Concerning screenshots from a last AAR - what is happening to population?

[Muezzinzade]

One screenshot is from the game beginning, the other is made after many years of playing (not sure how many, on discord they say its close to century's end). It shows DEVASTATING population losses among many countries - UK lost almost half (12 millions) Russia lost one third (20 millions), Ottomans lost one third (6 millions), China lost one fifth (60 millions). While population should generally grow, not fall. In some cases such devastating losses could be possible, but generally, for so many powers? Looks like they have a MASSIVE work to do to balance this. If the average game is gonna look this way, the immersion is gonna suck so badly...

 

[HighChanceOfRai]

Could this be down to migration, everyone hitting for the new world? I can't see any detail in your screenshots though to see if the usual targets like the US got a huge influx in pops

 

[Deathknight15]

You cannot know much about what an 'average' game will look like on a sample of one playthrough.

I'm not aware of any other publicized playthroughs having such mass deaths, if you know of them it will give more credence to your concern.

 

[Muezzinzade]

Could this be down to migration, everyone hitting for the new world? I can't see any detail in your screenshots though to see if the usual targets like the US got a huge influx in pops

Even if it was, it would be such a bloody absurd... Half of UK going to USA? Come on... Sixty millions of chinese in the USA? However it is not the case. If you look at the screenshot, USA has twenty something. There are multiple explanations, famine, war, rebellions, but still, it should be possible for one country, not for many countries as a general trend!

You cannot know much about what an 'average' game will look like on a sample of one playthrough.

I'm not aware of any other publicized playthroughs having such mass deaths, if you know of them it will give more credence to your concern.

Well, give credence or not, but first, this is the only playthrough that actually reached late game years (1900), others were for no longer than ten years if I am not mistaken. Second, it happens in one game but to MANY countries as a general trend. It means something is clearly wrong.

 

[Deathknight15]

Well, give credence or not, but first, this is the only playthrough that actually reached late game years (1900), others were for no longer than ten years if I am not mistaken. Second, it happens in one game but to MANY countries as a general trend. It means something is clearly wrong.

You have evidence of only one playthrough regardless. Since we haven't heard of such problems before I would be more prone to saying that there was an AI problem in this build that caused AI to not produce food domestically as much as it should and rely on food trade too much. Probably causing famines when AI lost its food trades for whatever reason.

In that case, far from being a 'massive' balancing problem they just need to tweak ai weighting of food buildings.

 

[Muezzinzade]

You have evidence of only one playthrough regardless. Since we haven't heard of such problems before I would be more prone to saying that there was an AI problem in this build that caused AI to not produce food domestically as much as it should and rely on food trade too much. Probably causing famines when AI lost its food trades for whatever reason.

In that case, far from being a 'massive' balancing problem they just need to tweak ai weighting of food buildings.

We heard about it in just one playthrough maybe because we had just one playthrough that lasted couple of dozens of years and had the screenshot of multiple countries' population, have you thought about that?

 

[Deathknight15]

We heard about it in just one playthrough maybe because we had just one playthrough that lasted couple of dozens of years and had the screenshot of multiple countries' population, have you thought about that?

Possible, but you can't fairly assert that this is true or likely true because we don't have much evidence either way. The playthrough we saw might well be a fluke, or maybe it really is typical of their current build. But again, we don't know, and as I pointed out there are explanations that don't include 'massive balancing work needed' or the idea that this will be typical in the release build.

Basically, there are plenty of other explanations and it wouldn't be really reasonable to jump on the doom train from one playthrough. Just like how it wouldn't be fair to assume the release game would contain all of the other wild balancing issues in other AARs, that have been mostly subsequently fixed afaik.

 

[Kimberly]

This is from the Galicia AAR, right? Keep in mind many of those powers lost significant territory during that game, and so the low population count wouldn't just be from population decline. From the looks of things it sure looks like the AI has a hard time of it with the economy, but I don't think this is a particularly fair way to judge it.

 

[Muezzinzade]

This is from the Galicia AAR, right? Keep in mind many of those powers lost significant territory during that game, and so the low population count wouldn't just be from population decline. From the looks of things it sure looks like the AI has a hard time of it with the economy, but I don't think this is a particularly fair way to judge it.

This is true. For example UK lost Ireland. But a general trend of almost all Great Powers (or big countries) losing both land and population at the time when general trend should be for them to gain both land and population is very very much immersion breaking and I hope it gets fixed well.

