I found it an intriguing suggestion as there is something not working all that greatly about that slider but I thought it through a bit and in the end voted no and this mainly for 3 reasons.
First of all for gameplay reasons. As already established, I would say so anyway, this rule benefits some countries and penalises others. The thing is that IMO it benefits the big, strong and popular nations while penalising the smaller, weaker and less popular nations. Smaller countries already are not as popular to play as, well, they are smaller and weaker whereas does France or the OE or Spain really need to be made more attractive to play? Holland really isn't going to beat France but at least it could have a powerful navy to make France take it into more consideration, aka make it more powerful, give it more options and thus making it more fun to play.
Secondly, and building on the first: historically small countries were important. This is a bit of an issue with EU, the big, strong countries have too much of an edge about the small ones. This rule takes away at least some edge the small nations can lay on the big nations. So this rule makes historical countries even less powerful than they historically were. So instead of increasing historicality with this rule as it apparently intends to achieve, it makes it less historically accurate. Before Holland was toast on land versus France but could at least get somewhere navally, now that edge is taken away, creating an even weaker Holland.
Thirdly, the basic premise of the problem this rule wans to fix is wrong. France should aparently be able to beat Portugal's navy. Well, you know what, they can do that already! The thing is that (as with almost all issues) this is mstly again a player mentality issue. When does France ever even try to have a large navy or get somewhere navally? It's just not a common player choice just like it is often not a choice for England to be involved on land. I'm not saying it is easy but it is possible.
(I'm not including admirals here as they can seriously tilt results - France gets a lot more btw so that makes it even easier.) If France builds up to its support limit and is on par technologically with Portugal navally (which France almost never is, so no surprise they never get anywhere navally), then in a naval encounter in the end France has a very good chance of winning, it can simpl have a much larger fleet, another advantage of large nations in EU2.
Now if this slider is not locked, France will have a lot more ships but Portugal will at least have a beter quality ships, giving it a chance. Both sides can win it and I have often seen the France in this premise prevail. Now if you lock the slider at 5 than France will have a lot more ships as Portugal and Portugal's ships will be just as good (or as crap) as France's, no guessing who will win his one.
If you limit anything with this slider (and I'm not saying nothing is wrong with this slider, on the contrary, but the solution is worse IMO) than you should limit the slider for big nations while letting it be free for small ones. It's already a drag to play a full naval Denmark versus a land 10 Austria but even more so as a land 5 DK and a land 5 Austria. And it should become harder for Austria, not Denmark.
(And on a sidenote, if I play DK or so, this rule on the new map means I get -20% tax on all my provs, I can't get randm explorers by event and mss out on teh colonists I would normally use to colonise)
First of all for gameplay reasons. As already established, I would say so anyway, this rule benefits some countries and penalises others. The thing is that IMO it benefits the big, strong and popular nations while penalising the smaller, weaker and less popular nations. Smaller countries already are not as popular to play as, well, they are smaller and weaker whereas does France or the OE or Spain really need to be made more attractive to play? Holland really isn't going to beat France but at least it could have a powerful navy to make France take it into more consideration, aka make it more powerful, give it more options and thus making it more fun to play.
Secondly, and building on the first: historically small countries were important. This is a bit of an issue with EU, the big, strong countries have too much of an edge about the small ones. This rule takes away at least some edge the small nations can lay on the big nations. So this rule makes historical countries even less powerful than they historically were. So instead of increasing historicality with this rule as it apparently intends to achieve, it makes it less historically accurate. Before Holland was toast on land versus France but could at least get somewhere navally, now that edge is taken away, creating an even weaker Holland.
Thirdly, the basic premise of the problem this rule wans to fix is wrong. France should aparently be able to beat Portugal's navy. Well, you know what, they can do that already! The thing is that (as with almost all issues) this is mstly again a player mentality issue. When does France ever even try to have a large navy or get somewhere navally? It's just not a common player choice just like it is often not a choice for England to be involved on land. I'm not saying it is easy but it is possible.
(I'm not including admirals here as they can seriously tilt results - France gets a lot more btw so that makes it even easier.) If France builds up to its support limit and is on par technologically with Portugal navally (which France almost never is, so no surprise they never get anywhere navally), then in a naval encounter in the end France has a very good chance of winning, it can simpl have a much larger fleet, another advantage of large nations in EU2.
Now if this slider is not locked, France will have a lot more ships but Portugal will at least have a beter quality ships, giving it a chance. Both sides can win it and I have often seen the France in this premise prevail. Now if you lock the slider at 5 than France will have a lot more ships as Portugal and Portugal's ships will be just as good (or as crap) as France's, no guessing who will win his one.
If you limit anything with this slider (and I'm not saying nothing is wrong with this slider, on the contrary, but the solution is worse IMO) than you should limit the slider for big nations while letting it be free for small ones. It's already a drag to play a full naval Denmark versus a land 10 Austria but even more so as a land 5 DK and a land 5 Austria. And it should become harder for Austria, not Denmark.
(And on a sidenote, if I play DK or so, this rule on the new map means I get -20% tax on all my provs, I can't get randm explorers by event and mss out on teh colonists I would normally use to colonise)