Fixing "inflation" of development cost in game

[annulen]

There are a lot of complaints about development mechanic in game which allows easy creation of megalopolises in poorest places of the world. I've seen suggestions to increase base development cost, to add cooldown period, to introduce a cap depending on embraced institution, to remove development completely and replace with pops, and so on. I think the most important issue with development is that it's quite easy to stack a lot of dev cost reduction modifiers, and some of them are unreasonably large.

1. "Encourage Development" state edict

It allows to buy 10% dev cost reduction for a small amount of money, in a game where money is much less valuable resource than monarch points. This feature alone allows to save tons of monarch points, and everyone having Mandate of Heaven is using this edict to develop provinces. Initially I though this thing just should be removed from game, however other state edicts are quite fun to play with and can be very helpful at times, so perhaps it's ok if there is also development edict that prevents using other edicts for a year. But it needs to be nerfed, at very least to -5%.

2. Finisher of Economic ideas

It gives whopping -20% dev cost for all your provinces forever. It doesn't sound healthy. It can easily be nerfed to -10% and Economic ideas will still be a viable idea group. Note that in multiplayer people are getting Quantity which results in a policy for additional -10%.

3. Prosperity

I think prosperity should not accumulate during wars, and decay if you have high war exhaustion. You should either prosper or run non-stop wars, not both at the same time.

 

[Jespoke]

By the title i thought this was going to be about a different thing, namely how steeply Development Cost goes up from existing development. Because dev cost modifiers are flat and additive, they are extremely effective on low dev provinces, while the roughly exponential Development Cost from existing Development quickly grows to completely dwarf all other modifiers.

For example, even the dev cost of a 30 dev desert province is less than that of a 36 dev grassland province.

 

[annulen]

Yes, this would be nice to fix growth curve. It should be harder to develop low dev provinces, while development of already large cities should not be so prohibitively expensive. Current growth curve incites to develop provinces evenly, e.g. dev every suitable province to 20. It's ahistoric and allows to save a lot of monarch points because of how additive modifiers work.

 

[BalticM]

All these development cost reduction modifiers are getting irrelevant for 30+ DEV provinces. While for <10 DEV provinces they are overwhelmingly OP when stacked.
I would like to think that this result of DEV cost mechanic we have now was not intentional but rather accidental - poor implementation. Otherwise I can't understand the logic behind this.
I think extra DEV cost from high province development should be applied first and only then DEV cost reduction modifier should be applied - those shouldn't be additive. If such change was made then % of modifiers should updated as well as numbers would be way too high.

 

[Lavilledieu]

I agree on the topic that development cost of low dev provinces gets too low. Which is why I made a suggestion in the past to replace some of the development cost modifiers with "decreased development cost increase". Take a look at my signature. It's an older thread though.

Another issue you mentioned: developing provinces goes too quickly. I also agree with this, it's a bit immersion-breaking that you can develop Nuuk from a small village to levels above Paris within a year. Developing provinces should take time. You click a bunch of times, it gets queued (note: for simplicity's sake, you cannot cancel queued development), and that queue "slowly" makes development. Slowly would still be way quicker than historical speeds, which is also somewhat needed for institution developing for example. I have a speed of 1 dev per 2 years in mind. And again, a new modifier can be created to reduce this time.

If both my ideas would get implemented, then developing provinces would get more depth, as there would be 3 modifiers to consider: development cost reduction (better for low dev provinces), decreased development cost increase and development time (there is a 4th, tech-only modifier that modifier the base cost). Additionally, there could be a better spread of modifiers affecting development cost, instead of having them all be "reduced development cost".

EDIT:

2) increases amount of micromanagement in game which already has a ton of micromanagement.

The development time suggestion doesn't really impact micromanagement, as you click as many times as you do now, and you get as much dev as you would normally, it will just take some time before all the extra dev you queued up is put into practice. To lower potential micromanagement, I even mentioned you cannot cancel queued up dev. Yes, devving to get buildings will get awkward, but I see no reason to not give you the building slots of the maximum dev, as you cannot cancel this process. Only institution devving should get looked into.

 

[annulen]

I agree on the topic that development cost of low dev provinces gets too low. Which is why I made a suggestion in the past to replace some of the development cost modifiers with "decreased development cost increase". Take a look at my signature. It's an older thread though.

Thanks, it looks promising. In particular, I like how replacement of -20% dev cost with -20% dev cost increases amount of points required to reach 20 dev, but helps to cut costs above 30.

I would like to replace development cost modifiers in this way in most places, in particular in all ideas, policies, traditions, state edict, burghers loyalty, prosperity, all kinds of religion bonuses and penalties, events, missions, parliament, government reforms, trading-in bonus. I would keep exsiting "additive" dev cost modifiers for terrain, local trade goods, climate, capital city modifier, 2 and 3 level centers of trade (and even add smth like -2% for level 1 CoT),

That would make stacking modifiers useful for really tall play but not for spamming 20 dev provinces. Remaining "additive" dev cost modifiers (from terrain, local trade goods, climate, devastation, estate privileges that mitigate terrain or climate penalties ("Tropical City Planning", "Cossack Exploration Expedition"). Universities should probably give something like -10% "additive" dev cost reduction and -10% "dev cost increase reduction" increase development efficiency, so they would be helpful everywhere from small towns to capitals. In this case, "additive" modifiers would become much more valuable, and it won't be possible to achieve cheap-as-dirt development costs by any amount of stacking.

