EU4 - Development Diary - 26th of May 2016

[Johan]

So, indirectly, this makes smaller, taller empires an edge on technological development (as well as the perks of having the institutions), doesn't it?

yes

 

[Dnote]

I actually like that positive opinion is required, but would like the distance it can spread increased (over sea tiles).

If England has rivaled France, then it should still be able to get the spread from the Dutch lowlands, German/Danish provinces or Iberia. They were all very connected through trade and diplomacy in that time.

For example, Gunpowder was invented in China, but it didn't spread to Europe through the nations across land, it came back along the trade routes to the nations that saw the potential of it. And then filtered back to the rest of the world with those European nations, through conquest.

 

[Dnote]

So according to this north africa would be at the same level of institutions and tech as Castile/France/England (through Gibraltar), and maybe more than Austria/Poland/Ottomans/Russia??

I really don't like it. The spread of Westernization was bad enough already.

That is unlikely, as it is pretty rare for the Islamic and Catholic nations of that region to not hate/rival each other.

You're more likely to see the tech spread come from Italy into Tunis.

 

[Dnote]

That would be awful too.

I agree that a good human player should be able to change history a little but I really don't like systems that evens the game to get very ahistorical results like a super teched Tunis.

I can't think of the default relations modifiers they might have off the top of my head, but I think Tunis is the only possible Islamic nation that could get the tech spread. The others that are 1 sea tile away or bordering the Catholics are almost always going to be hostile, preventing the spread. Those that aren't hostile are going to be too far away for the spread.

I haven't played much recently though, so maybe Tunis does rival Aragon/Naples and vice a versa these days?

I guess in theory it is also possible for it to spread from Italy to the Ottomans, if they take enough of the Balkans. The Italian nations are usually too small for the Ottomans to care about, so rivalry won't happen.

Really can't remember what enough of the relations modifiers are though to say for sure.

 

[Dnote]

Okay, so I ran the game for awhile to see how relations might affect tech spread out of Europe (10 years in).

Granada - Negative with Castile, Portugal
Morocco - Negative with Castile, Portugal
Tlemcen - Positive with Castile, Aragon
Tunis - Negative with Aragon
Fezzan - Out of range
Mamluks - Negative with Venice, Positive with Cyprus
Ottomans - Negative with Byzantium, Venice, Hungary, Wallachia, Serbia, Positive with Moldavia, Naples, Cyprus

So, I guessed wrong about which Islamic nation it would spread to, because I forgot about coastal raiding, but it can clearly still spread, assuming there aren't any modifiers not mentioned in the dev diary.

Also, England shouldn't have any problems, if they lose their mainland holdings then their connections are France, Burgundy and Brittany. It is unlikely for them to have a negative relation with all three.

Scotland could lag behind though, in most games their relations with England will be negative, meaning the tech has to creep through Ireland or Norway to get to Scotland.

Muscovy and Novgorod could also fall behind a bit. As I assume the more countries it has to go through the slower it will be, rather than provinces, if all provinces in a country adopt it at the same time.

 

[Johan]

@Johan
There are so many institutions that provide such a big penalty (especially when stacked) that unless they spread to neighboring countries at lightning speed it is easy to see that the ROTW will yet again be in a terrible, terrible position really, really fast. This new system seems to be really harsh for everyone in Asia but it hits Sub-Saharans the most that by 1550 should have an 80% penalty to tech and it only gets worse as time passes by unless one expands really fast into... Europe. But how can one do that with a terrible unbalance research typical of ROTW starts whenever trying to expand (especially bad when combined with bad rulers). A

This is another game (observermode)

Its the spread of Manufactories Institution, which enables after 1650, in 1669 and in 1709.

and...

 

[Dnote]

This is another game (observermode)

Its the spread of Manufactories Institution, which enables after 1650, in 1669 and in 1709.

and...

Does that mean Ottomans are behind on tech speed compared to India and China?

 

[Trin Tragula]

Overhauling the tech groups counts as balancing for me, balancing is part of patches, which are free.

Yes?

 

[Trin Tragula]

The tech revamp is free though?

 

[Trin Tragula]

You can as always play older versions in steam. The revamp of technology groups and addition of institutions is in the 1.18 patch though so any versions beyond that will have it.