Why does Lithuania have more development than France in 1444?

[Scurek]

It's 346 (against 341 French). We are talking about the nation that had to re-establish an union with Poland just so it didn't get conquered by Muscovy (211 development), although most of the nobility were heavily against it. Speaking of Muscovy, even with Novgorod and vassals incorporated it barely tops that 346 (taking local autonomy into account). Most of Lithuania's land consisted of scarcely populated areas, with an exception of Smolenks. Ofc the provinces have foreign religion and culture but with +4 tolerance of heretics nobody rebels this days.
And then there's that union with Poland who has 180 (+20 from Mazovia) development which makes an invincible early game enemy, and would make late game one too if it wasn't for incompetent ai being unable to hold the union together. Speaking of union that's Polish strongest point: It has Lithuanian full force, packing almost 100k troops together with it's vassals.
I'm kinda coming from perspective of poor Teutonic order (on ironman) which is unable to survive initial onslaught. New diplomatic system makes it impossible to ally with anyone beside the other order and maybe Bohemia. After Poland get's the union (now even faster via event) it takes Western Prussia mission and dow you, even if you aren't rivals.

 

[birincikalite]

That's still one of the issues to be addressed. When everybody complained how OP Poland was it wasn't even Poland, it was just Lithuania...

 

[CrabHelmet]

This has been a topic of complaint forever. The wait goes on...

 

[zsImmortal]

I'm not sure what the % is, but I've seen them take the local dynasty thing very often. Probably just a small sample size.

That said, yes, Lithuania is ridiculously overdeveloped. Kiev was nothing close to a major city, most of Ruthenia was small towns (Lwow was the biggest city for a long time at roughly 50 000 people). Lithuania proper should be well developed, and Belarus somewhat decently, but Ruthenia shouldn't have provinces that go beyond the Golden horde or Crimea's average province.

 

[EndOfNight]

Was posted here before that it is 25% chance (marrying a local, that is).

 

[WSnova]

Has been talked about for a while. No response that I know of.

But yeah, Lithuania + Polish development makes them too stronk for the region. Haven´t played with the latest patch, so maybe its different now

 

[Scurek]

Has been talked about for a while. No response that I know of.

But yeah, Lithuania + Polish development makes them too stronk for the region. Haven´t played with the latest patch, so maybe its different now

They seem to be even stronger now in 1.14, at least at the beginning. Not directly but estates nerfed everyone else (that pesky LA eating away early troop limit), ai seems more aggressive and ai seems to be reluctant to have friendly attitude toward you (no alliances). To compare I started ironman game as Teutons in 1.13 and managed to ally the emperor, get into the empire and beat back Poland with some luck and become a major power, ofc that save was bugged after I loaded it to 1.14 before hotfixes. Now you can't even survive without crippling your nation at the beginning.

Alternative solution would be to make ai more likely to accept alliance if you have a common enemy (Like Hungary, when you both rival Poland as Teutonic Order) or make them go friendly after 150+ relations (not sure how new dip system works really)

 

[Nassau]

The Commonwealth is a beast. I have seen them walking into the Ottoman Empire a few times already.

 

[FleetingRain]

Look at the bright side, it used to be 377 dev in 1.13. They heard us!


Sure, it was only a ~10% nerf, but they heard us a little!

 

[hyperjoe]

This is like the fourth or fifth thread about this topic I've seen in the last two weeks. I'm guessing this is a tactic to try to get the Devs to actually make a change? I think I might post an image of the guy beating a dead horse at some point.

 

[yerm]

I still do not understand why they made it 25% chance for Poland to put their head up their ass. At least the old system was consistent - they always did it without fail unless they were prevented by things like war or a birth. Now, it's just a crapshoot for no good reason, like Castile's idiocy but more common.

Lithuania could be shafted down to 200 development and the region would honestly be fine. I do not understand, at all, what the fascination is with making the Ukraine so powerful.

 

[CrabHelmet]

I still do not understand why they made it 25% chance for Poland to put their head up their ass. At least the old system was consistent - they always did it without fail unless they were prevented by things like war or a birth. Now, it's just a crapshoot for no good reason, like Castile's idiocy but more common.

Lithuania could be shafted down to 200 development and the region would honestly be fine. I do not understand, at all, what the fascination is with making the Ukraine so powerful.

Ideally, Lithuania + Poland needs to be somewhat weaker than the full Russian region, and Lithuania individually needs to be slightly weaker than Poland, for balance in that area to work. The Lithuanians accepted union with Poland to guarantee themselves protection from Muscovy/Russia, whereas at the moment Lithuania is so strong it doesn't need protection - the very prospect of it being the "Junior Partner" makes no sense.

 

[bbqftw]

The hordes need something to burn

 

[Szabtom]

I play Lithuania when I fancy beating Muscowy and Ottomans at the same time. Heh.

 

[Arinsar]

I'm not sure what the % is, but I've seen them take the local dynasty thing very often. Probably just a small sample size.

