Southern Italy base tax too low?
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Do not pay attention to this guy, we have plenty like him in Italy. Southern Italian origins, telling around the tale "South was rich, North pillaged it that's why we became poor, before that were the best, in Italy and most Europe as well" to appease his frustration for being looked down upon by people of Northen Italian origins.
Unfortunately he cannot provide sources to prove his 'fairytale', just like the rest of those who want to rewrite history in their own convenient way.
Just ignore his ramblings, you don't know how many times I had to listen to this bull at home.
u may not have readed the where i live sir, its under my njoin date here at the left of the post... right under varese...
one thing is to know what the history of ur country is, another is being born in a place or the other.
i will take the first and easyiest source i will find since i dont intend to give u an history lesson right now and i wont make a resarch for this now, i allready did when i made a mod for victoria 2 based on italian history.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_the_Two_Sicilies
go to economy pls
i am from north, far more northern than u from an italian perspective, but that doesnt make me blind, we are talking history here and history is bout what actually happened, not bout what we want to belive to feel superior... other countries colonized afrika, we did colonize south italy
*back to the thread point*
probably they wanted to balance it since norther italy have smaller countries while south is united... giving the right base tax would have made it far richer than what it was.
south italy had the problem that all the industry was basically in one place, naple, wich was one of the richest and greatest cities in the world, but when u leaved that u had wheat, wheat, lemons and sulfur mines... and wheat...
piedmont and milan (thaks to the austian rulers) on the other side had a more capillar industrialization, but not a bigger one, just more equalli distributed
what would have happened if south italy wasnt colonized we will never know of course... they had the gold to do basically anything and they had the tech to do it, but they didnt have the mindset for that until the last king came.. but he was young and inexpert when garibaldi came with his french and english friends and he was betrayied by many of his counselors who where bribed and he didnt know how to react.
But south italian gold made north, and that is clear to any historian, piedmont with his monetary policies and his debts had no chance to achieve anything without it.
that said south had lost many of its relevance through the years cause of the ottoman conquest of the east and its inability to trade with them, and the discovery of america to the west... a problem that venice and genova faced aswell, but contrary to naple they were able to deal it one way or the other.
i hate the campalinism of my country, full fo blind people who act like everything is a football match and who wants theyr "side" to be better even when its not the case.
South italy had problems, the biggest one was that its riches where all in few, lazy hands, and had a grerat strategic position who was never able to use properly, but it was still in a better overall position of all the north put togheter. They just laked the ability to use the power they had (bigger and better army, one hell of an advanced navy for the time and a strong gold base) in any sensible way due to various problems... a feudal mentality of the previous kings (the last one did have the ideas but didnt have the chances to enacht any sensible reform due to the invasion) and its political relevance in the world depended on its family ties with austrian rulers, and the fast decline of austrian power due to the french and prussian wars made them a lone, well armed sheep surrounded by wolves (france and england) and a little wolf cub (piedmont) who was able to feed itself with its remains.
the only thing they laked was cavour, who alone made a pitifull 3rd tier country (piedmont) into a a big pitifull 2nd tier country (italy as never been more than that, sadly)
*god i have a terrible english*
piedmont and milan (thaks to the austian rulers) on the other side had a more capillar industrialization, but not a bigger one, just more equalli distributed
what would have happened if south italy wasnt colonized we will never know of course... they had the gold to do basically anything and they had the tech to do it, but they didnt have the mindset for that until the last king came.. but he was young and inexpert when garibaldi came with his french and english friends and he was betrayied by many of his counselors who where bribed and he didnt know how to react.
But south italian gold made north, and that is clear to any historian, piedmont with his monetary policies and his debts had no chance to achieve anything without it.
that said south had lost many of its relevance through the years cause of the ottoman conquest of the east and its inability to trade with them, and the discovery of america to the west... a problem that venice and genova faced aswell, but contrary to naple they were able to deal it one way or the other.
i hate the campalinism of my country, full fo blind people who act like everything is a football match and who wants theyr "side" to be better even when its not the case.
