Province Population Suggestion

[A-150]

Remember in EU3 there was province population? Some people miss seeing that, others however don't because it seemed pointless and the population would increase to 999,999 and stop. It is also quite difficult find out what the populations were.
I have a solution to all problems. Province population should effect production efficiency, i think the bonus should be 0.05% of the population. That may seem low but let's say your Capitol has 47,000 people, that would mean a 23.5% bonus. Manpower should be 0.5% of the population, 47,000 would equal 235 Manpower. Now for find out province populations you could simply convert the current starting manpower for each province by multiplying it by 200. 68 would equal 13,600. This may not be accurate but can be used for when the province population cannot be found.
Population growth should not be more than 3% a year, the normal should be 1.5%. I believe there should also be a national population count that would add bonuses to prestige or power points (and just for people to see how big their nation is).

How do you think it should be?

 

[AmbroStoics]

I dislike this for oh so many reasons. First off the glaring problem of having no standard province sizes. A province in Asia might have millions of people, whereas Venice can't possible hold more than a 50-60 thousand people. Can Paradox model spillover, so that the Venetian surplus will go towards Treviso? Or are we going to have highly ahistorical an surreal populations?

Is population deducted from somehwere upon colonization?

Is emigration modeled, if a neighboring country starts prosecuting my people (religious or cultural)?

Are there babybooms to reward players who strive for peace and starvation and plagues to punish warmongers?

Are there babybooms to model surplus land and resources in sparsly settled regions (the colonies, the Balkans after the ottoman wars, etc)?

See unless we go into Victoria2levels of detail regarding population I think this would be a huge uninteresting mess, so it's a -1 from me.

 

[A-150]

I dislike this for oh so many reasons. First off the glaring problem of having no standard province sizes. A province in Asia might have millions of people, whereas Venice can't possible hold more than a 50-60 thousand people. Can Paradox model spillover, so that the Venetian surplus will go towards Treviso? Or are we going to have highly ahistorical an surreal populations?

Is population deducted from somehwere upon colonization?

Is emigration modeled, if a neighboring country starts prosecuting my people (religious or cultural)?

Are there babybooms to reward players who strive for peace and starvation and plagues to punish warmongers?

Are there babybooms to model surplus land and resources in sparsly settled regions (the colonies, the Balkans after the ottoman wars, etc)?

See unless we go into Victoria2levels of detail regarding population I think this would be a huge uninteresting mess, so it's a -1 from me.

But we need to start somewhere. Doing what i proposed would just be the first step, if it were to be implemented in this way it would take some patchs to balance it. Migrating isn't necessary. Starvation and plagues could be events that reduce population and slow it's growth. As i said the base growth would be 1.5% so a baby boom would be an event to increase it by 0.5% for example. Having a lot of colonies could slow your population growth nationwide (because they are leaving).

 

[A-150]

actually i did some more math and i think the max population growth should be 2% and the base 1%. Tech level should also affect growth, low tech means low growth.

 

[AmbroStoics]

Again, why? I'm not an expert or anything but child mortality rates were high throughout the period, medicine didn't advance enough until the end of the EUIV timeline to warrant huge differences. The amount of available food was a much larger factor, which would mean the integration of the weather mechnaics to reflect food crops and thus the surplus or shortage of food leading to increases/decreases in the population and its growth. Again this would raise a ton of questions, like food supply being reflected on the price of grain.

I think this is not a feature that is extremely necessarry and adding it would just cause of lot of inconsistencies. BT and Manpower reflect the development and population of a province, and I can live with that abstraction. Having a province with 1 person living there (or whatever minimum would be set) with 16 BT and 200 Manpower on the other hand is a different case.

 

[grommile]

Doing population in a way that doesn't raise more questions than it answers requires a fairly solid demographics simulation. Demographics simulation requires economic simulation.

EU4 is explicitly not an economic or demographic simulator.

 

[A-150]

Again, why? I'm not an expert or anything but child mortality rates were high throughout the period, medicine didn't advance enough until the end of the EUIV timeline to warrant huge differences. The amount of available food was a much larger factor, which would mean the integration of the weather mechnaics to reflect food crops and thus the surplus or shortage of food leading to increases/decreases in the population and its growth. Again this would raise a ton of questions, like food supply being reflected on the price of grain.

I think this is not a feature that is extremely necessarry and adding it would just cause of lot of inconsistencies. BT and Manpower reflect the development and population of a province, and I can live with that abstraction. Having a province with 1 person living there (or whatever minimum would be set) with 16 BT and 200 Manpower on the other hand is a different case.

Thats why i said tech should affect growth. Events could change the growth. Negative growth could be in as well.

Doing population in a way that doesn't raise more questions than it answers requires a fairly solid demographics simulation. Demographics simulation requires economic simulation.

EU4 is explicitly not an economic or demographic simulator.

it doesn't have to be complicated, just reasonable. The growth in EUIII was unregulated and high, plus population didn't do anything. What I'm a m suggesting is to give it a purpose and reasonable growth rate. Manpower can be 0.5% of the population and production efficiency 0.05% (tax could be affected too like maybe 0.05%). IMO EU4 needs population, for plagues and wars. Without a population the game cant simulate how diseases such as smallpox weakened the Native Americans. I mean like 60% of them died of diseases brought from the old world.

