Developer Diary 8 – The Artisan

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So each individual POP of artisans in a country will randomly choose a good to produce based on that countries technology capabilities each month? Ones which picked a profitable good are more likely to stick with it but no guaranteed so artisans are probably going to see fluctuating incomes even when bridging... nice touch.

So any poor class POP if worked in a precious metals or something that earned it a high income could advance to artisan, and then theoretically if continued earning high income advance to capitalist?

So right now the only class which no POP can advance into is aristocrat? They can only devolve? But the other classes seem likely to be rather fluid. Although it seems keeping education slider at 100% will be as important in V2 as in V1. Though it depends a bit on how quickly POPs devolve. If clergy paid for by education slider and the state needs some extra money they could theoretically cut pay for a week or two to build up some cash then raise slider again and as long as clergy had basic goods needs met technology research would be unaffected. Seems kinda cool and flexible though probably a way human player can outgain AI nations.

 

[KonradRichtmark]

yes actually they are, my earlier post was wrong.

Thanks for the confirmation

If they are supposed to represent pre-industrial goods production, it is appropriate for them to be middle class. In pre-industrial society, artisans were typically of higher income and social class than peasants or (unskilled) labourers.

However, to my mind comes a few additional issues that could follow from this, if you'll bear with me, King.

When industrialization comes along, artisans will obviously get it harder, and they might end up in a situation where they're technically middle-class but have an income closer to that of poor POPs. Which could have a number of weird consequences like:

-Artisan doesn't have enough money to buy everyday goods, gets upset about not having the living standard he considers himself entitled to, starts thinking fascistic thoughts. So far so good. Eventually, the lack of goods makes him devolve into a poor POP. Because poor POPs demand cheaper goods, the ex-artisan will now be able to fulfil a greater % of his everyday good wants. The formerly miserable artisan who was forced to become a poor craftsman is now happy with being able to fulfil his much-reduced consumer demands :wacko:

-Taxation. If artisans are by definition middle-class, they would always be hit by the middle-class tax %, right? Hence, if you adopted progressive taxation and hit the middle class with a higher % than the poor class, an artisan could potentially be screwed over by the system by having a real income close to that of poor POPs (due to competition by factories), but still be paying taxes as though he was a middle-classer.

Are my concerns valid, or am I making some assumption along the way that is untrue for V2?

 

[Evans]

I think I have to chime in with the ideology issue

Yet again I have a contribution to make and who's there having made it? I wish you'd leave off sometimes NB This is all based on the history of Britain (in terms of chronology). My point is that for this period, the idea that artisans would go fascist is actually quite off.

The erosion of skilled workers' positions was actually a key factor behind the growth of union, labour and socialist movements in this period. In fact, it was possibly the key factor. For an example, the most influential dissatisfied artisan type between the Chartist movement and the rise of New Unionism (c.1840-1870s) was John Ruskin, and Thomas Carlyle was similar. When New Unionism came along it was about organising non-skilled labour - i.e. before new unionism the TUs were dominated by craft labourers and not very socialist. Therefore, this would tend them towards... well liberalism actually.

But as it became clear that liberalism was failing to deal with certain social problems, particularly for artisans the problem regarding how their relative position in society was slipping, they began to turn to socialism. Hence the "Socialist Revival" of the 1880s. Some people have mentioned Guilds and things and a perfect example of this particular bent would be William Morris, who was one of the most influential socialists... ever really. He was at the start of a tradition that was highly libertarian and leftwards leaning, pretty much until after GDH Cole and the Guild Socialists disintegrated in the face of the Moscow orientated CPGB (1922). So, c. 1880-1914 this group should be a socialist bastion.

After the decline of Syndicalism (not Anarcho- just yet) and Guild Socialism we should see a corresponding rise in the appeal of fascism tied in with the split of the socialist movement into Social Democracy (New Liberalism-cum-Fabianism-cum-"state socialism") and Communism (i.e. Bolshevik/Soviet communism). At this point, it starts to make sense for artisans to be attracted to fascism. That said, those it should attract most should really, in whatever period, be the petit bourgeois. And if artisans represent said petit-bourgeois, then it's going to be way too small, and not functionally representative at all...