South italy had problems, the biggest one was that its riches where all in few, lazy hands, and had a grerat strategic position who was never able to use properly, but it was still in a better overall position of all the north put togheter. They just laked the ability to use the power they had (bigger and better army, one hell of an advanced navy for the time and a strong gold base) in any sensible way due to various problems... a feudal mentality of the previous kings (the last one did have the ideas but didnt have the chances to enacht any sensible reform due to the invasion) and its political relevance in the world depended on its family ties with austrian rulers, and the fast decline of austrian power due to the french and prussian wars made them a lone, well armed sheep surrounded by wolves (france and england) and a little wolf cub (piedmont) who was able to feed itself with its remains.
the only thing they laked was cavour, who alone made a pitifull 3rd tier country (piedmont) into a a big pitifull 2nd tier country (italy as never been more than that, sadly)
*god i have a terrible english*
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Aye. People tend to mix up historically ill administered areas with poor areas, and vice-versa, IMHO. Just because a country didn't take full profit from its resources it doesn't mean their provinces were poor. There are various factors at play.
This becouse Sicily was in a circuit of international use of its natural resources, but it has not been spent in favor of the island, and that was not in the hands of a strong and spontaneus middle-class of the island.
However, I think that as we are talking about a game, we should talk in game terms. Infact another reason probably was game b alance. Now in southern Italy we have other two provinces, Lucania and Bari (Puglia was renamed to Salento). This is a good advantage in game terms, more provinces, more troops avaible, more ports, etc... personally I think that Naples can have the potential to be a powerhouse in the game, also if is AI controlled. I Played a couple of game in the demo, and Naples grabbed Rome, Siena and Urbino in war, against an Italian coalition.
In this situation, if you give more base tax to the southen provinces, North Italy, with its little regional states, ends up being totally inferior from all point of view.
Maybe is not the better balance, I don't know, the positive things about Paradox games are:
-Easily Moddable if you don't want to play ever vanilla
-Continue support and patches if you want to play vanilla
Maybe this will change in future, maybe not, after the game will be relased, new shapes are also possible, however I think that the actual situation is not so absurd. Some reasons can be traced.
1 base tax makes me think about greenland, or desert, not italian peninsula, which is "rich and ripe for taking".
Anyways i'm of the same opinion of aenariel, one thing is bad administration, another one is bad territory or position. South italy had the first problem, places like venice (just to put an example here, rampage venice indipedence guys shhhh) had the second problem, but managed well during history even because of its dominant position.
I do not believe south italy had an ill-ground area, but had old mechanics still playing an important role on a technologic kingdom. Schizoid, but true. It was kinda fixed during a weird interlacement between napoleonic laws and borbonic tax, and this "balance" was disrupted again during italian union.
Since EU4 takes a really big time span one should be able to change these kind of things, being able to actually improve the administration of the existing territory without having to conquer new lands just because they start richer, and for the game, will be rich "forever". I do recall that on AGCEEP (EU2) there were some events which tried to simulate these kind of things, for example when france conquers calais there's an event which drastically drops base tax there, based on the thought that calais was a very rich city because of its nature, being a foothold for england economy on europe.
Thing that wasn't true when reconquered by france.
I've read every post here and there are a lot of informations on naples decline on economy, and its reasons, i wish there was a discussion like this for every nation considered by this game, because there are a lot of game improvements which could be used not only for this situation but a more "global" perspective. Think of that, americas were discovered mainly because of ottomans conquest of constatinople and the almost-impossible trade with asia after that. If something like this wouldn't happen, some central/east europe economies could survive or strenghten, the opposite for the west ones. Americas discovery could be delayed, and in b4 there could be a lot of in game crashes ahahah. I know it's kinda impossible but it would be awesome, and a really "plastic" game. And yeah AGCEEP rocked the old days. Anyways i still haven't played so much the demo (so i can't judge the economic aspect), mainly because of the 28 years cap and the impossibility to autosave, but ofc i can understand that, i'm the problem here ahah.
Anyways i think that paradox made a choice mainly based on balance, and i can agree on this even if i'm not able to try KoN on the demo and see by myself. If the game is unbalanced or ahistorical, we'll see in a week, but i really doubt it will be.
If it will be broken, then mods are here for you
anyways
"Two Sicilies was in a horrible condition even before the conquest. If it wasn't, why would have it fallen after an invasion of 1000 volunteers?
Sure, there were some industries, there was the railroad and so on, but they were mostly some tokens just to show off how "modern" the nation was, kinda like when in Africa they built one modern hospital in the capital, while in the rest of the nation they starve to death. Outside Naples (which was a parasitic city) the people pretty much lived as medieval servants in huge feudal estates. Like someone else said, it was like Russia."
to this, lol, just lol, made me laugh irl
Anyways i'm of the same opinion of aenariel, one thing is bad administration, another one is bad territory or position. South italy had the first problem, places like venice (just to put an example here, rampage venice indipedence guys shhhh) had the second problem, but managed well during history even because of its dominant position.
