Make changes to centralization/decentralization

[rough tundra]

We went from full centralization meta to full decentralization meta, tbh i would make centralization speed up integration process, while decentralization would increase diplomatic annexation bonus, that would make both options viable to go for depending on nation that you are playing

[worn dust]

Honestly, rather than subject loyalty, I think Centralization vs Decentralization should primarily impact proximity.

Centralized states should increase proximity bonus within radius of the capital at the penalty of decreasing it on the periphery, whereas decentralization should function to the opposite, lowering your max proximity but spreading it out more on the periphery, maintaining slightly better control across large territories at the cost of having less power in your core lands.

It should also have unrest impact, where centralization creates low unrest in core territory but raises it in periphery, and decent causes less unrest in wide swathes, but more in your core.

It would require making some kind of an aura spreading from the capital province to represent how much you can centralize/decentralize and having the slider modify that as you gain or lose more over time and impact the values based on the aura.

[humble remnant]

That aura is in the game, it’s called Control. That was how the game was at launch, functionally. Then a handful of people threw a fit about decentralization being bad and they 180’ed the game’s entire driving force in a half-assed manner, giving us what we have now. It seems clear that they’re uninterested in going back to that, given how quickly they’ve breezed past tuning it.

Realistically what they need to do is equalize the subject loyalty malus/buff to a sane number, maybe +/-25 in either direction, and change a handful of privileges to give them either less decent, or cent instead of decent. That would equalize things enough to where Centralization would be usable until they could commit to a proper rework.

My optimism is low that this will happen.

[worn dust]

That's so... ass. That's how decentralization should work. Getting like... 45-50 control out of all of your provinces is way better than geting 75-80 out of a small core region, once you start blobbing large as like, a horde or something

It's almost like different kinds of nations should want to play differently

[forest cargo]

huh yeah this is a good idea and how it would realistically work. Max decentralize should give +10 base control everywhere, but max centralize should give it's minus proximity cost.

[humble remnant]

They could also make Centralization give you early access to Integrate/Assimilate Area actions, which you would lose if you dropped below a certain Cent threshold unless or until you reached the later-Age techs that permanently unlock them. This would make it an actual, meaningful choice, with plenty of appropriate flavor; I think Decentralization would still come out on top, but not enough that it would torpedo your run if you went Centralization.

But really I'm still baffled that they made the change, especially since the Absolutism/Liberalism meter already represents the conflict between centralizing and decentralizing forces and actors, both in mechanics and flavor. Like, this choice functionally already existed in the game in a way that felt natural and as if it were a result of your early actions. There was no real reason to do this, other than it 'felt bad' to people who had never reached the Age of Absolutism to begin with.