Smallish update on the V2 mod I toozered a few dozen pages back; progress is slow but steady. Don't expect anything at the pace of
@GoodWinSon since I distract easy. I've finished redesigning the tech tree from the ground up and am working on localization for the inventions (which is admittedly taking a while since I want to actually write decent descriptions of what these inventions were, unlike in base game). While I don't want to give a point-by-point breakdown now since this is obviously very early and that could potentially require multiple posts, to give a few highlights of what I want to achieve:
There should be no 'obvious' techs. This doesn't mean I'm trying to make everything hyper-balanced to appeal to competitive MP, but rather I want to eliminate the notion of filler. There should obviously be techs that are more situationally useful than others, but I'm trying to balance the tech system, both in terms of when it unlocks and what it offers, so that there is always an opportunity cost for pursuing a tech unlike in most mods where 9/10 you can safely ignore entire trees like Aesthetics or Naval Engineering until you're 3/4ths through a playthrough.
I'm also aiming for greater accuracy and granularity, both in terms of what the techs represent and how westernization works. V2's tech system was in many ways a legacy from V1, but I also have a suspicion that they just took techs from HoI2/3 to fill in gaps. For example, one of the 1836 naval techs has Gyrostabilized Fire Control, and while I'm no naval historian, as far as I can tell that shouldn't be on the cards until the 1900s, but many basic inventions that should be in the first two tiers aren't present.
One of the first things I've done to go about rectifying these issues was reworking the first tier of techs. The mod is planned to start in 1820 (and end in 1920 - which will be relevant for some of the choices I made regarding the reworked goods) but the first tier of techs will be set for 1800. This is for a few reasons; only Europe (undecided on Russia) and two or three north American tags will start out westernized, starting tech levels will overall be lower (so there's opportunity costs for tags in beelining for more advanced techs early), and so that all the tier 1 techs can be full techs on account of having key inventions from the 18th century that might not be universal (e.g. flintlock rifles unlocks bayonets and ammunition factories as inventions; many non-western nations would start with the tech, but not the invention).
The other end of this is I want all the techs in the final tier to be about as impactful as the first tier; while they won't unlock at all the same time (the 1900 date is a WIP), I do want to avoid a situation where everyone feels that they must forgo researching anything within a year of gas attack unlocking (to that end I'm considering making it so that you must be at war with someone with attack capability to even unlock defense capability).
Another big change to the meta is reworking the research point bonuses in tech - while inspired by VRRP's model, I've gone further and made it so that every tree provides some research points.
Army and Navy both have inventions in the first Leadership tech to provide +25% research points, Commerce's Econ Theory and Culture's Philosophy both provide +75% points cumulatively across their trees, and Industry cumulatively provides +50% through the chemistry branch for a total of 250% bonus - which is actually less than what most mods and vanilla provide through philosophy alone, albeit it provides access to a larger bonus sooner for everyone. This will be part of a larger tech school/national value rework, but also as a consequence of reworking the primary source of tech points; pops.
I can't remember all who originally discussed this (I think
@Ughubughughughughughghlug was part of it) but it was brought up that artisans, and technical classes in general, should be providing most of your tech points early on in games like these - and not only do I agree with this, I think going one step further would be better so that *all* middle class pops - artisans, intellectuals/clergy, bureaucrats, officers and clerks - should provide some research points. Intellectuals would still provide the largest single bonus, but every professional class should contribute (I'll probably nerf the Great/Secondary power tech point bonus to compensate). The offset to this would be that entirety of the middle class will be literacy locked; artisans and intellectuals at 20%, bureaucrats and officers at 35% and clerks at 50% (note this doesn't affect starting pops). Industrialization and a professional class don't necessarily go hand-in-hand; you can turn India into a sweatshop but a sudden influx of disposable income isn't going to suddenly make the brahmin accepting of dalits, or the dalits capable of being brahmin. On the topic of disposable income I plan on rebranding capitalists to the more accurate financiers, and lit-locking them to 25%; some aristocrats did become successful industrialists but that doesn't mean every mandarin is suddenly going to be interested in or understand how to run the new factories, nor does planning your economy get rid of people profiting from it. Financiers will not provide research points, however.