I agree. The main limiting factor in wartime should be money.
There should also be some limits in terms of men existing trained for war. But, there should always be plenty of mercenaries willing to step in to fulfil the "market demand" for soldiers.
Population matters!
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I agree. The main limiting factor in wartime should be money.
There should also be some limits in terms of men existing trained for war. But, there should always be plenty of mercenaries willing to step in to fulfil the "market demand" for soldiers.
For me the population lacking relevance is the single most annoying issue in EU3 (and also in CK2, I just can't stand playing that long because of a lacking population whatsoever).
It's silly how Portugal can go colonial just as a united Spain can (it's proportionaly more costly, but that's it).
Or how countries with huge populations could underperform (military, economicaly, etc) others with much lesser population levels but much more provinces (China/India vs. Europe is blatant).
I don't want classes or anything too complex, just that a brand new 1000 pop colony *not* be the same as a 100.000 pop home province if they have the same base tax and base manpower. That's just the basics of decency. Sheer population shouldn't be all, but it should be damn relevant (and proportionally so)!
Those ideas here about military vs. populations (recruiting, waging war at home, etc) should really make into the game!
It's silly how Portugal can go colonial just as a united Spain can (it's proportionaly more costly, but that's it).
Or how countries with huge populations could underperform (military, economicaly, etc) others with much lesser population levels but much more provinces (China/India vs. Europe is blatant).
I don't want classes or anything too complex, just that a brand new 1000 pop colony *not* be the same as a 100.000 pop home province if they have the same base tax and base manpower. That's just the basics of decency. Sheer population shouldn't be all, but it should be damn relevant (and proportionally so)!
Those ideas here about military vs. populations (recruiting, waging war at home, etc) should really make into the game!
@ NosgothKingdom: OTOH regarding your China/India vs. Europe remark, that's exactly, what happened during the EU timeframe. However at the beginning of the period covered by the game, that wasn't totally a given, but at least Europe was good on track (especially when considering, where Europe came from (fall of Rome and middle ages)).
Furthermore like my remark about the Netherlands in the 16th century and a comparison of taxes and income with a region with a comparable population in that Era Naples and Sicily, this clearly shows differences; so development, urbanization are all elements and IMHO population shouldn't be just a number.
Furthermore like my remark about the Netherlands in the 16th century and a comparison of taxes and income with a region with a comparable population in that Era Naples and Sicily, this clearly shows differences; so development, urbanization are all elements and IMHO population shouldn't be just a number.
While I'm all for including population in a way it would really matter, don't make it Vicky2! As much as I tried, I couldn't get it give the result I want, after about 2/3 of the game (c.a. 1900) I always have some 20% of my people as aristocrats and my RGOs are way undermanned. If the same system would be in EU4, after 200 years, so half the game, I would barely have anyone not an aristocrat in my state unless I conquered fast enough, but that's nonsense.
But I'm really for a system with urban vs. rural population, producing supplies vs. income.
And if the system of base tax is kept, then multiply it with population or something similar. Take log[SUB]basetax[/SUB](population+basetax) for a more modestly growing system, but really, have higher population mean higher income and production!
Wars decimating population should be in too.
It should be noted however that sometimes EU3 could, too, have high swings in population. Once I saw one Silesian province have as low as 5k population due to repeated plague events there and Bohemia not caring about it.
On the other hand, seeing 999,999 for population was really annoying. Write out 'numberless' or something, as the bureaucracy loses track of so many people, but not this..
But I'm really for a system with urban vs. rural population, producing supplies vs. income.
And if the system of base tax is kept, then multiply it with population or something similar. Take log[SUB]basetax[/SUB](population+basetax) for a more modestly growing system, but really, have higher population mean higher income and production!
Wars decimating population should be in too.
It should be noted however that sometimes EU3 could, too, have high swings in population. Once I saw one Silesian province have as low as 5k population due to repeated plague events there and Bohemia not caring about it.
On the other hand, seeing 999,999 for population was really annoying. Write out 'numberless' or something, as the bureaucracy loses track of so many people, but not this..
Um... how on Earth did you manage 20% aristocrats in Vicky 2? I mean, how are they making enough money to not demote?
