As I understand it, the goal of many of our recent changes has been to incentivize wide players to either slow down their conquests or begin developing territories. The changes we've seen have largely drawn ire for being gamey, needlessly-restrictive, or misplaced. I figured I might as well put together a thread to help organize suggestions to help us deal with this issue. As a Merchant Republic/Subject-heavy player, I'd love to see tall play become viable in its own right. There are plenty of mechanisms that simply aren't used regularly, or aren't beneficial enough to incentivize their use, and I believe that's something of a shame. Additionally, I believe the main reason players focus so much on playing wide is simply the fact that there's not enough to do when you're not expanding.
1.) Ducat development: This is key. Mana is a finite resource, and one of the major contributors to the "Tall" problem is that there aren't that many money sinks besides investments for more cash. With Wide players, they're restricted by army costs, navy costs, buildings in new cores, forts, etc. Tall players? Plenty of cash, but there's only so much military might you can leverage, and unit quality doesn't really change with funding beyond a certain point (expected to keep that maxed out). By allowing money to be used to directly develop provinces, we're able to avoid a scenario where our limited mana pool has to be abused for 15 development we could easily get from a simple conquest.
2.) More benefits from Non-conquest wars: Simple enough. Buff mana gain from humiliation wars, buff possible gold gained from trade wars, and add more ways to benefit from CBs that don't permit conquest. Considering the fact that you're the only one so restricted in that war, the benefits should vastly outstrip the benefits for declaring a war of conquest. Direct development transfers, culture changes, long-lasting trade-oriented peace deals, manpower, mana over time, etc.
3.) Empire city-states: When a city reaches a certain point with its influence and power, it can easily be thought of as a powerful polity in its own right. I'd attach a counter to high(25+)-dev provinces in your Empire, and grant them additional bonuses in all fields, but a core on themselves and the nearby provinces, and a very real possibility of effective rebellion. You can't exploit development there, but they'll attempt to defend their locales and the nearby provinces when attacked (increasing unrest as they do so, to represent a lack of faith in your power).
4.) (MR-exclusive): Additional building slots in each province, based on development level. An extra +1 by default, but +2 for provinces above 10 development, and +3 (total bonus) for provinces above 20 development.
5.) (MR-exclusive): Making/Enabling trading cities (or just MRs and members of a trade League) develop themselves and attempt to interact with the countries in their nodes to maximize trade flow to the Merchant Republic confederation. I haven't worked out the specifics of this, but the idea is that they'd have their own special mechanic to try to get neighboring tags to voluntarily hand over trade power in exchange for Production Efficiency and Goods Produced modifiers. (Side bonus: Lower interest rates for Trade League members.)
1.) Ducat development: This is key. Mana is a finite resource, and one of the major contributors to the "Tall" problem is that there aren't that many money sinks besides investments for more cash. With Wide players, they're restricted by army costs, navy costs, buildings in new cores, forts, etc. Tall players? Plenty of cash, but there's only so much military might you can leverage, and unit quality doesn't really change with funding beyond a certain point (expected to keep that maxed out). By allowing money to be used to directly develop provinces, we're able to avoid a scenario where our limited mana pool has to be abused for 15 development we could easily get from a simple conquest.
2.) More benefits from Non-conquest wars: Simple enough. Buff mana gain from humiliation wars, buff possible gold gained from trade wars, and add more ways to benefit from CBs that don't permit conquest. Considering the fact that you're the only one so restricted in that war, the benefits should vastly outstrip the benefits for declaring a war of conquest. Direct development transfers, culture changes, long-lasting trade-oriented peace deals, manpower, mana over time, etc.
3.) Empire city-states: When a city reaches a certain point with its influence and power, it can easily be thought of as a powerful polity in its own right. I'd attach a counter to high(25+)-dev provinces in your Empire, and grant them additional bonuses in all fields, but a core on themselves and the nearby provinces, and a very real possibility of effective rebellion. You can't exploit development there, but they'll attempt to defend their locales and the nearby provinces when attacked (increasing unrest as they do so, to represent a lack of faith in your power).
4.) (MR-exclusive): Additional building slots in each province, based on development level. An extra +1 by default, but +2 for provinces above 10 development, and +3 (total bonus) for provinces above 20 development.
5.) (MR-exclusive): Making/Enabling trading cities (or just MRs and members of a trade League) develop themselves and attempt to interact with the countries in their nodes to maximize trade flow to the Merchant Republic confederation. I haven't worked out the specifics of this, but the idea is that they'd have their own special mechanic to try to get neighboring tags to voluntarily hand over trade power in exchange for Production Efficiency and Goods Produced modifiers. (Side bonus: Lower interest rates for Trade League members.)
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