2081

You do need to develop them or else you’re stuck with almost no buildings. That is rather crippling. They’ve basically broken the game if you don’t buy the DLC. Pathetic. I thought Paradox was better than this.

Are you playing iron man? If not it is fairly easy to use the integrate command to add them to your nation with the console. Just do ~ then integrate TAG and find their tag here -

http://www.eu4wiki.com/Countries

Sure technically it is cheating but no big deal.

Oh, I’m sure it is better to expand because then you deny land to your enemies. I’m just disappointed in Paradox is all. I think it is more limiting than you are understanding though. Many provinces can barely build a decent amount of buildings and none can build a lot. In my old games I typically had at least a strong super built up core. So basically Paradox has removed the ability to add standard buildings and to get that back I have to pay for it. It is utter bullshit. I’ve spent a fortune on this game and I was happy with spending it. Yet this is disgusting. Most of my friends who I regularly play with are not happy about it either. Together most of us have spent a lot on this game. If they don’t fix it, I’m probably done with Paradox products. This is EA level bullshit.

2082

Yeah, it’s ironman. about 240 years in, and looking good for my goals otherwise. This represents probably 4-5 months of game for me.

Otherwise if I couldn’t figure it out I totally would do that.

I do have an idea though, we’ll see later…

2083

I wasn’t factoring in the land denial of your enemies. What I’m saying is that it’s not worth it (in terms of optimization/efficiency) to spend so many monarch points to get the 10 development levels necessary for either the base economic bonuses or the extra building slots. If you want to place another barracks or a workshop and don’t have room in a particular province, it’s better to take another province and build it there as opposed to developing a province in order to create a new slot. Granted, there are times when I had a surplus of points and it was a fun outlet to spend them on, but it really wasn’t an important part of the game.

Don’t get me wrong, I had fun turning Rome into a megaprovince, but those points would have been much better spent on coring additional territory. Developing a province really starts to get expensive fast, especially if you’re talking about unlocking new building slots (10 development per), and I was playing with a custom nation that had maxed out development cost reductions and used every option available to reduce costs!

The cost of development starts at 50 and goes up by 5 per increase, and that’s the best case scenario (plains/farmland). A building slot unlocks every 10 points, so that means what… up to 725 monarch points to to get the first additional building (cheaper if you’re already start with 18 development or something, of course)? Sure, you can split up those costs between ADM/DIP/MIL, but man… just go core another province and build there. The cost of coring is 10 ADM per development, which is a fraction of the cost to developing the province yourself!

I also tend to find provinces/buildings are specialized a lot more. If I have a province that has 8/5/2 and grain, I’m not going to bother with a workshop or a barracks, unless I have nothing else to put there. Same holds true for Shipyards and the like, I have a few provinces that are specialized in ship building and that’s it.

All that being said, I find it fun. I always enjoy “building up” my territory in games, and this gives me an avenue to do so that’s been missing in the EU series since forever. I totally get where you’re coming from in terms of feeling it should be part of the base patch, but in terms of effective play you’re not really missing much, at least from the various analyses I’ve seen. Most people consider the development option worthless and a waste of time. For me, sometimes I’m in a regency council and don’t have an option to expand and it’s nice to dump some points there if I have some spare, but all in all it’s not a big deal either way, at least from my limited experience with the expansion so far. If you’re playing a non-Western nation I can’t imagine ever spending points on development.

2084

So the main focus of the DLC is terrible then? Just like Conquest of Paradise with the terrible random world (Wiz even admitted as much recently)? It doesn’t seem to make ‘sense’. I typically maxed out buildings in hundreds of provinces when I play. Sounds like development is just too damn expensive monarch point wise to be worth it. This doesn’t make me feel much better about the expansion. Ugh. I still think it was a terrible idea of them to pay gate old content. What is next an expansion balancing ideas so you need to buy DLC to unlock them? Knowing development is bad doesn’t make me feel any better. I was hoping development was good and they’d release a patch to make it free. I’d then try that patch, like it and buy the expansion. That was what I was hoping.

2085

Well like I said, I like development, I just don’t think it’s necessary to play optimally, because the math is in favor of expansion. That needs to be true to a degree since war involves risks, development doesn’t, but maybe the numbers are too skewed towards expansion right now.

I do think it should be part of the free patch, but this expansion contains so many miscellaneous odds and ends it might have been difficult to monetize. Development doesn’t really feel like the main focus of this DLC; nothing does, really. I think the subject interactions were supposed to be top billing, but those weren’t as big of an impact as fort changes (my favorite part of the update) and development to me, even if the latter is mostly fun and not the best in terms of min/max.

That’s lots of other individual changes I really like as well, like all the various changes to peace deals, but those aren’t something that could be split out for paid content either. It’s obvious a lot of work and into the update, but how to pay for that is probably the least clear out of any of the expansions thus far. The consternation is understandable, but I don’t think the were being intentionally villainous or greedy. If this is the start of a new trend, I may change my tune. :)

2086

And I just figured it out, because I am an idiot.

My problem, and I really do not remember how this happened (possibly my peace treaty having the Mughals cede 8 provinces to Persia), but I had -29 Diplo points.

So of course the time was unknown, since I had negative points it could not start! Now, suddenly, annexing 110 basetax Persia will take 7 years.

So that was my HERP DERP moment.

2087

Nice! Glad it was something simple and not some bug that ruined your campaign!

2088

Perhaps the incentive to have regular monetised DLC is showing its pitfalls with EU4. Expansions that expand and change and introduce just…for the sake of having something new and changed to sell.

