to maybe 60 or 75%, while making it impossible to take it alongside any other peace term, and buffing the power you get from 100 each to maybe 150.

I was hesitant to buy Leviathan as it is, but this convinced me 100% to wait a few months after release to see how the AI handles this mechanics.
Needless to say, this worries me a lot.

I am pretty sure based on PDX track record that the initial release of the expansion will see the AI constantly using this feature leading to a much more static game as the AI conquer less and that it will also devastate its own country in order to tech up its capital.

 

[Pale Blue]

Can merchant republics and free cities also get a reform or some other way to do this interaction without the 20% dev loss? Free cities are limited to 1 province anyway so I would like to get as much out of it as possible.

 

[Darvor]

Johan awesome choice. why dont you also mix this with some reduction in culture swift???
Byzantium did this in the long run. (when serbs invaded mainland Greece, Emperors broughts Greeks from Minor Asia in order to restore Greek population in Mainland Greece).
In order not to create a broken mechanism im only talking about some -20-30% cost reduction in culture change in the area you steal development.

 

[President Donald Trump]

After an Institution spawns, will Concentrating this Development to your capital increase presence of an Institution like it would normally when you dev a province?

 

[Kaampper]

im hyped for this release, if only i knew a date to which i could look forward to

 

[Borgratz]

Sounds like a mixture of interesting and potentially game breaking because of how good this might ironically be for wide nations.

 

[Battlex]

I believe it's based on the general concept of the population beginning to concentrate more in the cities than they did in the middle ages during this time period, though even if this was state promoted at times an instant button is a bit eh. It could also be based on something in SEA I'm unaware of.

This would be interesting.

One of the tulquqs (could've been another pre Timur dynasty tho) forces the court to move to the Deccan and brings most of dehli with him, except the settlement he picked didn't have a water supply, so thousands die of thirst
The expansion in SEA focused so its not a surprise the mechanic might clash with Western ideas, but this just gives another form of looting, so Sweden can raid Bohemia for maximum gains

 

[Battlex]

I hope that AIs will not spam this.
Otherwise, cool change, have potential to be interesting.

People complained about HRE minors devving too much, now they'll complain about HRE being too underdeveloped

 

[Battlex]

This seems like an interesting idea on paper, but it looks waaaay too unbalanced.

Taking 16 development from a 43 dev state?
That's well over a third of the total!
This means you can turn literally anywhere into Siberian wastelands by 1600.
This leaves me with several questions:

Does development from theses states recover over time?
Does the AI even try to dev them back?
At the very least the affected area should get massive dev cost reduction to compensate.

How trigger happy is the AI with this feature?
Will we see another Golden Century situation where they kept expelling minorities and stuff like Spanish Naples and English Ireland kept popping up?
I sincerely hope not.

Is there any drawback whatsoever in using this button in your own land?
The way it is, I could see it being very much worth it to use this without restriction in wrong culture/religion provinces as soon as you get them, turning any such land into 1/1/1 wastelands in 150 years.
At the very least, this should create unholy amounts of unrest, perhaps even a stab hit, give AE even if at peace or some other cost to prevent you from using this like that.

It's nice that it gives you a reason to go to war even when you don't want to take land, but it would be much better to buff the "humiliate rival" cb instead.
Something like having "show strength" warsscore cost reduced from 100% to maybe 60 or 75%, while making it impossible to take it alongside any other peace term, and buffing the power you get from 100 each to maybe 150.

I was hesitant to buy Leviathan as it is, but this convinced me 100% to wait a few months after release to see how the AI handles this mechanics.
Needless to say, this worries me a lot.

Golden century was just an issue with Iberia lacking a modifier not to expel colonists, French and English expelling minorities is very authentic.
You had reasons before in wanting war without taking land in doing trade transfer and nicking ducats. Now we can have sackings of one another's empire like Nader Shah before. Differentiating sacking and show of strength is great, because now you can choose do you want dev or the utility of mana

 

[Froonk]

Actually a great addition that incentives not taking land. I am really looking forward to sacking Constantinople as Venice one more.

 

[Delterius]

Will there be anyway to get a similar effect to the Mandala Reform as a European Nation?

There is but not gonna lie its kinda hard, you'll have to do yoga every day of the week and convert to las vegas buddhism.

 

[PrussicAcid]

Concentrate Development is an interaction that is done to either one of your territories or to one of your subjects states or territories.

So basically, there will be only two countries in the world to be able to use this "tall" feature in 1444: Ming (for sure) and Lithuania.

Both concentrate development and new peace treaty option will be more profitable for "wide" countries than for "tall" ones. Of course they will get benefits from it, but less than a large nation that will be able to take the better on both sides.

This feature reminds me the hegemon one in its first presentation. You should consider to introduce counterparts for wide nations like: devastation, unrest, corruption, and lower the percentage of developement taken / distributed. In a simple way: the larger you will be, the least you will gain from it.

This could really broke the game in a weird way (for both multiplayer and singleplayer modes). Please be very careful before to release it, and do a lot of test to push this feature to its limits. I think this thing should be beta tested too, I see a lot of possible exploits and strange results in it.

 

[Froonk]

So basically, there will be only two countries in the world to be able to use this "tall" feature in 1444: Ming (for sure) and Lithuania.

Both concentrate development and new peace treaty option will be more profitable for "wide" countries than for "tall" ones. Of course they will get benefits from it, but less than a large nation that will be able to take the better on both sides.

This feature reminds me the hegemon one in its first presentation. You should consider to introduce counterparts for wide nations like: devastation, unrest, corruption, and lower the percentage of developement taken / distributed. In a simple way: the larger you will be, the least you will gain from it.

This could really broke the game in a weird way (for both multiplayer and singleplayer modes). Please be very careful before to release it, and do a lot of test to push this feature to its limits. I think this thing should be beta tested too, I see a lot of possible exploits and strange results in it.

The fact that it drains total development off the map and can lead to wars absolutely devastating territories that they'd need to use mana on to regain is a good thing in itself. There was too much mana inflation already and mana sinks are a good thing.

Sack capital is definitely more useful for tall play because tall play tends to utilize high development states more efficiently by stacking particular idea groups related to that. However concentrate development can really benefit anyone, tall or wide, but overall reducing total dev is a good thing.

 

[Vohen]

Golden century was just an issue with Iberia lacking a modifier not to expel colonists, French and English expelling minorities is very authentic.

It was broken, so much so that PDX had to fix it in the following patch.
It's authentic to expel minorities, but not to remove the entire native population of a province and ship them to the new world, which is what would be seen in GC originally.
Often times, the Netherlands would become Austrian/Spanish, Naples would become Spanish, Ireland and even sometimes Scotland would become English.
If you think this is authentic, then I can't help but disagree, and apparently devs do so as well, because they did change it.

As I don't play mp, I have no big issues with broken mechanics if I can safely ignore them.
But if the AI uses and abuses of it, then I can't ignore it, and it becomes a very big issue, it's what kept me from buying GC until they fixed it.
Or do you like the prospect of seeing every state in the game becoming 3 dev wastelands while capital areas sit at 100+ development by 1600?
That's rather extreme and likely won't be the case, but until there are any official statements that the AI will be heavily restricted in using this feature, or reports by the players showing that to be the case ater release, the chances of me buying this DLC is 0%.