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Greetings all,

My part of today’s developer diary focuses on further changes coming to the population system in 2.0.

The changes to civilization value mentioned previously opened up further opportunities for a rethink on population growth. In 1.5 and before, cities were largely sustained by prolonged inwards migration. While this is not something I necessarily want to change, we’ll be splitting up where population growth comes from, with the dual intentions of letting cities stand their own ground when growing pops, and allowing for more engagement in how you promote growth in owned territory.

Firstly, base pop growth, and pop growth from stability have been reduced significantly.

Secondly, civilization value now contributes to population growth, simulating an increased growth rate in developed metropoles.

Thirdly, the population growth rate from stored food has been slightly reduced, however, the food consumption of tribesmen has been reduced, making it easier to boost growth in undeveloped tribal territories without also affecting the inherently low population capacity of said land.

Lastly, various sources of population growth have been slightly reduced to accommodate the new increases from civilization value.

What does this achieve?

Overall, there should be slightly less global growth in the average game, but still enough control to make long-term decisions valid, and for local factors to have much more of an impact on the fabric of the game.

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These graphs show the 2.0 build prior to population changes, and post population changes. As you can see, the newer system (bottom) results in less total population over time, with a marginally nerfed warm period event being one of the main factors.

Games in 1.5 had a tendency to balloon in population density towards the endgame, due in part to the availability of inventions and modifiers affecting pop growth. With population now being intrinsically related to army sizes, we felt it was time to return to a more realistic* growth pattern that still allows the player to manipulate the world situation to their advantage.

Related to these changes, domestic migration has been slowed down slightly, and settlement production buildings (with the exception of the Legation) now reduce outward pop migration to almost 0 (unless there are extenuating circumstances such as occupation or overpopulation).

*The academic consensus appears to be that the usual global increase in population entered a bit of a plateau at around the time Imperator is set, to around the time it ends.

Research Efficiency

Somewhat tangentially to population changes, we’re also going to be gating the maximum research efficiency of nations. The base maximum research efficiency of nations will now begin at 125%. This value can be relatively easy to achieve for smaller nations, and should still offset technological advancement positively if focused upon, however, a great disparity in tech between larger empires and city-states was simply too easy to achieve.

We still want technology to be a valid choice in nation-building, however, and numerous nodes have been added to the invention tree, increasing the maximum research efficiency that a country can achieve - if you want to build a state as a shining beacon of technological advancement, this is entirely possible, but you’ll have to weigh up this decision against other valuable advancements.

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With that, I’ll hand over to @Chopmist to take you through some of the map changes coming in 2.0!

[The eagle eyed among you also noticed the recurrence of the infamous ‘glowing borders’ bug in a recent screenshot. This has since been resolved.]
 
Maybe Alexandria ad Issum can be added instead of Myriandios. Finally both places were united. (According to my search.)

Myriandros will change names if the Antigonids develop Alexandreia kat Isson as a port of Antigoneia in their first mission, or it is owned by another Diadochi. It now has the Alexandria modifier regardless however.
 
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There is one serious issue that this diary doesn't explain:

...When? :p

I mean seriously, we're almost in February already. The last major patch was half a year ago.
Weren't there supposed to be "smaller but faster" patches?
 
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@Samitte made an update to his proposal on Anatolia a few days ago. You obviously didn't have the time to implement these new suggestions, but please don't forget to add them later.

Yeah that was an unfortunate timing on my end.


Seems I missed this, Pontic no longer exists in the Anatolian group and the Greeks in Heraclea Pontica and eastwards are now majority Pontic Hellenic (renamed from Greco-Pontic).

Great stuff!
 
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Omg thanks for confirming that glowing borders is fixed for next patch. It gets so bad eventually that you can't even see where the province borders go.
 
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This looks absolutely amazing. I'm glad you took your time with this patch even though it kind of broke the release schedule slightly.

