been scanning a while for the post, but i can't find it. i might have misread a post, or most probably got confused a Napoleon Total War thread with Vicky's. my apologies.
Questions about France's low population growth
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been scanning a while for the post, but i can't find it. i might have misread a post, or most probably got confused a Napoleon Total War thread with Vicky's. my apologies.
Governments control laws such as the ones on inheritance, which can and do affect population growth. Of course though, the government should only be able to influence the growth, not control or determine it.
If there was a direct way to influence pop growth, every France player would enact it right away from 1836 (or as early as possible) onwards. I think it was silly that health care influenced population growth so directly in Vic1... it should not be that way in Vic2.
France was a really wealthy country with high education and stable society throughout the Vic period, so there really wasn't anything "lacking" that kept the French from breeding more. If anything, the game would be more interesting if POP growth was higher for less rich and less stable societies! That would make for more fun game choices...
"I could abolish education for girls and get that +0.05 pop growth modifier to out-breed the Prussians..."
"Do I really want all my people to become affluent high-CON bourgeois? If my people keep getting richer, I will lose those precious 1.8% pop growth per year!"
"If I let the Reactionaries win the civil war and switch my national value from "Liberty" to "Order", I will lose research and wealth bonuses... but I will gain additional +0.25% pop growth, and those ethnic minorities will stop complaining about civil rights... it might be worth it."
France was a really wealthy country with high education and stable society throughout the Vic period, so there really wasn't anything "lacking" that kept the French from breeding more. If anything, the game would be more interesting if POP growth was higher for less rich and less stable societies! That would make for more fun game choices...
"I could abolish education for girls and get that +0.05 pop growth modifier to out-breed the Prussians..."
"Do I really want all my people to become affluent high-CON bourgeois? If my people keep getting richer, I will lose those precious 1.8% pop growth per year!"
"If I let the Reactionaries win the civil war and switch my national value from "Liberty" to "Order", I will lose research and wealth bonuses... but I will gain additional +0.25% pop growth, and those ethnic minorities will stop complaining about civil rights... it might be worth it."
If there was a direct way to influence pop growth, every France player would enact it right away from 1836 (or as early as possible) onwards. I think it was silly that health care influenced population growth so directly in Vic1... it should not be that way in Vic2.
France was a really wealthy country with high education and stable society throughout the Vic period, so there really wasn't anything "lacking" that kept the French from breeding more. If anything, the game would be more interesting if POP growth was higher for less rich and less stable societies! That would make for more fun game choices...
"I could abolish education for girls and get that +0.05 pop growth modifier to out-breed the Prussians..."
"Do I really want all my people to become affluent high-CON bourgeois? If my people keep getting richer, I will lose those precious 1.8% pop growth per year!"
"If I let the Reactionaries win the civil war and switch my national value from "Liberty" to "Order", I will lose research and wealth bonuses... but I will gain additional +0.25% pop growth, and those ethnic minorities will stop complaining about civil rights... it might be worth it."
Now that is something for a lot of interesting games and AARs. I hope someone from Paradox reads it and it's still not too late
Much as I hate to say it, if the jury's still out on a question so fundamental as the causes of France's slack population growth in this period, perhaps the base rate should just be... hardcoded...
God have mercy on my soul.
God have mercy on my soul.
@Earl Uhtred:
WHAT?!?!?!
Influencing pop growth should by all means be in. Hell, even a incentive for childbirth should be in. Nationalists would love it.
Healthcare isn't overrated, is just fair. It is essentially, an über-reform. It increases the economically active period of everyone, increases quality of life, increases the chances of sucessful births and so on and on... And rightfully expensive, too.
WHAT?!?!?!
Influencing pop growth should by all means be in. Hell, even a incentive for childbirth should be in. Nationalists would love it.
Healthcare isn't overrated, is just fair. It is essentially, an über-reform. It increases the economically active period of everyone, increases quality of life, increases the chances of sucessful births and so on and on... And rightfully expensive, too.
If there was a direct way to influence pop growth, every France player would enact it right away from 1836 (or as early as possible) onwards. I think it was silly that health care influenced population growth so directly in Vic1... it should not be that way in Vic2.
France was a really wealthy country with high education and stable society throughout the Vic period, so there really wasn't anything "lacking" that kept the French from breeding more. If anything, the game would be more interesting if POP growth was higher for less rich and less stable societies! That would make for more fun game choices...
"I could abolish education for girls and get that +0.05 pop growth modifier to out-breed the Prussians..."
"Do I really want all my people to become affluent high-CON bourgeois? If my people keep getting richer, I will lose those precious 1.8% pop growth per year!"
