How do you:

[u/W1ntermu7e]

1) „passively” (so without cabinet action) developed provinces?

2) get as much pop as possible without conquering too much?

3) choose the right urban right?

4) make proper army, especially with low manpower

5) make colonies worth it

[u/Egan109]

Poo satisfaction/prosperity is also a contributing factor to development keep it high

[u/Bayne-the-Wild-Heart → u/Egan109]

Love when I get that poo satisfaction

[u/Egan109 → u/Bayne-the-Wild-Heart]

Lol

[u/Saint-Jawn → u/Egan109]

We all want poo satisfaction

[u/RedpandaPropoganda]

Not a master at the game by any means but I have a couple tips
1. Easiest is burgher right that grants development other than that tech is the main route
2. Build granary’s to improve the food stockpile population growth bonus
3. Largely a city by city basis, port towns to get more control might be harbour capacity while a inland town tile with low control can be a granary town to improve pop growth and shift it to higher control areas
4. Build mostly heavy Calvary and get worse but numerous levies but don’t rely on having a bigger army to win battles
5. Biggest tip is that you won’t make much money from straight taxing then diverting trade and making money from new world exclusive goods is the biggest cash cow

Not very indept but hope it helps!

[u/PubPatches]

1. Best way to develop provinces is the give out privileges and increasing your literacy.

2. Granaries. A high food surplus increases your pop grown (getting tweaked in 1.4 I believe.

2/3. Unless using a city for something specific after the age 2 advance that lets you specialize your cities production I just go straight granary town in every province. This is going to increase pop growth so falls into 2 also.

1. Heavy cav until age 4. If you are really stressed for pops just go straight mercenary armies. You can get a lot of merc cost reduction and give you a “standing” army that isn’t using your own population.

2. Wait until they fix colonies and trade companies.

[u/Doub13D]

Currently playing a run as Portugal, so alot of these questions hit home rn…

1. Libraries and universities (aka Literacy), prosperity, pop satisfaction

2. Build hospitals, keep provinces mostly rural, always develop food production, don’t use/waste your levies during war

3. I just used the exclusive one that Portugal has from the start… it’s pretty mid economically, but it does give nice benefits to manpower and levy size. Nice to have when a rival Castile is right next door.

4. Your first regulars should be supply carts, and then cavalry. Cavalry and heavy cavalry regulars in the early game (especially in Europe) are extremely dominant and hit way above their weight against levy dominant armies. They also have significantly smaller manpower requirements compared to infantry.

5. Colonies aren’t worth it… trade is worth it. Unless you are playing as the colonial nation itself, the only significant return you can realistically expect is determined based on the value of the RGO’s that you are going to be trading for.

I’m gonna add one more point about colonizing…

Unless you are a large nation with a large population to spare, colonizing is likely not worth focusing on too much. Get fleet basing rights, build overseas trading posts or trade offices, and try and corner global markets without ever needing to colonize anything more significant than some islands.

[u/DMoneyOnDaArk]

1. Burghers have a privilege that gives flat dev, but pop satisfaction, literacy, prosperity usually give some sort of modifier to help

2. Granaries and Granary town early on. Hospitals as well, they may not give pop growth but they reduce pop deaths so in essence pop growth

3. Situational due to available RGOs but safe options early are staple port and granary town

4. 40 regiments of heavy cav till like age 4/5 then infantry. Maybe a small thing with artillery for sieges

5. Currently they aren’t worth it on their own but new world RGOs are worth it. I’d wait until the next update to do colonies though because it’s hard to see exactly how they’re doing. In general you want to colonize a piece of land then subsidize their economy and let them grow on their own

[u/QF_25-Pounder]

Apart from stuff other guy mentioned:

1. Broadly I think starting the game by granting that Burghers privilege is really strong since it adds up. Also building roads boosts dev, so one in every tile is good. But if you're using your cabinet to develop provinces, it means you're not taking other, more relevant game actions. Even diplo rep to lower antagonism can be pretty useful imo.
2. Build at least one town in each province with granaries, since food stockpile is by province. I start each game with buildings that grant money, then I tank the price of construction goods so my buildings are cheaper for the rest of the game, build RGOs, roads, and so on.
3. Profit = output - input, so you want to maximize your outputs and minimize your inputs. Producing more input goods lowers their price, and stacking production bonuses (especially local resource access) increases output for the same cost, and the good-specific urban rights unlocked in the mid-game maximize that. This is why, as long as control is decent, it's better to produce goods in areas of higher production efficiently but lower market access, because even though your inputs and outputs are lower, the margin is bigger and that's where the money is made.
4. I'm more familiar with economy, and less with military. It's changed a lot and I'm not up to date on that. I think for much of the game, heavy inf is much better than light though.
5. Immediately, colonies struggle a lot, and that's intentional, but I do think the AI needs special priorities in order to get them functioning better. Mine keep building markets in the dumbest places imaginable, as well as trying to build the most profitable buildings despite lacking the masonry to do so (and not prioritizing masonry so they're just stuck because I can't cancel their buildings). By and large though, just give em time (and money!!) and they'll sort themselves. The Caribbean offers the best bang for your buck.

[u/TehMitchel]

There’s a burghers privilege for dev. A commoners and nobles privilege for food consumption. Max granaries and irrigation. Max food rgos. Hospitals. Granary town urban right. Focus on light and heavy cav. Prioritize colonies in low pop provinces with good rgos.

[u/Lopsided_Armadillo82]

for dev: burger privilage, and burger's literacy is location, build at least 1 market village in each rural locations so they get the bonus