BT Reality Check

[Squirrelloid]

Below is a table of various cities and their populations. For cities in areas where documentation is sparse, I've chosen the largest population during the game period. For well documented areas, I've tried to provide a range of data most of the time.

City Province BT Historical Population (year)

Mbanza-Kongo+ 4! >100,000 (~1600)
Timbuktu 10 100,000 (~1450)
Gao 7 45,000 (~1600)
Oyo 3 50k (~1500)
Pequot tribe 5 15,000 (pre-smallpox epidemic in 1633) (whole province population in Connecticut)
Cairo* 9 300k (after ~1400), as low as 150k (~1520)
Paris 15 280k (1400), 200k (1500), 210k (1594), 420k (1634)
Nanjing 15 500-1000k (1400) (largest city 1400)
Beijing 14 670-1000k (1500, 1600) (largest city 1500+1600)
Istanbul** 11 50k (1453), 200k (1500), 700k (1700) (competition for largest city at the time)
Rome 12 16k (1347), 50k (1519), 90k (1590), 120k (1660), 150k (1798)
London 12 50-100k (1500), 200k (1600), 550-600k (1700)
Venice 10 150k (~1500)
Tenochtitlan 6! 200-300k (1519) (larger than any city in Europe at the time, approached by only Paris, Venice, Constantinople)
Cusco 6 45k (~1500)
Tabriz 5! 250k (~1500)


+Mbanza-Kongo held fully 1/5th of Kongo's population at the time, which means Kongo's total BT should be calculable from the BT of the capital province.
*Was 500k in 1340, the biggest city west of China, but the black death massively reduced the population, including 200k in the initial waves.
**Counting the +2 Ottomans get for the decision to make it their capital

The first thing that immediately jumps out is how badly the game fails to model the rapid growth of population in places we have good data (Europe). Europe's population basically doubles between 1400 and 1800, mostly towards the end, so this is a major failure point in historical realism of the game.

The second thing that jumps out is that non-European areas are substantially undervalued in general, except some which are crazily overvalued.
(I included Pequot for a reason - the province value almost certainly reflects the colony of Connecticut as of 1750 or later, not the native population, despite that being only a minority of the game's time period, and despite the fact that the Pequot were virtually the sole inhabitants of the area for about half the game's period).

The correspondence is so inconsistent, that it's hard to know what scale it's supposed to be to. There's no way that Cusco (6, 45k), Gao (7, 45k), and Oyo (3, 50k) make any sense, and they're all about the same size in about the same time period. Nor is Tenochtitlan being 2/5ths the size of Paris defensible, when in reality it was larger.

Conclusions
-Some system needs to be chosen which brings more uniformity and stops unfairly benefiting Europe at the expense of most of the rest of the world. Although the Thirteen Colonies area, specifically, needs its BT adjusted for pre-colony population levels. It doesn't particularly matter how much BT a particular population provides, just that it's consistent across the world.
-More events that increase province BT, with MTTH that shrinks with increasing technology. This would tend to favor better tech groups over time, notably Europe, so we could stop giving Europe ahistorical advantages in favor of one of their actual advantages (but modeled in such a way that any nation which achieved that advantage would benefit).

 

[Chamboozer]

You're assuming base tax is supposed to represent population, which doesn't make sense. Wealth isn't generated by just having people around, but also by what those people do, what their level of wealth is, etc. Not to mention that most revenue for governments at this time came from agricultural taxes anyway, not from the urban population.

This game's system would make a lot more sense if base tax represented agricultural wealth and "production" was the urban center producing whatever finished goods it specializes in, but the two seem to be mixed together.

 

[Niebulheim]

Keep in mind that Base-Tax does not represent population.

 

[Squirrelloid]

You're assuming base tax is supposed to represent population, which doesn't make sense. Wealth isn't generated by just having people around, but also by what those people do, what their level of wealth is, etc. Not to mention that most revenue for governments at this time came from agricultural taxes anyway, not from the urban population.
This game's system would make a lot more sense if base tax represented agricultural wealth and "production" was the urban center producing whatever finished goods it specializes in, but the two seem to be mixed together.

What they do is represented by production and trade.

