Should provincial investments be merged with the building system?

[Tomice]

Currently, we have a lot of buildings that have limited purpose.
On the other hand, we have provincial investments that somehow do similar things you'd expect buildings to do, but they're more abstract and gamey.

1) Promote Infrastructure Spending (Civic): +2.50% Population Capacity
This steps on the toes of aqueducts, which add 4 flat pop capicity instead (that's then modified by % values such as the above).
The mixture of flat numbers and modifiers seems like questionable game design and adds to the stigma of PDX being "like spreadsheets". Only math freaks and guide readers will realize that you need a sufficient number of modifiers first before aqueducts start making sense.
----> merge the effect into aqueducts.

2) Entice Business Investments (Oratory): +1 Local Import Routes
This one does what we'd normally expect from harbors, roads and markets. Only that harbors do nothing for trade, while roads and markets add a mostly negligible % modifier that only matters for the megacities we wanted to avoid. Plus there are trade routes from pops. How all this interacts is rather obscure and only explicable through the history of development (where old features remain without really fitting into the new concept)
----> Add flat modifiers to harbors, roads, and markets.

3) Install Provincial Procurators (Military): +0.01 Local Provincial Loyalty and +1 Fort Infrastructure Capacity
Honestly, the whole concept of "fort infrastructure capacity" only made sense for the short moment between 2.0 and 2.0.1 when forts were really expensive to maintain. Now it's hardly ever worth to spend 80 political influence just to save 0.2 gold per month. Seems like a trap choice.
----> Throw the whole "fort infrastructure capacity" out of the window IMO, as many didn't understand it correctly anyway. It's just interface clutter.

4) Make Religious Endowments (Religious): +1 Local City Building Slots
This one is the only one that could stay, as it makes no sense as building anyway.
----> Add this one to the buildings, but let it cost PI only and add the effects of the tax office ("improve city administration: +1 building slot, +10% tax")



If one worries about where to spend the Political Influence instead:
----> make some buildings have an additional PI cost! Each additional fort or port level per province could cost a scaling amount of PI, for example. This would prevent spamming forts and ports while saving on interface clutter.

Thoughts?

 

[Stars_and_Bars]

Currently, we have a lot of buildings that have limited purpose.
On the other hand, we have provincial investments that somehow do similar things you'd expect buildings to do, but they're more abstract and gamey.

1) Promote Infrastructure Spending (Civic): +2.50% Population Capacity
This steps on the toes of aqueducts, which add 4 flat pop capicity instead (that's then modified by % values such as the above).
The mixture of flat numbers and modifiers seems like questionable game design and adds to the stigma of PDX being "like spreadsheets". Only math freaks and guide readers will realize that you need a sufficient number of modifiers first before aqueducts start making sense.
----> merge the effect into aqueducts.

2) Entice Business Investments (Oratory): +1 Local Import Routes
This one does what we'd normally expect from harbors, roads and markets. Only that harbors do nothing for trade, while roads and markets add a mostly negligible % modifier that only matters for the megacities we wanted to avoid. Plus there are trade routes from pops. How all this interacts is rather obscure and only explicable through the history of development (where old features remain without really fitting into the new concept)
----> Add flat modifiers to harbors, roads, and markets.

3) Install Provincial Procurators (Military): +0.01 Local Provincial Loyalty and +1 Fort Infrastructure Capacity
Honestly, the whole concept of "fort infrastructure capacity" only made sense for the short moment between 2.0 and 2.0.1 when forts were really expensive to maintain. Now it's hardly ever worth to spend 80 political influence just to save 0.2 gold per month. Seems like a trap choice.
----> Throw the whole "fort infrastructure capacity" out of the window IMO, as many didn't understand it correctly anyway. It's just interface clutter.

4) Make Religious Endowments (Religious): +1 Local City Building Slots
This one is the only one that could stay, as it makes no sense as building anyway.
----> Add this one to the buildings, but let it cost PI only and add the effects of the tax office ("improve city administration: +1 building slot, +10% tax")



If one worries about where to spend the Political Influence instead:
----> make some buildings have an additional PI cost! Each additional fort or port level per province could cost a scaling amount of PI, for example. This would prevent spamming forts and ports while saving on interface clutter.

