Ah, a solid morning read

Please, keep the length (and quality) up, a good read is always welcome even if the changes themselves aren't quite as much. I love the naval changes, but the administration ones I'm on the fence about. I feel like it still won't make it a real consideration whether to expand more up until a size where you blot out the sun anyway... and on the lower end, make it quite annoying for Duchies to upgrade themselves to Kingdoms and Kingdoms upgrade themselves to Empires (300 and 1000 dev required respectively, but admin capacity of 100 and 300 respectively). Quick math - to not sustain penalties, a Kingdom would have to have only 2/9 of their total dev in states, so approximately 22% of their total land stated (i.e. 66 dev in states, that's quite easily just the capital state after developing for institutions).
Would definitely have to play around with the numbers some more, perhaps this does offer a meaningful brake on expansion to the point where developing your lands becomes a viable alternative... except, you know, this penalty also hits development you do yourself instead of conquering it from others. Furthermore, it seems reasonably feasible to go to a 20% penalty, so ... shrug. First impression - harsh penalties, but unfortunately also hit internal development thus not really accomplishing their goal of stifling outward expansion.
Edited question separated out to own post.