I still think that it's worthwhile to consider nerfing modifiers which I've listend in the opening post, as they seem to powerful compared to how easy are they to obtain. However, if they were converted to "dev cost increase reduction" modifers, they would become much less of offenders.

Developing provinces should take time. You click a bunch of times, it gets queued (note: for simplicity's sake, you cannot cancel queued development), and that queue "slowly" makes development. Slowly would still be way quicker than historical speeds, which is also somewhat needed for institution developing for example. I have a speed of 1 dev per 2 years in mind. And again, a new modifier can be created to reduce this time.

I think this should be a separate topic and I specifically mentioned that I'd like to avoid discussing it within dicussion of this suggestion. While I like the idea conceptually, it 1) makes a huge change to gameplay which requires careful consideration and play testing; 2) increases amount of micromanagement in game which already has a ton of micromanagement.

Micromanagement comes from fact that there are a lot of actions that have development level as a prerequisite, for example upgrading CoT level, consecrating metropolitan, starting construction of a building in newly opened slot. If development is not instant, all of these actions would require monitoring when development becomes enough. While there are ways to help with monitoring (e.g. [1, 2]), it's still a micromanagement to be done. It will also likely annoy MP players, because in the heat of war the last thing you want to think about is micromanagement of your provinces.

If base speed of development is set as low as 1 dev per 2 years, it would be very harmful for forcing institutions in remote countries, to the point they would become unplayable in MP, even if it would be possible to obtain very large speed bonuses. If speed is fast, it wouldn't change much (except a bit of more immersion), and speed bonuses would become irrelevant.

[1] https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/self-timed-pop-up-notifications.1131126/
[2] https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...pop-ups-with-user-defined-conditions.1500502/

 

[annulen]

One possible solution for dev speed issues is to make all actions that require development level consider final level instead of current one. You paid all monarch points, you cannot refund them, so you can immediately use new building slots, upgrade CoT, consecrate metropolitan, hire larger amount of Janissaries, and so on. It would avoid increasing micromanagement. However it wouldn't help with forcing institutions, which can be a huge problem.

 

[BalticM]

If base speed of development is set as low as 1 dev per 2 years, it would be very harmful for forcing institutions in remote countries, to the point they would become unplayable in MP, even if it would be possible to obtain very large speed bonuses. If speed is fast, it wouldn't change much (except a bit of more immersion), and speed bonuses would become irrelevant.

And you see it as a problem??

I think problem we have now when experienced player can walk around institutions and tech leveling challenges anywhere in the world through DEV cost and DEVing speed abuses, while dumb AI cannot.
1 dev per 10 years / 10 dev per 100 years - that would be nice and challenging speed to play in (sure there could be some dev speed modifiers). Would nearly feel like old times when there was no province deving feature. And play strategies with those remote countries would finally be different, not the same boring strategy over and over again when you move institutions, technology, highest world dev concentration to the place you want - would it be Madagascar or Micronesia islands.

 

[annulen]

And you see it as a problem??

Players on Asian countries will be invariably killed by European players without any chance to make it into late game. Sure, no problem at all.

I think problem we have now when experienced player can walk around institutions and tech leveling challenges anywhere in the world through DEV cost and DEVing speed abuses, while dumb AI cannot.

Deficiencies of AI should be fixed in AI, why kill multiplayer because of this?

 

[annulen]

Also, "walk around institutions" comes with price. Forcing institution from 0 to 100 requires quite lot points even with heavily stacked modifiers, it requires developing province quite above 30 where no stacking helps. Monarch points spent this way pay off with time, but nearly not immediately. If AI's development strategy is improved, they could become more competitive even without intentional forcing of institutions

 

[annulen]

Also, "walk around institutions" comes with price. Forcing institution from 0 to 100 requires quite lot points even with heavily stacked modifiers, it requires developing province quite above 30 where no stacking helps. Monarch points spent this way pay off with time, but nearly not immediately. If AI's development strategy is improved, they could become more competitive even without intentional forcing of institutions

Oh, but there is another related exploit: you can force institution, embrace it, and sell to Ming. It should not be allowed to work. Mighty Ming should collect monarch points from all of tributaries, put together its political willpower and available dev cost bonuses, and force an institution on their own.

 

[TraitorTownAficionado]

Players on Asian countries will be invariably killed by European players without any chance to make it into late game. Sure, no problem at all.


Deficiencies of AI should be fixed in AI, why kill multiplayer because of this?

historically, europeans defeat asians (some escape being beaten up in this time period likes japanese and chinese, but india go to britain)

 

[annulen]

historically, europeans defeat asians (some escape being beaten up in this time period likes japanese and chinese, but india go to britain)

And what? EU is about alternate history. Forcing institution requires tremendous amount of monarch points, so Asians are always at disadvantageous position, and only careful country management gives them chance to keep up.

 

[TraitorTownAficionado]

And what? EU is about alternate history. Forcing institution requires tremendous amount of monarch points, so Asians are always at disadvantageous position, and only careful country management gives them chance to keep up.

if the game doesn't generally follow the broad course of real history in most playthroughs, it is an error on its part, because it is failing in its simulation of the historical circumstances. ASIAN SHOULD BE AT A DISADVNATGE. if you don't want to be at a disadvantage, play france or ottomans, or bette reyt download a mod that gives you -50% technology cost. The rest of us enjoy asymmetry.

if you want to be equal in a multiplayer game, play a European. if you want a challenge, play an asian. for MP that want perfectly equal game (small, small amount of playerbase), just get a mod for it (you already dont earn achievements in multiplayer).