Prosperity, devastation, and development

[GenericType]

Let's discuss this elephant in the room.

Developing provinces as of right now is instant, you can easily build a big city literally overnight. Which as we all know, is very historically implausible. Population and/or wealth increase also happened not because of monarch in/competence, it happened because of wildly different factors as:

• government investment on immigration or expulsion policies (Edict of Potsdam, Edict of Fontainebleau, expulsion of Moors and Jews in Spain)
• trade centers
• agricultural viability of land (Berlin swamp, anyone?)
• or proximity to agricultural land (Ukrainian farms feeding Warsaw)
• wars, raids, looting, sieges, extensive supply foraging and supplies requisitioning
• plagues and diseases

and there are many more others that I forgot, but TLDR, population (or province wealth as PDX insists) increase or decrease should be dynamic. Development should dynamically increase or decrease.

I think PDX devs should try this with the prosperity and devastation mechanics. This should be simple, right? That is instead of creating another disconnected mechanic?

For example, a country at war is at high risk of losing its wealth and population. A historical game should simulate that, no? Just think of the Polish Deluge as an example. Just think of how the Hordes do it right now. Razing provinces, putting cities under siege and looting should all cause dev decrease, yeah? A prosperous trade center like Danzig that has been dominating the Baltic and has never been touched by war should be a massive city now, correct? If you leave your borders open and the AI starts rampaging in your interior, then your raided provinces should have their devs increased, yeah?

What do you guys think?

 

[Ruian]

I think finding 3 provinces that aren't Jungle/Mountains/Hills/Desert/Coastal to dev push in Asia for 3 successive institutions is already annoying enough as is.

 

[mechanical_Critter]

Good idea in principle, but yeah I don't like this
- Dynamic province + anything is very demanding so should be avoided unless it's absolutely necessary
- Who's got lots of provinces that are on prosperity for the entirety of the game? That's right, it's Ming-chan. Let's not reinforce this behemoth.

I do however agree with the premise that dev push is completely busted. In fact, pretty much everyone agrees if I saw it right, from hardcore historicists that complain about initial starting dev being very abstract and even more fantasy level of dev push of… deserts and the like; to the WC Illuminati, who are appalled at the level of dev the world reaches after each new patch (currently it's like 30k ~ 40k I think).

Personally I think an adequate solution could be found by
- Very strongly nerfing initial dev cost (initial dev cost is at 50 and I believe that's way too low. Something like 300 or 400 would not be inedequate imo, maybe more)
- very strongly buffing dev push ramping (the current penalty is 3% per development above 10, maybe set it to 0.3%).
- revisiting a number of %modifier (looking at you, capital modifier -> nerf it by about half, and capping at -25% maybe?)

If both things are done, then countries will have much less incentive to develop in general, and much more incentive to develop in their best lands / farmlands in particular (even more so with centre of trade). These are also the lands that are great for cities so it's believable if not accurate that they'd sprout there.
I will however admit that it does not solve everything, as Ming would still be in a position to ramp up development in its numerous farmlands with his infinite mana, and modifier stacking would possibly be an issue. That said, I'm quite confident that ANYTHING is an issue with Ming currently, mostly owing to the fact that it doesn't consistently get conquered and devastated by a horde - and that's an understatement, personally I've never since that happen at all in all my 4k hours gameplay ^^

 

[Ruian]

I would be more ok with dev pushing being harder to do if either the institutions I developed for weren't spread to the AI like wildfire or the AI actually dev pushed them for once. Knowledge sharing is also pretty broken. You have to be allied and the country can't be put to a deficit or in debt. What happens is you're lucky to share it with even one nation for a small amount of ducats and then it gets spread like crazy because the AI has these massive alliance chains.

 

[GenericType]

Good idea in principle, but yeah I don't like this
- Dynamic province + anything is very demanding so should be avoided unless it's absolutely necessary
- Who's got lots of provinces that are on prosperity for the entirety of the game? That's right, it's Ming-chan. Let's not reinforce this behemoth.

Ming China is another problem, especially when you try to make your game based on Ming's OPness, but if you researched through it as these sites imply: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistori...the_ming_dynasty_was/?st=jtl7u11o&sh=f027cdde, and here https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-worldhistory/chapter/the-ming-dynasty/ it SHOULD have many defects, most notable:

• No possible rival (they are a Celestial Empire, no other nation can compare to its glory /s)
• Extremely low level of taxation, in addition to a very hyperinflated currency should (rid them of cash) cripple their economy
• Extreme state monopolization of trade resulting in rampant smuggling, further reducing the amount of cash remitted to the government
• Extreme focus on agriculture, which coupled with corruption and other factors, resulted in frequent famines and droughts, causing devastation especially to the Yangtze valley area (cue government inaction due to corruption)
• Increasing divide between the landed and the gentry, fueling peasant rebellions.

These modifiers should make Ming basically a cash-strapped state that desperately tries to fix its bureaucratic corruption at start. They could be removed or substituted by MISSION TREES over time, but if not, as historically, it will remain stagnant, its monthly cash just enough to fix corruption, and nothing more. Until it implodes, that is. I think this is a better alternative than to rely on Mandate, and trying to tributize all of your neighbors at all times? I mean, on what history book did they wrote that on?

Anyway yeah but...

Personally I think an adequate solution could be found by
- Very strongly nerfing initial dev cost (initial dev cost is at 50 and I believe that's way too low. Something like 300 or 400 would not be inedequate imo, maybe more)
- very strongly buffing dev push ramping (the current penalty is 3% per development above 10, maybe set it to 0.3%).
- revisiting a number of %modifier (looking at you, capital modifier -> nerf it by about half, and capping at -25% maybe?)

But wouldn't that end up with less overall development by the 1600s? And instead of trying to use the development feature to aid you in your tall play, you'd end up blobbing instead?

Well I mean, this is just a stopgap measure. Why not revamp this broken mechanic and integrate it with the other disparate features strewn across the DLCs like a dismantled lego figure or something?

 

[maxirage]

Dev in general is terrible. I mean, what exactly is base tax even meant to represent? There's no way to define it in a way completely independent from production and manpower. The entire system has no basis in history or reality and was just an easy way to make numbers go up and make you feel good outside of war. And all the suggestions on the forum on how to fix it either nerf it into oblivion or make it a pain in the ass. You can't easily salvage it without completely reworking it into something like Vicky 2 populations, which would require a new game.