We all know what this great game lacks (or "Paradox, be human beings, add POPs")

[oblio-]

Recently I thought about this subject and went to conclusion: you can't make your state a great power in a peaceful way. No chance, because you need that base tax from other provinces. You can't raise BT of your own territories (except temple) and create a super-nation Greece (for example) with a decent army and fleet only because you are restricted to mediocre-BT provinces.
I wish I could spend ADM points to improve my provinces (build new cities and their improvements: schools, roads, churches, colledges, some manufactories) in a more reasonable way

For example in CK2 you can conquer all Mediterranean islands, build more temples, cities and castles, upgrade them, and you will be on par with the whole African Emirate in terms of troops, and you have a chance to add territories in a peaceful way.

Well, just for this reason I made a test in a relatively poor region. As Eastern tech Ragusa I conquered about 40 provinces, I think my base tax was low, averaging about 3. I converted everything to Reformed, culture converted everything I could (except for Constantinople). Grabbed Economic and Quantity and built absolutely every building I could.
I finished #2 behind a huge HRE united by Austria (force limit, manpower, income). I couldn't really risk super interesting wars (a sort of global militia a la UN) because manufactories especially take a long time to make and sieges halt their progress, plus you lose it completely if they win the siege. Also culture conversions suffer from the same disease.

The only problem with this is that it was super boring.
It only got interesting because the AI underestimated me and declared war 4-5 times.

 

[Chamboozer]

Can you provide an example of a polity in the period which attained something akin to "great power" status without expanding its borders (whether at home or overseas)?

This question is too narrow. The real question you should ask is, "Can you provide an example of a polity which dramatically increased its strength and influence in a way which was not related to the expansion of its borders", to which the answer would be: plenty. Brandenburg/Prussia is probably the most famous, undergoing transformation in the second half of the 17th and 18th Centuries with regard to recruitment and taxation such that it was able to field disproportionate military forces. The Ottoman Empire was the same: its power came not from simply having population and manpower, but from efficient use of its core resources in Anatolia and the Balkans. It underwent significant internal transformation from 1453-1512 which increased the state's revenue and military strength dramatically. Its borders also expanded, but it was as a result of the internal reorganization, not the other way around.

Basically, countries in real life become strong and as a result they expand. Countries in EUIV expand and then as a result become strong.

 

[grisamentum]

It will never happen. Getting anywhere near accurate population figures is already hard enough in the victorian era, trying to find information like that in 1444 all the way to 1821 is an impossible task.

So is trying to figure out who ruled random provinces around the world in 1444 or figuring out what their main export was.

It's all arbitrary. The question is whether POPs would make the game better, not how much of it would have to be extrapolated or even wholly invented for balance purposes.

 

[leadshooter69]

I would love to see pops but I feel like for them to be significant it would require a big enough over haul of the game that it would probably be added to EU5 if at all. I'm going to ignore nationalism issues which has and will continue to take a huge steaming dump on a good amount of threads on this forum.

So lets say we have pops. What do we do with them? Mostly tax them and recruit them so they would be replacing base tax and manpower. The issue is that this would be a huge significant change to these base mechanics. So many of the events and other mechanics take advantage of these stats. While there was an overhaul with revolt risk/unrest, the change didn't really mess with events and the such since the numbers were basically the same, just how the game used them changed. I cant really see pops replacing manpower and base tax in a way that wont require a complete overhaul of the game that'll take longer than the reasonable development time of a DLC. In addition pops in Vic2 bought and produced goods and adding that in would also require an overhaul of the production and trade systems. Don't get me wrong I'd love to see pops but I don't think its reasonable to add them to EU4.

A system I though of that might work would be percentages of the population being represented. The percentages could represent minorities and maybe peasants, burghers, and nobles. These percentages could then be used to create a total multiplier based on there accepted status and maybe other stuff which would then modify the base tax and manpower. This could be then used as an overhaul of the culture system that in my opinion is lacking. This way only one system (culture) is overhauled instead of 3-5 (culture, basetax, manpower, production, trade).

