A few remarks on possible changes to the game

[gribol]

I only play Kingdoms in MP because I don't have time for SP.
Some of these comments may be unnecessary, explained in the manual (obviously I haven't read it), or I may be misinterpreting phenomena that occur in the game. On the other hand, I have highlighted a few elements that in my opinion would be worth changing to make this game better.
Perhaps there will be something meaningful here to further develop the game.
If any players have their thoughts on this, perhaps they can share them here too.

1. Buildings and their levels
In my opinion, it is worth introducing more building levels (which are present in the game anyway. V levels would be logical). The requirements for building buildings of the next level could be very low (e.g. one or two buildings of a lower level, in order to advance).
Firstly, this will make the building selection process less chaotic.
Secondly, it will be easier to filter which buildings are still worth building, which ones to wait for, what is still important to build (the right-hand side of the building selection menu could show the levels and the buildings available on those levels. At the moment it is in one big paragraph, which makes it difficult to search for buildings)

2. general notes on economics
I don't know how it works in the game, but if a building needs a certain raw material (e.g. a forge needs iron), the absence of that raw material in the trade range should result in the exclusion of that building. In such a case, it should not receive any bonuses and should also be marked as not working (e.g. crossed out in red).
Perhaps trade and trade embargo options should be available in the diplomatic action (the effects are probably obvious).

3. Nations
Virtually all nations and religions have the same buildings (with very few exceptions).
Is it possible to make a greater distinction between buildings according to nations, religions and perhaps also special buildings that can only be built in certain regions?

4. AI
Vassals are just stupid and of little use. Instead of moving on the enemy, they are pacing back and forth pointlessly.
The computer expands provinces tragically. The computer should have the option to specialise in provinces (e.g. military or trade) and be able to demolish unnecessary buildings. The computer should also have a sensible building queue enabled (for example, in one round, the builder builds 3 agricultural buildings, 2 infrastructure buildings, 1 religious building and 1 government building), so that you don't get the situation where there are 2 agricultural buildings in a province with 20 people.

5. HRE
The penalties for being in the HRE far outweigh the benefits. They simply may not have enough provinces. Additionally, there should be an option to invite people to join the HRE, and also to draw the Emperor's vassals into the HRE (e.g. Emperor conquers Denmark, makes it a vassal, vassal automatically becomes a member of the HRE)
The Emperor should have some sort of process for developing the empire, making decisions, anything to add variety to the game with this faction.

6 Other comments
- there should be any rewards for stepping up to a higher level of government (promotion in the authority table) (e.g. 1% more taxes, 1% bigger domain, or something similar)
- there are significant differences in domain size between some types of government (e.g. Bohemia and Sicily) (e.g. 40 provinces to 120 provinces without penalty) I don't know what this is due to, but it looks terribly artificial to me.
- I don't know if there shouldn't be bigger penalties for the distance from the capital and also for exceeding the size of the domain
. To balance this, I would suggest the possibility to build a third capital.

[Pocus]

Thank you for your reply and sorry for the delay.

1. There are actually already 4 levels (5 for Military and Religious) via the Milestone structures, which essentially gate about half or a third of their main level.

2. To keep the gameplay smooth and avoid blocking trade—which is a complex process involving dozens of resources—lacking a good simply results in a triple cost, and the resource is considered to be available (via smuggling, etc.), but it doesn’t trigger bonuses since it’s not a real transaction. However, in some cases, structures require the resource to be present on-site—like stone for a quarry—and in those cases, it works as you said: the building is not offered.

3. Do you mean aside from the 100+ tribal buildings, the specialized Muslim, Christian, and now Indian religious buildings? Have you played the Scots with their 4 burgs, or the Rus’ with their Kremlins, riverine trading posts, etc.? We already have 903 buildings, which seems slightly above average compared to other games. Of course, we could have even more variety, but the Kingdoms team is equivalent to two full-time, to sum it up.

4. That idea of an ideal ratio between different types of buildings depending on certain factors is a good one. It could be a way to improve the AI. As for the rest, the AI—though not really "artificial intelligence"—is a part of the game that’s difficult to significantly improve without major efforts. You can request troop control from your vassals if you find them just picking daisies and wandering around; that was the point of this new Kingdoms feature compared to Empires!

5. The patch allows for the entry of new members, but it’s automatic depending on certain criteria.

6. There are already quite a few bonuses to reaching Tier III, but they’re scattered throughout the game, such as more SAUs, etc. Distance from the capital already heavily penalizes regional loyalty, and with summer and winter palaces, you can have up to three capitals.

[gribol]

Thank you for your reply and sorry for the delay.

1. There are actually already 4 levels (5 for Military and Religious) via the Milestone structures, which essentially gate about half or a third of their main level.

2. To keep the gameplay smooth and avoid blocking trade—which is a complex process involving dozens of resources—lacking a good simply results in a triple cost, and the resource is considered to be available (via smuggling, etc.), but it doesn’t trigger bonuses since it’s not a real transaction. However, in some cases, structures require the resource to be present on-site—like stone for a quarry—and in those cases, it works as you said: the building is not offered.