If you think urban populations didn't generate significant tax revenues, you clearly haven't actually looked at administrative history. Game is in the early modern period, not the medieval period, cities were losing their privileges in europe and taxes were assessed by head, by hearth, and/or by sale - all of which would be dominated by cities. Serfdom was already abolished in Western Europe by 1400. (Coucy, the last of the french dominions to legally have serfdom, abolished it in the mid-1300s). The dominance of agriculture as the driver of the economy was already ended by game start. Noble revenues may have been predominantly from agricultural workers, but the nobility (like the clergy) were exempt from taxes in many countries. The crown did collect revenues from its own agricultural holdings (as rent rather than feudal obligation), but this was a minority of its revenues by 1400. The majority came from taxes levied on cities.

While wealth isn't generated by just having people, government revenues tend to be generated in ways that count people.

Keep in mind that Base-Tax does not represent population.

Then what does it represent? There's nothing it could be a proxy for except population.

Nor does it matter if it does represent something else. In 1444, Europe was not richer than the rest of the world. If anything, it was poorer than most of it. The Aztecs and Inca were wealthier than Spain when discovered - which is why the conquistadors marveled so much at what they saw. Timbuktu shortly before game start was *wealthier than France*. Not Paris, *France*. Rome was a tiny backwater of a town, with a mere 19,000 people at game start - possibly the only province in EUIV whose major city contained less population than the included countryside of the territory. Europe's increasing wealth was a consequence of massive population growth and technological advancement, neither of which were guaranteed in 1444 (although liikely, and they have a tech group advantage to model that), not inherently greater wealth to start with.

---------------

Note: It's not that administrative advances didn't increase revenue, but that should be tied to ideas, government type, and/or tech levels. It should not be an in-built feature of europe - an equally advanced and fully westernized country should enjoy the same administrative advances as France. We already have ideas which increase tax revenues (and if BT was more properly distributed, they could afford to be doubled), and administrative tech should increase tax revenues (and government should have a stronger effect here than it does), so there's already suitable ways the game could and to an extent does model this.

 

[Me_]

Then what does it represent? There's nothing it could be a proxy for except population.

Nothing. Anything. Everything. It represents whatever is needed to make nations stronger/weaker. It's purpose is first and foremost gameplay-focused.

 

[deezee]

Then what does it represent? There's nothing it could be a proxy for except population.

Nor does it matter if it does represent something else. In 1444, Europe was not richer than the rest of the world. If anything, it was poorer than most of it. The Aztecs and Inca were wealthier than Spain when discovered - which is why the conquistadors marveled so much at what they saw. Timbuktu shortly before game start was *wealthier than France*. Not Paris, *France*. Rome was a tiny backwater of a town, with a mere 19,000 people at game start - possibly the only province in EUIV whose major city contained less population than the included countryside of the territory. Europe's increasing wealth was a consequence of massive population growth and technological advancement, neither of which were guaranteed in 1444 (although liikely, and they have a tech group advantage to model that), not inherently greater wealth to start with.

While I mostly agree with you in terms of historical theory (you're exaggerating a little, but the overall point is not wrong), the simulation of the economy in EU4 is nowhere near sophisticated enough to even approach these things. For example, even if we were purely modelling population instead of the more abstract "wealth", it would need to be able to show the dramatic exponential growth in Europe from 1500 onwards (and in Asia from 1500-1700, for that matter), as well as the catestrophic collapses of populations in the Americas due to European disease. It would need to be able to show migrations which cause previously important centers to decline and be eclipsed by regions nearby or far away. Timbuktu, for example, gradually declined as the Sahara trade was replaced by seagoing routes, and then took a turn for the disastrous as that region began to suffer slave raids by slave traders on the coast.

This is something which would be a very difficult, but maybe possible, task for a Victoria style POP system. For the province-base tax model, there is no chance of modelling to a strong historical extent, which is most likely why the developers chose to just ignore historicity and set basetaxes through gameplay concerns, with some focus on creating a historical feel to it so that it doesn't damage the suspension of disbelief. Unfortunately, its harder for those who know a lot about the topic to suspend their disbelief, but c'est la vie, I suppose.

