Realism/reasoning behind POP-splitting

[unmerged(57311)]

Greetings,
this feature of Ricky has always been my biggest concern about the game. So far it seemed to me that POP-splitting means a tedious micromanaging to gain an enormous increase of production and therefore income. Such thing is really bad for a strategy game, since there is no strategical question if there is a way that is clearly superior to the other(s) (to split or not to split). It means actually that you increase the production just by clicking on that button without any reasoning, any reference to reality/history.
So I must ask, whats the deal? Is it really a cheap way to cheat in income? If so why not make pop-splitting automatic, that would save a lot of micromanagement. And I've heard that this feature is there to make smaller nations able to achieve higher output, but thats nonsense for me in a game that is about to simulate reality.
Is there anything I miss?

Thanks

 

[shasla6]

Yeah, I really don't get it either, though it's a godsend for colonization purposes.

 

[unmerged(57311)]

Yeah, I really don't get it either, though it's a godsend for colonization purposes.

If we are right, then its a HUGE flaw, its like making a strategy game, where you win if you are the one with the highest APM (action per minute, this term comes from Warcraft and such games, so it speaks for itself when it is connected with a grand strategy title...).
I really hope we are wrong though.

 

[clamp2004]

I like the splitting feature because it will stop those 99999 pop groups from being cut in half to 50.000 by migration.
Other than that... there is really no reason to have splitting except of course for the colonization purposes, since splitting makes it easy to overflow any RGO you might have.
Other than that splitting is a status quo thing in MP.

 

[unmerged(57311)]

Other than that splitting is a status quo thing in MP.

What do you mean by that?
Oh and why is it problem if your 99k pop splits to 2*50k pops via immigration (does it not split according to 75%/25% pattern btw?)?

 

[Gen. Skobelev]

What do you mean by that?

Because everybody does that thus keeping the balance?

 

[ComradeOm]

Other than that... there is really no reason to have splitting except of course for the colonization purposes

Except for the massive production increase? Splitting is necessary for the construction of any advanced industrial economy.

Personally I view this mechanic as an unfortunate but necessary product of the entire POP system.

 

[unmerged(57311)]

Personally I view this mechanic as an unfortunate but necessary product of the entire POP system.

I think that it is not necessary, not even with the pop system. Why not just have a linear production efficiency according to pop size? This would also help realism.

 

[Orm]

And I've heard that this feature is there to make smaller nations able to achieve higher output, but thats nonsense for me in a game that is about to simulate reality.
Is there anything I miss?

Thanks

POP splitting is not there to help smaller nations achieve higher output because large nations can do it too, the non-linear production efficency is. I'd say the most realistic thing to do would be too keep POP splitting but make the production efficiency linear, because even small nations should be able to produce many different things, and not be stuck with one or two factories with a couple of huge POPs in them, because that is unrealistic. OTOH, Victoria was never made to simulate reality.

 

[OHgamer]

The POP split function was added because of player requests to be able to have more flexibility in promoting POPs than in pre-Revolutions versions of Victoria.

It's addition was entirely the product of player requests for more flexibility in POP management so that they could do more with their populations later in game when POP growth creates lots of large blocks and one had to wait until they reached 100K before they would split. The functionality was not as an issue of game enhancement per se. From what I can tell the AI in general does not split POPs (more POPs makes chances for revolt greater if you engage in any actions that increase militancy, since instead of one large POP that might have a 1% revolt risk in a province, you might have 2 or 3, thus increasing the potential that any one of them might indeed revolt.)

In the end it's simply a functionality to give players more control - something that players always seem to want. If you don't want to use it, you do not have to.

As for auto-pop splitting, that was something that was tested but was in general felt not to be a good system - it removed player ability to control the process of splitting and often left the player with a sudden increase in the number of unemployed POPs due to not tracking closely RGOs or factories that might need expansion, and under laissez-faire it might take a while for capis to be able to build up reserves to build factories to absorb new fragment POPs, risking losing those pops to emigration.

Of course if there is a Victoria II, my guess is that the entire nature of representing population splits based on socioeconomic and ethnocultural bases will be much more streamlined with changes more dependent on how you manage your overall society rather than acutally physically choosing specific POPs to promote. POPs provide a lot of nice environmental detail in the game, but the current system does require a good deal of player oversite. Hopefully a future system can keep the good elements of what the POP system provides in terms of details aboout your society and its transformation over time and reduce the degree of oversite needed to manage it during the course of the game.

