The highly unhistorical distribution of tech across the world has annoyed me since RoM with the institution mechanic kicked in, and only got worse with MoH. Both introduced great mechanics no doubt, but there should be little tweaks to address situations like what happened in the latest dev clash:
Granted it's a MP game, but SP games aren't that much better and even in MP many players should lag behind a lot. The problem is not that north-western Europe doesn't have a lead, but that tech differentials among countries are far too small.
The problem with that? It misses out the central theme of the whole early modern period, which IMO is the great divergence between nations. The average Chinese or Indian in 1444 wasn't much poorer than the average European; at the end of EU4 timeline, while Europe was on the verge of industrialisation, China and India still looked mostly the same and were just ripe for the taking. It also misses out IMO the theme of early modern military - a smaller but more effective army beating a larger one. All major military campaigns in the period seem to have this feature - Mughal conquest of India, Manchu conquest of China, Great Turkish War, etc.
However I think there's no need for any mechanic overhaul, just some tweaks on current mechanics would do:
1. Overseas territories, trade companies or not, should not have institution spread to them after the nation embraces the institution, and should be excluded from institution embrace calculations. e.g. a British trade company province in India should not get institution spread to it as a result of Britain embracing that institution. The province should not be counted in the sum of ducats Britain needs to embrace an institution, so it will not have an adverse effect on Britain's tech
2. Either scrap the exploit that raising a province's development increases the institution spread there, or make the effect logarithmic rather than linear (so there's diminishing returns on raising development), or cap the institution spread you can get this way.
3. Tributaries should not be able to send monarch points to China; a nice replacement could be e.g. trade power.
4. Additional institutions in 1750 and 1800; this will widen the tech spread by a lot. Move 'Enlightenment' from 1700 to 1750 and make the 1700 one perhaps 'Absolutism', obviously with countries with high absolutism getting it first now that there's this new mechanic. The 1800 one could be 'Nationalism'.
Granted it's a MP game, but SP games aren't that much better and even in MP many players should lag behind a lot. The problem is not that north-western Europe doesn't have a lead, but that tech differentials among countries are far too small.
The problem with that? It misses out the central theme of the whole early modern period, which IMO is the great divergence between nations. The average Chinese or Indian in 1444 wasn't much poorer than the average European; at the end of EU4 timeline, while Europe was on the verge of industrialisation, China and India still looked mostly the same and were just ripe for the taking. It also misses out IMO the theme of early modern military - a smaller but more effective army beating a larger one. All major military campaigns in the period seem to have this feature - Mughal conquest of India, Manchu conquest of China, Great Turkish War, etc.
However I think there's no need for any mechanic overhaul, just some tweaks on current mechanics would do:
1. Overseas territories, trade companies or not, should not have institution spread to them after the nation embraces the institution, and should be excluded from institution embrace calculations. e.g. a British trade company province in India should not get institution spread to it as a result of Britain embracing that institution. The province should not be counted in the sum of ducats Britain needs to embrace an institution, so it will not have an adverse effect on Britain's tech
Rationale: 1. This way having global footprints won't speed up everyone's tech, which is highly unhistorical. In one of the earlier dev clash streams I think Daniel said something like him grabbing lands everywhere sped up AI's tech. 2. As a matter of fact, the directly British-controlled Calcutta wasn't as advanced in tech and institutions as e.g. London.
2. Either scrap the exploit that raising a province's development increases the institution spread there, or make the effect logarithmic rather than linear (so there's diminishing returns on raising development), or cap the institution spread you can get this way.
Rationale: well, pretty obvious isn't it. This exploit is just super gamey.
3. Tributaries should not be able to send monarch points to China; a nice replacement could be e.g. trade power.
Rationale: the main reason Ming is OP in MoH is the tech it gets this way. Ming fielding a tremendous army itself is historical and also not OP; it's Ming getting almost state-of-the-art armies that is OP. Historically Ming's armies are just there to be satisfying stack-wiped, as they should in game.
4. Additional institutions in 1750 and 1800; this will widen the tech spread by a lot. Move 'Enlightenment' from 1700 to 1750 and make the 1700 one perhaps 'Absolutism', obviously with countries with high absolutism getting it first now that there's this new mechanic. The 1800 one could be 'Nationalism'.
Rationale: the end-game 120 year with no new institution is jut a huge break from the previous 50-year intervals, especially with the 1700 - 1800 period seeing much much more instituional, ideological, scientific and technological changes than 1450-1700. This is also the period where VIC2 level of tech differentials started to take shape, and is certainly not a 120-year gap for laggards to catch up as it currently stands.
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