Stability, Imperial Bureaucracy and Imperial Factions

[Canute VII]

Hello there! Well, these are some ideas I had recently about government and although I'm aware most will be busy getting their minds around 1.18, I'll leave my ideas here, hoping they may be noticed anyway.

I present a few concepts that would most nicely work together, but could also be looked at separately and hold to their own merit:

• Stability cost for Great Nations
• „Imperial beaurocracy“ and a Generic Factions system for Empires
• Factions Balance and Corruption

Stability cost for Great Nations

I have posted this in someone elses thread, but in order for you to apprecicate why I will use the modifier "stability cost reduction" abundantly in my further suggestions for empires, it is essential, that you understand, how I envisage big countries to have pricier stabilty. If increasing stability will be costlier the bigger you become, Ideas etc. that give stability cost reduction will be really sought after by large nations.


This is is my take on a (slightly) revamped stability mechanic:

Main citicism of mine:

• Huge empires currently need the same ADM power as OPMs to increase stability, which is really implausible given that a huge empire has so many more porvinces, constituencies and local nobles etc. to accomodate
• stability cost is not a function of local autonomy, although local autonomy gives kind of quasi-stability as the locals are in charge and responsible, therefore relieving the king/ruler/etc.

Remedy:

• Let stability cost be computed taking into account total development and local autonomy (as well as things currently taken into account, of course)
• stability cost = base stability cost + (total development / 3) * (100% - development weighted local autonomy)
• I divide total development by 3 because this is a "development level" of 1/1/1 provincial development (otherwise large countries would likely be penalized too much, which some players might not appreciate...)
• the base stabilty cost, at the moment 100 adm, could be lowered somewhat, e.g. to 75
• The formula could be tweaked so that the stab cost function becomes smoother

Effects:

• the larger the country, the more costly stabilty
• the higher local autonomy, the cheaper stability
• this creates a trade off between decreasing local autonomy giving positive effects to a country's economy, manpower etc. on the one hand, and the potential cost of raising stability in case of adverse events, on the other hand.
• small countries will on average be more stable (2 or 3), large countries on average will try to keep stabilty at 0 or 1.
• if a large country goes for autonomy reduction it might find itself in a situation where it must spend a lot of adm on stability, which it would have needed for admin tech, thus making it more vulnerable to corruption from tech imbalances

Example:

• a country with 900 development and 0% local autonomy will have 100 + (900 /3) * (100% - 0%) = 400 stability cost. If it chooses to have its la around 50% then its cost would be reduced to 100 + (900/3) * (100% - 50%) = 250

Borrowing from my own ideas in https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/introduce-base-corruption.985531/ I also suggest to give a new ability to two well known (and most of the time useless) buildings:

• Courthouse: gives 50% reduction on a provinces contribution to stability costs
• Townhall: gives an additional 50% reduction on a provinces contribution to stability costs (i.e. total = 100%)

This way:

• we will have an additional means to reduce stability cost
• it will be a plausible effect of these buildings (compared to what they currently do...)
• we will have another mid-late game ducat sink
• we will have a choice between risking to have to spend admin MP on stability or spending ducats on buildings for sure

Ming could even start the game with a few well placed court-houses, representing their being advanced in public administration. It would be ok, since other countries also start the game with buildings that are not yet researched, e.g. Venice has got a ship-yard if I'm not mistaken.


„Imperial beaurocracy“ and a generic factions system for empires

All countries that are empire rank would receive a „national decision“ to abandon the estates system. Instead, they would receive a factions system. This could be generic (or it could be made country specific and modelled after historic nations). Upon taking on empire rank there could be an event or a decision „Implement Imperial Beaurocracy“. This would give Empires a special feel to play. It would be fun if the player had the option to influence the way his empire is governed. And If stabilty cost would be dependent on size, it would also be worth it.

Flavour text (sort of): „Now that we have spread our wings we hover over the remainder of nations. To administer our vast lands our advisors agree that we shall introduce an imperial beaurocracy ready to the tasks ahead of us.“

• „What has worked for our ancestors will work for us.“
  • 
    effects:
    • +1 stability
    • -25 prestige
• „Implement it!“
  • 
    effects:
    • -10% stability cost
    • loose estates, switch to (generic) faction system
    • if feudal monarchy switch to administrative monarchy (at no cost)

For Ming there likely would have to be a special treatment, as on reforming from celestial empire to my understanding Ming would switch to feudal monarchy with estates. As Ming has empire rank, the event „Imperial beaurocacy“ would pop up on reforming. However, for Ming it would be slightly different from the rest „Retain Imperial beaurocracy“.

