Megathread : Immigration In Victoria 2

[unmerged(9167)]

POP migrant

I had two ideas that could be easy to implement but one of them will be shoot down, so I will state that one the last. Both of them have to do with the migrant of people within the nation.

The first idea is that perhaps we could have two or three "flags" and we place them where we really want to attract immigrant. The flag is to simulate government incentive, selling of the lands to the settlers, sending prisoners there, advertising, and mouth of words. The example of this is Oklahamo when it was "opened" to the settlers. In Victoria I term, the "flag" should act as if it add +10 to the life rate in the eyes of migrant POP. Thus, it could fail to attract any migrants beyond few POP or at all, as in case of the failure of Germany to get its people to move to German colonies.

My second idea will be shot down but i wonder if you could perhaps have idea that would refine it so it would not potentially run foul of Paradox's rule? My second idea is forced POP movement, as the British did with her prisoners to Australia and French did with her prisoners to French Guiana. Something like Master of Orion 2 where you direct a unit of population to another planet. I think perhaps it should have 1/4 loss of the populace, to simulate the fact that forced movement often incur the loss of population in transit and costs money in effort to have this option only useful to player if the player really want to turn the colony into state. Unfortunately, I could see it being abused to wipe out the populace , thus it will be shot down. How could this idea of the forced movement be used realistic? Large amount of money? Increased militancy? What do you think?

Are those two ideas ok? Or are these unrealistic, even the flag ones? Is my second idea pointless?

 

[Talquin]

So add another option of social reforms. Immigration incentives.

 

[Being Earnest]

The first idea is that perhaps we could have two or three "flags" and we place them where we really want to attract immigrant.

If you really want this, it would be better implemented as a province decision.

 

[Rosevelts Ghost]

4) We should be able to enact rules favoring or not favoring certain kinds of immigrants (based on job, ethnicity, religion, etc... as in real life, Brazil for example favored White Catholic immigrants in the Imperial period, and white ones in the Republican period). I understand though that favoring based on ethnicity or religion may fall into anti-racism laws regardless of how realistic it would be, etc... so at least having an option to favor certain jobs will be good.

5) We should be able to set "open-doors" policies opening the country to any immigrants. Likewise we should be able to completely disallow any immigration or emmigration. Of course it won't completely prevent either in practice, but it has to have the effect of reducing it.

6) Immigrants shouldn't be assimilated so quickly (assimilation should be faster for people of similar culture, say Italian immigrants in Brazil) and they should generally keep their religions even when their ethnicity changes.

maybe such laws could be favored by certain political parties if they're in power.

 

[HMS Enterprize]

There perhaps should be bonuses for anti-immigration policies if you choose to enact them. In vicky 1 immigration is all important- there are no real downsides to it. Likewise if you choose to limit immigration there should be some incentive to do so...I dont know what at the mo...

 

[unmerged(9167)]

If you really want this, it would be better implemented as a province decision.

Not a bad idea. Only problem I see is that something like should be most effective if there is only one "flag" for migrants to come to and each flag added to other place (without removing the first flag) should make all of these flag less effective with limitation of numbers of flag based on ranking of the nation.

 

[Andrelvis]

There perhaps should be bonuses for anti-immigration policies if you choose to enact them. In vicky 1 immigration is all important- there are no real downsides to it. Likewise if you choose to limit immigration there should be some incentive to do so...I dont know what at the mo...

An example I can think of right now is that Romanian migration to Transylvania - becoming the majority in the region eventually - was prejudicial in international matters to Austria, because it gave Romania "claims" on Transylvania. An even better example would be Brazilian migration to Bolivian Acre, which resulted in a revolt of the Brazilian immigrants in the region, who wanted Acre to become part of Brazil (and subsequently Acre became part of Brazil).

So the advantage of immigration would be that it gives your country an economic boost (obviously, as more population means more labor to work in the RGOs and factories), but it may also cause political problems (increased militancy) if a non-assimilated minority is created in the region, especially if there is a neighboring country that has the minority's culture as state culture.

 

[FOARP]

Immigration should have high costs, the unpopular nature of immigrants, their lower literacy levels, the decrease in national unity as a result of having to incorporate them into the wider society, the radical politics which may have inspired them to leave their home country etc. should all be modelled.