Thoughts?

I think you're wrong about absolutely everything. The provincial investments are there so you always have something to spend political influence on. You don't have to use any of them ever, but if you do, then there's reason to do so.

1) is there as an alternative to aqueducts, something to spend political influence on if you have too much, and you want more pop capacity like aquducts would give
2) is there to increase trade route bonuses when you don't have enough nobles or citizens, but you want more trade and have too much political influence.
3) Provincial procurators is very useful for making fort heavy provinces. It's very useful with fort capacity, which was desperately needed which I will explain farther down.
4) is very useful to increase building slots without needing to have more pops per city, again if you have too much political influence

Now, since you don't understand fort capacity or why it was needed, I will explain it. "fort infrastructure capacity" limits how many forts can efficiently be used in a territory. 1 fort costs 3 capacity, while additional fort levels cost 1, base capacity is 5 levels. Exceeding fort capacity is cost prohibitive, and a drain on your resources. Every level your province is above fort capacity will increases the cost of all forts in that province by 25%. So, if you are 4 levels above the fort capacity, all forts in that province cost double, if you are 8 levels above they all cost triple, etc. Now, level 2 forts (barring the capital) cost 2 times as much as a level 1 fort to maintain, just like level 3 forts cost 3 times as much as a level 1 fort. Suffice it to say is that exceeding fort capacity is just more costly overall, but you don't have to spend political influence if you don't want to. This system requires you to actually invest a lot more if you want strong fortified provinces, but more importantly, it also gives the AI a way to value spread out forts instead of the super capital forts it used to make before.

BTW, if you really didn't find it worth it to spend 80 influence to save 0.2 gold per month, then I doubt you would be advocating removing the system entirely, because you wouldn't mind. It's also not interface clutter, because that same interface shows combat width, which now actually varies by territory depending upon terrain and some other factors.

 

[IsaacCAT]

Currently, we have a lot of buildings that have limited purpose.
On the other hand, we have provincial investments that somehow do similar things you'd expect buildings to do, but they're more abstract and gamey.

1) Promote Infrastructure Spending (Civic): +2.50% Population Capacity
This steps on the toes of aqueducts, which add 4 flat pop capicity instead (that's then modified by % values such as the above).
The mixture of flat numbers and modifiers seems like questionable game design and adds to the stigma of PDX being "like spreadsheets". Only math freaks and guide readers will realize that you need a sufficient number of modifiers first before aqueducts start making sense.
----> merge the effect into aqueducts.

2) Entice Business Investments (Oratory): +1 Local Import Routes
This one does what we'd normally expect from harbors, roads and markets. Only that harbors do nothing for trade, while roads and markets add a mostly negligible % modifier that only matters for the megacities we wanted to avoid. Plus there are trade routes from pops. How all this interacts is rather obscure and only explicable through the history of development (where old features remain without really fitting into the new concept)
----> Add flat modifiers to harbors, roads, and markets.

3) Install Provincial Procurators (Military): +0.01 Local Provincial Loyalty and +1 Fort Infrastructure Capacity
Honestly, the whole concept of "fort infrastructure capacity" only made sense for the short moment between 2.0 and 2.0.1 when forts were really expensive to maintain. Now it's hardly ever worth to spend 80 political influence just to save 0.2 gold per month. Seems like a trap choice.
----> Throw the whole "fort infrastructure capacity" out of the window IMO, as many didn't understand it correctly anyway. It's just interface clutter.

4) Make Religious Endowments (Religious): +1 Local City Building Slots
This one is the only one that could stay, as it makes no sense as building anyway.
----> Add this one to the buildings, but let it cost PI only and add the effects of the tax office ("improve city administration: +1 building slot, +10% tax")



If one worries about where to spend the Political Influence instead:
----> make some buildings have an additional PI cost! Each additional fort or port level per province could cost a scaling amount of PI, for example. This would prevent spamming forts and ports while saving on interface clutter.