I do not believe south italy had an ill-ground area, but had old mechanics still playing an important role on a technologic kingdom. Schizoid, but true. It was kinda fixed during a weird interlacement between napoleonic laws and borbonic tax, and this "balance" was disrupted again during italian union.
Since EU4 takes a really big time span one should be able to change these kind of things, being able to actually improve the administration of the existing territory without having to conquer new lands just because they start richer, and for the game, will be rich "forever". I do recall that on AGCEEP (EU2) there were some events which tried to simulate these kind of things, for example when france conquers calais there's an event which drastically drops base tax there, based on the thought that calais was a very rich city because of its nature, being a foothold for england economy on europe.
Thing that wasn't true when reconquered by france.
I've read every post here and there are a lot of informations on naples decline on economy, and its reasons, i wish there was a discussion like this for every nation considered by this game, because there are a lot of game improvements which could be used not only for this situation but a more "global" perspective. Think of that, americas were discovered mainly because of ottomans conquest of constatinople and the almost-impossible trade with asia after that. If something like this wouldn't happen, some central/east europe economies could survive or strenghten, the opposite for the west ones. Americas discovery could be delayed, and in b4 there could be a lot of in game crashes ahahah. I know it's kinda impossible but it would be awesome, and a really "plastic" game. And yeah AGCEEP rocked the old days. Anyways i still haven't played so much the demo (so i can't judge the economic aspect), mainly because of the 28 years cap and the impossibility to autosave, but ofc i can understand that, i'm the problem here ahah.
Anyways i think that paradox made a choice mainly based on balance, and i can agree on this even if i'm not able to try KoN on the demo and see by myself. If the game is unbalanced or ahistorical, we'll see in a week, but i really doubt it will be.
If it will be broken, then mods are here for you
anyways
"Two Sicilies was in a horrible condition even before the conquest. If it wasn't, why would have it fallen after an invasion of 1000 volunteers?
Sure, there were some industries, there was the railroad and so on, but they were mostly some tokens just to show off how "modern" the nation was, kinda like when in Africa they built one modern hospital in the capital, while in the rest of the nation they starve to death. Outside Naples (which was a parasitic city) the people pretty much lived as medieval servants in huge feudal estates. Like someone else said, it was like Russia."
to this, lol, just lol, made me laugh irl
The OP isn't asking to turn southern Italy into Holland. Just that 1 base tax is a bit of a joke, and should only be reserved for places that are mostly unarable land. Sure you can say that it's poor, but poor in Europe means like 2 or 3 base tax, 1 base tax means you're Albania (just kidding, I'm sure Albania is a perfectly nice place, as long as you don't live on the EU3 vanilla map).
(just kidding, I'm sure Albania is a perfectly nice place, as long as you don't live on the EU3 vanilla map).
A basic problem remains the fact that the shift of the Mediterranean trade towards the Atlantic trade and its impact on Europe isn't represented very well in EU. With the new trade system, Paradox made a step in the right direction, because now we have at least a representation of trade routes becoming more relevant or irrelevant. A much unknown fact is, that Italy's economy as a whole suffered more under dutch competitors, Barbary pirates and the 30 Years War than anything else. The first point was a problem for the North, the second was much more a problem for the south than for the north, the last point for both, because italian exports to Germany collapsed. I'm not sure if it is moddable to create events concerning the richness/income of a trade node - in this case: Venice/Genoa - with impact on provinces connected to the same trade node, but it would represent economical consequences not only for Italy, but also for larger parts of the world. Unfortunately, I don't think this would be possible to mod.
Another method would be a more fleshed out interaction between southern Europe and Northern Africa. And no, I'm not talking about Barbary pirates Ubik-style were you can get punished without doing somehting against it - or capitals like Rome, Naples and Venice were raided - but something in that direction to represent the decline of Southern Italy, Sardinia, and the Aegean Islands/coast.
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Or if he is talking about the actual life span of the ship its 100% relevant as the titanic sank on her maiden voyage. Which is what the saying, "sinking faster than the titaninc," means. A reference that the ship was build and never completed a single voyage.
Sometimes people like to be obstinate for its own sake on these forums.
autism is a problem connected to the inability or low capacity to interact and communicate with other human being... while i may indeed be a little autistic (i dont know yet, but i'll surely check a doctor for a consultation based on ur accurate analysis of my mental healt) i do believe u may wanted to call me retarded or, as people like to say these days, a special person
@skallagrim, u just gave me a great idea for a mod, thanks
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However, watching the "Poor" provinces, are the ones that in EUIII were united and now are splitted:
Calabria (bt 1) + Lucania (bt 1) = Calabria (bt 2)
Bari (bt 2)+ Salento (bt 1) = Apulia (bt 3)
Maybe in the split they divided the previous little base tax, to mantain the same economical potential, (I don't remember the ones of EUIII), so we have provinces with 1 base tax.