RGOs being "undermanned" by 1900 is normal, however. RGO labour demand is perfectly responsive (up to the RGO size limit); power techs drive RGO efficiency through the roof.
Man power was an issue for Napoleonic france in 1815. Of course this is at the end of the game, but it led to their defeat after so many years at war. Also Russia is said to have had a manpower shortarge when facing Napoleon and drafted people in their prisons to fight in their armies.
That's not "before the Revolutionary Wars". The First Republic basically invented mass conscription as we know it.
Sweden during the Great Northern War is the closest I can think of. Though Sweden with the allotment system was something of an anomaly with a for the time huge percentage of the population in the armed forces. And it went on for 21 years.
source
Best I could find doing quick googling, though I know there are accounts of many farms and such going under.
Regarding China that's what happened during the last 1/4 of the game.
The Middle Ages wasn't some terrible thing, a lot of progress happened during this time.
It was, but revolutionary France had massively increased its army size relative to its population via conscription, and then Napoleon had had this army devastated twice (against Russia and then at Leipzig). And for 95% of the game no state should have the institutions capable of raising armies that large.
Ancient Rome did have 'manpower shortages' but usually a) again after losing large armies in quick succession and b) their manpower was considerably more limited than the population in the area (among other things slaves didn't fight). Also conscription became infrequent and then had to be abandoned once Rome blobbed, and it is quite noticable that the Western empire in the century before its end very clearly could not raise the number of troops ancient rome could, despite having a far larger population.
The population model in the EU series also would probably need to be reworked a bit if population became more important. One obvious issue is the very large number of 999,999 cities even in the middle of the game - in practice very few cities could increase beyond 100,000 before food and public health became an issue and consequently few cities did.
The Devs will say that they dont have enough data, personally i prefer an aproximation of population with good mechanics than no mechanic at all. As they say, sometimes you need to sacrifice historical correctness for better gameplay
Given my fondness of the CK series you don't need to tell me that
, however Europe came from a position, which meant that they needed to catch up (and that was what I meant with considering where they came from).IIRC China became isolationist before that, but that's more about choosing not to use your potential.
Glad we have that clear.Given my fondness of the CK series you don't need to tell me that
IIRC China became isolationist before that, but that's more about choosing not to use your potential.
Foreign trade being 10x the Ming government budget and the Ming importing flintlocks from the Europeans to keep their military up to date sounds incredibly isolationist.
Maybe isolationist is a bit unlucky, but when European nations started to explore the world, China for some unclear reason decided to stop exploring (whereas before that China did have an impressive navy). So maybe not isolationist, but more a lack of interest in the outside world???
An abstract system (like the one we got in EU 3) would make things more difficult to understand (just what happened in EU 3, which was a nightmare to comprehend what happened, why and what concepts like population really meant). This is exactly the opposite way Johan wants. So, I think they should NOT make population abstract again.
I am sure they can do it. In Vycky they did it. I guess it will need a good amount of fine tunning, but that´s all. I am not asking for POPs, like in Vivky, just for a real population. One whose numbers reflect reality. Just that.
Totally accurate, afaik. There were no manpower issues during the game´s time frame. There were lots of monetary issues, but not manpower ones. Only during the XX century (or in some places during ancient times) was manpower a more important issue than money. Basically, and with the already said exceptions, you run out of money far before running out of men, OR your problem was thta you simply couldn´t recruit all yuor potetial soldiers (for example, this happened when armies were composed of just volunteers, or when State power was weak, and it had no means to force men into the military)
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There might be problems with some areas, but at least we have quite accurate numbers for Europe. The breakdown in provinces should be trickier, but not much.
What was exactly difficult to understand in EU3? Admitted, the population of the main city of the province clouded things a little, but remove that and you should have a fairly intuitive system that displays what a province is worth quite clearly.
It sort of feels wrong for much of the period to know the population numbers though. I general rulers didn't really know these things, at least not at the start. Regular censuses were not made until at the very end of the time frame for the game. I would say that that it would be immersion breaking to have a Vicky 2 style POP system in EU IV.