By reading the developer diary and their comments, one finds that in V3 there are going to be two ways in which a country is able to maintain roads.
Maintaining roads in the first normal way (without using Authority, that is) will presumably require manpower (perhaps bureaucrat pops) working on them, materials and wages for the workers.
The other way of maintaining roads by using Authority has been described by some as a corvée system (unpaid labour). By the same logic then, maintaining roads should require manpower (in this case farmers or other workers not employed by the government as regular employees), materials (paid for by either the government, aristocrats or the peasantry) but NOT wages for the workers as in this case they perform unpaid labour. Also depending on the level of unpaid labour (whether it's too much time consuming or not) and because this other system of maintaining roads uses farmers instead of specialised government workers, said farmers would have less time working in the fields and therefore the overall production output of crops would be slightly decreased.
However, is this how it's going to work in the game? Read the following quote by a developer:
An interpretation of the above quote suggests that there are two systems in which you can maintain roads, in the first manpower, wages, infrastructure and materials are taken into consideration and in the other system only "Authority" is taken into consideration. In other words an authoritarian government will maintain the roads by simply being authoritarian.
Now of course it could be that maintaining roads with Authority will indeed require manpower, infrastructure and materials, and that what the developer said ("doesn't cost the government anything other than the Authority") is simply a miscommunication or a mistake. I would greatly appreciate it if the developers clarified this small but highly important point.
Nevertheless if maintaining the roads with Authority simply costs the government 200 Authority points then I would like to know people's opinions on this system. Are you supportive of the idea that a government may maintain their roads not with the use of manpower, wages, infrastructure and materials but with X number of Authority points? If yes why? Considering that there already is a system for maintaining roads that utilises manpower, wages, infrastructure and materials, why does there need to be another second system that only uses X number of Authority points?
Of course all this raises an important question: where does this Authority come from?
From the limited information that we have it appears to come from (but not limited to) a Base Value, the fact that the government is oligarchical (+200 from Oligarchy) and the fact that the government is limiting free speech (+100 from Freedom of Conscience and +50 from Right of Assembly).
First, let's clear out something. How do leaders of countries maintain their legitimacy and enforce their will? Mainly by the interest groups and institutions (that are comprised by said groups) that support them and by how powerful these interest groups are. They could be the nobility, the Church, the military, the academia, the burghers. In fact Interest Groups already exist in V3, which is very good. And these interest groups support the leaders for various reasons with one of them being that they get privileges from their leaders. The aristocracy could get more autonomy on how they handle matters in their estates, the industrialists might benefit from high tariffs protecting their factories from competition and so on. Leaders also maintain their legitimacy and power though laws. But then again the interest groups enforce and follow these laws and at any point if they feel powerful enough can chose to ignore said laws. The number of interest groups a leader might need to maintain his legitimacy and power may be large or small. It depends on the power and influence of said groups as well as their relative power and influence to other interest groups that oppose the current leader of the country.
Now that we got that out of the way, let's continue.
My suggestion is that what determines what an authoritarian leader is able to do shouldn't be "+200 Authority from Oligarchy". It should be determined by the support they have from various Interest Groups. An authoritarian leader should be able to pass Consumption Taxes on Liquor because he has the support of the Clergy Interest Group which itself supports teetotalism and not because he managed to have an excess of Authority points because the government censors newspapers. The fact that the newspapers get censored shouldn't give +100 Authority points but instead lower the pop's consciousness and their political awareness.
A country should be able to maintain the roads with unpaid labour not because they have enough Authority points, but because the aristocracy supports such a measure as they benefit from unpaid labour as well and they consider it their ancient right.
A country should be able to suppress political dissidents not because they have enough Authority points but because the Interest Groups that support the government, hold social and moral values that consider persecution of political dissidents acceptable or at least tolerable.
As you can see in the aforementioned examples everything is connected and linked with pops. Everything (or at least most things) should be connected with pops, their loyalty, their radicalism, their needs, their wealth, their economic interests, their social interests, their ideologies, their religions, their beliefs, their cultural and social values, the Interest Groups they form, the institutions they create, the laws they enforce and follow.
Are Base Value, Oligarchy, National Supremacy, Freedom of Conscience and Right of Assembly as well as the various decrees that a government may enact with Authority such as Road Maintenance and Consumption Taxes and in general the entire system of Authority, all connected and linked with pops? It seems not entirely, but of course we probably need further clarifications from the developers again.
And if Victoria 3 does indeed take into consideration pops when increasing Authority points (such as +200 from Oligarchy) and when enacting decrees which consequently decrease Authority points (such as Maintaining Roads) and I am simply wrong for assuming V3 won't do that, one might ask: then why does the Authority Capacity system even exist?
Maintaining roads in the first normal way (without using Authority, that is) will presumably require manpower (perhaps bureaucrat pops) working on them, materials and wages for the workers.