2089

Agreed. There’s a point where games should declare themselves done and assign the developers to another project. I think EU has hit that point. Art of War was the highpoint for its DLC. The other releases have been okay, except for the latest, which has some serious issues and does have a lot of “change for the sake of change” built in.

2090

Is that really what you (people) think? That seems to me to be an unjustly cynical attitude towards a company that’s treated its customers well.

I recall one of the goals of Common Sense was to revamp the building aspect of EU4, since the implementation was pretty bland - as evidenced by the fact that everyone treated buildings the same way - “build temples and barracks everywhere.” Their goal, I recall, was to make things more interesting, by making the choices more meaningful (limited building slots means maybe you build a marketplace instead of a temple, etc). Now did they achieve their goals? Seems like a lot of people think they missed the mark. And I have no problem if people think that. But what I’m seein here are speculations that they’ve suddenly turned into money-grubbing-gougers who put out DLC just to rake in the dough. I’d rather give them the benefit of the doubt and say the implementation didn’t turn out quite as they hoped. I really don’t think they deserve the harsh opinions being thrown out here.

2091

It’s not just the new building system that we’re complaining about. The changes to game mechanics in general are just as significant. The massive increase to coring and diploannexation costs combined with the addition of province development means that monarch points (which were always the game’s most important resource) are now too scare. The removal of all the special buildings really hurts, too, because they opened many possibilities. Who didn’t love getting a third diplomat after building their Embassy, for example, or the additional leaders and tradition provided by the War College and Admiralty? They expanded your mid and late game options and capabilities, but now they’re gone. Long campaigns feel much more static as a result.

2092

One thing I will say is I think it would be great of ducats could be used to offset some MP costs in terms of development. With the building reduction, I feel there’s less use for gold. I think if you’re rich it should help you develop land, which would be especially useful for ROTW nations who don’t have the MP to spare.

As a whole, though, I like the added pressure on MP points, especially MIL. The loss of the Embassy just makes idea groups that provide free diplomats more enticing, which I like.

I don’t feel like my game has slowed down at all, but I do play differently. I take more diplomatic ideas and I utilize marches/vassals/client states more heavily than I previously did. While I’m pretty happy with how the game stands now, I can see why it’s not so popular with others.

2093

Sure enough, looks like they’re going to balance the numbers around development, hopefully making it more worthwhile.

2094

That’s a needed change, but my other complaints about this version stand (removal of special buildings, coring and diploannexation costs and times too high, diplo rep penalties after annexation, admin efficiency nerf, etc. etc.).

2095

I’ve only played one campaign with the DLC, admittedly, but I’m fairly happy with having development being very expensive and relatively rare. Otherwise you’re basically replacing the MP cost of buildings with an MP cost for building slots. It could probably do with some rebalancing, as all EU DLC does when it comes out, but I don’t think the system is fundamentally flawed. The bigger issues are as people have said the removal of special buildings and the seemingly inadvertent nerfing of certain ideas (eg by changing how trade efficiency works).

2096

My idea would have been that by crossing the 50bt limit, the vassal got the +50% liberty desire. And now you can’t annex anyone with more than 50% liberty desire.

2097

It’s strange that your paraphrasing of “Is that really what you think?” has almost nothing in common with what I posted.

They have kept to a roughly 4-5 month DLC release schedule for 2 years. Each DLC cost money. DLC is therefore regular and monetised, with the incentive being steady income. Do you disagree with any of this?

I’m going to assume no.

Most of the expansions have been fluff. One randomised the new world (hilariously badly). One gave a custom nation designer. One changed trade a little. Nothing wrong with any of this, people have the option to purchase or not purchase, and the base game does get updated with patches either way.
However, I can’t see how anyone can look at the DLC history and not see a complete lack of vision. Do I remember incorrectly that the changes introduced with Art of War sparked a huge forum backlash and very quick alterations by Paradox?

2098

I don’t know if I can agree that most of the expansions have been fluff. Yeah, CoP’s random New World generator leaves a lot to be desired, but isn’t that the expansion that gave Native Americans mechanics for the first time and added Colonial Nations? The latter especially added a lot to the game for me.

In terms of Art of War, I don’t remember the backlash that you refer to specifically, but that’s because every patch/change I can think of has been accompanied by a forum riot. They all start blurring together at some point. :)

2099

Yeah, the Paradox forums are not the place for reasoned discussion over patch changes. There is a very brigade of dedicated complainers every patch (often the same group every patch).

For christ’s sake, look at what happens every time they make a change that could adversely effect Byzantium. There’s 20 threads made every time!

That said this is the first one that makes me give the side eye. I am particularly interested to hear how the loss of unique buildings gets addressed. Buildings like the Embassy, War Colege, Admirality are absolutely essential. I really don’t know how you could cope with only having 1, 2 with enough PP, general. That is just crippling, especially since the AI cheats to high hell in generating generals SCREW YOU FRANCE AND YOUR NEVER ENDING 6/5/5/3 GENERALS

2100

Honestly, in my Common Sense campaign I just went over my Leader limit as needed. MIL was a resource that I felt had very little pressure. You save a ton of MIL points now by not building multiple military buildings in every single province, but this is now offset by being able to boost base manpower if desired. I didn’t find going 2 leaders above my limit ever really hurt me, I was still ahead on Land tech and had a bunch of military idea groups maxed. ROTW would have it much harder, though, I would think.