Greetings all,
My part of today’s developer diary focuses on further changes coming to the population system in 2.0.
The changes to civilization value mentioned previously opened up further opportunities for a rethink on population growth. In 1.5 and before, cities were largely sustained by prolonged inwards migration. While this is not something I necessarily want to change, we’ll be splitting up where population growth comes from, with the dual intentions of letting cities stand their own ground when growing pops, and allowing for more engagement in how you promote growth in owned territory.
Firstly, base pop growth, and pop growth from stability have been reduced significantly.
Secondly, civilization value now contributes to population growth, simulating an increased growth rate in developed metropoles.
Thirdly, the population growth rate from stored food has been slightly reduced, however, the food consumption of tribesmen has been reduced, making it easier to boost growth in undeveloped tribal territories without also affecting the inherently low population capacity of said land.
Lastly, various sources of population growth have been slightly reduced to accommodate the new increases from civilization value.
What does this achieve?
Overall, there should be slightly less global growth in the average game, but still enough control to make long-term decisions valid, and for local factors to have much more of an impact on the fabric of the game.
These graphs show the 2.0 build prior to population changes, and post population changes. As you can see, the newer system (bottom) results in less total population over time, with a marginally nerfed warm period event being one of the main factors.
Games in 1.5 had a tendency to balloon in population density towards the endgame, due in part to the availability of inventions and modifiers affecting pop growth. With population now being intrinsically related to army sizes, we felt it was time to return to a more realistic* growth pattern that still allows the player to manipulate the world situation to their advantage.
Related to these changes, domestic migration has been slowed down slightly, and settlement production buildings (with the exception of the Legation) now reduce outward pop migration to almost 0 (unless there are extenuating circumstances such as occupation or overpopulation).
*The academic consensus appears to be that the usual global increase in population entered a bit of a plateau at around the time Imperator is set, to around the time it ends.
Research Efficiency
Somewhat tangentially to population changes, we’re also going to be gating the maximum research efficiency of nations. The base maximum research efficiency of nations will now begin at 125%. This value can be relatively easy to achieve for smaller nations, and should still offset technological advancement positively if focused upon, however, a great disparity in tech between larger empires and city-states was simply too easy to achieve.
We still want technology to be a valid choice in nation-building, however, and numerous nodes have been added to the invention tree, increasing the maximum research efficiency that a country can achieve - if you want to build a state as a shining beacon of technological advancement, this is entirely possible, but you’ll have to weigh up this decision against other valuable advancements.
With that, I’ll hand over to @Chopmist to take you through some of the map changes coming in 2.0!
[The eagle eyed among you also noticed the recurrence of the infamous ‘glowing borders’ bug in a recent screenshot. This has since been resolved.]
My part of today’s developer diary focuses on further changes coming to the population system in 2.0.
The changes to civilization value mentioned previously opened up further opportunities for a rethink on population growth. In 1.5 and before, cities were largely sustained by prolonged inwards migration. While this is not something I necessarily want to change, we’ll be splitting up where population growth comes from, with the dual intentions of letting cities stand their own ground when growing pops, and allowing for more engagement in how you promote growth in owned territory.
Firstly, base pop growth, and pop growth from stability have been reduced significantly.
Secondly, civilization value now contributes to population growth, simulating an increased growth rate in developed metropoles.
Thirdly, the population growth rate from stored food has been slightly reduced, however, the food consumption of tribesmen has been reduced, making it easier to boost growth in undeveloped tribal territories without also affecting the inherently low population capacity of said land.
Lastly, various sources of population growth have been slightly reduced to accommodate the new increases from civilization value.
What does this achieve?
Overall, there should be slightly less global growth in the average game, but still enough control to make long-term decisions valid, and for local factors to have much more of an impact on the fabric of the game.
These graphs show the 2.0 build prior to population changes, and post population changes. As you can see, the newer system (bottom) results in less total population over time, with a marginally nerfed warm period event being one of the main factors.
Games in 1.5 had a tendency to balloon in population density towards the endgame, due in part to the availability of inventions and modifiers affecting pop growth. With population now being intrinsically related to army sizes, we felt it was time to return to a more realistic* growth pattern that still allows the player to manipulate the world situation to their advantage.
Related to these changes, domestic migration has been slowed down slightly, and settlement production buildings (with the exception of the Legation) now reduce outward pop migration to almost 0 (unless there are extenuating circumstances such as occupation or overpopulation).
*The academic consensus appears to be that the usual global increase in population entered a bit of a plateau at around the time Imperator is set, to around the time it ends.
Research Efficiency
Somewhat tangentially to population changes, we’re also going to be gating the maximum research efficiency of nations. The base maximum research efficiency of nations will now begin at 125%. This value can be relatively easy to achieve for smaller nations, and should still offset technological advancement positively if focused upon, however, a great disparity in tech between larger empires and city-states was simply too easy to achieve.
We still want technology to be a valid choice in nation-building, however, and numerous nodes have been added to the invention tree, increasing the maximum research efficiency that a country can achieve - if you want to build a state as a shining beacon of technological advancement, this is entirely possible, but you’ll have to weigh up this decision against other valuable advancements.
With that, I’ll hand over to @Chopmist to take you through some of the map changes coming in 2.0!
[The eagle eyed among you also noticed the recurrence of the infamous ‘glowing borders’ bug in a recent screenshot. This has since been resolved.]
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