Perhaps only add some of the more noticable bonuses. It makes the game rather bland to have most provinces be so uniform, with little to no strategic value with the exception of Constantinople and the ends of the Silk Road.
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Suggestion for abstract economy representation in HIP
- Thread starter Herr Doctor
- Start date
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Was reading some interesting articles and books on the Islamic world and pre-Mughal India economies, so basically almost completely reworked Asia and Africa. Updated the map (probably the last update) accumulating all the findings.
Improved the trans-Saharan trade and salt production representation (did two days ago but @elvain's amazing map clarified a lot of locations way better). Done a lot of stuff for Middle East including famous Middle Eastern (so-called "Persian") glassware, silk production, pearls etc thanks to the account of the magnificent 10th century's geographic account of Al-Muqaddasi. Added proper Ethiopian gold mines of medieval time, fixed a lot of things in Europe.
Almost completely reworked India adding indigenous silks (in pre-Mughal era they were quite marginal, but still worth to be on the map, at last the main and most famous ones: Mandasor, Cambay, Delhi, Gola), export glassware (Baroda and Brahmapuri - they even could be found in the Middle East) and fixed many other things.
Added sugarcane (was extremely expensive, especially prior to colonial era), spice (this mainly represents chilli) and apiculture (wax and honey - both very valuable in medieval time with priority for the Russian lands). This helped to cover all the regions with proper specialisations. Hope this could partly answer @Ese Khan's legitimate concerns about balance between Europe and other regions. Look quite evenly now with Oriental economies "bonuses" seemingly even more powerful.
Regarding slave trade - there are couple concerns. First, the fact that they were very unstable and "flexible" to military/political/economical conjuncture opening and disappearing - what makes it very hard to represent them properly with in-game tools. Secondly, I tried to portrait more export productions than just trade centres, and slave trade isn't answering this requirement in my opinion. I think slave trade would require some separate mechanic portraying its complex character and importance for some regional medieval economies. (Interesting fact: there is even quite popular modern academic hypotheses that Rus was in many ways formed as Viking slave trade enterprise...)
Anyway, seems like none of this stuff would ever make into the mod. But I'll keep this thread and map open with some hope for future interesting solutions from @caocao268 in his ARLES modification.
Improved the trans-Saharan trade and salt production representation (did two days ago but @elvain's amazing map clarified a lot of locations way better). Done a lot of stuff for Middle East including famous Middle Eastern (so-called "Persian") glassware, silk production, pearls etc thanks to the account of the magnificent 10th century's geographic account of Al-Muqaddasi. Added proper Ethiopian gold mines of medieval time, fixed a lot of things in Europe.
Almost completely reworked India adding indigenous silks (in pre-Mughal era they were quite marginal, but still worth to be on the map, at last the main and most famous ones: Mandasor, Cambay, Delhi, Gola), export glassware (Baroda and Brahmapuri - they even could be found in the Middle East) and fixed many other things.
Added sugarcane (was extremely expensive, especially prior to colonial era), spice (this mainly represents chilli) and apiculture (wax and honey - both very valuable in medieval time with priority for the Russian lands). This helped to cover all the regions with proper specialisations. Hope this could partly answer @Ese Khan's legitimate concerns about balance between Europe and other regions. Look quite evenly now with Oriental economies "bonuses" seemingly even more powerful.
Regarding slave trade - there are couple concerns. First, the fact that they were very unstable and "flexible" to military/political/economical conjuncture opening and disappearing - what makes it very hard to represent them properly with in-game tools. Secondly, I tried to portrait more export productions than just trade centres, and slave trade isn't answering this requirement in my opinion. I think slave trade would require some separate mechanic portraying its complex character and importance for some regional medieval economies. (Interesting fact: there is even quite popular modern academic hypotheses that Rus was in many ways formed as Viking slave trade enterprise...)
Anyway, seems like none of this stuff would ever make into the mod. But I'll keep this thread and map open with some hope for future interesting solutions from @caocao268 in his ARLES modification.