• „The reform has only just started!“
  • 
    effects:
    • stays feudal
    • +10 estate loyalty (with cossacks dlc)
    • -50 prestige
• „Retain it!“
  • 
    effects:
    • -10% stability cost
    • +1 corruption
    • do not switch to feudal monarchy, but to administrative monarchy (at no cost)
    • do not adopt estates, but switch to (generic) faction system

A Generic Factions system for Empires

A few faction systems we already have in game, so I modelled the generic imperial factions with that in mind, while trying to give them something unique. Compare the stability cost boni for what that might mean when stability became costlier for big countries.

Factions Balance and Corruption

There could be a requirement to keep the factions roughly balanced, since if one faction is beeing let down it will be more corruptible. In the end not supporting a faction does not mean that it disappears from the court.

Hence, if a faction's influence drops below 25%, the country would receive +0.005 yearly corruption for every percentage point below 25% influence, i.e. Corruption = 0.005 * max(25 - influence ; 0). If a second factions also fulfills this condition, the nation would suffer double the corruption.

(Maybe, conversely, it would be better to give corruption reduction for balanced factions instead?)

I sincerely hope this is of use to someone!

 

[saegoto]

interesting.

maybe new formula for stability cost:
50 adm + 1adm for every state province; max 200 adm

 

[Canute VII]

interesting.

maybe new formula for stability cost:
50 adm + 1adm for every state province; max 200 adm

Yes, it surely needs balancing. Actually, I had qualms posting this at all, since now with institutions, big countires should have a harder time keeping up. But, well, I'm still in my first 1.18 game quite in the beginning and Colonialism only just arrived... so I don't really know, what the right balance might be...

 

[Canute VII]

Borrowing from my own ideas in https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/introduce-base-corruption.985531/ I also suggest to give a new ability to two well known (and most of the time useless) buildings in order to counter the stability cost increase for large nations:

• Courthouse: gives 50% reduction on a provinces contribution to stability costs
• Townhall: gives an additional 50% reduction on a provinces contribution to stability costs (i.e. total = 100%)

This way:

• we will have an additional means to reduce stability cost
• it will be a plausible effect of these buildings (compared to what they currently do...)
• we will have another mid-late game ducat sink
• we will have a choice between risking to have to spend admin MP on stability or spending ducats on buildings for sure

Ming could even start the game with a few well placed court-houses, representing their being advanced in public administration. It would be ok, since other countries also start the game with buildings that are not yet researched, e.g. Venice has got a ship-yard if I'm not mistaken.

 

[CharlesII]

What would be the point of a courthouse doing that? 100 gold for 1/2 an adm point saved per stability?

 

[Canute VII]

What would be the point of a courthouse doing that? 100 gold for 1/2 an adm point saved per stability?

Well, depending on the formula used to calculate total stability cost, a provinces contribution to those cost can be rather significant. Say you have only one 30 development province at 0 local autonomy, then in my simple model (which can be tweaked ofc) stability cost would be e.g. 100+(30/3)×100%=110. So building a courthouse would reduce the province's contribution by e.g. 50%, i.e. then 100+(30/3)×50%×100%=105, which is 5 MP saved (approx. 4-5%). Now, imagine what this means when you have a lot of provinces.... Considering now that e.g. an advisor gives you a 10% stabiliy cost reduction, 4-5% in my example from one building is no bad deal, right?

 

[CharlesII]

Well, depending on the formula used to calculate total stability cost, a provinces contribution to those cost can be rather significant. Say you have only one 30 development province at 0 local autonomy, then in my simple model (which can be tweaked ofc) stability cost would be e.g. 100+(30/3)×100%=110. So building a courthouse would reduce the province's contribution by e.g. 50%, i.e. then 100+(30/3)×50%×100%=105, which is 5 MP saved (approx. 4-5%). Now, imagine what this means when you have a lot of provinces.... Considering now that e.g. an advisor gives you a 10% stabiliy cost reduction, 4-5% in my example from one building is no bad deal, right?

Ah, I see now.

 

[moscal]

This is is my take on a (slightly) revamped stability mechanic:

It doesn't fix problem - stabilization should be a process, not a magic button. Then for the big countries would stabilize long time and it would allow the collapse of the state.

 

[Canute VII]

It doesn't fix problem - stabilization should be a process, not a magic button. Then for the big countries would stabilize long time and it would allow the collapse of the state.

Yeah, in principle you're right - only I don't see that coming, given the "start golden era" button we've seen in the DDs for "Ages"...