Some strange population issues

[JScott991]

In my last two games I've noticed some very odd things that might have been occuring before but I didn't notice since I was overly focused on the economics and AI ship building (they still don't build modern ships, but I'll talk about why that is another time).

The world population seems to DECLINE now. I can't explain why. But here are some population figures for 1878 from two different games:

Austria (missing Lombardy, added Bosnia): 39 M, 41 M
USA (including CSA and western territories): 31 M, 32 M
Germany (everything but Alsace/Lorraine): 45 M, 44 M
Belgium (intact, no colonies): 4 M, 4.5 M

These are the most egregious examples, but the pattern is clear. The populations of these nations have declined with no significant territorial losses.

Has anyone noticed that the populations of certain countries are declining?

Does anyone have any theories?

I have also noticed that leadership (officer POP's) tends to fluctuate and in fact, officer POP's disappear over time, especially small officer POP's. Does anyone know why these are occuring.

If these are bugs, I guess this should be moved to another forum, but I suspect these are immigration/population growth problems in the new formula.

 

[swilhelm73]

Well, remember soldier POPs lose some population in wars. In a really big war this can lower your population...

 

[JScott991]

This is true, but not the problem I think.

Because I heavily mod the AI files to decrease the number of wars, Austria has fought only in 1859 and 1866 in both my games. In each case, the wars were extremely brief.

The US has fought the Civil War and outright won it both times by 1863.

Germany/Prussia only engaged in brief wars with Austria in 1866 and France in 1870, neither of which featured much fighting.

There is something else going on, but certainly huge casualties might explain it.

 

[Darkrenown]

Could it be a result of your modding? I'll have a look for this in my games. but maybe you could test it in an unmodded game?

 

[Spruce]

I'll tell you what the problem is = revolts,

your pops will loose much more pops due to taking down revolts compared to losses in wars between nations,

I've had the big German revolts and my eastern population was massacred, you can check it yourself fairly easely,

Victoria is all about "avoid high militancy", I can't stress this enough,

that's why the pop cash bug annoys me so much,

 

[Derek Pullem]

I think there are probably two issues.

First issue is whether the emmigration formula is too agressive i.e. do particular countries depopulate.

Secondly does the total world population increase?

I can tell you that we are looking / have been looking at both mechanisms in beta at the moment. However its difficult to identify root causes so any ideas would be appreciated.

Some issues

Holland seems particularly keen on emmigrating to Java
Some provinces end up virtually depopulated (especially in Western Russia)

amongst others.

World population does increase but not as fast as we would like. I suspect this is due to the AI's complete disregard for casualties (and sometimes the players as well) when fighting wars. Revolts may help too but the revolt size is usually small compared to soldier pops. Also the disintergration of srmies due to double retreat / encirclements is assumed to result in a massacre of all troops when in reality prisoners would be more likely. So these large casualties casused by encirclements (most often by player encirclements and can be 100,000 +) will disproportionately affect militaristic nations populations.

I can't see an obvious and easy solution yet.

 

[JScott991]

Derek,

The solution probably is to not have POP's disappear from casualties. I know that's not very realistic, but if casualties are having this drastic an effect on populations then that probably is the way to go, unless some other formula can be devised.

I'm not 100% convinced the issue is completely related to casualties and revolts. As I said, I have severel reduced the number of wars being fought in my game by decreasing the AI's "war" value and their hostility value to certain nations (actually, I've only mod'ed Russia and Germany/Prussia to eliminate Austro-Russian and Russo-Prussian Wars) so I'm not seeing very many large scale wars. I also don't see the AI dealing with large numbers of revolts.

In terms of immigration, I notice the same issues that have already been reported. Large numbers of south Germans and Hungarians emigrate to the Okinawa area and other Pacific island inexplicably. In one game I was also getting serious South German emigration to Algeria, but that has not repeated. I think emigration might be responsible for the Austrian drop from 47 M in 1836 to less than 40 M in 1878.

 

[Derek Pullem]

Derek,

The solution probably is to not have POP's disappear from casualties. I know that's not very realistic, but if casualties are having this drastic an effect on populations then that probably is the way to go, unless some other formula can be devised.

I'm not 100% convinced the issue is completely related to casualties and revolts. As I said, I have severel reduced the number of wars being fought in my game by decreasing the AI's "war" value and their hostility value to certain nations (actually, I've only mod'ed Russia and Germany/Prussia to eliminate Austro-Russian and Russo-Prussian Wars) so I'm not seeing very many large scale wars. I also don't see the AI dealing with large numbers of revolts.

In terms of immigration, I notice the same issues that have already been reported. Large numbers of south Germans and Hungarians emigrate to the Okinawa area and other Pacific island inexplicably. In one game I was also getting serious South German emigration to Algeria, but that has not repeated. I think emigration might be responsible for the Austrian drop from 47 M in 1836 to less than 40 M in 1878.

I don't know if its always related to casualties - just that sometimes the AI pops can take a 100,000 man hit if its encircled. Which is probably wrong. And I'm inclined to weaken the war = pop decrease link further too if it fixes this (unknown as yet).

Re Austro-Russian / Austro Prussian wars - these should be decreased if we get our way in beta too. For some reason they have a conflict of 60 in the Austria / Russia files I think. IMHO should not be there until 1913 ai switch

If Okinawa is US they should redeploy eventually if they have no work (should work with all nations but US should have lots of factories / RGOs for them to join). Trouble is I don't think anyone apart from Johan understands *exactly* how immigration is supposed to work

 

[Spruce]

put your tax on 100% and watch the revolts fire,

check the rebellious pop and check when the revolters are defeated, note the difference,

i've seen casulaties of 10.000 and more for one rebellion (depending on the pop size). I've had years with at least 20 revolts (Prussia, Austria, Russia),

so that's easely 200.000 a year, and that only for one country,

As Germany I had the social revolts during 1.5 years, after that I went to reforms and my population had decreased with more then 2 MIO!

I'm playing as Austria right now and I loose 1.000 pops every 5-7 days due to immigration. So that's 10.000-15.000 a year, but that's easely compensated by natural growth,

revolts are bad,

 

[JScott991]

Well as long as the issue has been noted in Beta I guess that's the best to hope for right now. There doesn't seem to be a fix for the player to do and there does seem to be a problem that's not specific to just me.

I would suggest decreasing the effect of emigration and decreasing the effect of casualties and seeing what populations look like after doing that. 1.01 had too high of growth so populations by 1900 weren't very accurate, but 1.02 probably errs too far on the other side. Although I have no idea how immigration works.

 

[Spruce]

Well as long as the issue has been noted in Beta I guess that's the best to hope for right now. There doesn't seem to be a fix for the player to do and there does seem to be a problem that's not specific to just me.

I would suggest decreasing the effect of emigration and decreasing the effect of casualties and seeing what populations look like after doing that. 1.01 had too high of growth so populations by 1900 weren't very accurate, but 1.02 probably errs too far on the other side. Although I have no idea how immigration works.

well perhaps the dramatic effect of casualties is sensible. Remember what revolters do = stand up against all authority,

In history few revolts where put down by firing in the air. In reality big mobs marched until they ran into soldiers and the results were absolutely horrible, remember that the only good revolter was a dead revolter.

it will also put some attention the player to avoid revolts, I did when I saw their effect,