3. Do you mean aside from the 100+ tribal buildings, the specialized Muslim, Christian, and now Indian religious buildings? Have you played the Scots with their 4 burgs, or the Rus’ with their Kremlins, riverine trading posts, etc.? We already have 903 buildings, which seems slightly above average compared to other games. Of course, we could have even more variety, but the Kingdoms team is equivalent to two full-time, to sum it up.

4. That idea of an ideal ratio between different types of buildings depending on certain factors is a good one. It could be a way to improve the AI. As for the rest, the AI—though not really "artificial intelligence"—is a part of the game that’s difficult to significantly improve without major efforts. You can request troop control from your vassals if you find them just picking daisies and wandering around; that was the point of this new Kingdoms feature compared to Empires!

5. The patch allows for the entry of new members, but it’s automatic depending on certain criteria.

6. There are already quite a few bonuses to reaching Tier III, but they’re scattered throughout the game, such as more SAUs, etc. Distance from the capital already heavily penalizes regional loyalty, and with summer and winter palaces, you can have up to three capitals.

Thank you for such a comprehensive response

1 But these levels are not shown in the game. There is only level I and II which obscures the issue. Showing buildings that have levels II, IV and V would probably make it easier to navigate.
Although perhaps this problem has been partially solved in the new add-on (I have seen some changes in this regard)

2 - Ok, I understand. In such a complex game some things need to be simplified. Increasing the cost of acquiring a raw material threefold makes sense.

3. unfortunately I haven't played much and have only tested a few nations. If it is as you wrote, then indeed the diversity might be higher than I wrote.
On the other hand, is it possible that some buildings are not possible in certain areas and some buildings are only possible in certain regions (this is just to add variety to the game).

4. i hope that someday the AI improvement for development can be implemented.
I can steward the control of vassal armies - but then I have to pay for them.
It's just about having a large army with vassals at a small cost - so improving their capabilities would be nice.

5 It is good that there will be some changes to this in the patch.
If possible, maybe in the next patches more good changes can be made (adding an option in diplomacy: invite to HRE and leave HRE for starters?).

6. I think that the information about these bonuses for level-ups, new units etc. should be described somewhere (at least in the kingdom panel).
At this stage in the game there is a message (turn 400, England with Magna Charta - can't remember the name of the level) that I can only have two capitals.
If I build a winter palace, I can no longer build a summer palace (but I'll try to track this further, maybe I missed something).

[Pocus]

1. These are indeed half-levels, added by modifying only the data (the buildings are called milestones, though there’s a special mention for them), because it was much easier than changing the code and adding more levels, each of which would have required three preceding buildings...
2. Try a Muslim nation, and with the DLC, a tribal or at least African or Indian nation in that case.
3. Yes, we’ll try to allow that as a proposal.
4. Ah yes, indeed—there are 3 different buildings, but without an additional modifier, you can only have 2 capitals.

[SuitedQueens]

1. These are indeed half-levels, added by modifying only the data (the buildings are called milestones, though there’s a special mention for them), because it was much easier than changing the code and adding more levels, each of which would have required three preceding buildings...

I would say most of the qualms described by OP are not essential to single player or multiplayer design since as your responses stated they are already in the game directly or indirectly. I would say there are 3 glaring holes in the game flow related to Multiplayer:

1) Supply mechanics and Pillage are not consequential enough. Pillage ofc from the economy standpoint is very nice, but its so powerful in gold generation and mute when it comes to immediate or even longterm tradeoffs. I could specify why if you indicate that you open to rebalancing this option.

As for supplies: you barely ever starve unless you try to execute fancy tricks of hoping through walled regions in order to blockade their Provincial capital and then Assault one of the regions deeper in their territory. Otherwise we have starving or low food scenarios: secluded Island, Desert regions and some Steppes. Stacks should clearly consume more supplies by default like at least 2 times as much as they do now, while Military Expertise 6 bonus finally will be a major milestone. That way planning your forces Effectiveness restoration becomes more involved as well.

2) Diplomacy: not talking about exploits per se, since those hard to weed out systematically. I mean PvP protection from backstabbing due to sudden mood swings. Altho Kingdoms have more protection layers compared to Empires. It won't be big issue if party on the offense wouldn't have such an advantage in hands of smart player who understands game mechanics and sequencing of turn phases and movement impulses. Altho the fact that you can control Vassal forces is a big step up compared to Empires.

3) Balance of starting regions not even in terms of initial economy conditions, but rather conquest opportunities and SAU limits. Usually the one who can conquer the same Religion same Culture high value places gets ahead fast. Furthermore, game chance based events balanced around 500 turn campaign, but MP games resolve much quicker than that. So maybe there will be an option to double to triple up random chance events since Economy speed can be adjusted already to keep up with high pace of the War related actions.