Thoughts?

I have always thought that provincial investments could be improved and felt an afterthought. For example, I suggested spending PI to change the production of goods in territories (conditioned to the type of territory) to specialize provinces.

It is good to think about it, thank you.

 

[Tomice]

I think you're wrong about absolutely everything. The provincial investments are there so you always have something to spend political influence on. You don't have to use any of them ever, but if you do, then there's reason to do so.

1) is there as an alternative to aqueducts, something to spend political influence on if you have too much, and you want more pop capacity like aquducts would give
2) is there to increase trade route bonuses when you don't have enough nobles or citizens, but you want more trade and have too much political influence.
3) Provincial procurators is very useful for making fort heavy provinces. It's very useful with fort capacity, which was desperately needed which I will explain farther down.
4) is very useful to increase building slots without needing to have more pops per city, again if you have too much political influence

Now, since you don't understand fort capacity or why it was needed, I will explain it. "fort infrastructure capacity" limits how many forts can efficiently be used in a territory. 1 fort costs 3 capacity, while additional fort levels cost 1, base capacity is 5 levels. Exceeding fort capacity is cost prohibitive, and a drain on your resources. Every level your province is above fort capacity will increases the cost of all forts in that province by 25%. So, if you are 4 levels above the fort capacity, all forts in that province cost double, if you are 8 levels above they all cost triple, etc. Now, level 2 forts (barring the capital) cost 2 times as much as a level 1 fort to maintain, just like level 3 forts cost 3 times as much as a level 1 fort. Suffice it to say is that exceeding fort capacity is just more costly overall, but you don't have to spend political influence if you don't want to. This system requires you to actually invest a lot more if you want strong fortified provinces, but more importantly, it also gives the AI a way to value spread out forts instead of the super capital forts it used to make before.

BTW, if you really didn't find it worth it to spend 80 influence to save 0.2 gold per month, then I doubt you would be advocating removing the system entirely, because you wouldn't mind. It's also not interface clutter, because that same interface shows combat width, which now actually varies by territory depending upon terrain and some other factors.

As I said, I know we need a "sink" for Political Influence.
I'd just prefer if there weren't such abstract concepts like "provincial investments".

There could just be a scaling PI cost in addition to the gold cost for forts if you fortify your province above a certain threshold.
In a similar fashion, there could be a scaling PI cost for building more than a certain number of harbors per province, or more aqueducts per city.

This would allow us to have more meaningful buildings with more tangible effects. The scaling PI cost for overspecialization would prevent building a single building too often.

 

[TehJumpingJawa]

Add a PI cost to buildings.
Roll provincial investment boons into buildings.

 

[cristofolmc]

I would roll those effects into some of the buildings. I would keep the scaling costs of those buildings, so there isnt a hard cap but you also can't spam it like crazy. I hate how gamey the province investment feels. I'd much rather build a port that gives me +1 trade routes, but that each expansion is gonna be more sofisticated and therefore more and more expensive, so I cannot just spam +10 in a province, but I'll be limited by gold and PI.

 

[Bovrick]

Not a fan of Provincial Investments either. But even less of a fan of rolling them into buildings tbh.

 

[olivenkranz]

As I said, I know we need a "sink" for Political Influence.
I'd just prefer if there weren't such abstract concepts like "provincial investments".

There could just be a scaling PI cost in addition to the gold cost for forts if you fortify your province above a certain threshold.
In a similar fashion, there could be a scaling PI cost for building more than a certain number of harbors per province, or more aqueducts per city.

This would allow us to have more meaningful buildings with more tangible effects. The scaling PI cost for overspecialization would prevent building a single building too often.

If you need a sink: just go founding cities in Hispania and/or Gallia or some other place with no civilization. And after that go build metropolises.

 

[IsaacCAT]

If you need a sink: just go founding cities in Hispania and/or Gallia or some other place with no civilization. And after that go build metropolises.