 

[unmerged(773066)]

How many times do you have to be told why, specifically, this mechanic will never be in place? Paradox has explained a good 20 times.

 

[Zak Preston]

Well, just for this reason I made a test in a relatively poor region. As Eastern tech Ragusa I conquered about 40 provinces, I think my base tax was low, averaging about 3. I converted everything to Reformed, culture converted everything I could (except for Constantinople). Grabbed Economic and Quantity and built absolutely every building I could.
I finished #2 behind a huge HRE united by Austria (force limit, manpower, income). I couldn't really risk super interesting wars (a sort of global militia a la UN) because manufactories especially take a long time to make and sieges halt their progress, plus you lose it completely if they win the siege. Also culture conversions suffer from the same disease.

The only problem with this is that it was super boring.
It only got interesting because the AI underestimated me and declared war 4-5 times.

Hi there! =)
Where did you get all those MPs for building?
BTW, you still conquered a lot.

Ok, another thought: you have a pretty large multunational empire. Even if you converted some provinces into your primary culture, in real life that won't work that smoothly. How do you think, would your empire survive WWI and WW2, keeping at least half of territories?

 

[Sol_Invictus]

Why would anyone need POPs? The figures that existed in EU3 were absolute nonsense, and any system resulting in figures that aren't nonsense would require way too much processing power in a game that is currently on the limit and above for many player's computers.

I do think that there are lots of interesting things that could be done for immersion or just making managing your country more diverse and entertaining, but POPs are way down the line.

 

[oblio-]

Hi there! =)
Where did you get all those MPs for building?
BTW, you still conquered a lot.

Ok, another thought: you have a pretty large multunational empire. Even if you converted some provinces into your primary culture, in real life that won't work that smoothly. How do you think, would your empire survive WWI and WW2, keeping at least half of territories?

Monarch points came mostly from re-elections, since I couldn't really afford decent advisors until the late 1600s.
About conquest, my goal was a nice map, I basically wanted to unite "the Balkans". I will try other tests with smaller countries to see how things go with even less conquests.

Regarding territories, keeping in mind the abstractions used by Paradox, I think that my Ragusa would have been quite solid. My last conquest was Constantinople and it happened around 1650 or so. So the vast majority of the country was conquered united by 1600. Comparing the situation with France, France in 1500 was still a medieval state with several quite different subcultures (Aquitaine, Burgundian, etc), but France in 1800 was definitely a nation state. So no worries for my Ragusa in WW1 or WW2 (maybe the Greeks would be a problem since they're historically quite resistant to foreign influence, see Byzantium)

 

[uleslaw]

Thanks for your feedback. I am aware of potential performance issues connected to adding POPs or similar population mechanics, but you know, Paradox are smart guys, they could figure out how to do this in simplified form, without killing our machines.

I guess everyone could agree that being a ruler of people is better than being a ruler of BaseTax and ManPower. And some internal politics mechanics accompanied this change would be also very welcome.

 

[Mikalos]

I don't understand why we need pops in a time period when pops only started toi matter at the tail end of the game

 

[Zusk]

I don't understand why we need pops in a time period when pops only started toi matter at the tail end of the game

You aren't saying that 'people' didn't matter, are you?

 

[Zak Preston]

I don't understand why we need pops in a time period when pops only started toi matter at the tail end of the game

I think because EU4 cultural\religional system seems too simplistic. Smash a button, and recently conquered Moscow becomes core in 3 years, smash another button, and Moscow becomes Catholic in 1-3 years. Local autonomy is the first step to diversification.

 

[Aethelred]

Population statistics? Nah! Anachronistical (for at least half of EU's timeframe in Europe) and unimmersive, and without any gameplay-purpose/enhancement/interaction. It's like some 19th/20th cent. historian putting up economical hypotheses about why certain "countries" prospered and others didn't. I prefer the roleplay-approach (what would the rulers back then think? What was important to them?) rather the anachronistical meta-approach to things.

