Is Spain no longer the 8th Great Power after the Ottomans?

[Alfred Dreyfus]

I do think it make sense if Spain is not a great power at game start anymore, regardless if it is rank 8 or not, but the screenshot itself doesn't mean much.

Spain should have the same status as Ottomans and the USA. Not the same status as Belgium, Denmark or Portugal.

In 1836 Spain had a lot more population than USA, and a lot more GDP and literacy than the Ottoman Empire. The gap between these 3 countries was smaller than the gap they had with the other superior GP (UK, France, Russia, Prussia and Austria).

In 1836 Spain, Ottomans and USA are more or less the same tier. Another question is if these three should be put inside the same group as the big 5 (UK, France, Russia, Prussia and Austria).

I have the feeling Spain is getting very mistreated. I hope these gets balanced.

 

[Antediluvian Monster]

In 1836 Spain had a lot more population than USA, and a lot more GDP and literacy than the Ottoman Empire. The gap between these 3 countries was smaller than the gap they had with the other superior GP (UK, France, Russia, Prussia and Austria).

Is that with Philippines? Because otherwise it looks USA has couple of million more. Per Maddison 15,753,000 for USA, 13,571,000 for Spain in 1836 (it would seem Spain has way too few people based on that screenshot, which might be why they are 9th... or never mind that part was the GDP rather than population).

 

[Rubidium]

Yeah, Spain in particular may be affected by making colonial holdings into colonial subjects (and thus not counting for certain purposes).

 

[Muezzinzade]

Spain should have the same status as Ottomans and the USA. Not the same status as Belgium, Denmark or Portugal.

In 1836 Spain had a lot more population than USA, and a lot more GDP and literacy than the Ottoman Empire. The gap between these 3 countries was smaller than the gap they had with the other superior GP (UK, France, Russia, Prussia and Austria).

In 1836 Spain, Ottomans and USA are more or less the same tier. Another question is if these three should be put inside the same group as the big 5 (UK, France, Russia, Prussia and Austria).

I have the feeling Spain is getting very mistreated. I hope these gets balanced.

And what is Your source for the info that Spain had lot more GDP than Ottomans? In vic2 they have 16 milion, minus Philippines for vic3 would make perhaps 13. Ottomans have 21, it's more than 50% more. Plus they had much bigger cities as Istanbul was still one of the biggest cities in the world (possibly bigger percentage of urban population overally?), possibly better opportunities for trade and I doubt Spanish standard of living was so much higher than for Ottoman Empire to make up for these.

Btw I have a feeling that those statistics that we see are a little messed up anyway and literacy and population can't be used to count GDP properly. Persia has very weird big literacy (17%, I wonder why, should be less than half of it) and population close to Egyptian, while it's GDP is less than half of Egyptian one, while Egyptian literacy is less than 7%. Ottomans have literacy and standard of living almost double the size of Egyptian, and population almost triple the size of Egyptian, yet their GDP is less than twice as big.

 

[JKComposer]

And what is Your source for the info that Spain had lot more GDP than Ottomans? In vic2 they have 16 milion, minus Philippines for vic3 would make perhaps 13. Ottomans have 21, it's more than 50% more. Plus they had much bigger cities as Istanbul was still one of the biggest cities in the world (possibly bigger percentage of urban population overally?), possibly better opportunities for trade and I doubt Spanish standard of living was so much higher than for Ottoman Empire to make up for these.
Btw I have a feeling that those statistics that we see are a little messed up anyway and literacy and population can't be used to count GDP properly. Persia has very weird big literacy (17%, I wonder why, should be less than half of it) and population close to Egyptian, while it's GDP is less than half of Egyptian one, while Egyptian literacy is less than 7%. Ottomans have literacy and standard of living almost double the size of Egyptian, and population almost triple the size of Egyptian, yet their GDP is less than twice as big.

Based on historical estimates (Maddison Project) Spain should have about 55% larger GDP than the Ottomans if we exclude Egypt and the Levant (owned by Egypt at game start). Including Egypt in the calculation, Spain would have about a 15% larger GDP than the Ottomans. Either way, Spain's GDP should be significantly larger than the Ottomans.