 

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-Artisan doesn't have enough money to buy everyday goods, gets upset about not having the living standard he considers himself entitled to, starts thinking fascistic thoughts. So far so good. Eventually, the lack of goods makes him devolve into a poor POP. Because poor POPs demand cheaper goods, the ex-artisan will now be able to fulfil a greater % of his everyday good wants. The formerly miserable artisan who was forced to become a poor craftsman is now happy with being able to fulfil his much-reduced consumer demands :wacko:

-Taxation. If artisans are by definition middle-class, they would always be hit by the middle-class tax %, right? Hence, if you adopted progressive taxation and hit the middle class with a higher % than the poor class, an artisan could potentially be screwed over by the system by having a real income close to that of poor POPs (due to competition by factories), but still be paying taxes as though he was a middle-classer.

Are my concerns valid, or am I making some assumption along the way that is untrue for V2?

The first part is a valid question raised earlier- what do fascist/autocratic/etc governments offer the POPs which support them? Or is it simply assumed to be a natural cycle? Artisans fearing poverty elect fascists and when fascists don't solve their problems(or can they somehow?) they switch to another ideology or just suffer in silence and become poor which makes them even happier to serve the homeland?

As for the 2nd... I think that makes perfect sense. If you want to preserve artisans you are making a inefficient choice but you can do it if you don't mind lowering middle class taxes to a level artisans can afford basic goods. For some nations like China it might be a necessary action when striving to gain enough techs to industrialize. You might need to ensure rich aristos and artisans early so you can afford to tax them later as you civ and industrialize. Otherwise massive societal upheaval. Which is probably what will end up happening cause there is no way to get enough POPs rich enough to avoid pissing the majority off making such big changes in society and incomes.

 

[jetfx]

It [the map] seems to be the Mercator projection.

More specifically, it's a modified Mercator, and looks like a Miller Projection. However, the artist has had his way with it, to fit things in, exaggerate important areas, and make things look "right", so it's not really any map projection.

 

[Evans]

Just want to add as well: map and game mechanic wise looking very nice!

I also wanted to ask whether the problems of so-called "overproduction" will be included in any way? In fact, how will market turbulence, crashes and slowdowns and crises and suchlike be covered?

 

[OHgamer]

Shouldn't Istanbul named Constantinople?
.

It wasn't in V1

And Constantinople as a name wouldn't fit in the space for the province either without it being compressed into small text or bleeding over into another province.

 

[Wheeler711]

Man i just bought Victoria Revolustions a couple of weeks ago and man do I love it now that this game is coming I cant wait. On Topic: Ottoman Empire is one of my favorite countries to play in Vicky and I have to say she sure does look good! I love the new idea of artisans great job guys!

 

[Red_Communist]

The map is looking good, well done to your 2D artist. I hope the white pixels around the coastline (e.g. Khalkis) will be cleaned up before the game is released though.

Mhm, agreed. The map looks VERY good, I'd say one of the best maps I've seen in along time.

These DD are really informative, thanks King!

 

[takedown47]

can you still play the game without industrialising though and still have a chance with an artisan based economy? I'm thinking of asian countries here like Japan or China



ps. the interface design is pro

 

[JoeGiavani]

can you still play the game without industrialising though and still have a chance with an artisan based economy? I'm thinking of asian countries here like Japan or China



ps. the interface design is pro

Not possible. Industrialisation is too efficient, it completely changes the world market.
If you want a chance economically with Japan or China you should have to invest in industry.

 

[jamhaw]

It wasn't in V1

And Constantinople as a name wouldn't fit in the space for the province either without it being compressed into small text or bleeding over into another province.

I thought it was named Konstaniyye in Victoria I?

 

[vertinox]

i have one question about artisans and fascism.
workers tend to be socialist because that increase their share of the created wealth. capitalist like liberalism as it lowers the cost of building new factories and increase the income through lower taxes. what do fascism give to the artisans ingame?

Fascism tends to be anti-union and protectionist against foreign importations so the self employed would tend to follow that line.

 

[unmerged(105833)]

It's great to see my account's namesake, the petite bourgeoisie, represented in game!

 

[Vladislav]

can you still play the game without industrialising though and still have a chance with an artisan based economy? I'm thinking of asian countries here like Japan or China

That would be like playing Japan or China in EU3 and not Westernizing... probably possible, but not recommended.