 

[catz27]

"Free Market" solution

I have been doing some digging on how my ancestors came to the US (part Irish/part Italian) and the reasons why they ended up where they did.

Maybe there could be a quantitative factor calculated by the game engine that would approximate something like "average wage"? This could be a composite of several things such as infrastructure, empty factory employment spots, underutilized RGOs and local incentives.

A couple of points made me think about this approach:

1) When my Italian ancestors arrived in the US, they were greeted by assimilated Italian agents for various employers. These agents would try to convince the immigrants to move to a certain city to work in a certain industry. If the immigrant didn't already have family in a certain town (and, make no mistake, the Italian immigrants, like others, were very clannish and would follow earlier immigrants to wherever they ended up), they would take the best (often misleading or totally false) offer. That's how my family ended up in Pittsburgh in the steel industry. Others went to glassworks near Rochester, mines in West Virginia, etc. or just found work in the greater NY area. This movement could be driven by "average wage" as described above. Thus, building a few understaffed factories in Chicago would draw in both international and national immigrants as coastal RGOs and factories were oversupplied with labor and internal markets were desperate and paying premium rates. Costs also were higher on the coast, but that may be harder to model.

2) A lot of my Irish relatives worked on the railroads and, right after immigration, moved to wherever construction was occurring. Often, the relatives would settle in the area once the railroad was completed. Infrastructure takes a lot of manpower to improve and drew a lot of workers west from the coastal centers.

3) Local chambers of commerce, factories, governments offered all sorts of inducements to immigrants. Free train tickets, "guaranteed" contracts, free land. Perhaps this could be tied to a reduced tax rate (and tax income) for areas that are offering free land, etc. Most of these places would never have been settled (are are currently being depopulated out of existence) without these incentives.

I know this is modelled on a coarser basis by the existing system, but perhaps a more granular model would help internal migration?

Sorry for the wall of text!

Also, local government centers drew a reasonable number of white collar workers (clerks, lawyers, etc.) to developing areas. There were some pretty ugly fights over which cities became state capitals, county seats, etc., because this brought in a LOT of money in wages and provided a lot of decent patronage jobs.

 

[unmerged(9065)]

Use the History of the Period as a guiding hand

I think that when setting the base rules for immigration historic factors should carry more weight than current development. As I mentioned in the Map thread I find it frustrating that California has more provinces and more immigration than Texas when neither fact was true during the game period. Here’s a portion of my post from the other thread:

"Then there is the fact that California has more provinces than Texas. I realize hat is done so that California will get more immigrants than Texas based on the fact that, in Victoria, with all other factors being equal a pop will move into a state with more provinces. Thus California was provided with more provinces than Texas to encourage greater immigration to California. There is only one problem with that; California did not have more immigration than Texas. In 1920 the state of California had a population of 3,426,000 while Texas had a population of 4,723,000. Immigration did not favor California over Texas until after World War 2 and since that is a fact the game engine should reflect that."

I realize that many people buy off on the California Propaganda Industry (Hollywood) story that everyone always wanted to go to California, but that just isn’t the case. Throughout the 19th Century moving to California meant braving a boat ride all the way around South America or fighting across the entire North American Continent and putting up with the native attacks and bad infrastructure that was involved with such a move. Most of Cali’s immigration and emigration took place during the depression and then after WW2.

 

[Dark Knight]

I realize that many people buy off on the California Propaganda Industry (Hollywood) story that everyone always wanted to go to California, but that just isn’t the case. Throughout the 19th Century moving to California meant braving a boat ride all the way around South America or fighting across the entire North American Continent and putting up with the native attacks and bad infrastructure that was involved with such a move. Most of Cali’s immigration and emigration took place during the depression and then after WW2.

Though I agree with your post in general, the transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869, after which traveling to California from the eastern United States required neither suffering Indian attacks nor a voyage by sea (which in the 1850s and 1860s would likely have been to Panama's Caribbean coast and then from Panama's Pacific coast to California rather than around South America). As to the timing of California's immigration, already by 1930 the state had a population of 5.7 million, just very slightly behind Texas. In 1930, Texas and California were already the 5th and 6th most populous states, and California's population nearly quadrupled from 1900 to 1930.