Source: https://www.rug.nl/ggdc/historicaldevelopment/maddison/releases/maddison-project-database-2020

Edit: Redid the numbers, and it's probably closer to 30-40% larger than the Ottomans and roughly equal including Egypt. Still significantly larger in 1836.

 

[Muezzinzade]

Based on historical estimates (Maddison Project) Spain should have about 55% larger GDP than the Ottomans if we exclude Egypt and the Levant (owned by Egypt at game start). Including Egypt in the calculation, Spain would have about a 15% larger GDP than the Ottomans. Either way, Spain's GDP should be significantly larger than the Ottomans.

Nice estimates. Could You link? - I know Maddison Project but I haven't seen any such estimates for Ottomans, only European countries and China, India, Japan... Anyway it's hard to believe that devs would make such a big mistake. Why? Maybe it's not a mistake but result of some event, idk much about Spain but isn't maybe some rebellion going on there at that time?

 

[JKComposer]

Nice estimates. Could You link? - I know Maddison Project but I haven't seen any such estimates for Ottomans, only European countries and China, India, Japan... Anyway it's hard to believe that devs would make such a big mistake. Why? Maybe it's not a mistake but result of some event, idk much about Spain but isn't maybe some rebellion going on there at that time?

Yes, they don't do calculations themselves for the entirety of the Ottoman Empire, however by combining the GDP of all countries that were a part of the Ottoman Empire at the time and had data on them (and for countries that were partially a part of the Ottoman Empire such as Greece I just divided the GDP relative to the population of the Ottoman controlled parts), and also making some rough extrapolation based on the GDP trends for the countries where the data didn't cover the 1830's but did at least reach as far back as the 1870's, you can get some decent enough results. The numbers for the Ottomans might be a bit lower than they actually were (a couple of percent or so), but the general idea should be decently accurate.

Either way, it could just be that the numbers are a work in progress, or it could have something to do with the Carlist wars impacting the GDP numbers. We'll see.

 

[Muezzinzade]

Yes, they don't do calculations themselves for the entirety of the Ottoman Empire, however by combining the GDP of all countries that were a part of the Ottoman Empire at the time and had data on them (and for countries that were partially a part of the Ottoman Empire such as Greece I just divided the GDP relative to the population of the Ottoman controlled parts), and also making some rough extrapolation based on the GDP trends for the countries where the data didn't cover the 1830's but did at least reach as far back as the 1870's, you can get some decent enough results. The numbers for the Ottomans might be a bit lower than they actually were (a couple of percent or so), but the general idea should be decently accurate.

Either way, it could just be that the numbers are a work in progress, or it could have something to do with the Carlist wars impacting the GDP numbers. We'll see.

I see... That's quite hard to make such exact estimate based on those. When we look at wikipedia article which is also using Maddison, we will see for 1880 that actual Spain has 28k and Ottomans have 18k which is after loss of Bulgaria, Bosnia, parts of Serbia and Greece, as well as Kars and Cyprus (together with those countries would be closer to 25, almost equal), and years of war, bankruptcy, rebellions and crysis. I would argue that Spain's advantage isn't as big as 55%, but these sources convince me that indeed should be at least a little bigger.

 

[JKComposer]

I see... That's quite hard to make such exact estimate based on those. When we look at wikipedia article which is also using Maddison, we will see for 1880 that actual Spain has 28k and Ottomans have 18k which is after loss of Bulgaria, Bosnia, parts of Serbia and Greece, as well as Kars and Cyprus (together with those countries would be closer to 25, almost equal), and years of war, bankruptcy, rebellions and crysis. I would argue that Spain's advantage isn't as big as 55%, but these sources convince me that indeed should be at least a little bigger.

Fair, I probably should have said 35-60% or similar. I'm sometimes not great at emphasising uncertainty even when I intend to.