 

[Niebulheim]

While I mostly agree with you in terms of historical theory (you're exaggerating a little, but the overall point is not wrong), the simulation of the economy in EU4 is nowhere near sophisticated enough to even approach these things. For example, even if we were purely modelling population instead of the more abstract "wealth", it would need to be able to show the dramatic exponential growth in Europe from 1500 onwards (and in Asia from 1500-1700, for that matter), as well as the catestrophic collapses of populations in the Americas due to European disease. It would need to be able to show migrations which cause previously important centers to decline and be eclipsed by regions nearby or far away. Timbuktu, for example, gradually declined as the Sahara trade was replaced by seagoing routes, and then took a turn for the disastrous as that region began to suffer slave raids by slave traders on the coast.

This is something which would be a very difficult, but maybe possible, task for a Victoria style POP system. For the province-base tax model, there is no chance of modelling to a strong historical extent, which is most likely why the developers chose to just ignore historicity and set basetaxes through gameplay concerns, with some focus on creating a historical feel to it so that it doesn't damage the suspension of disbelief. Unfortunately, its harder for those who know a lot about the topic to suspend their disbelief, but c'est la vie, I suppose.

Even the Victoria system just barely works because the game is less than a 100 years long. If you try to simulate POPs in EU4, you'd get the same population mess EU3 had.

 

[ahyangyi]

There was a similar population growth in China, which is generally attributed to the stability enjoyed by early Qing rules and more importantly, new crop types (potato, corn, etc) from the Americas.

I'd just consider the population growth universal and tied to technology levels, so they are not needed to be reflected by basetax change.

 

[Chamboozer]

What they do is represented by production and trade.

If you think urban populations didn't generate significant tax revenues, you clearly haven't actually looked at administrative history. Game is in the early modern period, not the medieval period, cities were losing their privileges in europe and taxes were assessed by head, by hearth, and/or by sale - all of which would be dominated by cities.

Ottoman tax registers from the 17th century show an average of 20-25% of revenues coming from urban sources. This ratio would probably have been higher in Europe but not to a tremendous degree. Not to mention that taxes assessed by head or hearth would of course be dominated by the countryside, since that is where most of the population lived.

Serfdom was already abolished in Western Europe by 1400. (Coucy, the last of the french dominions to legally have serfdom, abolished it in the mid-1300s). The dominance of agriculture as the driver of the economy was already ended by game start.

It is maybe arguable that the most significant part of the economy of Western Europe, depending on how you measure it, was woolen textiles but production and trade in basic foodstuffs still occupied the lives of the overwhelming majority of the population. Additionally, in Eastern Europe grain was undoubtedly the dominant element of the economy.

Noble revenues may have been predominantly from agricultural workers, but the nobility (like the clergy) were exempt from taxes in many countries. The crown did collect revenues from its own agricultural holdings (as rent rather than feudal obligation), but this was a minority of its revenues by 1400. The majority came from taxes levied on cities.

The money you get in EUIV doesn't represent the king's income though, it represents the entire income of the country. Certainly you've noticed that there is no nobility and no clergy collecting the taxes that you don't get when playing a European country.

While wealth isn't generated by just having people, government revenues tend to be generated in ways that count people.

Yes, you can generally say that larger cities should mean larger income, but my point was that there's obviously more to it than that; you were comparing numbers directly to base tax as if expecting to find a 1:1 ratio.

Then what does it represent? There's nothing it could be a proxy for except population.

Nothing other than Paradox's semi-random guess at what a province's generic "wealth" is, modified by what they think would best balance the game.

Nor does it matter if it does represent something else. In 1444, Europe was not richer than the rest of the world. If anything, it was poorer than most of it. The Aztecs and Inca were wealthier than Spain when discovered - which is why the conquistadors marveled so much at what they saw. Timbuktu shortly before game start was *wealthier than France*. Not Paris, *France*. Rome was a tiny backwater of a town, with a mere 19,000 people at game start - possibly the only province in EUIV whose major city contained less population than the included countryside of the territory. Europe's increasing wealth was a consequence of massive population growth and technological advancement, neither of which were guaranteed in 1444 (although liikely, and they have a tech group advantage to model that), not inherently greater wealth to start with.