Calabria (bt 1) + Lucania (bt 1) = Calabria (bt 2)
Bari (bt 2)+ Salento (bt 1) = Apulia (bt 3)
Maybe in the split they divided the previous little base tax, to mantain the same economical potential, (I don't remember the ones of EUIII), so we have provinces with 1 base tax.
Ok guys, not to be the tone police but lets keep it civil. Now everyone agree that while southern Italy was not on par with northern italy it certainly was not poor enough to warrant a 1 base tax. It had poor institutions, lack of investment etc but the land itself was not exceptionally poor. Can we agree a 2-3 base tax is fair here, that tax level still being objectivly "poor" but not freaking Greenland level poor. It really should imo be on par with greece.
The idea that any province in Italy has a 1 base tax is ridiculous. Absolutely asinine. The argument about north vs south Italy is irrelevant to that overall point.
No 'sir', the one who did not read the other's post was you.
I never claimed that you have to live in the South to be looked down upon by Northerners, I stated that you must have Southern origins (while living in the North). It's quite different.
And given my past experiences with people reacting your way when it comes to neo-borbonism, my bet is that no matter where you live, your origins are most like Southern.
Or am I wrong? (no need to post sources about your private life, just tell me where your parents' origins lie, if you feel like, ofc)
Do not worry about your English, you should rather worry about the fact you assume you are able to give me a history lesson, which according to your provided source, it's unlikely.
You quoted a good source (wiki) whose reliability I do not dispute, but within your very source there are sentences like:
"Abject poverty meant that, throughout Naples and Southern Italy, thousands decided to leave in search of a better future." Many went to the United States.[3] It was heavily agricultural, like the other Italian states;[4] the church owned 50–65% of the land by 1750."
and
"...and the first railway in the Italian peninsula (1839), which connected Naples to Portici. However, until the Italian unification, the railway development was highly limited. In the year 1859, the kingdom had only 99 kilometers of rails, compared to the 800 kilometers of Piedmont."
(aside from the fact the first railways were built by Piedmontese companies funded by Cavour afaik)
The wiki article seems to prove my point instead of yours, unless you can find a decent source stating that the abovementioned "abject poverty" was Piedmont's fault, something not even remotely hinted or mentioned in the article.
Besides, you quote something to prove your point, but the sources completely lack the most important thesis you were debating upon ("Two Sicilies's situation was North's fault!!!")?!?!
Just to whom do you pretend to be able to give history lessons
?
Location: Novara, Piedmont, Italy
LOL Quite fitting though that you have a rat for an avatar. Any province in Italy that has a 1 base tax is not only ahistorical but absolutely stupid.
I think that everyone in this thread is more or less convinced that 1 base tax is laughable. The problem is, that whole Italy must be revamped, if we changed the value of the provinces to something more fitting, like Bari 4bt and the rest of the south 3bt, if we don't want to re-do too much. Considering that, we have a total of like 5bt-8bt more for Naples.
Given the fact, that the Papal States doesn't survive in many LP which I saw, and that Naples is even in grade to regain Sicily, this would overpower Naples even more. If we touch the balance, we must add also something to the Papal State (I would even suggest two provinces, Perugia and Ancona proper, redoing Urbino. This province always makes me cry). If we do that, Firenze needs one more province. And Venice. And Milan. All to keep the balance. I think that PI had other, more serious concerns than some italian players, and went on to other topics on the list, not beeing aware of the fact, that Calabria has now the same revenue like St. Helena.
@Te. Kenzo: You mentioned the bt. What about the manpower? Did the developers split them, too, like the bt?
Given the fact, that the Papal States doesn't survive in many LP which I saw, and that Naples is even in grade to regain Sicily, this would overpower Naples even more. If we touch the balance, we must add also something to the Papal State (I would even suggest two provinces, Perugia and Ancona proper, redoing Urbino. This province always makes me cry). If we do that, Firenze needs one more province. And Venice. And Milan. All to keep the balance. I think that PI had other, more serious concerns than some italian players, and went on to other topics on the list, not beeing aware of the fact, that Calabria has now the same revenue like St. Helena.
@Te. Kenzo: You mentioned the bt. What about the manpower? Did the developers split them, too, like the bt?