Greek base taxes are a joke, improve them.

[Pilot00]

Forget history Ottomans are severely under powered and desperately need to have the base tax of all Greek provinces improved and if that does't do it perhaps the Serb or even for the lazy Bulgarian provinces could get improvement.

By the way is anyone else unable to get off the ground as France?

All joking aside please don't bite the hand that feeds you; paradox used every other patch to make things harder for Byzantines; don't request them to make it easier that will likely tempt them to go back to old habits and if you are asking because you play Ottomans

I cant say I fully understood what you actually meant

Anyway I dont think that the problem with the Ottoderp AI, is base tax. The problem is that the AI cant form coherent plans and wage wars with objectives.

Case in point from personal experience: Ai Castille allied with Naples DoWs Aragon allied with Portugal for a city: Aragon ships ALL its troops to Naples. Fully sieges them, meanwhile Castille, wrecking havoc, the Portuguese troops vacate in Morocco drinking coconuts and the warscore tickles you guessed for whom. By the time the siege of Naples finishes the AI is at -70% warscore and accepts the peace deals. Leaving it with a couple provinces in Iberia and giving its med provinces to Naples....Brilliant.

 

[crownsteler]

As I said, they were scholars with access to a lot of sources, I'm prone to believe they didn't mess things up.

Argumentum ab auctoritate

Irrelevant. As some people has already said, the size of the city has nothing to do with population. My own city is 360,000 inhabitants. The two other cities in the same region (San Sebastián and specially Vitoria) are far bigger while having less population.

My argument is not that the city is too small to support 33,000 people, my argument is that the population density isn't there to support 33,000 people. That is *not* irrelevant, it is emperical evidence. There is no emperical evidence that Athens had the population density to support a population of 33,000 within the confines of the city.

Look I came into this topic believing Athens was reduced to a population of about 2,000. I read up about, researched it, and I reviewed the evidence. And I was wrong. All evidence I have found seems to indicate a city of around 10,000, maybe 15,000 people in the period, and I adjusted my view accordingly. If a valid argument is made that Athens would have a population of 33,000, I would argue it, and if convinced, adjust my view accordingly again. But a logical fallacy is by its definition not a valid argument.

btw, if you don't want to argue a point, then don't argue a point.

Who said it was to capture a wealthy city. If anything I said more populous than stated.

It was the gist of Pilot's argument.

Because BT has nothing to do with wealth. BT (at least how I see it) is just a measure of direct taxes on population. Period.

Then why would it be problematic to assign a low base tax to the region if it indeed has a low population?

 

[Aldaron]

Argumentum ab auctoritate

Kinda, I guess.

My argument is not that the city is too small to support 33,000 people, my argument is that the population density isn't there to support 33,000 people. That is *not* irrelevant, it is emperical evidence. There is no emperical evidence that Athens had the population density to support a population of 33,000 within the confines of the city.

Look I came into this topic believing Athens was reduced to a population of about 2,000. I read up about, researched it, and I reviewed the evidence. And I was wrong. All evidence I have found seems to indicate a city of around 10,000, maybe 15,000 people in the period, and I adjusted my view accordingly. If a valid argument is made that Athens would have a population of 33,000, I would argue it, and if convinced, adjust my view accordingly again. But a logical fallacy is by its definition not a valid argument.

It's ok, as I said. I have researched something that has convinced me. You've researched other thing and convinced you. It is ok. I don't see the point in keep on arguing the same things once and once again.

We both have provided sources. My sources are "not good" enough for you. Yours are "not good" enough for me. Really, my friend, I don't see the problem. Maybe both of us are wrong.

btw, if you don't want to argue a point, then don't argue a point.

I'm just giving my opinion. That's it. I'm not here to convince none. I just provide some sources that are valid to me. Whoever who reads this should take their own decision and choose which one is more accurate in his/her POV.

It was the gist of Pilot's argument.

Well, wealthy and populous could go hand by hand in a city, or not. They are independent things. Athens could be a somehow populous city but not wealthy because it was in decline.

