Fort balance has been adjusted, resulting in a similar pace to original BT (and still slower than vanilla), but somewhat more random and vulnerable to smaller armies.

Fort levels have been significantly lowered (from 2-4-6-8 to 1-2-3-5), making it possible to siege even high level forts with a much smaller army, or an army not made up entirely of cannons. The goal of this, however, is not to speed up the game, but rather increase the degree of randomness in sieges and also to make them less about who can field more cannons, so forts now also include growing local defensiveness bonuses (10-30-60-100), increasing the length of siege ticks. This makes sieges a bit more random because, with a lucky role and good general, it is possible that even a fortress can fall within a few months. On the other hand, a siege can drag on even longer than in the original game, taking as much as 100 days per siege tick with the new local defensiveness bonuses.

The changes to Forts are driven by two main factors: A) I was getting annoyed/frustrated that it required several times more ducats (not to mention manpower) to field and supply an army actually capable of taking a level 8 fort than the fort actually cost to build, and a small nation could use its entire manpower reserves trying to take one fort for the entire duration of a war and still never take it. And B) The many new provinces in BT meant than both the AI and the Player are forced to build more forts, growing fort levels and compounding reason A.




Institutions (origin, spread, embracement, etc.) have been completely reworked, and the old tech group penalties adapted to the new insitution system (at partial strength) to try to encourage historical development while still allowing for the remarkable ahistorical anomaly.

While I greatly appreciate the concept and even, perhaps, the implementation, of the new institution system, the current balance is wildly off in my humble opinion, and much worse still in BT due to the greater number of provinces and lower average development. While EU4 is all about alt history, and I can get behind that, I draw the line at some of the absurb things I have seen since the new institution system was introduced, including North American native armies running about with a half dozen cannon regiments at first contact, central-south African minors keeping up in tech with the Great Powers in Europe, and parts of industrial western Europe regularly being behind rural Asia in tech in otherwise largely historical playthroughs.

The changes here are very difficult to balance, because we want to allow for the possibilty of an alternate history superpower arising in unexpected areas and do not want to "railroad" history, but we also want to encourage historical development in an otherwise largely historical game. This new system also introduces some game-y aspescts, as well, which I'm trying to remove.

For example, a nation can be 10 techs behind in every group, have only the feudalism institution, and generally be not too advanced. Now, in the old system, this country would forever be a nothing, destined to fall farther and farther behind in tech. But in the new system, all this nation needs to do is get one province bordering a western coloniser and within 40 years (I've actually seen this happen in game) the nation has all institutions and is only 1 tech level away from the highest tech in the world. Now, of course, we want to allow a nation to adapt and advance, but the way to do that shouldn't be a mad dash to conquer a province next to a coloniser, or hoping to get lucky and have one of the mighty European nations colonise the province next to you...

The solution I'm currently trying is to apply spead bonus penalties to institutions based on tech groups, with all tech groups receiving a 10% less harsh penalty (rounded) to institution spread than it previously had to tech in the old system (from Eastern at -5% to North American at -60%). I've also overhauled the triggers and speed of other factors causing institutions to spread, so while province-to-province spread is reduced, most of these new factors apply to all equally. *Hopefully* the result is that any reamarkable, forward thinking, nation may still keep up with Europe by relying on building up with the right buildings and advisors, but most will not, unlike vanilla where anyone bordering a European or colonial nation will within 50 years be within one or two levels of European Great Powers.




Buildings have been completely overhauled, hopefully being very recognisable and familiar, but with adjusted effect strength and cost to better suit the greater number of provinces and generally lower development. Beyond the few obvious changes on the outside, there are a great many changes to AI factors controlling when and where the AI will build, as well as the effect buildings have on institution spread.

Small and somewhat unimportant compared to my balance changes to institutions, the changes to buildings are prompted by the lower average development in BT, which has resulted in buildings becoming generally less effective (as most buildings are % based). I also took the opportunity to adjust the AI's decision making process when deciding where to build, and fixed some logical issues with which I took issue. For example, Universities now affect institution spread, and the tier 1 temples now have a (weaker) missionary strength effect like their tier 2 upgrade, cathedrals.

A large part of this new balance is the new build speed and cost introduced in the Terrain Overhaul addon. For rich farmland areas, all buildings are considerably cheaper, but hostile terrains face serious penalties. This works expecially well right now because the greatest number of new provinces is in the mostly rich Europe, reducing costs there, while many of the unoverhauled areas are in African, the Middle East, and Africa, where the hostile terrain penalties will have full effect, offsetting the higher average (comparitively) development.




