Sorry, RoboCzar, going into details about game balancing is something I cannot comment on; I can only comment on things that are obvious or can be deduced from the released game or has already been covered by a developer. I apologize if my earlier comments led you on to believe I could and I realize this may be a bit frustrating but those are the rules, so please don't fish.
That the game mechanics are set up such that aristocrats are set up to become larger in number than capitalists is something I can comment on, however. This is clearly intended design and has been mentioned several times, including, I believe, in the manual. Capitalists are designed to be the most valuable and rare POP type in existence.
It follows that the game mechanics are set up in such a way that this will happen.
Now, some
players may think that
how this happens is of vital importance and may choke on implementation methods (what? capitalists eat 348,234,484 loaves of bread per day? That can't be right!!!!), but from a design point of view the really important thing is that the game mechanics end up delivering the intended result rather than the exact way you achieve it. Having it happen in a nice way is merely a very nice bonus and, while it is certainly something to strive for, it is not a major goal on its own account.
As such, a good solid bet is that the values that have been chosen to manipulate POPs in one way or another are always that way in order to achieve one or more specific goals given the workings of the game's economy.
But you almost certainly already know this.
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I can say that I don't have any problems filling my manufactories in the long run in my core industrial states. I tend to have a handful of states - I choose those with highest population that are also easily defended (MP reflex) - that I build up as my industrial centres. They are the ones that get NF Craftsmen for years and decades on end and where the vast majority of my industry goes on. THESE factories tend to grow very large over time if the populace can support it.
...I tend to use my NFs almost exclusively for Craftsmen in the absence of a higher priority like colonising or clergy (for research early on or if the percentage slips later on). I don't use NF for Clerks as I get enough clerks in the long run from running succesful manufactories with lots and lots of craftsmen. I also put an extremely high priority on researching my way down to Nationalism and Imperialism as fast as I can for the extra NFs and the many other boosts on the way. That's just my playstyle and yours might rightfully differ, but the game definitely rewards building up a few strong industrial states and internal migration of craftsmen helps smoothe things out.
In other states I build one manufactory (if State Capitalism) or let others do it for me (Interventionism, Laissez-Faire). THESE factories can take decades to fill even a single level 1 if the states are small (100-300k total state pop). If I am running SC, I typically make most of these small manufactories cement manufactories because cement is nearly always in demand, but their most important task is, unlike my industrial centre, not to become big and mighty - it is to avoid unemployment in the state.
As an example, you can check my top manufactories in 1890 from the end of my Japanese beta AAR in
this post. I may not have filled all of the manufactories completely in my industrial centre, but that was only because I was continously expanding to accommodate my growing force of workers (of both types).
LF is currently the worst government (or the most frustrating, rather) due to the capitalists being bad at predicting what to build. Under some circumstances they are good enough, but too often they end up in a death spiral. As King has said on the forum, there's a fix to that upcoming in 1.2
The game balance has changed significantly since my Japan testgame - a less generous economy in general, but on the other hand no horrible demotion to soldier POPs due to lack of fruit early in the game either. (And I can say these things because I already said them in the AAR and got the OK to publish it). This was done with a nation that is rich in natural resources but starts out uncivilized and with fewer techs. The size of the factories must, of course, be seen in comparison with the total population - all five of those states are huge compared to many European states - but looking at it from a percentage basis I ended up with 2.8% craftsmen in a population where almost half of the population lived in colonial states that can't build manufactories and generate few craftsmen, so figure around 5.6% craftsmen out of the population that can become it, which is a very reasonable percentage, from a starting position that is much worse than what you have as most civilized states.
It is also one of the primary reasons that I cannot help but feel that
some of the issues you people are having currently and some of the doom and gloom statements are highly influenced by your inexperience with the game and that, say, a week from now, you'll mostly have a
different set of problems.
...Errr, except for rebels. People ALWAYS complain about rebels in Paradox games and they've done so since EU1. The moment there are no more complaints about rebels I'll assume Paradox has gone bankrupt. But I digress.
That doesn't mean I don't agree that the game needs more balancing work; I do mean that and I said so in my internal beta review of the game that Johan published in this forum a few days ago, just that in some aspects it probably isn't as dire as those of you who are alarmed think right now.
...For one thing, the economy needs to be tweaked to be significantly harder, rebels need to once again be made a major threat to human players [I laugh at your puny mass rebellion screenshots! Hah!], the AI should preferably be improved to challenge players more (though thankfully the army AI is adequate and better than most other games, the strategic in general could stand some improvement), and AI restrictions that favour ungrateful players should be removed, and that's just for starters!
OOoookay, I'll shut up now.