"If I let the Reactionaries win the civil war and switch my national value from "Liberty" to "Order", I will lose research and wealth bonuses... but I will gain additional +0.25% pop growth, and those ethnic minorities will stop complaining about civil rights... it might be worth it."
+1!
In Vicky 1 U.K. started at a much higher level than France industrially which was true to history but now with bureaucrats perhaps UK can start higher in industry but France has a high bureaucrat ratio so when it starts to make reforms it does so at a much higher rate. If both nations had to worry about slowing population growth that comes with success then there would be interesting choices for both. I don't think every nation should be able to reach max population growth if it simply enacted the right reforms though.
The biggest difference makers should probably be technology and health care. Governments would only have direct control over the health care reforms so somewhere like France might start at a lower rate than UK but due to more bureaucrats its reforms result in better outcomes at least until UK has close to equal bureaucrats when it could again surpass France growth. Technology would greatly impact rates of growth when pasteurization, penicillin, and many other biotechnologies are discovered along with agricultural technologies such as fertilizers and mechanization.
There is no good consistent explanation that I've seen of why France had lower growth... it wasn't even drastically lower but even a few 10ths of % difference over time is huge when talking of population growth. The most convincing partial explanations I've seen is earlier family planning in France and higher equality for women due to changes during the Revolution and Napoleonic reforms.
The point is, even if Paradox ends up picking one of the more implausible theories for France's slow population growth and applies it as the in-game mechanic reason, it's still far better than having a hardcoded value.
In Vicky 1 france's low pop growth was necessary for gamebalance. Prussia had what, half of France's population? Without it being hardcoded it was hard to balance the rise of Germany and the decline of France since, if France's pop growth rate is "normal" they probably can dominate Prussia and compete even with a fully formed Germany in a big way. Considering France probably will spend the early part of the game as the strongest nation in Western Europe, the task then becomes how to preserve a "dynamic" game without having France industrilize/grow and win the confrontations with Prussia nine times out of ten.
I suppose that reeks of determinism to some. Maybe the game should find other ways to nerf France and boost Prussia in other ways, but fundamentally it seems that it will have to do that sort of gamebalancing.
I suppose that reeks of determinism to some. Maybe the game should find other ways to nerf France and boost Prussia in other ways, but fundamentally it seems that it will have to do that sort of gamebalancing.
More or less every predominately Protestant country had high population growth rates in the Victoria period. There wasn't anything particular to Catholicism in that regard, and overwhelmingly Catholic France had unusually low birth rates, given its level of development.
France did have relatively high living standards and good sanitation, and it had lower population growth. England and the United States had relatively high living standards and good sanitation and high population growth (controlling for net immigration). Better sanitation should lower the death rate, and therefore increase population growth, but it only had so much effect. Higher living standards lead to both lower death rates and lower birth rates, so can't explain differences in population growth.
The explanation for lower French birth rates is that the French population, towards the end of the Ancien Regime, adopted certain birth control measures, a cultural phenomenon. The French government, like any other, could do other things to affect birth and death rates, but it wasn't capable of changing that.
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So there might be things like culture inventions and consiousness behind population growth. Those are part of game mechanics, so I don't still see a reason why France should definetly be behind other European nations, if player successfully influence those things. Or the same cultural phenomenon could happen to other nations too, perhaps.
It just means they aren’t ONLY factors you need to take into consideration. I would say high CON should decrease population growth. Maybe there are other factors too. But what I wouldn't like is hard coded impairment.
If I play France and my country meets all the conditions to have high growth I would like to see high growth.
The nice thing about tying CON or education level to pop growth would be that it also separates the two exponential growth mechanism. Populations grows exponential, and so does technology, but if high CON(or education) increases tech-speed, but decreases pop-growth, then it becomes harder for a player to balance. Keeping your population backwards but well-fed will make it grow fast, but keeping it well-informed will make research faster, but growth slower. Quantity or Quality choice
Though France, a Catholic country, had a total population growth between 1890 and 1913 of only 3.7% and Germany had a total population growth of 36% in the same period, Italy had a growth of 17%, while Great Britain had 22%, with Austria having 22% as well. While on average the great powers that were protestant had higher population growth from 1890 to 1913, the other catholic great powers didn't have anything near France's abysmal population growth.
Perhaps what is missing in Victoria is a death-rate. I've never heard one mentioned, and I've never run across it in any of my perusing of the game files.
I realize that, professor.
What we don't have is a separate death rate that can be modified by a player's decisions or by random events.While I'm not actively recommending that we add another level of complexity into the game, I certainly have no qualms muddying up the water in this totally theoretical discussion as we waste time waiting on the next DD.
I realize that, professor.
I just can't see Paradox creating a moddable "death rate" level for populations.
:rofl:
Neither do I. That's why I added the 2nd paragraph.
Careful. I'm in an aggravating mood this morning.
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