 

[pleasediaf]

One screenshot is from the game beginning, the other is made after many years of playing (not sure how many, on discord they say its close to century's end). It shows DEVASTATING population losses among many countries - UK lost almost half (12 millions) Russia lost one third (20 millions), Ottomans lost one third (6 millions), China lost one fifth (60 millions). While population should generally grow, not fall. In some cases such devastating losses could be possible, but generally, for so many powers? Looks like they have a MASSIVE work to do to balance this. If the average game is gonna look this way, the immersion is gonna suck so badly...View attachment 874786View attachment 874787

 

[Muezzinzade]

Possible, but you can't fairly assert that this is true or likely true because we don't have much evidence either way. The playthrough we saw might well be a fluke, or maybe it really is typical of their current build. But again, we don't know, and as I pointed out there are explanations that don't include 'massive balancing work needed' or the idea that this will be typical in the release build.

Basically, there are plenty of other explanations and it wouldn't be really reasonable to jump on the doom train from one playthrough. Just like how it wouldn't be fair to assume the release game would contain all of the other wild balancing issues in other AARs, that have been mostly subsequently fixed afaik.

I do not know what could explain such a widespread trend in multiple countries (while it is non existent in some others). Also, no, no one is "jumping on a doom train" - I never say that I'm sure that it will be the case, I'm just mentioning it in hope that devs will fix it (if that's the case) because if the game was such, it would be simply horrible. I also hoped that here I might hear an answer that would explain those terrible numbers.

 

[shoebird]

I do not know what could explain such a widespread trend in multiple countries (while it is non existent in some others). Also, no, no one is "jumping on a doom train" - I never say that I'm sure that it will be the case, I'm just mentioning it in hope that devs will fix it (if that's the case) because if the game was such, it would be simply horrible. I also hoped that here I might hear an answer that would explain those terrible numbers.

I guess the devs know this already, as is quite evident. Don’t know about the cause though, we can only speculate, but I think something is wrong with the build of this AAR. On the one hand, it can be that population growth was to high on previous builds and they are trying to reduce it, and for now they went too much to the other side. On the other side, it might be that the AI is not managing food production well. This is supported by how wealthy Galicia became just producing wheat and wine. Or it could be both, perhaps food requirements have been increased and the economic AI can’t deal with it. Although we won’t have a perfect balance at release I expect things not to look that bad.

 

[Oglesby]

This is true. For example UK lost Ireland. But a general trend of almost all Great Powers (or big countries) losing both land and population at the time when general trend should be for them to gain both land and population is very very much immersion breaking and I hope it gets fixed well.

UK lost all its subjects in that one, not just Ireland.

Do we know if they had to console add tech (up to nationalism?) to release Galicia like they did for Siberia? That would have those techs reaching out to multiple places through spread earlier than intended which could have various knockoffs.

 

[AccomplishedRate1]

Resident Evil 8: Victoria

 

[Ivashanko]

Possible, but you can't fairly assert that this is true or likely true because we don't have much evidence either way. The playthrough we saw might well be a fluke, or maybe it really is typical of their current build. But again, we don't know, and as I pointed out there are explanations that don't include 'massive balancing work needed' or the idea that this will be typical in the release build.

Basically, there are plenty of other explanations and it wouldn't be really reasonable to jump on the doom train from one playthrough. Just like how it wouldn't be fair to assume the release game would contain all of the other wild balancing issues in other AARs, that have been mostly subsequently fixed afaik.

Deathknight is correct. We cannot determine much of anything based on a sample size of one.

That doesn't mean it isn't valuable to voice your concerns. It is. Just know that these concerns might have already been dealt with or have an explanation.

 

[Morrowind3]

UK was dealing with famines and revolts so it makes sense for them

 

[Nikolai]

In Victoria II, only males counted for the population numbers. So what we know as dependends in Vicky 3 was not counted. Perhaps it is something similar here?

 

[AccomplishedRate1]

In Victoria II, only males counted for the population numbers. So what we know as dependends in Vicky 3 was not counted. Perhaps it is something similar here?

But the population number of China would be mad then

 

[FranklyJustNess]

If it's the Galicia game, then we don't really know what happened to most of the powers. It's possible they hit a revolution spiral like the GB, in which the constant wars, famine, loss of Ireland and economic collapse make sense to cause such an effect. Qing maybe saw independence of some states. Ottomans we've seen were in a huge war against Egypt. Russia maybe had a lot of discriminated pops leave.

I'd say it's an important observation and it should be looked into, if it was working as intended. To me for example, it feels like the revolutionary spiral is something that needs changing, cuz it can effectively make a great power become irrelevant in the game due to one revolution. Which would not make for a really good game for others. There's definitely a fine balance to be hit between no guaranteed spiral of collapse and stability with no problem after revolution, but we might not be there yet.

It doesn't necessarily make sense for pops to experience a huge hardship as a civil war kills so many people and causes great drop in standard of living, to go and decide that the solution to them not having bread due to a civil war is to fight another bloody civil war.

 

[cristofolmc]

Might be that this build suffers too many wars and rebelions and too many casualties in war? From what we have seen the UK alone underwent lots of Revolutions. And number of casualties seem unrealistically high. Like WWI levels.

It will be a matter of balance.