 

[unmerged(9065)]

Though I agree with your post in general, the transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869, after which traveling to California from the eastern United States required neither suffering Indian attacks nor a voyage by sea (which in the 1850s and 1860s would likely have been to Panama's Caribbean coast and then from Panama's Pacific coast to California rather than around South America). As to the timing of California's immigration, already by 1930 the state had a population of 5.7 million, just very slightly behind Texas. In 1930, Texas and California were already the 5th and 6th most populous states, and California's population nearly quadrupled from 1900 to 1930.

Ah yes I forgot about the Panama shortcut that was used prior to the completion of the railroad and canal in Panama. I still contend that getting off of a boat in Galveston was easier than getting off a boat in New York and booking transcontinental passage (by whatever means) to California. The aforementioned statistics reflect the fact that most European immigrants preferred to settle east of the Rockies. California did catch Texas pretty quick between 1920 and 1930 and then grew even more in the following decades.

My issue is the fact that the population growth that California saw historically did not start until the 20th century and did not start in earnest until about the last 10 years of the games time-frame. If you play a game as the US, Texas or the CSA and manage to acquire and hold California in most games it will suck up the bulk of your immigration. It is the same issue with all the immigrants in Argentina going to that one western province; when one state has more people that the rest of the nation combined it just comes off as gamey to me.

 

[Dark Knight]

My issue is the fact that the population growth that California saw historically did not start until the 20th century and did not start in earnest until about the last 10 years of the games time-frame. If you play a game as the US, Texas or the CSA and manage to acquire and hold California in most games it will suck up the bulk of your immigration. It is the same issue with all the immigrants in Argentina going to that one western province; when one state has more people that the rest of the nation combined it just comes off as gamey to me.

California should receive a substantial amount of immigration in Victoria, it just shouldn't be to the exclusion of Texas and many other states. The 1890s and the Depression-era 1930s were the only decades of the Victoria period where California's population didn't increase at least 40%. 1870-1900 was the only period where Texas had faster rates of growth than California. It's true that going by absolute numbers, California's growth didn't surpass Texas' growth until the 1900s, but California, New York, and many other states should also have high net immigration.

 

[Orinsul]

If things are going right, if america is tearing itself to pieces immigrants should head off to new york simply because of some pre-placed arbitary value. Have migrant ports where immigrants would arrive in the country and from there be distrubuted though out the nation would be good.

Maybe this has already been discussed but migrants should move to places where their ilk is already established, in british colombia there was alot of finnish and swedish immgrants whereas very few from those places headed elsewhere. French immigrants more likely to head to french canada or the lousiana strip than new york or brazil. heavy chinese immigration but only to a few places. etc.

 

[HMS Enterprize]

The trouble with the POPs in vicky is that they have no real reason to move from the coastal magnet provinces.

If NYC for example was given a sort of space-worker-urban growth meter then if NYC gets a very large influx of immigrants that it realistically could not accomodate in a short amount of time then the POPs should move.

Basically, an system that encourages internal migration would be cool.


And again, Ive said it many times but just to refresh- no hard coded immigration! If the USA is tearing itself to pieces, POPs should not automatically still flock there!

 

[unmerged(71032)]

Other factors in immigrant destinations? POPs move to high life rating, rare goods provinces first. This is ok but in addition perhaps move to big ports/high infrastructure places also. I guess high life rating and large infrastructure goes hand in hand for the most cases but dies it always?

First of all, it should be all contained in single config setup, with weights easy to adjust for modders/devs.

Now, what exact factors should be taken into account?

1. Group A - leave chance factors.

- country at war (bigger war exhaustion and lower war score rises the chances),
- bad political/economical/social conditions for certain group - sort of "life rating", but accounting more aspects (weights!),
- mobility factor (adjusted with techs),
- "factor X" (external modifier that can be adjusted by decisions/events, "hardcoding" the mobility).

After (1) is resolved (POP x decided to lose X% of it's size to migration - see my comments in other threads on suggested, uniformed POP sizes/states), we go to...

2. Group B - target province

- internal/extrenal migration (internal one is more probable if economical factors were dominant in (1), external one - when other factors dominated (1)),
- migration "range" - depends on world/country techs and POPs combined mobility factor (depending on their cash, class, culture group and such),
- after dealing with 2 first elements, province that fits the best reasons for migration is chosen,
- in low X% cases (where X is moddable as well), migration goes not to the best province, but the one close to it in quality/location. Not always migration is logical and reasonable - it also adds some random factor to migration, leading to further movements.