Though, remember that Spain too had undergone plenty of costly wars (the 3 Carlist Wars, Cantonal Rebellion, highly expensive colonial wars such as the Ten Years' War, and over a dozen attempted coup d'etats, several of which successful) and decades of general stagnation (if not nearly as severe as for the Ottomans), and that the Ottomans had regained the Levant (Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine) and Hejaz (and Egypt, but Egypt is for some reason listed under the British Empire in the article you linked, despite not being invaded by the British until 1882) in 1880 which would mostly make up for the parts they'd lost in the Balkans they'd lost by 1880 (they still held most of Greece) compared to 1836. Just looking at population, the population of the Levant, Hejaz and other territories gained was combined roughly 4 million in 1880, whilst the population of the territories lost between 1836 and 1880 in the Balkans was at most 4.5 million, probably significantly less (and the GDP per capita was roughly the same in the Levant as in the Balkans, in some places even higher. For example, Syria=1403, compared to Bulgaria=1339. Only part of the Balkans significantly richer than the southern Ottoman Wilayats was Greece at around 2000, but the border changes between 1836 and 1880 in Greece were fairly insignificant with at most a couple hundred thousand inhabitants).

The relative difference between the Spanish and Ottoman GDP in 1880 was probably not really that different than in 1836 (even if the state was in a worse situation in general).

 

[JKComposer]

I see... That's quite hard to make such exact estimate based on those. When we look at wikipedia article which is also using Maddison, we will see for 1880 that actual Spain has 28k and Ottomans have 18k which is after loss of Bulgaria, Bosnia, parts of Serbia and Greece, as well as Kars and Cyprus (together with those countries would be closer to 25, almost equal), and years of war, bankruptcy, rebellions and crysis. I would argue that Spain's advantage isn't as big as 55%, but these sources convince me that indeed should be at least a little bigger.

I redid the numbers thrice more and ended up with closer to 30-35% advantage for Spain in 1836, and roughly equal (if not a bit bigger than Spain) when including Egypt. Not sure where the discrepancy lies compared to my old numbers, but I believe these numbers are more accurate, and that your hunch was largely correct. Either way, still means the Spanish GDP in the Victoria 3 screenshot is less than half of what it should be.

 

[Alfred Dreyfus]

1840 population map of Europe

 

[Alfred Dreyfus]

Is that with Philippines? Because otherwise it looks USA has couple of million more. Per Maddison 15,753,000 for USA, 13,571,000 for Spain in 1836 (it would seem Spain has way too few people based on that screenshot, which might be why they are 9th... or never mind that part was the GDP rather than population).

With Philippines. Without Philippines Spain and USA have a similar population in 1836.

 

[Te. Kenzo]

The young, not yet fully recognized, Belgium can't be a GP in 1836. Having industries doesn't mean your name and your acts can be projected on what happen in the global scene.

 

[MinhowMinhow]

China was the 1st on GDP before industrial revolution, now it defines how important a nation is, so it takes a GP slot now, downgrading Spain.

 

[CharlieFox]

It's also possible the Carlist War may be messing with things as well. We don't know how warfare/occupations work, but (especially if they go for an Imperator-esque "form a rebel faction with control of its own territory" approach rather than a "random stacks of rebels rise up" approach like in Victoria II), it's possible that significant chunks of Spain could be under Carlist control at that point and thus not providing income to the central government (notably, the menu blocks our view of much of the eastern part of Spain)

It shouldn't be the case at game start. As far as I remember Carlist mostly had control in some rural areas but major cities and economic centers were controlled by the government. Of course maybe the AI messed up and had major loses of territories to the rebels.

 

[Xaelyn]

China was the 1st on GDP before industrial revolution, now it defines how important a nation is, so it takes a GP slot now, downgrading Spain.

It's not the only factor, and china is 'unrecognized' which presumably prevents them from counting among the great powers.

 

[MinhowMinhow]

It's not the only factor, and china is 'unrecognized' which presumably prevents them from counting among the great powers.

Oh, there is this factor, well better wait for more information then.

 

[Earmuffs]

You guys forget that this is a Paradox game. Sweden will be a great power.

 

[Darsara]

Uruguay has taken it's place. It might not be the glorious Free Imperial City of Ulm, but it's small and starts with a U, and that's got to mean something. Also, Uruguay declared independence 16 years after Ulm was annexed to Württemberg, which happened 6 years after it was first transferred to Bavaria, while in Vic 2 Uruguay starts with 66% Liberal in the Upper House and a research point rate of 5.99, (which rounds to 6) and 10% literacy! I think you can see where this is going. I suppose there's also the fact that it's a ex-Spanish colony might be worth something too.

 

[Jamaican Castle]

You guys forget that this is a Paradox game. Sweden will be a great power.

The Lion of the North rides again!