Anyway I would like you guys to suggest ways it can be implemented and how population can affect the game, not instead of only saying it doesn't need it. To make EU4 have a population system like V2 would take forever. It needs to simple, have effects, and be somewhat realistic for it to have a chance to be in the game.

 

[grommile]

The growth in EUIII was unregulated and high, plus population didn't do anything. What I'm a m suggesting is to give it a purpose and reasonable growth rate. Manpower can be 0.5% of the population and production efficiency 0.05% (tax could be affected too like maybe 0.05%). IMO EU4 needs population, for plagues and wars.

Many of the obvious things to do with population could be perfectly well done by adding more events / decisions that permanently alter Base Tax and/or Manpower. Most of the others would require a full-blown demographics simulation (and thus a full-blown economics simulation) with migration and displacement and cultural drift and whatnot.

Without a population the game cant simulate how diseases such as smallpox weakened the Native Americans.

Sure it can. You just write a disaster called "Columbian Exchange" triggered by an Old World polity establishing a colony in the Americas, which goes around applying huge tax and manpower penalties (and possibly permanently removing some base tax or manpower points) to the New World polities for a while.

Then you stop for a moment and realize that actually, however well doing this satisfies your simulationist urges, what actually matters for gameplay purposes, given that EU4 is "Risk on steroids", not a historical simulator, is the implications of the pestilential parts of the Columbian Exchange for the interactions between European polities and the peoples of the Americas, and that you can achieve a worthwhile proportion of the required effects much more straightforwardly by saying "we'll base the Base Tax and Manpower figures for the New World on the post-Columbian situation".

Anyway I would like you guys to suggest ways it can be implemented and how population can affect the game, not instead of only saying it doesn't need it.

I'm not simply saying the game doesn't need it.

I'm saying that doing it well requires you to write a different game in the first place.

To make EU4 have a population system like V2 would take forever. It needs to simple, have effects, and be somewhat realistic for it to have a chance to be in the game.

Be consistent. Do you want it to be simple, or do you want it to be somewhat realistic? I mean, even the overtly simulationist Vic2 only manages "vaguely realistic".

 

[A-150]

When I said realistic I meant the growth and effects. I know EU4 is not a historical simulator, but wouldn't it be cool see your empires population? Or to be able to play as a native american nation, have the diseases, and lead them to a new era and actually see how many say Aztecs survived. I would much rather see something like we had in EU3 with improvements on it to fix the growth problem and make it affect something, than have nothing at all. The national population should be displayed somewhere too. Would you rather see something than nothing? I don't like the Victorian Era that much, IMO it's boring. The main thing V2 focuses on is the Industrial Revolution, I want more in depth pre-1800 and post-1945 (East vs West was canceled sadly). But back to the point, Population in EU4 would offer more ahistorical possibilities (like having a large population of Cherokee).

 

[AmbroStoics]

I think your points are contradictory.

If it is meaningful statistic as you suggest in half of your post (adding to production and tax, etc) than it cannot be just added by just shoving the EU3 system in with a little tweaking. It would require a major overhaul of the current province statistics, so that game balance isn't upset for the worse and then the addition of all sorts of events and the integration of trade, wars, diplomatic actions which would havea alarge effect on it.

On the other hand if you just want this to be a "cool" addition - which is the other pont you brought up - to be able to see your population, than it is a waste of resources. At the least it requires Paradox to search for the historical population levels of hundreds of provinces and add them to the game files. If that's all we add, then it won't simulate anything well, so you can tell at the start how many Aztecs there will be by the game's end, just claculate the growth. Anything more complicated than that - like adding events that simulate Columbian diseases, war effects on popuation, etc - means even more resources just for a "cool/fun" addition. In that case I'd like to see those resources go towards other features, because as grommile pointed out, EUIV doesn't have the required levels of economic and demographic simulation to make this something easily added.

 

[A-150]

Nation designer wasn't necessary or historical, and a lot of people agree it was a waste of time. They only added because some people thought it would be cool to create a nation without having to mod the files (which isn't that hard just time consuming).

Population does need an overhaul from EU3 but it doesn't need to be like V2. The province populations just need to be researched or estimated then added to the game with effects and other things. Basically my point is to start off simple, and with each patch balance it more, and add more to it. Just like how they're changing exploration. One small step at a time and eventually you'll get there. And it doesn't need demographics because the provinces already show the population majority, migrating can be events as we have one already for colonies, and sieges can affect population (for example water shortage).
You guys are saying it either has to be like EU3 or V2, there is a middle ground and thats where EU4 should be. If finding the province populations is an issue for paradox, we (the players of EU4) can help with that (history is my favorite subject). If done right it can be golden without being as in depth as V2. Do you want populations in EU4? If so then you have got to realize it will never be like V2.

 

[AmbroStoics]

Yet you do not realize the scale of your request. You can argue all you want for inroducing it in a meaningful way and then improving on it, but the truth if it is haphazardly thrown in WITH any economic effects (BT, production bonus, etc), then it will totally screw up the game balance. It is a MAJOR addition to the game that needs a lot of work. The nation designer doesn't change the game mechanics, your proposal of population does, so it's not at all comparable. And since we seem to be stuck in a loop where you believe it is an easy addition and I believe it isn't, I'm over this topic.

 

[A-150]

i never said it would be easy, just easier than making it like V2