AI Can’t Dev (But You Can)

I have ran the diagnostics and I can definitively state that my mod has a huge impact. No big overhaul mods (ET, MEIOU, etc) have been used. Estimations based on 4 save games without this mod and 5 save games with this mod. All save games were played in Europe. Some screenshots of the save games are included in the image gallery.
Development in the world with this mod by around 1800: 28 – 30k
Development in the world without this mod by around 1700: 36 – 40k

A modern alternative to Nearly No AI Development https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=843207488

Simply raises the development costs to 999 for all countries. A decision has been added (you’ll know it when you see it) which allows your country to get the normal dev cost. That way, you can develop while AI countries can’t.

Why would anyone want this? Consider these reasons.

1. OPMs/small nations (especially in the HRE) get 30k each by around 1650, making them annoying and hard to fight against. Their egregious strength is especially annoying since they are often engaged in alliances with majors. Majors also become too strong.

1.5. Devving is fine, but I just don’t want to deal with such massive armies, even my own armies. Fighting Spain or Ottos late game is so damn tedious because of how much manpower and troops they have, it’s ridiculous. No one should have 1M manpower in the 1600s/1700s.

2. AE becomes a nightmare. From OPMs to majors, all of their provinces start having 20-30 dev. If you expand just a little, the entirety of Europe will turn against you in a coalition. It’s like you’re actively boxed into playing tall.

3. If you do manage to conquer provinces, then have fun spending all of your admin points on coring them.

4. Just watch this video if you think I’m the only guy who cares about this "random" and "trivial" issue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cig5lP26uiU

Now, time for Q&A (For the love of whatever deity you believe in, please just read this section. It will only take 5 minutes of your time.)

Q: Where does this AI devving provinces problem even come from?
A: AI generally will not develop provinces to more than original development × 2 or develop a province more than 10 times, whichever option is higher. Past that limit they can only develop when missing an institution (this is where a lot of those 30 dev provinces come from) or via events and missions. These values can be changed in the defines.lua file. However, this approach would lead to incompatibilities with every overhaul mod. Nearly No AI Development goes for this approach which is just another reason to not use it.

Q: A new version of EU4 came out! Could you please update the mod?
A: Probably not. I can’t conceive of any future update breaking this mod. You can safely ignore the unsupported version alert if and when it appears.

Q: Is this Ironman compatible?
A: Can you guess?

Q: Is this balanced?
A: You may be shocked but it makes the game easier.

Q: What will the AI do with the extra mana it has saved up?
A: I have no idea but I have two hypotheses. Either its going to invest heavily into Ideas and Tech (if the AI devved even when it was behind in those areas) or it would just be stuck with 999 mana (if the AI devved when it was technologically ahead.)

Q: How does this mod impact performance?
A: Makes the game run much faster (for reasons that should be obvious.)

Q: Will the mod mess up my development cost if I get other development modifiers?
A: No. Your development cost modifiers would affect the province normally (i.e. as if it had no modifiers I added.) For example, getting a 15% dev cost discount would work the same as if you didn’t have this mod enabled.

Q: Why do I see that [insert country here] has the normal dev cost when I click on their province? Wtf mod author, you lied to me!
A: The dev cost for other countries is shown from your perspective. If you tag switch over to the other country you will see that they have 999 dev cost.

Q: Why do you reference Ngapuhi so much internally?
A: Originally, I tried making it so any country with the Ngapuhi flag would not receive the +20000% dev cost modifier. Long story short it just didn’t work and I can’t be bothered to rename things.

Q: I see that [insert country here] has more development in province x than it started with at the beggining of the game. How do you explain this?
A: Events or missions. This mod only affects dev cost.

Q: Is this mod compatible with [insert major overhaul mod here]?
A: Yes. However, I have no idea if this problem of AI devving too much is present there and my mod may ruin balance. However, some users have pointed out that this mod pairs well with Extended Timeline, so that’s cool I guess.

Q: I have a suggestion! What should I do?
A: Just leave a comment down below and I’ll take a look at it.

Self Promo: https://steamcommunity.com/id/kapitoshka12345/myworkshopfiles/