If the changes coming in 2.0 works as they've been presented in the various DDs, Imperator will be well on its way to become the best PDX game yet. All it will need is a bit of love thrown at diplomacy, trade, and politics.
 
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Is the Occidental Culture Group still called occidental after 2.0? I thought I read somewhere a different name (Indo-European, if I remember correctly). Just curious.
 
Is the Occidental Culture Group still called occidental after 2.0? I thought I read somewhere a different name (Indo-European, if I remember correctly). Just curious.

I think it was Pre-Indo-European at some point, and its coded as "proto_european". Still not an improvement since the Corsican and Sardinian islanders don't share a culture with the people in northern Iberia/SW-Gaul. And with how isolated the Balaeric islands are called in the sources, I doubt they'd share a culture with them (he Aquitanians, Vasconians, etc) as well.

They just need to split the two up. Call the one in Iberia/Gaul Vasconian or Aquitanian or something, and the islanders something else.
 
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I think it was Pre-Indo-European at some point, and its coded as "proto_european". Still not an improvement since the Corsican and Sardinian islanders don't share a culture with the people in northern Iberia/SW-Gaul. And with how isolated the Balaeric islands are called in the sources, I doubt they'd share a culture with them (he Aquitanians, Vasconians, etc) as well.

They just need to split the two up. Call the one in Iberia/Gaul Vasconian or Aquitanian or something, and the islanders something else.

Agree with you! But at least Pre-Indo-European would be better than Occidental, if they don't split them for now - maybe I'm wrong, but Occidental sounds wrong for that time period.
 
Hm...

Well, there's still something I'm worried about the new changes in pop mechanics. It may make a region too easy to assimilate.

Well the game, no matter how assimilated the territory is, it still always grows its traditional Pop. So you'll never be able to fully assimilate a location because they will always grow more natives in the city and in all the surrounding settlements, essentially flooding your cities with natives.

A reduced growth means the natives will no longer be flooding over you. The territories may become really stable as no new native pops with the different unaccepted local culture appearing.
 
Hm...

Well, there's still something I'm worried about the new changes in pop mechanics. It may make a region too easy to assimilate.

Well the game, no matter how assimilated the territory is, it still always grows its traditional Pop. So you'll never be able to fully assimilate a location because they will always grow more natives in the city and in all the surrounding settlements, essentially flooding your cities with natives.

A reduced growth means the natives will no longer be flooding over you. The territories may become really stable as no new native pops with the different unaccepted local culture appearing.
From my experience it does not always grow the natives.

If the majority changed over some time and then a new pop starts growing it will be of the new majority culture.
 
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Am I reading too much into it, or does this mean that the game is in a closed beta?
There's a case to be made that the game never left beta, given how much they've had to and will have to rebuild.

I can't remember, but have the devs said anything about them fixing trade? Because I recently fired up a few new campaigns, and every time I got to a point where I just did not want to engage with it any more than I had to to maintain my bonuses.
 
There's a case to be made that the game never left beta, given how much they've had to and will have to rebuild.

I can't remember, but have the devs said anything about them fixing trade? Because I recently fired up a few new campaigns, and every time I got to a point where I just did not want to engage with it any more than I had to to maintain my bonuses.
You will be able to automate trade with governors in 2.0. It is not a fix, but a patch until fixed. The DD, provincial trade:

 
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So you'll never be able to fully assimilate a location because they will always grow more natives in the city and in all the surrounding settlements, essentially flooding your cities with natives.

Full assimilation should be super hard. The game is too short to simulate entire cultures dissapearing entirely.
 
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From my experience it does not always grow the natives.

If the majority changed over some time and then a new pop starts growing it will be of the new majority culture.
I have suspected this but most of the time I see natives growing instead of the new assimilated Culture.

Some clarification would be nice.
Full assimilation should be super hard. The game is too short to simulate entire cultures dissapearing entirely.
Yes. And a reduced growth of native pops makes it easier.

This is the point I'm trying to say because I don't think it should be easier.
 
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