Check for migration is made, let's say every X months in game.

It ends up with monster of a system ofc, but with open customization options and enough time spent on fine tunning whole thing it should end up in very good solution.

By high customization I mean for example ability to program cultural groups of player choice to have lower mobility then others - or make it dependable more on techs, war effects, political/economical situation and such. This way it would be able to "hardcode" certain situations if needed, while using generic migration rules for mayority of cases.

 

[unity100]

I think that immigrants should go to states/provinces which aren't necessarily LARGER, the way they were in the original game, but rather which match their ideology and/or religion well, and which have the most accepting attitude toward foreigners.

but economy should also be playing an important role. ie, if labor is in high demand, it should weigh as a strong factor.

 

[unmerged(9065)]

California should receive a substantial amount of immigration in Victoria, it just shouldn't be to the exclusion of Texas and many other states. The 1890s and the Depression-era 1930s were the only decades of the Victoria period where California's population didn't increase at least 40%. 1870-1900 was the only period where Texas had faster rates of growth than California. It's true that going by absolute numbers, California's growth didn't surpass Texas' growth until the 1900s, but California, New York, and many other states should also have high net immigration.

Don’t take this as a hit on California because I realize that both California and Texas had their fair share of growth during the game period. In fact using figures from 1850 till 1930 California had a slight edge. Since there are no good population figures for California in 1835 we’ll start with the 1840 estimate provided by Hubert Howe Bancroft in “History of California”. We’ll start with those numbers, look at the 1850 numbers for both and go through till 1930, when the last full census of the game period was conducted.


1835 Texas : 33,500 California: 14,500 (1840 estimate)
1850 Texas: 212,592 California: 92,597
1930 Texas : 5,824,715 California: 5,677,764

So from 1835/1840 until 1930 Texas grew 99.4% and California grew 99.7%, but if we use 1850 as the start point California has the edge with 98% to Texas’ 96%.

Look my point has been that there are many states that experienced radical population growth in the 19th Century and the game does not reflect that; California gets most of the growth. In most games I’ve played as the USA, Texas or the CSA by the end of the game California has over 50% and in many cases over 75% of the entire national population. In one recent game as Texas I had a national population of 105,000,000 in 1920 and 95,000,000 of my pops were in California with about 4,500,000 pops in Texas. In other words in my game California had a population that was over 21 times larger than the population of Texas. As a historical fact in 1920 the US had a national population of 106,021,537 (comparable to the 105 Million Texans in my game) while Texas had a population of 4,663,228 and California had a population of 3,426,861. So in real life California was 27% smaller than Texas and represented about 3.2% of the total US population.

That’s only one example and ignores the fact that the game models Eastern population centers like New York and Pennsylvania smaller than they should be and we won’t even talk about Alaska the overpowered population growth it experiences in many games. The point is the immigration model needs to be fixed to reflect more factors than it currently does. I also think the idea of flagging provinces for population growth that Zhai mentioned was a good idea. That way if an individual wants to go crazy in targeting their population growth they can.

 

[Dark Knight]

That’s only one example and ignores the fact that the game models Eastern population centers like New York and Pennsylvania smaller than they should be and we won’t even talk about Alaska the overpowered population growth it experiences in many games. The point is the immigration model needs to be fixed to reflect more factors than it currently does. I also think the idea of flagging provinces for population growth that Zhai mentioned was a good idea. That way if an individual wants to go crazy in targeting their population growth they can.

Yes, the immigration model needs to 1) disperse immigrants appropriately rather than gather grossly inflated numbers of immigrants in a single state and 2) take some account of realistic constraints on the capacity of states to absorb immigrants (e.g. Alaska).

But it would be nearly as bad for immigrants to, and in-migrants within, the United States to congregate in Texas as it is for them to congregate in California. The two states had roughly the same level of attractiveness for migrants in the period covered by Victoria.

 

[ArneHD]

Perhaps you could have different kinds of migration? My idea involves three:

Economic: The most common kind of migrant, they go to where the money is and ignore most other factors.

The oppressed: Non-accepted cultures and POPs in nations that are dictatorships or monarchies will migrate out of the native nation and to a freer one.

Ideological: These migrants will settle in places that contain larger numbers of their own; groups like the Mormons are represented in this way.