This and the point they brought up about Pops not being set to provincial level is something that is very worrying for me. Removing the abstraction of pops being provincial level and being only state level really is a step back in terms of the simulation of the game, especially when it comes to culture breakdown of territories. You only need to bring up the word 'Balkans' or Silesia and the issue of just splitting population and culture by a mathematical ratio already seems like a massive blunder. And if they weigh each territory already so you get x amount of pops or y amount of culture, then why not just go all the way? It's an abstraction that's gonna cause them more headache than if they just did Provincial pops anyway. The other issue is the whole problem that resources don't seem to be Provincial level either and instead it's just state wide. I was originally really excited for the ability to split up states, but how do they determine what resources you get from that split now? Is it also just a percentage split? Even if you only wish to try and take say, the coal and iron deposits in a state, you'll still only end up taking a mathematical chunk? Or will it be 'weighted' as well?
At some level this abstraction is kind of inevitable though thanks to major decision I believe that they are quickly coming to regret: Using the HoI4 Map. 13k provinces is way way too precise to ever get accurate population figures for each small patch of land around the world, and has likely drove them to this 'State only' approach. A way to alleviate this if they don't wanna go with shrinking the province number (which I believe they should half it and make it Imperator level) would be to break states up into smaller 'counties' that work like provinces in Vic 2 possibly, you still manage things from a state level but it allocates urban centers and buildings depending on which of the counties would have that resource, and is the lowest abstraction of where Pops reside. They've already seem to be doing this sort of by splitting up states smaller and smaller (California being made 5 states lmfao), and I think they really need to just bite the bullet and decide if they are gonna shrink the province count or come up with an in-between division (Province and 'Territories').
