Some suggestions on social mobility

[Warthull]

Imperator is shapping up to be quite the exciting game.
However, I do share some concerns regarding the way social/pop mobility appears to be implemented right now.
From what I've seen so far, the ability to, at a seemingly very moderate cost, promote/demote a lot of pops and profundly change the societal structure of massive societies from such a top-down manner seems to be quite easy, "gamey" and not as engaging or immersive as it could be (another minor grievance would be the ammount of clicking it involves). Although on a smaller level, i also share some of this concerns when it comes to moving pops from city to city.

I think this could be a part of the game with a lot of potential for a really interesting, "natural" and fluid system (something which seems tobe more the case when it comes to civilization, according to today's dev diary).
As such, I'd like to see what people think and start by giving some suggestions that popped in my mind that, hopefully, make some sense and could add to a more interesting system.

Id love a system with a higher focus on the "automatic" and over time promotion/demotion while still allowing for case by case manual promotion/demotion (which would be less of a "no brainer", not as frequent, more costly but still worth it if for a good reason). This would model the usual resistance to vast and wide reaching social mobility while adding emphasis to the gameplay management of the different kinds of pops (which, as it is, appears to be relatively easy to "fix" through massive pop promotion/demotion).

When it comes to the manual pop promotion/demotion, I would suggest:
- All numbers not being final, it seems the individual power cost could go up a bit;
- Similar to the recent change to power-money conversion, add another gameplay cost to promoting/demoting pops (besides the base power cost itself). For example, manually promoting tribesmen to freemen could result in some unrest for freemen pops of the city/province (thematically this would represent/model, for example, the resentment of the established social hierarchy to seeing someone they consider "inferiors" or "barbarians" being elevated to what is their natural born status. Demoting could, for example,lead to unrest on whoever is being demoted). Whatever these new costs would be, they could also be made to differ and take into account many different aspects such as, for example, government type (republic vs monarchy);

When it comes to the "automatic" social mobility system working throughout the game (which seems to be present, at least, through a governor policy), this one would also lead promotions/demotions over time but with less negative consequences, due to being more "natural" and less top-down player directed. This system could be influenced both on an empire but also provincial/city level by a multitude of factors, some more susceptible to player interference than others, like, for example:
- Civilization level;
- Government type;
- Political factions in power;
- Governor policy (as it exists now);
- Events;
- Maybe a government policy set by the player indicating prefered proportions of slaves/freemen/citizen (i.e. set a focus on research vs income). This policy wouldnt be specific numbers per se, just an establishing of preferences.

Sorry for the wall of text, I hope at least some of these ideas are interesting.
Keep up the great work, can't wait to get my hands on the game!

 

[Denkt]

Id love a system with a higher focus on the "automatic" and over time promotion/demotion while still allowing for case by case manual promotion/demotion (which would be less of a "no brainer", not as frequent, more costly but still worth it if for a good reason). This would model the usual resistance to vast and wide reaching social mobility while adding emphasis to the gameplay management of the different kinds of pops (which, as it is, appears to be relatively easy to "fix" through massive pop promotion/demotion).

I don't Agree about the manual pops interactions are nobrainers and probably often not Worth it. In Johan's Egypt stream instead of promoting the tribesmen he could have sold that Power for about 500-1000 or so gold which is enough to recruit 50-100 Heavy infantry and use these to wage war on Phrygia using the claims he got and captured huge amounts of pops.
In most cases I think you are better of getting stability, omens and claims as these are much more impactful than a pop promotion.
Moving pops is even less cost effective (expect slaves who are a special case) for the same cost of moving 5 pops you can get an innovation or 4 trade routes both to me seems like a much better deal.

Only cases I can think of then pops promotions are Worth it is:

1. You have few pops so each pop is more important
2. You have nothing else to spend your Power on
3. Promoting pop could stop unrest and thus help you avoid civil war
4. You greatly need research or Manpower
5. You are specalizing a city into research or Manpower

If you can reduce the cost, pop promotion become more useful.

Everything else such as moving pops and converting their religion and Culture is much more expensive so it is probably something you don't want to do expect certain special cases, especially if you need some stability.

The policies only cost 50 Power to set and will over time convert alot more pops than using the same amount of Power to convert pops directly. The larger you get and the more pops you have the more value the Power have and the more value global buffs have and the less value each pop have so, so the larger you get the less instant pop conversion you will want to do.