• We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
Status
Not open for further replies.

TheDoctor987

First Lieutenant
27 Badges
Jan 7, 2010
254
103
  • Hearts of Iron II: Armageddon
  • Victoria 2: Heart of Darkness
  • Victoria 2: A House Divided
  • Sword of the Stars II
  • Sengoku
  • Semper Fi
  • Rome Gold
  • Victoria: Revolutions
  • Europa Universalis III Complete
  • Iron Cross
  • Heir to the Throne
  • Hearts of Iron III
  • Europa Universalis III Complete
  • Divine Wind
  • Europa Universalis III
  • Deus Vult
  • Darkest Hour
  • Crusader Kings II
  • Arsenal of Democracy
  • Imperator: Rome Sign Up
  • Stellaris Sign-up
  • Mount & Blade: With Fire and Sword
  • Mount & Blade: Warband
  • Crusader Kings II: Holy Knight (pre-order)
  • 500k Club
  • Victoria 2
  • Europa Universalis IV
From what I read on wikipedia, France had a very low population growth rate during the 19th/early 20th centuary.

A) Why was France's population growth so low during the 19th centuary?
B) How will this be represented in the game?
C) Will there be a way of increasing it, other than health reforms?

Thanks.:)
 
From what I read on wikipedia, France had a very low population growth rate during the 19th/early 20th centuary.

A) Why was France's population growth so low during the 19th centuary?
B) How will this be represented in the game?
C) Will there be a way of increasing it, other than health reforms?

Thanks.:)

In Victoria I, France just had a slightly lower population growth, to answer your second question. For your first, I've read that it was due in part to agrarian reform during the Napoleonic period.
 
I would hate it, if different countries have different pop growth modifiers in Victoria 1 style. Pop growth is something that should totally depend on player decisions and living conditions in a nation.
 
I would hate it, if different countries have different pop growth modifiers in Victoria 1 style. Pop growth is something that should totally depend on player decisions and living conditions in a nation.

Historians who study that sort of thing for a living can't agree on causes and effects of population growth. So MAYBE the game designers should decide whether they want to model some sort of player influence or not? :eek:o

It would suck if they turned Vic2 into a game where every country is the same and you just apply cookie cutter strategies to each one...
 
I would hate it, if different countries have different pop growth modifiers in Victoria 1 style. Pop growth is something that should totally depend on player decisions and living conditions in a nation.

+1

I don't see any reason why, for example France with full healthcare and very high living standards would have low population growth.
 
maybe country religion could be a factor in this case also ? As we now in Islam countries it's a common thing to have many children, similiar situation was in catholicism before XX century. Beside, such system would give religion a meaning in the game, cos' in V1 it was in fact useless and meaningless.
 
High CON would be the most obvious trigger. Fullfilling the citizens demands for social reforms would increase the birth rate, but higher CON would lower it. While not very logical it is easy to observe in the real world: The best informed populations have the lowest birth rates. It is general well-off population with lower levels of CON that breeds. Also pop density is detrimental.
 
maybe country religion could be a factor in this case also ? As we now in Islam countries it's a common thing to have many children, similiar situation was in catholicism before XX century. Beside, such system would give religion a meaning in the game, cos' in V1 it was in fact useless and meaningless.

i don't see how religion is a factor for population growth, and IIRC King saying that religion is left out.
 
This is what Wikipedia has to say about the issue...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_France#1800_to_20th_century said:
Demographics of France
1800 to 20th century

Starting around 1800, the historical evolution of the population in France has been extremely atypical in the Western World. Unlike the rest of Europe, France did not experience a strong population growth in the 19th century and first half of the 20th century. The birth rate in France diminished much earlier than in the rest of Europe. Consequently, population growth was quite slow in the 19th century, and the nadir was reached in the first half of the 20th century when France, surrounded by the rapidly growing populations of Germany and the United Kingdom, experienced virtually zero growth. This, and the bloody losses in France's population due to the First World War, may explain the sudden collapse of France in 1940 during the Second World War. France was often perceived as a country facing irrecoverable decline. At the time, racist theories were quite popular, and the dramatic demographic decline of France was often attributed (particularly in Nazi Germany, and also in some conservative circles in England and elsewhere) to the genetic characteristics of the "French race", a race destined to fail in the face of the Germanic and Anglo-Saxon "races". In addition, the slow growth of France's population in the 19th century was reflected in the country's very low emigration rate. While millions of people from all other parts of Europe moved to the Americas, few French did so. Most people in the United States of French extraction are descended from immigrants from French Canada, whose population was rapidly growing at this time.

To understand the demographic decline of France, it should be noted that France was historically the largest nation of Europe. During the 17th century one fifth of Europe’s population was French (and more than one quarter during the Middle Ages). Between 1815 and 2000, if the population of France had grown at the same rate as the population of Germany during the same time period, France's population would be 110 million today -- and this does not take into account the fact that a large chunk of Germany's population growth was siphoned off by emigration to the Americas. If France's population had grown at the same rate as England and Wales (whose rate was also siphoned off by emigration to the Americas, Australia and New Zealand), France's population could be anywhere up to 150 million today. And if we start the comparison at the time of King Louis XIV (the Sun King), then France would in fact have the same population as the United States. While France had been very powerful in Europe at the time of Louis XIV or Napoleon, the demographic decline the country experienced after 1800 helped it to lose this advantage.

After World War II

After 1947 however, France suddenly underwent a demographic recovery. In the 1930s the French government, alarmed by the decline of France's population, had passed laws to boost the birth rate, giving state benefits to families with children. Nonetheless, no one can quite satisfactorily explain this sudden and unexpected recovery in the demography of France, which was often portrayed as a "miracle" inside France. This demographic recovery was again atypical in the Western World, in the sense that although the rest of the Western World experienced a baby boom immediately after the war, the baby boom in France was much stronger, and above all it lasted longer than in most other countries of the Western World (the United States being one of the few exceptions).

Sounds like there is no explanation for it yet. When I play France, I want there to be a challenge! You should not load up as France, and expect to ever get population parity with Germany. It would simply not feel right. It would totally miss a major point of the 19th century, namely that some countries were strongly dynamic and made others very afraid of their growth.

Some people said the reason was simply that French families had less kids. Their parents somehow thought that they would do better at preparing their kids for life if they did not have a huge family, but instead focused only 2-4 children. This is not an explanation either, and it says nothing about why people in other countries thought otherwise, and raised families of 6, 8 or 12 children regularly.
 
I don't believe there is no explantion for the low population growth of France. For sure the government could have done something to change that. Sure in the beginning of the scenario population growth of France might be behind other great powers, because of things that happened in the past, but there should be means for the player to increse it to even with anyone.

I don't really want every country to be identical though. Some countries defiently should work harder to achieve certain goals, but it should be possible .(Not talking about Bhutan here)
 
And what about random events?

IIRC the Potato famine was because a disease that attacked the potatoes in Ireland, an so all the effects it carried. But what if It just didn't happened? Today Ireland could have 12, 14 even 20 million inhabitants.

Or what if there was a big famine in Germany during the Franco-Prussian war?
What could have it changed?
 
I could be mistaken, but I dont think any governments of the time had the power to introduce and enforce any kind of population control (in this case, raising population).

I'm not saying there is *no* reason, but I do think that we dont fully understand what the reasons were just yet. In my mind, it was almost a psychological situation (not unlike the Vichy Syndrome that swept France in 1945).
 
Status
Not open for further replies.