I am going to be writing about infrastructure or more specifically speed and moral in provinces.
I am not looking into their impacts on moral specifically (currently working on testing that for a later post). But rather as I believe infra should be two separate buildings and here is why:
I did mention this last iteration, but with the 100 map I believe the reasons for making two buildings is stronger. I really just believe the two bonuses: speed and moral are not really related and would provide more strategic options if split up. I also remember Freezy stating adding a new building specifically would not be too challenging hence the more detail in this post as I believe it is more feasible and not as hypothetical to add.
Firstly, I have built a LOT of infra in my map. Partially to test it, partially due to MP shortages so I have nothing else to spend my goods and food on. But all for the same reason of increasing moral, not speed.
Moral reasons:
Given that an urban province produces around 2.6x more rss when compared to a urban province I have been focusing on building up my urban and not rural provinces.Both when I build ind and infra.Whether this is the correct approach I cannot say nor am really focusing on that for this post. Because these provinces are small the speed factor of infra is not even something I factor in when building them and I only build them for the moral boost. The speed boost I suppose is nice, but whether it was there or not would not impact my decision to build infra for the moral boost. Additionally, because I am building infra in small urban provinces, the speed boost is also not really helpful. Therefore the speed boost infra applies is really not being utilised and if infra cost is meant to be split 50/50 for ease of argument sake. 50% for the moral boost, 50% for the speed boost then I am really wasting 50% of the use of infra. Urban provinces are small and thus not really needing a speed boost. Rural provinces on average are larger and thus needing the speed boost -and speed wise would have a greater impact on a rural province. It for me at least just feels somewhat weird having a speed boost in a small province as I am increasing its moral.
With revolts actually working now (not completely correctly but being a thing again) ensuring moral is high is far more important than in the previous versions. Before if moral was low it only impacted rss generation which I could focus on in a higher moral province, thus not needing to increase my nations entire moral. Now low moral results in revolts it is actually important to prevent this, and thus infra has an important role in increasing the moral of a province - not the speed of a province. I would say now having a dedicated building for only moral is more crucial given preventing revolts is now a thing. A dedicated moral building (I know infra is for moral, but an only moral increasing building) would also assist in what I have noticed is many players struggling with the new revolt mechanic (not a new mechanic I know) and not liking it. I personally see both the pros and cons of the revolts as they are now and I think they certainly need to be something in the game, but something one can overcome (which currently they can be, not focusing on revolt mechanic per say). A dedicated moral building would do this. And provide a solution to the current complaints about revolts without really changing revolts as they are now at all.
A speed boost is just not a factor in reducing moral really. If assuming the 50/50 split (I personally believe more of a 65/35 with moral being higher would be more appropriate) then I could also build more of this moral building to solve my moral issues. -as I said I am likely building both more ind and infra due to low MP so in the next map my rss generation likely would be lower as now I am focusing majority of my rss on buildings as my MP is just not keeping up. So this cheaper building would be useful.
I do also strongly think increasing friendly neighbour bonus would enable more strategic use of infra /moral building. After my infra testing I can comment on this more. But even if not implemented, a dedicated moral building would mean the moral management of ones nation can be better managed and would provide a more specific focus for players - creating more strategic options. One can increase their total moral to increase rss generation. Or just keep it above revolting lvl, or not focus on it at all. With a dedicated moral building this becomes easier to do.
Speed reasons:
In addition, many of the large provinces in game and thus in my mind the ones more worth building infra on do not produce rss. Therefore increasing that provinces moral apart from increasing neighbour bonus for other provinces is a waste of rss. I also as I said here am likely building more infra than in the next patch as my MP is low so I have more rss for buildings, and with that I can not build enough lvl 3 infra in new urban provinces. So I cannot believe it is feasible to build infra in every province just for moral (I also think that would be quite boring and too easy if that was a possibility as there would be no strategic thinking). Therefore the moral boost in those provinces is wasted.
Additionally, this goes for both speed and moral, but I believe speed for moving troops in large lands imo is less important than ensuring there are no revolts. Thus I am going to focus my rss on preventing revolts, and not on increasing speed. So until at least all my urban provinces have higher moral than revolting lvl I likely won't spend the rss on speed increases. Meaning currently the speed element of infra I am not again really needing. If the speed increasing building costed perhaps metal and oil I would be more likely to build a speed building as this would even out my rss costs. Or even if it costs the same rss, if assuming the 50/50 split for speed it only costs 50% the cost so there is more reason to increase the speed as simply it is cheaper. We have ports to only decrease embarking time, so it would also make sense to have a speed building to increase only speed.
Values of each building could simply be the same as current with the increases to speed and moral. The only difference would be a dedicated building to each and reduced costs of each to accommodate it. The new moral system of not a flat -25 all the time (im often at 5+ wars, case in point in 9 wars in one 100 map atm) is far superior and imo actually provides a strong reason to strategically build infra to both eliminate revolt chances but also increase moral to increase rss generation. I believe adding a dedicated moral building would only add to this facete of the game while also providing a new element which would be strategic placement of speed buildings.
Hopefully this provides clear enough reasons for why I believe splitting up these two bonuses would be beneficial. I also feel a specific moral building could enable further development of the moral mechanics in the future should this ever be something you do. If not then my above reasons are my main reason for why, but I guess as a bonus I believe it would just leave the door more open to delve into moral if there was a direct and specific building to counter the moral penalty to use.