Hold on, what? Are you saying that you think in any given province there were more people living in the main urban center than in the entire countryside? You realize that during this period even in the most urbanized parts of Europe, England and the Netherlands, the urbanization rate never reached higher than 20%? The population of the whole world was overwhelmingly rural until the 19th Century.

 

[Squirrelloid]

There was a similar population growth in China, which is generally attributed to the stability enjoyed by early Qing rules and more importantly, new crop types (potato, corn, etc) from the Americas.

I'd just consider the population growth universal and tied to technology levels, so they are not needed to be reflected by basetax change.

But then you don't see what happened historically and more importantly was a major feature of this era - the rapid increase in military sizes. Nations should get richer even without expanding, and see their forcelimits increase markedly over time. (Doubling every 100 years would create army per territory in 1800 that is 2^3.5 ~= 11 times bigger than in 1450... which is probably about right. French-English battles in the late hundred years war varied from 2k to 10k on a side. The Battle of Formigny in 1450 involved ~5k on each side. These numbers represented a sizeable fraction of the total military force that could be raised to fight at one time - a total force of 20k under arms simultaneously was likely never achieved by either side. By the Third Coalition War in 1805, the Grand Armee had 350,000 troops, and the fielding of multiple independently operating forces had become commonplace. The Battle of Ulm in October, 1805 involved 80,000 French forces vs. 40,000 Austrian troops - and it wasn't even the largest battle of the war.

BT is tied to all these things which were of critical importance to even resembling the era in question - population, manpower, government revenues, force limits, etc...

 

[unmerged(303856)]

The M&T mod has a fantastic base tax distribution based on historical population data taken from the approximate middle of the time period, with adjustments made in some cases due to special circumstances. I'd love to see it applied to the vanilla map, but I'm sure it would take a tremendous amount of work. If anyone is curious about just how crazy vanilla base tax is, it's definitely worth a look. I have trouble running the mod now, but I always miss that aspect of it when playing vanilla. Even though it is impossible to distribute base tax in a perfectly historical manner, having relatively accurate wealth in-game makes a big difference.

Edit: I almost forgot that they (Aldaron and others, I think) did manpower and trade goods too.

 

[Squirrelloid]

Hold on, what? Are you saying that you think in any given province there were more people living in the main urban center than in the entire countryside? You realize that during this period even in the most urbanized parts of Europe, England and the Netherlands, the urbanization rate never reached higher than 20%? The population of the whole world was overwhelmingly rural until the 19th Century.

I'm going to go ahead and concede this point, although Rome is still tiny in this era relative to other cities, and city populations are a useful proxy for total populations and much easier to measure for most of the world. The need to be fed compels a somewhat stable relationship until towards the end of the period (when city sizes took off because of agricultural innovations). (It also depends on where you draw the line between 'urban' and 'rural' - estimates of urbanization only count the city proper. In modern times, we frequently talk about metro areas rather than the strict city limits). And a lot of provinces don't have 'city' capitals, they have towns, which are still 'rural'. The population over which Paris only counts as 20% of is larger than ile-de-France.

(Mbanza-Kongo is illustrative here. It's at precisely 20% urbanization, but it's the only city in the whole country, which currently consists of ~6 provinces.)

But if you want to talk total populations, the Aztecs have been estimated at around 5 million people pre-Columbus. France in ~1500 had 15 million, the same as Japan. Care to guess what the ratio of Aztec to French BT is? India had *90 million* in 1500... if you guessed France has a lot more than 1/6th India's BT, you'd be right.

The money you get in EUIV doesn't represent the king's income though, it represents the entire income of the country. Certainly you've noticed that there is no nobility and no clergy collecting the taxes that you don't get when playing a European country.

Err.. the country was the king. Noble's wealth is private wealth. (And the significant French nobles were all made vassals anyway - somewhat ahistorically. At least, they were no different than piles of other nobles who were vassals of the king and held their own lands, even if their dominions were larger. France's 1444 start can't seem to decide if France represents territories controlled directly by the king or includes those under his suzerainty by virtue of being the liege lord of the holder).