Then why would it be problematic to assign a low base tax to the region if it indeed has a low population?

Because as I said plenty of times, a city of even 15,000 inhabitants in 1600 was far from low populated. And as I said plenty of times too, Paradox has been pretty obscure about what BT means. In my interpretation BT goes with Population, so according to my researches BT in Greece is not well distributed. Because several regions had the same or more population than Athens that has BT 5, so more BT 5 (or even more) provinces should be findable in Greece.

If anyone considers BT has nothing to do with population, then, obviously, we are not discussing the same and the argument has no point to be.

So to sum up, let's agree that we disagree.

 

[crownsteler]

Kinda, I guess.

It is almost, word for word, the exact example used on wikipedia to illustrate the fallacy.

And that is the problem here. If you just said, 'look we disagree on this, and that is okey' (or something like that), that would be fine. But instead, you basically dismiss everything I say by saying 'this is my source, my source is right, and you are wrong'. You may not have ment it that way, but it is what you were saying. Which, aside from being a logical fallacy in its own right, is also terribly frustrating. I cannot, for the love of me, see how you can say something like that, and expect that to be the end of it.

The way you made your 'opinion' clear is also terribly frustrating. I never said 'your sources are not good enough for me' (or at least, I didn't mean to), I just found these things which don't mesh with that source. I point this out, and your responce is 'well my source is unassailable, so you are wrong.' What I say is 'irrelevant' and my sources are 'not very trustful'. But your sources are not to be questioned. You do not give *any* argument as to be why they would be right, except for they are right because they are right. Had you said Chandler did this research, found that there were, based on these records, X marriages (or burials or whatever, I believe they use marriages for this) per year in period Y through Z, which by method Q leads us to believe that the population in the period is P. I would have been fine with that, and I could have been convinced. It is not that your source is invalid, it is that the argument you presented is in and of itself an invalid argument.

Because as I said plenty of times, a city of even 15,000 inhabitants in 1600 was far from low populated. And as I said plenty of times too, Paradox has been pretty obscure about what BT means. In my interpretation BT goes with Population, so according to my researches BT in Greece is not well distributed. Because several regions had the same or more population than Athens that has BT 5, so more BT 5 (or even more) provinces should be findable in Greece.

I never disputed that that a city of 10 or 15,000 people would be a major city, but it has a relatively low population to the base line you were expecting. Anyhow, the size of Athens is not the issue here, nor is the scale of BT you use the isse. It is just that this statement is puzzling to me:

And just to stick with the topic, even if we accept your data (that's around 10,000 inhabitants for Athens) and if we do accept the population-BT relation too, we agree that the rest of Greece (having other cities similar or bigger to Athens) should have at least the same/similar BT values, don't we?

That makes impossible to believe that Peloponessus would have BT 3 in their two provinces (Having Morea Mystras [30,000 in 1600] + Nafplion and Argos [6,000 and 10,000] or Achaea Korinthos [11,000* + Patras and Argos [both 8,000]).

If BT is based on population, then it should be assigned on population. If Athens has a population of Pa, it should have a BT of Ta. If Mystras has a population of Pm, it should have a BT of Tm. These values are independent of eachother. The population of Athens has no bearing on the population of Mystras. And, as I said before, I have not researched the Peloponnese, so I cannot comment on the population there.

 

[Pilot00]

It was the gist of Pilot's argument.

Actually my argument was that the Venetians bled to death to secure the Peloponesse as a launch point for their navy/trade fleet.

Athens was also an objective of the earlier crusader nations for the same reason. Even Aragon had briefly taken over the city. Not the population itself and the tax they could gain.

 

[crownsteler]

Then I misunderstood. My apologies.

 

[Pilot00]

Then I misunderstood. My apologies.

Everything's cool m8, no need for apologies on irrelevant things

 

[Aldaron]

It is almost, word for word, the exact example used on wikipedia to illustrate the fallacy.