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All present and future efforts to update this map are well appreciated and helps give me a picture of what resources would actually be valuable to incorporate into gameplay. As Rylock already said, we're not going to be adding thousands of resources in their historical locations, because that doesn't add any sort of gameplay - it just adds passive bonuses that in the long run don't make much of a difference on the dynasty simulator. However, in terms of adding a more dynamic mechanic that helps balance ROTW or is very clearly built on strategic choices that increase replayability and peacetime engagement is something I'm sure we can all get behind... the ideas for it just are not concrete at all yet.
Well, there were (and still is) place more valuable than others. But you make a point about small chance.
As caocao268 mentioned, if there were some mechanic behind it which made it something to engage with...then maybe? Someone would still have to do all the work, but at least there would be some kind of mechanic. Setting up the map so a bunch of provinces receive passive bonuses and nothing else will just upend the entire balance of the gameplay without any actual gain...even trade routes are a couple of steps up on that (though not much).
Good points, but I am not sure if any other options/mechanisms for economy would work better (as for example vanilla "prosperity" system) or if they would be easier to implement.
You may be interested in the system that the MEIOU & Taxes team is implementing for EU4. Of course, not all the complexity described there is relevant to CK2, but:
- Each province has a carrying capacity, based on terrain, technology, and farming-infrastructure buildings (which may be abandoned if the population falls too low to maintain them).
- A province's population growth is high when it's far below the carrying capacity, lower when it's only a little below the carrying capacity, and lower still when it's above the carrying capacity.
- Population can be lost through disease, famine, or enemy occupation (depending on religion, culture, rivalry, etc.).
- Each province has both rural farmers (who produce food and raw materials) and urban craftsmen (who produce finished goods), as well as aristocrats.
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All right, just so we're clear, now that there is some representation of economic growth in the game that is not bound by hardcode (by that, I'm referring to the absolutely inscrutable trade route system), I'm more inclined to suggest the use of the Prosperity system as a backbone rather than going out and developing a completely different system or, God forbid, having no system at all and just dotting the map with unique buildings.
To help facilitate that, here's a quick description of how vanilla prosperity works:
Each province gets evaluated once a year, and there is a chance (which will be higher if the holder is a good steward, independent, has a trade post in the province, is not struck by an epidemic, or is at peace) that the province's prosperity will go up. The rate at which it goes up is completely determined by terrain, whether the province is recovering from depopulation, and whether the province is a Crown Focus.
To that end, if there is to be a resource system at all, it must be piggybacked onto this Prosperity system. The benefit you get should somehow be tied to how prosperous the province is, logically, and resources need to be distributed so that they are rare (or else there is no real strategic value), provide benefit (or else there would be no point in developing them), and make sense according to their real world location. With regard to the last criterion, there are ways to ensure resources end up in a geographical region that makes sense, but there is absolutely no chance we are going to pin things down in very specific provinces unless there is a valid reason related to gameplay.
Hope this clears things up and sounds reasonable.
To help facilitate that, here's a quick description of how vanilla prosperity works:
Each province gets evaluated once a year, and there is a chance (which will be higher if the holder is a good steward, independent, has a trade post in the province, is not struck by an epidemic, or is at peace) that the province's prosperity will go up. The rate at which it goes up is completely determined by terrain, whether the province is recovering from depopulation, and whether the province is a Crown Focus.
To that end, if there is to be a resource system at all, it must be piggybacked onto this Prosperity system. The benefit you get should somehow be tied to how prosperous the province is, logically, and resources need to be distributed so that they are rare (or else there is no real strategic value), provide benefit (or else there would be no point in developing them), and make sense according to their real world location. With regard to the last criterion, there are ways to ensure resources end up in a geographical region that makes sense, but there is absolutely no chance we are going to pin things down in very specific provinces unless there is a valid reason related to gameplay.
Hope this clears things up and sounds reasonable.
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This sounds good if you manage to implement the regional system properly. Except mines most other commodities could be somewhat regional-based rather than linked to different provinces. And I hope you'll find some place for the pilgrimage "infrastructure" as well.