The other way of maintaining roads by using Authority has been described by some as a corvée system (unpaid labour). By the same logic then, maintaining roads should require manpower (in this case farmers or other workers not employed by the government as regular employees), materials (paid for by either the government, aristocrats or the peasantry) but NOT wages for the workers as in this case they perform unpaid labour. Also depending on the level of unpaid labour (whether it's too much time consuming or not) and because this other system of maintaining roads uses farmers instead of specialised government workers, said farmers would have less time working in the fields and therefore the overall production output of crops would be slightly decreased.
However, is this how it's going to work in the game? Read the following quote by a developer:
The reason why Road Maintenance uses Authority is because it's a decree (one of many different types) issued in a state to its population, and doesn't cost the government anything other than the Authority to ensure its people are following its directives. This is a pretty early-game solution to maintaining a good market connections in a few states at a time, more effective means of leveraging your economy to ensure cohesion between your states tend to emerge later in the game, freeing your Authority up for other things like suppressing your political opponents (or, you know, granting your people more rights, if that's how you want to go about it.)
An interpretation of the above quote suggests that there are two systems in which you can maintain roads, in the first manpower, wages, infrastructure and materials are taken into consideration and in the other system only "Authority" is taken into consideration. In other words an authoritarian government will maintain the roads by simply being authoritarian.
Now of course it could be that maintaining roads with Authority will indeed require manpower, infrastructure and materials, and that what the developer said ("doesn't cost the government anything other than the Authority") is simply a miscommunication or a mistake. I would greatly appreciate it if the developers clarified this small but highly important point.
Nevertheless if maintaining the roads with Authority simply costs the government 200 Authority points then I would like to know people's opinions on this system. Are you supportive of the idea that a government may maintain their roads not with the use of manpower, wages, infrastructure and materials but with X number of Authority points? If yes why? Considering that there already is a system for maintaining roads that utilises manpower, wages, infrastructure and materials, why does there need to be another second system that only uses X number of Authority points?
Of course all this raises an important question: where does this Authority come from?
From the limited information that we have it appears to come from (but not limited to) a Base Value, the fact that the government is oligarchical (+200 from Oligarchy) and the fact that the government is limiting free speech (+100 from Freedom of Conscience and +50 from Right of Assembly).
First, let's clear out something. How do leaders of countries maintain their legitimacy and enforce their will? Mainly by the interest groups and institutions (that are comprised by said groups) that support them and by how powerful these interest groups are. They could be the nobility, the Church, the military, the academia, the burghers. In fact Interest Groups already exist in V3, which is very good. And these interest groups support the leaders for various reasons with one of them being that they get privileges from their leaders. The aristocracy could get more autonomy on how they handle matters in their estates, the industrialists might benefit from high tariffs protecting their factories from competition and so on. Leaders also maintain their legitimacy and power though laws. But then again the interest groups enforce and follow these laws and at any point if they feel powerful enough can chose to ignore said laws. The number of interest groups a leader might need to maintain his legitimacy and power may be large or small. It depends on the power and influence of said groups as well as their relative power and influence to other interest groups that oppose the current leader of the country.
Now that we got that out of the way, let's continue.
My suggestion is that what determines what an authoritarian leader is able to do shouldn't be "+200 Authority from Oligarchy". It should be determined by the support they have from various Interest Groups. An authoritarian leader should be able to pass Consumption Taxes on Liquor because he has the support of the Clergy Interest Group which itself supports teetotalism and not because he managed to have an excess of Authority points because the government censors newspapers. The fact that the newspapers get censored shouldn't give +100 Authority points but instead lower the pop's consciousness and their political awareness.
A country should be able to maintain the roads with unpaid labour not because they have enough Authority points, but because the aristocracy supports such a measure as they benefit from unpaid labour as well and they consider it their ancient right.
A country should be able to suppress political dissidents not because they have enough Authority points but because the Interest Groups that support the government, hold social and moral values that consider persecution of political dissidents acceptable or at least tolerable.
As you can see in the aforementioned examples everything is connected and linked with pops. Everything (or at least most things) should be connected with pops, their loyalty, their radicalism, their needs, their wealth, their economic interests, their social interests, their ideologies, their religions, their beliefs, their cultural and social values, the Interest Groups they form, the institutions they create, the laws they enforce and follow.
Are Base Value, Oligarchy, National Supremacy, Freedom of Conscience and Right of Assembly as well as the various decrees that a government may enact with Authority such as Road Maintenance and Consumption Taxes and in general the entire system of Authority, all connected and linked with pops? It seems not entirely, but of course we probably need further clarifications from the developers again.
And if Victoria 3 does indeed take into consideration pops when increasing Authority points (such as +200 from Oligarchy) and when enacting decrees which consequently decrease Authority points (such as Maintaining Roads) and I am simply wrong for assuming V3 won't do that, one might ask: then why does the Authority Capacity system even exist?
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