 

[unmerged(3921)]

Map looks visually attractive. But I second the worries of a previous poster about the map distortion as one moves away from the equator. It used to be (with EU2), that an area map system could completely adjust for a round globe being superimposed on a flat game map by making the areas bigger towards the poles, but with now it seems the area maps have changed to have a distance based parameter calculate the time to move between zones. Is that distance parameter manually adjusted so that the game time it takes to move between zones in the far north and south is less than near the equator?

 

[King]

So each individual POP of artisans in a country will randomly choose a good to produce based on that countries technology capabilities each month? Ones which picked a profitable good are more likely to stick with it but no guaranteed so artisans are probably going to see fluctuating incomes even when bridging... nice touch.

So any poor class POP if worked in a precious metals or something that earned it a high income could advance to artisan, and then theoretically if continued earning high income advance to capitalist?

So right now the only class which no POP can advance into is aristocrat? They can only devolve? But the other classes seem likely to be rather fluid. Although it seems keeping education slider at 100% will be as important in V2 as in V1. Though it depends a bit on how quickly POPs devolve. If clergy paid for by education slider and the state needs some extra money they could theoretically cut pay for a week or two to build up some cash then raise slider again and as long as clergy had basic goods needs met technology research would be unaffected. Seems kinda cool and flexible though probably a way human player can outgain AI nations.

There are several routes to becoming either a Capitalist or an Artistocrat. So from that point of view. Yes there is scope for micormanging your sliders and in fact part of our goal was to make 100% education not such a no brainer.

 

[King]

Thanks for the confirmation

If they are supposed to represent pre-industrial goods production, it is appropriate for them to be middle class. In pre-industrial society, artisans were typically of higher income and social class than peasants or (unskilled) labourers.

However, to my mind comes a few additional issues that could follow from this, if you'll bear with me, King.

When industrialization comes along, artisans will obviously get it harder, and they might end up in a situation where they're technically middle-class but have an income closer to that of poor POPs. Which could have a number of weird consequences like:

-Artisan doesn't have enough money to buy everyday goods, gets upset about not having the living standard he considers himself entitled to, starts thinking fascistic thoughts. So far so good. Eventually, the lack of goods makes him devolve into a poor POP. Because poor POPs demand cheaper goods, the ex-artisan will now be able to fulfil a greater % of his everyday good wants. The formerly miserable artisan who was forced to become a poor craftsman is now happy with being able to fulfil his much-reduced consumer demands :wacko:

-Taxation. If artisans are by definition middle-class, they would always be hit by the middle-class tax %, right? Hence, if you adopted progressive taxation and hit the middle class with a higher % than the poor class, an artisan could potentially be screwed over by the system by having a real income close to that of poor POPs (due to competition by factories), but still be paying taxes as though he was a middle-classer.

Are my concerns valid, or am I making some assumption along the way that is untrue for V2?

Well your first point is not 100% true. You see if our Artisan is not doing well finiancally then he will have a higher militancy. If he develoves and starts to get luxuries then his militancy will drop slowly. Although if a few hundred artisans develove into a 10,000 man craftsmen pop then the overall militancy increase for that POP will be very small.

As for the second point is precisely how we see them as being, the lower middle classes, trying to be middle class but not quite having the wealth to do so.

 

[King]

The first part is a valid question raised earlier- what do fascist/autocratic/etc governments offer the POPs which support them? Or is it simply assumed to be a natural cycle? Artisans fearing poverty elect fascists and when fascists don't solve their problems(or can they somehow?) they switch to another ideology or just suffer in silence and become poor which makes them even happier to serve the homeland?

As for the 2nd... I think that makes perfect sense. If you want to preserve artisans you are making a inefficient choice but you can do it if you don't mind lowering middle class taxes to a level artisans can afford basic goods. For some nations like China it might be a necessary action when striving to gain enough techs to industrialize. You might need to ensure rich aristos and artisans early so you can afford to tax them later as you civ and industrialize. Otherwise massive societal upheaval. Which is probably what will end up happening cause there is no way to get enough POPs rich enough to avoid pissing the majority off making such big changes in society and incomes.

The first point is enitrely valid and we'll talk a lot more about ideologies later. just keep the faith here.

 

[Sebastian Jarl]

Well King, as several others beside me have pointed out, luxury goods is the one niche where (a few) artisans have survived up until our days. Is this somehow reflected?