What is development?

[mikeCK]

Why would I want to choose regional "cards" that increase a regions development? These would be "clearing", "telegraph", etc.
What does it do? More troops? More money? More supplies?

[Twotribes]

The higher level of development means better able to forage right?

[loki100]

ORIGINAL: Twotribes

The higher level of development means better able to forage right?

increases movement speed as well.

One way to think about a lot of the regional cards is they are a means to exchange resource type X for resource type Y. If you look them over, they require inputs - cash, resources, VPs and generate outputs - a different item to the input. So play them to trade what you have a lot of, for what you really need ... this is common across all the AGE games (RoP, PoN, AJE) that use this mechanism.

So they have a direct advantage - which maybe exactly what you want/need and a secondary use.

[Gilmer]

I don't know how much it helps for movement, but I play those constantly in the Sibley campaign trying to speed up movement.

[mikeCK]

Problem is that the pop-ups don't say what you get out of it. They will tell you what you have to spend in terms of victory points but not what you get in return.

Edit: ok, I see it now in the decription. Seems kind of "cheesy" though. Not sure how to explain it. I spend money to build a telegraph line just to get15 victory points? I mean, what's the point of building it in Fairfax vs somewhere else? Just slap a few down randomly whenever you need VP? Roads shoul help you move faster and lose less cohesion. Telegraphs should improve the probability activation in that region or something. There should be some reward for building things in that particular region instead of a general "you get victory points"

[Ace1_slith]

Regional decision Telegraph tooltip in the upcoming patch (I think it is already present in unofficial RC3 patch as well)

Will augment development level by 5 points in any friendly region, for a cost of 10 thousand dollars. Can only target regions with 25+ development. Five VPs will be granted once achieved.

In your opinion is this informative enough?