Technology
We've noticed that the early colonizers such as Castile and Portugal often get a massive advantage just from being early, quickly locking up large parts of the new world before nations like England, the Netherlands or France can reach it. To slow down early colonization and give the later colonizers a chance to compete, we've tied the base settler growth to diplomatic technology. At level 3, this base growth is only +25 (compared to +50 previously), but increases at tech levels 10, 15, 22, 26 and 32 up to a total of +150, allowing for rapid colonization in the later stages of the game.
Another addition to technology is Administrative Efficiency, a new country-wide bonus that is unlocked at administrative technology level 23 and increases at 26 and 29, up to a total of 75%. Administrative Efficiency directly reduces the impact of province base tax on overextension and warscore cost, allowing for much larger territories to be conquered at once. Additionally the scaling of core time from country size has been removed - all nations now core provinces at the same speed regardless of size (but it is still affected by factors such as culture, religion, having a claim and so on). This creates a more interesting late game, as the large nations that have formed by then are now able to score decisive victories over their rivals instead of fighting 10-year wars over a few border provinces.
Finally, the neighbour bonus multiplier to technology has been reduced from 5% to 2%, meaning that it is less of an ideal strategy to hold off increasing your technology level so that you can stack up neighbour bonuses and more cheaply advance.
View attachment 108250