That said, yes, Lithuania is ridiculously overdeveloped. Kiev was nothing close to a major city, most of Ruthenia was small towns (Lwow was the biggest city for a long time at roughly 50 000 people). Lithuania proper should be well developed, and Belarus somewhat decently, but Ruthenia shouldn't have provinces that go beyond the Golden horde or Crimea's average province.

Lithuania was about 30% bigger in terms of land than France. Lwow reached 50k people around 1800. Most populous city in PLC was Gdansk peaking with 70k people around 1650.
Development is not only density of population (france was 4-5 times more populous than lithuania during EU4 time frame) - you have to take one more thing into account - what type of goods are produced in provinces, France beats Lithuania down in terms of income. I do agreee that Lithuanian state on its own should have problems with centralization of the state due Lithuanians beign only 10% of the population of duchy they would have problems holding that huge area.

 

[delpiero1234]

Why does Lithuania have more development than France in 1444?

Because Paradox hates France almost as much as they hate Byzantium

 

[Arinsar]

Ideally, Lithuania + Poland needs to be somewhat weaker than the full Russian region, and Lithuania individually needs to be slightly weaker than Poland, for balance in that area to work. The Lithuanians accepted union with Poland to guarantee themselves protection from Muscovy/Russia, whereas at the moment Lithuania is so strong it doesn't need protection - the very prospect of it being the "Junior Partner" makes no sense.

You realize that Muscovy/Russia main strenght was their manpower and goverment system which allowed their ruler to do anything and they were mostly failing against PLC untill around 1650-1700 when PLC got weakened by 50 years of wars/rebelions and its economy got rekt. Poland was more developed than Russia, it was Peter the Great reforms which put Russia ahead (with constant decline of PLC).

 

[zsImmortal]

Lithuania was about 30% bigger in terms of land than France. Lwow reached 50k people around 1800. Most populous city in PLC was Gdansk peaking with 70k people around 1650.
Development is not only density of population (france was 4-5 times more populous than lithuania during EU4 time frame) - you have to take one more thing into account - what type of goods are produced in provinces, France beats Lithuania down in terms of income. I do agreee that Lithuanian state on its own should have problems with centralization of the state due Lithuanians beign only 10% of the population of duchy they would have problems holding that huge area.

Actually you're right about Lwow, it actually had 10 000 population at the start of the game, but was still the largest city in Ruthenia. I misremembered the numbers.

But that's not the point. The point is Ruthenia was largely poorly developed and Belarus, in game, is slightly overdeveloped. I'm guessing it's to give good lands for Russia to pick up, but it is just ridiculous for 1444.

 

[CrabHelmet]

Lithuania was about 30% bigger in terms of land than France. Lwow reached 50k people around 1800. Most populous city in PLC was Gdansk peaking with 70k people around 1650.

Lithuania being bigger than France is irrelevant. The area controlled by the Golden Horde in 1444 was arguably larger than the Kingdom of France too (depending on what you accept the assertion of Nogai independence). Nobody suggests making the Golden Horde comparable to France.

Development is not only density of population (france was 4-5 times more populous than lithuania during EU4 time frame) - you have to take one more thing into account - what type of goods are produced in provinces, France beats Lithuania down in terms of income. I do agreee that Lithuanian state on its own should have problems with centralization of the state due Lithuanians beign only 10% of the population of duchy they would have problems holding that huge area.

France was far more than 4-5 times more populous than Lithuania. A Concise History of the Baltic states cites the Grand Duchy of Lithuania controlling about 1.3 million people in 1500, although I've seen higher estimates at around 2.5 million. Comparatively, the population of the Kingdom of France in 1500 was about 16 million, meaning that they had about 8 times as many people. Obviously, people don't translate directly into development... but the link is relatively close, at least as far as say manpower is concerned.

 

[YuriiH]

Lithuania's land consisted of scarcely populated areas, with an exception of Smolenks.

You are not quite right.
According to Russian sources, Russian population (including Muscovy, its EU4 vassals, Tver, Novgorod, Ryazan, and even Smolensk) was about 6 mln in early 1500s.
Contrary to that, combined population of Lithuania and Poland together counted to 8 mln in this period.
You can compare Muscovite provinces development to combined PLC, and you will be surprised
(I can also mention that France had 19-20 mln, twice as PLC)

In any case, this overdevelopment was made only for gameplay purposes: to provide anything for PLC versus mad Ottomans, and for Muscovy versus Hordes.
In-game, being one-province Knights, you cannot make Ottomans retreat from Malta (like Knights historically did), so make a parallel and see the overdevelopment as simple way to balance the game.

Grand Duchy of Lithuania controlling about 1.3 million people in 1500

This number refers to Lithuania-culture + Belarussian (Half-Lithuanian) provinces, but certainly not to all Lithuania with all its vassals (which are all implemented as one-colour blob in EU4).