Europa Universalis V confirmed

[Solmyr]

So apparently 1.3 completely breaks a lot of things.

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/beta-1-3-is-plagued-with-mechanical-issues-that-really-need-fixing.1926666/#post-31334252

[crazy canuck]

It's in beta

[Syt]

Comment by One Proud Bavarian:

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/beta-1-3-is-plagued-with-mechanical-issues-that-really-need-fixing.1926666/post-31336012

It sounds like the real complaint here is "many nations start the game with a negative income" not "it's too expensive to expand RGOs".

To be clear, I think that nations starting with a deficit is a major problem for the game (outside of ones in the midst of a historical crisis).

I just think you're mistaking a positive balance change as the cause for your frustration.

Personally, I think the issue comes down to the dev attempt to slow down economic growth using the wrong tools.

They are attacking it at the very baseline (going from very little money to ok money by building up initial RGOs and buildings) instead of limiting explosive runaway growth wherever they can by either adding more big-country moneysinks (not just scaling costs like cost of court, but things that let you run a country of a significant size and wealth on a building/institution level) or by limiting exponential income sources.

So we end up with tiny countries that are more and more limited in their initial actions while big countries can now outbuild them even more aggressively simply due to having four or five times the income of a small country.
Really, the changes made primarily just reinforce the powergap between a country in a good starting position compared to one in a weak starting position.

It doesn't help that the AI doesn't really know or prioritise in their economy either. They don't really pursue a policy of "Oh, if I have X opinion with somebody, I can build trade posts" or any of that either, so much of the economy isn't accessible to them in a directed way as is.