The new dev diary for the upcoming expansion came out today and seems set to add a fair amount of historical events and flavour to France. However, from the dev replies to the comments, it seems as though there currently aren't any plans to model one of the most significant components of France's experience in the era - demographic stagnation.
France's demographic stagnation, at a time when most of the rest of Europe was experiencing a population boom, would have massive geopolitical implications. At the start of the French Revolution, France had, arguably, the largest population in Europe (Russia was close, and would be higher if they had 1836 borders, but still). With this manpower, France had long been one of the richest and militarily strongest nations in Europe. With the French Revolutionary ideals to finally effectively harness that power, they were able to make a serious play to dominate the entire continent. It often took multiple powers to contain them on land. Even by 1836, France is still seen as one of the strongest of the continental European powers. By the end of the game in 1936, France is still a great power, but a much diminished one. Having to rely on its overseas empire and base its military/diplomatic policy behind fortifications and alignment with British policy to stand any chance with its close competitors.
A lot happened during all this time, but the biggest shift was demographic. In the era, France would fall behind Russia, the UK, Germany, the USA, and even Austria-Hungary in population. It's a huge part of how the nation which posed the greatest risk of European hegemony shifted from France to Germany. With it, a big part of reproachment between France and Britain, as well as eventual Anglo-German tensions.
Right now, and since release, France is one of the strongest countries in the game. They start with a large core population and it grows at roughly the same rate as everyone else, so they keep their strong lead. If Germany still required Alsace-Lorraine to form, we'd hardly ever see it.
There are a lot of arguments for what caused this. The reason given in the dev reply for not implementing something like it is "It's something we thought about but ultimately decided not to pursue because the causes are poorly understood and difficult to model through scripted content." Some argue it had something to do with the relatively slower pace of French industrialization - slower industrialization meant less disruption and less urbanization. Less incentive to have many children to produce for the factories. Others argue it has to do with France's relatively high standard of living (although Britain for example had a higher standard of living but still had a population boom). A decline in religiosity as a hangover from the Revolution might not have helped, but I think it's debatable how much rural French areas had really experienced this and others, like Britain, were becoming more secular in this era as well, but still had the population growth. France wasn't the only country to have had serious losses in the Napoleonic Wars, face political instability, or begin reforming inheritance laws, but it was the one which lagged behind in population.
In terms of how it could be implemented, there are different ways to go about implementing it. Vic II originally had it as a national modifier for France. However, then if France conquered say Vietnam or Algeria, it would lead to demographic issues in those areas, which didn't make much sense. Not researching medicine early could also lead to demographic collapse (though that was more a balance thing, arguably). Later versions went with reducing the life rating of France (and increasing it for Germany) which, for already colonized territories affected population growth.
From a Vic III perspective, there could be a modifier to a culture used, if that's possible, or just have it as a modifier for France that effects core population growth, pop growth in incorporated territories, or even just pop growth overall if needed. If Paradox wanted, there could be a journal entry allowing for removing it by achieving certain policies/goals, or it could eventually time out (though this should be near the end of the game - in reality French population growth only really started matching its peers after WWII). Honestly, I'm kind of partial to the idea that maybe the French player shouldn't be able to (directly) do anything about it - forcing them to consider other options like overseas empire, strategic alliances, conquest of strategically defencible borders, etc. to maintain their place in the world as their inherent hard power wanes. Things any country can do to boost population growth (like getting happy devout or good standard of living to have good migration balance) would still work for France and could help mitigate/blunt the effects, but wouldn't negate the modifier.
Whatever the cause and the implementation though, French population stagnation should be modelled and there's no better time to do it than with the expansion focused on France.
France's demographic stagnation, at a time when most of the rest of Europe was experiencing a population boom, would have massive geopolitical implications. At the start of the French Revolution, France had, arguably, the largest population in Europe (Russia was close, and would be higher if they had 1836 borders, but still). With this manpower, France had long been one of the richest and militarily strongest nations in Europe. With the French Revolutionary ideals to finally effectively harness that power, they were able to make a serious play to dominate the entire continent. It often took multiple powers to contain them on land. Even by 1836, France is still seen as one of the strongest of the continental European powers. By the end of the game in 1936, France is still a great power, but a much diminished one. Having to rely on its overseas empire and base its military/diplomatic policy behind fortifications and alignment with British policy to stand any chance with its close competitors.
A lot happened during all this time, but the biggest shift was demographic. In the era, France would fall behind Russia, the UK, Germany, the USA, and even Austria-Hungary in population. It's a huge part of how the nation which posed the greatest risk of European hegemony shifted from France to Germany. With it, a big part of reproachment between France and Britain, as well as eventual Anglo-German tensions.
Right now, and since release, France is one of the strongest countries in the game. They start with a large core population and it grows at roughly the same rate as everyone else, so they keep their strong lead. If Germany still required Alsace-Lorraine to form, we'd hardly ever see it.
There are a lot of arguments for what caused this. The reason given in the dev reply for not implementing something like it is "It's something we thought about but ultimately decided not to pursue because the causes are poorly understood and difficult to model through scripted content." Some argue it had something to do with the relatively slower pace of French industrialization - slower industrialization meant less disruption and less urbanization. Less incentive to have many children to produce for the factories. Others argue it has to do with France's relatively high standard of living (although Britain for example had a higher standard of living but still had a population boom). A decline in religiosity as a hangover from the Revolution might not have helped, but I think it's debatable how much rural French areas had really experienced this and others, like Britain, were becoming more secular in this era as well, but still had the population growth. France wasn't the only country to have had serious losses in the Napoleonic Wars, face political instability, or begin reforming inheritance laws, but it was the one which lagged behind in population.
In terms of how it could be implemented, there are different ways to go about implementing it. Vic II originally had it as a national modifier for France. However, then if France conquered say Vietnam or Algeria, it would lead to demographic issues in those areas, which didn't make much sense. Not researching medicine early could also lead to demographic collapse (though that was more a balance thing, arguably). Later versions went with reducing the life rating of France (and increasing it for Germany) which, for already colonized territories affected population growth.
From a Vic III perspective, there could be a modifier to a culture used, if that's possible, or just have it as a modifier for France that effects core population growth, pop growth in incorporated territories, or even just pop growth overall if needed. If Paradox wanted, there could be a journal entry allowing for removing it by achieving certain policies/goals, or it could eventually time out (though this should be near the end of the game - in reality French population growth only really started matching its peers after WWII). Honestly, I'm kind of partial to the idea that maybe the French player shouldn't be able to (directly) do anything about it - forcing them to consider other options like overseas empire, strategic alliances, conquest of strategically defencible borders, etc. to maintain their place in the world as their inherent hard power wanes. Things any country can do to boost population growth (like getting happy devout or good standard of living to have good migration balance) would still work for France and could help mitigate/blunt the effects, but wouldn't negate the modifier.
Whatever the cause and the implementation though, French population stagnation should be modelled and there's no better time to do it than with the expansion focused on France.
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