Strengths and weaknesses of the Swedish Economy.
But thats exactly the thing: population size isnt proportional to the income generated by city. Sure, more people mean more taxes, but in Sweden's case it doesnt exactly apply, and ill just say it again, im no history expert, but in medieval time there was this whole Baltic city-trade thing which was, combined with Hanseatic league, kind of, the main engine of economy for both Sweden and most of North Germany. I mean yeah sure, higher city population means more taxes, but if a city is on a important trade route, regardless of size, it will generate income - if state is merchantilistic it will tax passing trade, if its free trade-ish it will sell city cervices etc, and still generate much bigger income than taxes alone.
Thing is Sweden didn't only lack European sized cities, much more importantly (after all the portion of the world population living in cities in this era was quite small) they also lacked a big rural population and also in general had lower agricultural output.
Agriculture and population are hugely important to a pre- or early modern economy. Unlike Sweden northern Germany had a big population even back then and the northern German plain is, unlike most of Scandinavia, quite fertile. The fact that Germany was richer than Scandinavia is probably part of the reason that German burghers where more or less running the Swedish economy during the first 150 years the game covers.
The trade of (in no particular order) fur, iron, tar (and other naval supplies), copper and fish was what fueled the Swedish economy to a large degree (especially during the later part of the game). But to what degree should this be visible in the provincial tax values? Imho tax is mostly about the direct profitability of the land and it's population as trade tech and income is entirely unrelated to it. Trade goods are capable of creating loads of income in the game, especially if you manage to control the trade yourself. This is a neat mechanism to show why 1399 Sweden was in a much poorer position economically than 1650's Sweden imho and by putting more emphasis on the base tax values we'd lose that (the goasl for many of the supporters of the Kalmar union between Norway, Sweden and Denmark where mostly about getting the Scandinavian trade under Scandinavian, rather than German control after all).
In time the Swedish state would also become very good at taxing what population it had. Sweden has (to my knowledge) the oldest and most accurate string of census data in the world from the 17th century and forward (this has made the country a heaven for genealogists and this is the reason many international demographic theories and models are mostly based on Swedish census data) simply due to the need to tax and enroll them all as effectively as possible.
The administrative means to do so did not yet exist in 1399 however. They seem to be to me what buildings, ideas, etc are for (you could argue that the bureaucracy idea should give bigger bonuses or trigger a national decision for Sweden however, but the country already get some nice decisions as it is).
And later on, correct me if im mistaken, say around 15.ish century, didnt Sweden become major European exporter? Im talking about iron (well metals), weapons, tools, timber (naval supplies?) etc? Pretty much every major European war included something bought and brought from Sweden.
Sweden was already a major exporter at the start of the game but this would only grow during the game's time frame. During the 18th century Swedish iron was exported all over the globe, mostly by british merchants, and in the 17th century Swedish copper mines are considered to have accounted for 2/3s of the world production of copper.
These natural resources were indeed something Sweden had going for it.
And if my understanding of economy is good, importing = bad (you lose money from your economy), exporting = very good (gold keeps coming), and having money is what constitute rich.
What you're describing is the mercantilist economic world view
As mercantilism was the general doctrine for much of the period covered by the game this isn't all bad as an outlook when reasoning in the game though.
This same thinking did lead to some funny projects, Sweden for instance tried to break it's dependency on imported silk by growing it at home...
In general though when talking about tax and manpower values the most important thing to keep in mind imho is how we want the countries in the game to perform. For the AI tax and manpower are what separates the successful countries from the failed ones. Are people seeing Sweden underperform often?
From the look of things the Scandinavian tax and manpower values have already been boosted to make the region more viable but if you want to increase them further then game balance would probably still be the strongest argument.
As a general thought: From my point of view it seems much of the 15th century would be much smoother if naval invasions weren't so effective. I generally see Sweden, Denmark or Norway do well unless they've been divided between England and Castille during the 1400's in my games. This is also true for the Ottomans for that matter.