Forts

• Reduced fort levels from 2-4-6-8 to 1-2-3-5 (this will make smaller armies able to effectively siege, empowering OPMs slightly, and make it possible, but neccessarily likely, to take down down even high level forts in a very short time.)
  
  
• Added a local defensiveness bonus to all forts, slow the siege tick speed by 10%-30%-60%-100% (This should slow siege speed back down after the changes to fort level. The goal here isn't to speed up the game, but rather allow smaller armies to be more effective and make the duration a fort can fold out somewhat more random)
  
  
• Increased cost by 50% (it was far too easy, fast, and cheap to build a great "wall of forts" and be effectively invincible for the rest of the game.)
  
  
• Added a local unrest reduction to forts, 0.5-1.0-1.5-2.0 (Though the ages of building castles to control the countryside was mostly over by the EU4 period, I'm see EU4 forts like garisons and major outposts, from which the administration exercises somewhat more direct authority, even in provinces with autonomy. Unrest reduction represents this well, I think.)
  
  
• Increased the construction time of higher fort levels by 6 months, 12 more month, and 24 more months (for logical reasons which should be obvious. Construction of a fortification can now take anything between 20 and 108 months, depending on terrain and level, rather than always a flat 30 months.)

Buildings (non-forts)

• Completely changed the role and effect of Universities. Now they offer substantial institution spread bonuses and some minor bonuses to production and taxes. (extra building slot was a bit silly, and I feel the development cost was slightly out of place as well.)
  
  
• Completely overhauled the details of manufactories, making bonuses mostly % and adding some secondary effects. (Manufactories institution requires these buildings to be built in your core, rich, land, but in vanilla the flat bonuses are best suited to your poorest, most distant land...? Also, why does a textile factory take x5 longer to build than a grand shipyard or a stock market?)
  
  
• Reduced cost and effect of lower level trade buildings, increased the cost and effect of higher level trade buildings (This is to better fit the balancing in BT with all the new provinces)
  
  
• Workshops and Counting Houses now have a development cost reduction, moved here from universities. (This is both RL logic reasoning, as well as to give workshops a purpose when it is too late in the game to make back the money it costs to build.)
  
  
• Temples now have a weaker missionary strength bonus, like their upgrade the Cathedral (because why does one have the effect, but not the other? Also to give the temple another effect when it is too late to make back the money it costs to build and the cathedral is overkill for you purposes.)
  
  
• Regimental Camps and Conscription Centers now speed recruitment time, like their naval equivalents (for symmetry, mostly)
  
  
• Increased construction time of all later tier buildings, generally from 12 months to 24 months, though a few become 36 months (bear in mind terrain modifers from the Terrain Overhaul Addon will further adjust these up and down)

Institutions

• Implemented a province-to-province spread penalty based on tech group. Western is now 100%, Eastern -5%, Ottoman -10%, Muslim -20%, Indian and East African -25%, Central African, Sub-Saharan, and Asian -30%, Nomad -35%, Meso American and Andean -50%, North American and South American -60%.
  
  
• Further adjusted the above based on which areas have been overhauled. Generally overhauled areas get around +50% faster relative spread and partially overhauled areas get around +25% relative spread. (This will be adjusted as overhaul expands.)
  
  
• Changed AI factors for institution embracement. Generally nations will now hopefully wait a bit longer before dumping decades of savings into embracing an institution.
  
  
• Completely rewrote 90% of institution growth factors and origin point possibilities with the goal of encouraging history but allowing for highly divergent alternate possibilities.
  
  
• Generally lowered spread speed of Colonialism (in vanilla it spreads many times faster than any other)
  
  
• Generally raised the spread speed of the Renaissance (it could move a bit sluggish, especially to rich-ish areas like Aragon, Northern France, and the Northern Germany.)
  
  
• Generally dramatically reduced spread speed of instituions to colonial nations and remote colonies after Colonialism, greatly slowing institution spread after Colonialism outside of overland routes (Note it is possible for all after the printing press to spread via other factors
  
  
• Added/changed a few effects to embracing institutions. (Nothing major, just some fun little boosts either for logical reasons or to try to slip in some balancing which didn't fit elsewhere.)
  
  
  Other Changes
  • Neighbour tech bonus reduced by half (to -2.5%) and capped at -50% (aka. 20 tech levels behind, instead of -75% aka. 15 tech levels behind)