The problem starts when players talk about "their" empires. It would be rewarding if they would actually see them as the monarchs of certain "countries", as the souvereigns and holders of the highest title, so to speak, in a country. But the countries themselves were rather represented by the parliaments/diets/estates (chiefly the nobility of that "country"). And many natural persons/rulers held many titles (king, duke, count, etc.). The most famous and obvious example for a composite monarchy was the Habsburg empire, which consisted of several kingsdoms (e.g the crowns of Hungary and Bohemia) and other countries/titles (e.g. Archduchy of Austria, Duchy of Corinthia, Markgravate of Moravia, etc.) held by one dynasty (but it was also split up in the 16th and 17th century according to dynastic hereditary custom). In this post, I've given an impression of how a ruler in mid 18th century would see herself. The whole idea that Europe consisted of "Empires" (in the sense of centralized nation-states) is horribly wrong for this period. But I'm drifting off. Once again I have to say that a lot would have been gained (in terms of realism and immersion) if more of CK II had found its way into the game (titles & claims system). A concentration on playing persons and dynasties would have been a much better choice than the focus on playing a "country" (some kind of bureaucratic state), simply because it would have been closer to reality and would have done a better job in depicting the political structures of the age (most of it). I even have problems with "conquests" in the game. I don't think states conquered each other. Rather rulers (It's "Vive le Roy!", not "Vive la France!"; or "Maria Theresia!" not "Austria!") quarreled over who would acquire a certain title (of course everyone had or made up claims). There were no "annexations" but (forced) personal unions. Only on cultural borders where there would be a clash of different political systems (e.g. vs. the ottoman empire) would there be "conquests".

Therefore, something along these lines could actually make me play the game: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...-Brainstorm-Courts-factions-nobility-estates-!

 

[finkellll]

I'm happy to see the number of people that point out it would require a complete re-write of the game to properly implement pops.

Few other observations:

1) with how much people hate 50% minimum LA for NA colonies, can you imagine how people would react to The north american territories providing no manpower/BT as smallpox spreads across and kills everything (until colonized by a European power)

2) You are asking for a complete re-write of the game that changes absolutely nothing about gameplay (except manpower recovers infinitely slower). Like a hamster running in a wheel.

3) you say Pdx can choose random pops, but in this very forum people are complaining about the random pops Eu3 used, and I would be shocked if people didn't complain about ahistorical pops in specific area.

Overall it is a good idea for EU5, but we already have a working system. Why re-create the wheel?

 

[Zak Preston]

Monarch points came mostly from re-elections, since I couldn't really afford decent advisors until the late 1600s.
About conquest, my goal was a nice map, I basically wanted to unite "the Balkans". I will try other tests with smaller countries to see how things go with even less conquests.

Regarding territories, keeping in mind the abstractions used by Paradox, I think that my Ragusa would have been quite solid. My last conquest was Constantinople and it happened around 1650 or so. So the vast majority of the country was conquered united by 1600. Comparing the situation with France, France in 1500 was still a medieval state with several quite different subcultures (Aquitaine, Burgundian, etc), but France in 1800 was definitely a nation state. So no worries for my Ragusa in WW1 or WW2 (maybe the Greeks would be a problem since they're historically quite resistant to foreign influence, see Byzantium)

You did mention that playing a superstable and fully upgraded empire is kinda boring. But actually, IRL such kind of states tend to focus on geopolitics, spreading their influence on other states: forge alliances, create influential factions in neighbor states that can result in creating a puppet government and so on. But here we have a 4-7 (with ideas) diplomatic relations restriction.

If France DoWs Netherlands or Denmark to show superiority (not even conquest), not a single nation in that region won't change it's mind towards aggressor. I'm talking simply about DoW, not AE.

 

[Grubnessul]

It would be a rather pointless gimmick, unless the game was designed around it... which would give you Vicky2 with a 1444 map. Some xenogamy between the Paradox franchises is good, but not too much. They need all appropriate mechanisms for their eras.

 

[208]

You aren't saying that 'people' didn't matter, are you?

If Mikalos meant people, they would have said people, not pops. Pops, as done in Victoria, are representations of the breakdown of a region's population into cultural, religious, and economic subdivisions.