PARADOX WHY ohh WHYY?

[Wizzington]

The population stat filled no meaningful gameplay function in EU3 and we did not have a role for it in EU4 that warranted keeping and overhauling a fundamentally broken system.

Having a feature for the sake of having it is not good game design, imo.

 

[Wizzington]

Why not create new system having bigger role than it held in EU3, but still having rather small impact on game? Something like V2 system but much smaller- only number of people,their religion and culture and their effect on taxabse and manpower?

Just to be clear, the decisions on major features like population are down to Johan and Thomas, I'm just speaking my own mind here.

But from my personal perspective... I think the question isn't "why shouldn't you keep population?" but rather "why should you?". What does it add to the game? What purpose does it fulfill mechnically? Would people feel like it was missing if it had never been in EU3? I honestly don't think so, and I don't think legacy is enough of a reason to spend valuable development time overhauling a broken system.