Primary Culture Decline?

[LtStJebus]

*on 1.3 patch*

I have been playing as Spain for the past several days, and have grown a nice empire, consisting of beginning territories plus most of Portugal's colonies, Tunis, Brunei, and Morocco. I have a strong economy, am one of the great industrial powers, and every pop meets its needs and then some.

Here is the problem: my Spanish populace grew slowly for the first few decades, but then it seemed to stop. What's worse is that now the percentage AND total number of Spaniards has consistently declined. Spanish people account for about 1% less of the populace than they did last year, and several points less than the decade before. I have also recently lost about 60,000 Spaniards in my last test session.

I haven't been to war for years now, I haven't had any rebellions, I haven't expanded my empire...

Why are my Spaniards not reproducing even though they are happy and wealthy? My total population has increased nicely, but for some reason Spanish people are slowly becoming extinct. I have looked at the pop charts and it always shows every Spanish pop as having no growth, and then sometimes a decline. Whereas my Caribeno, African, and Philippino pops have grown a lot.

Any ideas on what is causing this cultural drain?

 

[fenwayb]

*on 1.3 patch*

I have been playing as Spain for the past several days, and have grown a nice empire, consisting of beginning territories plus most of Portugal's colonies, Tunis, Brunei, and Morocco. I have a strong economy, am one of the great industrial powers, and every pop meets its needs and then some.

Here is the problem: my Spanish populace grew slowly for the first few decades, but then it seemed to stop. What's worse is that now the percentage AND total number of Spaniards has consistently declined. Spanish people account for about 1% less of the populace than they did last year, and several points less than the decade before. I have also recently lost about 60,000 Spaniards in my last test session.

I haven't been to war for years now, I haven't had any rebellions, I haven't expanded my empire...

Why are my Spaniards not reproducing even though they are happy and wealthy? My total population has increased nicely, but for some reason Spanish people are slowly becoming extinct. I have looked at the pop charts and it always shows every Spanish pop as having no growth, and then sometimes a decline. Whereas my Caribeno, African, and Philippino pops have grown a lot.

Any ideas on what is causing this cultural drain?

I imagine this has something to do with emigration...

 

[newtype0083]

Primary Culture POPs are often the most likely to emmigrate. Colonial POPs don't emmigrate. Conquering colonies also increases the total % of POPs that aren't emmigrating.

 

[unmerged(347433)]

Multiple things could cause this. One is emigration of Spaniards. Another is that your non-Spanish population grew rapidly causing the allotted percentage to increase thus decreasing the amount of Spaniards relative to them in your empire. The last is your messing up and treating them crappy causing them to "reverse-assimilate". This was a big problem in 1.1 but still exists without making much sense for a person that is struggling in a society to give up their said culture for another o lesser status most likely furthering the persons troubles.

 

[TheArchMede]

On a small scale, reverse assimilation will happen with colonial and internal migration. The most likely cause on the gross scale that you see is preferential emigration of Spaniards.

What you need to do to stop this is to bring the CON of your Spanish POPs down. Train more clergy. Tax them so they can't afford luxuries. Pass reforms. If you keep CON under control, they will breed faster than they emigrate, but if you let CON sit at 10, they will emigrate faster.