 

[OHgamer]

POP splitting is not there to help smaller nations achieve higher output because large nations can do it too, the non-linear production efficency is. I'd say the most realistic thing to do would be too keep POP splitting but make the production efficiency linear, because even small nations should be able to produce many different things, and not be stuck with one or two factories with a couple of huge POPs in them, because that is unrealistic. OTOH, Victoria was never made to simulate reality.

That was tried - it made small nations like Belgium and Sweden have almost no chance of being anything more than second-rate powers, something that most players would find an unacceptable constraint. The tiered output system at least gives players of these smaller nations a chance from the start to be competitive.

 

[unmerged(57311)]

That was tried - it made small nations like Belgium and Sweden have almost no chance of being anything more than second-rate powers, something that most players would find an unacceptable constraint. The tiered output system at least gives players of these smaller nations a chance from the start to be competitive.

IMHO it is easier to play on easy if someone want to do things that is so ahistorical then change such an important aspect of the game.
I still hope that Vic2 will have linear production efficiency pops.

 

[shasla6]

IMHO it is easier to play on easy if someone want to do things that is so ahistorical then change such an important aspect of the game.
I still hope that Vic2 will have linear production efficiency pops.

I agree. That was a foolish decision. National affirmative action. Whatever next?

 

[clamp2004]

What do you mean by that?
Oh and why is it problem if your 99k pop splits to 2*50k pops via immigration (does it not split according to 75%/25% pattern btw?)?

no...

if you get migration into a state where pops are above 50k, they will be REDUCED to 50k, any further number lost.

Yes that means that population goes into the air.

That was why in the earlier games I'd always be very careful to avoid that any clerks were unemployed. Since my clerks were always the largest pops, they'd be screwed over from any clerks internally migrating. Therefore I only had craftsmen to move around.

 

[clamp2004]

Except for the massive production increase? Splitting is necessary for the construction of any advanced industrial economy.

That is so untrue.
You can definitely build up an advanced and pretty decent industrial base without EVER splitting. Back in 1.03c and 1.04 there weren't any splitting at all but countries still had around the same exports as today.

 

[clamp2004]

I still claim that the most important bonus of the split-mechanism is to prevent pops from disappearing due to be "rounded down" to 50k from internal migration. There is nothing that can beat that.

Of course back in 1.03c and 1.04, it was also a competition about forcefully migrating all your pops into one super-state very early on(such as Greater London/North England, New York, Ile De France, Saxony or Muscovy) That way you could gain as many 100k pops later on in the game which would split automatically.
It was certainly a harder game to play and the split mechanism does contribute to a more evened playfield, since I believe only a handful of player understood the mechanics back then.
Therefore I think the split mechanism is in general pretty good to deconstruct a rather game-design maneuveur and make players more interested in the grand strategic picture.

 

[BinomistaR-G]

i like POP splitting

and i'm a micro management lover, but i recognize that sometimes, with nations with many states and big inmigration (such as usa), it is hard to keep track of how the POPs are doing...

as i am a splitter fanatic, i would be happy of seeing an 'auto-split' function that could be just switched on and off in every state sub-menu

i mean: the possibility of having auto-split on new york, and not in texas

 

[OHgamer]

note that for those who like the idea of splitting but dislike all the hunting for POPs to split, Dietmar1982 has improved upon Gotikiller's excellent POP splittler tool that is very easy to use and can be used for both Revolutions and non-Revolutions versions of Victoria.

 

[OHgamer]

IMHO it is easier to play on easy if someone want to do things that is so ahistorical then change such an important aspect of the game.
I still hope that Vic2 will have linear production efficiency pops.

If it were just that then I'd agree, but it affected all areas of how one plays a nation, so that a country like Beligum or Sweden or basically any nation other than the top 5 nations in 1836 become simply impossible to play because you can not produce enough export income to draw taxes that would allow your nation to do things like create army units, build railways and the like. You would have to completely redesign the nature of how the state earns its income and the cost of things the state does. Having Belgium have to wait 10 years just to be able to afford to build an artillery unit is not exactly what one would want either, but that is what happened under the current system when tested.

Like you say, perhaps in a Victoria2, but it would require more than just putting in linear earning, but rather a complete overhaul of the basic system of costs and incomes.

 

[unmerged(86954)]

It's there because it gives a non-huge nation a chance to industrialize without converting all of it's POPs to factory workers, and it allows for a more broader (=realistic) industrial base as you can split POPs to work in factories. Yes, the splitting can be exploity but there's no damn way I'm going back to regular Victoria system.