Diversinkfication.

I like PI being a jack of all trades for everything political. Allowing more buildings of the same kind in a city could cost increasing PI as if the government were giving licenses to open the building. Adding a new unit increases the political opposition by the competition in buildings like marketplaces, etc... that can crowd each other out.

 

[Nostalgium]

People need sinks for PI? A-are you guys not building cities?

 

[Tomice]

People need sinks for PI? A-are you guys not building cities?

It's not it can't be spent otherwise. Just that I understand the person above who didn't want to just cancel one of the many versatile uses of PI. It's good that it's something that is in high demand.
That's why I would move some PI cost from provincial investments to the building system.

 

[scriptkiddy]

Should provincial investments be merged with the building system?​

No, because just no.

Seriously, Paradox finally came up with building options that you can truly call strategic; provincial improvements for longterm strategy, locking you to the path you‘ve chosen, and buildings for mid- and shortterm strategy, allowing circumstantial adaption.

Furthermore, both are interacting with the tech trees. I love this current system.

All roads lead to Rome, there is lots of versatility in the current state of the game. I‘d rather keep it this way or even expand the possibilities instead of implementing a meta build all too early.

 

[Emre Yigit]

Provincial investments permit the construction of very large cities in a very limited number of provinces; if the effects are merged into buildings one would need to restrict those further (removing the chance of any really large cities) or once again have the opportunity to grow all cities like crazy.

So my vote would be no.

 

[Akbar The Great]

People need sinks for PI? A-are you guys not building cities?

Exactly, I've never got enough.

 

[Tomice]

I'm surprised there's so much love for the system, but it's fine. If I know it's widely accepted I can enjoy it better.
I just hope they make harbors/markets/trade in general more immersive in future patches.

 

[Emre Yigit]

I'm surprised there's so much love for the system, but it's fine. If I know it's widely accepted I can enjoy it better.
I just hope they make harbors/markets/trade in general more immersive in future patches.

That's an unusually enlightened stance to take on an internet forum. You're well on the way to buddhahood.

 

[Marcus Pica]

Provincial investments affect the whole province, buildings affect only the city territory. Provincial investmemts add an aditional level of strategic debth to the game and personaly I see them as an abstraction of provonce wide policy, infrastructure investments etc.

 

[Rabid]

I hate the design behind provincial investments and have done since they were first introduced - I'd be perfectly happy to see them removed entirely. Now that cities serve as a perfectly reasonable PI sink, investments don't have a good reason to exist except as a way to construct megacities (which is a feature I'd rather see removed from the game anyway).

I suppose that they could be saved with a thorough rework to remove the "infinitely spammable in a single province" issue but until that point is well addressed their optimal use is always degenerate and doesn't add any interesting decisionmaking.

 

[olivenkranz]

I hate the design behind provincial investments and have done since they were first introduced - I'd be perfectly happy to see them removed entirely. Now that cities serve as a perfectly reasonable PI sink, investments don't have a good reason to exist except as a way to construct megacities (which is a feature I'd rather see removed from the game anyway).

I suppose that they could be saved with a thorough rework to remove the "infinitely spammable in a single province" issue but until that point is well addressed their optimal use is always degenerate and doesn't add any interesting decisionmaking.

Historically there were a few really big cities - Rome at its height had 1.2 million inhabitants. Persian and Indian cities had before that also quite a big population; not a million, but in the 6-800'000. Thats not a modern megacity, but big cities existed in antiquity. The ai wont build mayn metroplolises, so it only depends on your playstyle.

 

[Rabid]

Historically there were a few really big cities - Rome at its height had 1.2 million inhabitants. Persian and Indian cities had before that also quite a big population; not a million, but in the 6-800'000. Thats not a modern megacity, but big cities existed in antiquity. The ai wont build mayn metroplolises, so it only depends on your playstyle.

For clarity's sake when I say "megacity" I mean "a city which can be made arbitrarily large if you want to spend enough time moving slaves around"