Migration needs some work

[ScaleZenzi]

Currently, intermarket migration feels basically nonexistent, aside from the occasional mass migration event (which sends a lot less people now and only seems to happen lategame). On top of this, discriminated pops seem to refuse to migrate to markets they'd be discriminated in, even when that market has no migration controls. This means that historical migrations, like Chinese immigration to the American west coast, basically doesn't occur unless if you pass multiculturalism and get China in your market (which obviously didn't happen IRL). Overall migration between markets definitely needs to be increased, as a new-world nation you can basically only get immigration either by stealing other new-world nation's pops, or just joining Russia's market (they're the nation that typically gives the most immigrants consistently)

The migration mapmode is also weird. It counterintuitively doesn't actually show whether migration is happening, and instead just shows the migration attraction. Thus, even though all of Asia might look red on the migration mapmode, none of the pops are actually moving anywhere since they don't leave their markets.

Overall, I think:
- Intermarket migration needs to be increased a ton
- The migration mapmode should be split into two, one for migration attraction and another for which states are actually sending/receiving immigrants.

 

[Panagean]

Agreed - and migration is in principle such a cool dynamic!

I've been playing a megacampaign in V2 HPM recently and just laughing at seeing Gaza or Southern Greenland or whatever be colonised by people from Northern China (because of my earlier shenanigans) is so much fun that it has me pausing the game for ten minutes every session just to find the most amusing edge-cases.

 

[FranklyJustNess]

I feel like there should be an extra level for migration, if it's a country you are trading with. It feels very odd, that unless you share a market, your ally is just as likely to have their pops migrate to you, as nation in the middle of Africa, provided you don't discriminate these pops. This still would be an abstraction, but one that doesn't hugely cause more calculations and that helps a bit make it more reasonable.

 

[SacremPyrobolum]

I'm sure there's a way to get discriminated pops to move in your market by just editing a file somewhere. Anyone know where it could be?

 

[ButcherOfTorfan]

If migration is ever improved, I'd give this game another shot. I remember when I first picked it up, I tried playing as an independent California. I had the highest "migration attraction" in the world, and I was apparently in the middle of a gold rush, and precisely zero migrants turned up.

 

[Hansatron]

I wouldn’t mind if the Devs put their finger on the scale a bit and made migration to the new world something the euro majors really have to work to prevent, rather than right now where the US needs to surge above europe in SoL mid/late game to turn the tap on.

And just in general for a lot of those new world states - starting with real 1836 population but no migration just cripples them.

 

[Stelaria]

I wouldn’t mind if the Devs put their finger on the scale a bit and made migration to the new world something the euro majors really have to work to prevent, rather than right now where the US needs to surge above europe in SoL mid/late game to turn the tap on.

And just in general for a lot of those new world states - starting with real 1836 population but no migration just cripples them.

I don't think there's any need to put a finger on the scale and script it. Modeling land value would do a lot of the work on its own, I think.

 

[Ispil]

To my awareness (unless the wiki is mistaken), that "mass-migration event" is the only form of intermarket migration in the game. It feels nonexistent, because it is nonexistent.

Frankly, the whole "mass migration" system should be scrapped. Have two immigration laws: who can migrate, and to/from where. Who can migrate is discriminated/not discriminated pops, and where is closed borders/internal/customs union/anywhere. A "mass migration" event can be an indicator that a large migration event is occurring, not the actual trigger itself. That is to say, the event should be triggered by mass migration triggered by usual migration forces that already exist (with the above changes) as a way of notifying that it's happening, rather than a thing that goes off in a turbulent state to instigate migration to some random state in a non-discriminating accepting-immigration country.

 

[Life is Comedy]

To my awareness (unless the wiki is mistaken), that "mass-migration event" is the only form of intermarket migration in the game. It feels nonexistent, because it is nonexistent.

Frankly, the whole "mass migration" system should be scrapped. Have two immigration laws: who can migrate, and to/from where. Who can migrate is discriminated/not discriminated pops, and where is closed borders/internal/customs union/anywhere. A "mass migration" event can be an indicator that a large migration event is occurring, not the actual trigger itself. That is to say, the event should be triggered by mass migration triggered by usual migration forces that already exist (with the above changes) as a way of notifying that it's happening, rather than a thing that goes off in a turbulent state to instigate migration to some random state in a non-discriminating accepting-immigration country.

Mass migration do exist. They become more and more common the more you enter mid-late game.
My main gripe with them is that they seems to favour SOL a lot instead of unemployement of target. I found miself often in weird situation of having between 5-10% unemployement because of high workforce percentage (and also wanting to play semi realisticly by doing at least some automation), having continous emigration on south american market countries, but still beeing targeted by mass migrations (of course multiculturalism law, but with State religion).
(I sound to much like IRL European Forteress Europe...)

Some more fine tuning of the migration laws is needed thought.