For majors (and presumably minors), boosted advisors are a gold bump, not a gold sink.

[Brynjar]

Would there be any way to introduce higher level advisors that didn't make the game easier for great powers? It's not like a base cost of 50 or 100 per month would make the game significantly harder than it was, you would only slightly postpone the point at which they are affordable.

 

[bly08]

It makes the game easier for everyone, not just great powers. It has the least benefit for hordes.

 

[BaronNoir]

Honestly, even a OPM native american minor (okay, maybe not to that point...) compared to France or Ottoman Empire can become as powerful as the latter-it just take time (player handled, the difference between major and minor is the time required for the latter to become the former)

 

[Bibor]

If anything is "broken" for the last X patches it's income from trade and tariffs. The advisors cost is in-line with other costs, just not with income.

This game gives you the option to play it as you wish. Not every game ends in a world conquest. Level 5 advisors are not cheap and cost a significant amount of money to upgrade and maintain. The highest levels are reserved to early huge or mid-game medium-sized empires. They either support even more expansion or add more options to convert ducats into development. High level advisors also serve great for ropleplaying empires led by idiot kings and brilliant advisors.

 

[Tarkilth]

I like it. Every now and then you can, as a large imperialisic nation, simply catch a string of bad luck and end up with a ruler that has terrible stats. Now, normalyl that means that your expansion sort of has to stop for a while, either htat or you lag behind on tech to continue your expansion. Fair enough - terrible King, maybe he just isn't good enough to manage to expand his dominion. But even an imbecile of an emperor that owns half the world could hire someone brilliant to help in these efforts. Gameplay wise that also helps a bit to further counter those potential times when you are arbitrarily limited from doing what you want for mana reasons. (The limit is still there, now it's just two steps higher, which I like).