And that is the problem here. If you just said, 'look we disagree on this, and that is okey' (or something like that), that would be fine. But instead, you basically dismiss everything I say by saying 'this is my source, my source is right, and you are wrong'. You may not have ment it that way, but it is what you were saying. Which, aside from being a logical fallacy in its own right, is also terribly frustrating. I cannot, for the love of me, see how you can say something like that, and expect that to be the end of it.

The way you made your 'opinion' clear is also terribly frustrating. I never said 'your sources are not good enough for me' (or at least, I didn't mean to), I just found these things which don't mesh with that source. I point this out, and your responce is 'well my source is unassailable, so you are wrong.' What I say is 'irrelevant' and my sources are 'not very trustful'. But your sources are not to be questioned. You do not give *any* argument as to be why they would be right, except for they are right because they are right. Had you said Chandler did this research, found that there were, based on these records, X marriages (or burials or whatever, I believe they use marriages for this) per year in period Y through Z, which by method Q leads us to believe that the population in the period is P. I would have been fine with that, and I could have been convinced. It is not that your source is invalid, it is that the argument you presented is in and of itself an invalid argument.

English is not my mother language so I admit that I have been not clear enough.

In fact, what I meant was precisely a more neutral point of view. In no way I was saying "hurr durr your data is wrong". What I meant is that it is clear that our datas disagree to each other. I stand corrected when you said that I used a logical fallacy. Yeah, it wasn't my intention, but I fail to it. So moving on.

I was not saying that your data was wrong, but that I believed "mine" was "right". Or in other words that I just chose it because for me was more accurate. This doesn't mean that I'm correct, just that I made my choice because I think it is the most correct from my research. Maybe after all I might be wrong.

If I ended being a little harsher is because I felt we were just making a circle-arguement. I'm sorry if I sounded harsh or unpolite because it was not my intention. On the contrary in fact.

I never disputed that that a city of 10 or 15,000 people would be a major city, but it has a relatively low population to the base line you were expecting. Anyhow, the size of Athens is not the issue here, nor is the scale of BT you use the isse. It is just that this statement is puzzling to me:

Fine.

If BT is based on population, then it should be assigned on population. If Athens has a population of Pa, it should have a BT of Ta. If Mystras has a population of Pm, it should have a BT of Tm. These values are independent of eachother. The population of Athens has no bearing on the population of Mystras. And, as I said before, I have not researched the Peloponnese, so I cannot comment on the population there.

Ok, so imagine Athens is 15,000 inhabitants (for example) and it has BT 5, if Mystras has 27,000 inhabitants and Thessaloniki 50,000, then both Mystras and Thessaloniki, logically, should be BT >5 (unless they are in the range of populations for BT 5). In vanilla, Morea (the province where Mystras is) has BT 3, which makes no sense to me (if we are using population for BT, of course).

 

[yerm]

Ok, so imagine Athens is 15,000 inhabitants (for example) and it has BT 5, if Mystras has 27,000 inhabitants and Thessaloniki 50,000, then both Mystras and Thessaloniki, logically, should be BT >5 (unless they are in the range of populations for BT 5). In vanilla, Morea (the province where Mystras is) has BT 3, which makes no sense to me (if we are using population for BT, of course).

I think anyone who looks into it will agree that Morea and Athens are comparatively off, no matter how or why you generate base tax. My guess is that they simply boosted Athens over what it should be because it is the famous classical Greek city, and had the province been named something different we might be looking at BT 2 or so there. There's definitely no good way to plausibly explain Athens having bt5 when the neighbors do not, except "because it's Athens" perhaps.

While I think our argument before was fun and informative, I don't necessarily want to get back into it. All I want to repeat is that the EU4 devs definitely do NOT use population as their measure, or at least their sole or primary measure, to determine base tax. Whether their numbers are correct or off, they record population numbers, and then ignore them in setting tax. As a result, while we don't know for sure whether they meant base tax to mean how much taxes a places generates, its wealth, its potential for wealth, or something else... what we do know for certain is that they did not make it a formula of population. So if we want to argue in the abstract, or in regards to a mod that streamlines taxes such as yours, we certainly can go off athens' population for base tax.