What do Pops Represent?: Gameplay Mechanics and Historical Simulation Discussion

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TwiddleFactor

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Again I believe the Roman skirmishers would be levied from Roman freemen pops, because I dont think the citizens represent all the spectre of population with Roman citizenship

I mostly agree with this. When e.g. Rome conquers tribesmen, they persist for a while until they are promoted one by one to freemen. Promotion in this case means a slow integration of tribals to the producing economy of Rome.

From the discussion in this thread, there seems to be two parts to the discussion.

1) what do the pops mechanically represent in the game
2) what should the pops represent

Number 1) is going to change slightly with 2.0 when they add levies. There might be other changes as well that we don't yet know about.

Number 2) really depends on the amount of realism people expect in the game, and if they see the pops as social classes, wealth classes, or economic roles (by economic roles I mean what job they do)

Addressing Number 1, I think that mechanically the pop classes represent the following currently
Slaves) well, slaves. They do manually labour
Freemen) They are labourers that do not own their own land or businesses. In settlements they are tenant farmers, in cities they are hired labour
Citizens) they are self employed urban residents (shop owners, craftsmen, etc.)
Nobles) wealthy landholders, own slaves and hire freemen. Could also be wealthy merchants
Tribesmen) they are kind of special. I have come to agree with other posters in this thread that they represent people who are used to a lifestyle free of state interference. They would live in relatively self-sufficient small communities and would pay nominal homage to their overlord. (Without overhauling tribes, there isn't much sense in changing them just yet)

Despite the original naming used, I don't think citizens are meant to actually be citizens (in the Roman sense). Also Nobles are a wealth class and not necessarily just patricians (in Rome's case).

The current system seems to be a mix of representing the economic role (job) of the pop and the wealth of the pop.

Nobles are both a role (landowner) and a wealth class, but citizen seems to be a role while slave and freemen are wealth classes. With the changes to the levy system, this becomes problematic, because most levy systems were based on wealth classes, but we are missing some important pops that aren't represented currently when we have this strange mix. The most important pop type missing is the small landowner who works their own land (this is what the majority of the Roman levy was made up of, even velites owned their own land).

Now in my opinion, there are two routes you could go to fill in the missing pops.

The simplest is to make all pops represent wealth classes. Everyone except citizens already fits this mould. Citizens would keep their current status as wealthy urban dwellers (craftsmen, etc.) but would now also represent small landholders. As a result, citizens would have to also be present in settlements. This would work for the levy system, although in this case freemen should no longer get levied. If the developers decide to expand the economic simulation in the future, it would make it difficult to model the dual roles of citizens as rural food producers and urban craftsmen though. One simple way would be simply to have citizens in cities represent craftsmen and citizens in settlements represent small landholders (depends how, and if, they revamp the resource system)

The other option is to vastly expand the number of pop types and have all pop types represent the economic role of the pop. For example, freemen and citizens would both be divided into a rural and urban pop. In this case though, separate population caps would be needed for rural and Urban pops in cities. It would also only make sense to go this route if they also revamp the economic system, and it wouldn't really work with the integrated culture system either.

Personally, I think having pops represent wealth classes is the best option. It makes the pops make sense and fit in with the current system, without making it too complicated. The main thing I would change would be to have citizens, freemen and slaves in settlements produce food.

Personally I would also like to see a revamp of the trade system. All settlements should only produce rural goods, and all cities should only produce urban goods. Freemen should also contribute to the resource production, and it would be neat if citizens in cities could produce a fractional percentage of random goods (like artisans in vic2? Never played Vic2, so not really sure how they work).

Edit: Just want to say, I would love a full on trade system with realistic production of goods, but I don't think it is realistic to expect something so complicated to ever be stable unless it was the heart of the game.
 
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Iosue Yu

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I've briefly studied the topic of La Tène Culture. I believe it's a good foundation of a working Tribal system if we ever want to do that. I am listing my foundings with numbers just to make it easy to read. Those numbers don't actually represent anything.
  1. La Tène Culture refers to the period between 450 BC to 1 BC, divided into 4 periods. And it's centred around today's Switzerland, reaching to coastal Britain down to the Pyrenees. So it covers the majority of Gaul, being the most relevant one to be chosen as the design foundation for tribals.
  2. These tribal people would have social hierarchies just like the Romans and Greeks, complete with slaves and nobles. So we really need to scrap the idea of Tribesmen being the all-encompassing egalitarian collection of people.
  3. The Celtic people were never as primitive as we think. Invention of Mail Armour was accredited to the Celts, and the warriors would wear bronze armour and equipment. I think also longer swords were wielded by the Celts while the Romans were still using Gladii. They also had the Shield Wall tactics, I believe the Celtic Warriors would not be limited to what Light Infantries represent. So the stereotypical combination of Light Infantries, Archers and Chariots would not entirely be true in most of the Celtic tribal people. Some reviews would be required but I guess it falls to the history experts working in Paradox to do that.
  4. Now, the actual trouble begins. I believe we simply cannot make changes to Pop systems without having a look at what different settlements are about, since the Pops are closely tied to what settlements they were in.
  5. In La Tène Culture, there would at least be 3 types of different levels of settlements:
    1. Oppida - these settlements were fortified giant towns. Even the Romans reused those towns for their own administration after taking over.
      1. Size: of at least 74 hectares
      2. Situated on a height, similar to a Greek Acropolis
      3. Fortification with woodworks
      4. Generally holding 10k people.
    2. Hill-Forts - these settlements were also fortified but significantly smaller
      1. Size of around 20 hectares
      2. Also usually situated on heights for defenses
      3. Foritification with woodworks
      4. Generalling holding 1k people.
    3. Other smaller settlements or villages - No direct reference or special terms for them, but it would make sense to have unfortified villages
  6. The main difference between the Romans, Greeks and La Tène would be Roman and Greek fortifications relied on stoneworks, while Le Tène fortifications relied on woodworks.
  7. Oppida are described as a milestone of urbanisation and appeared around 2nd century BC. But instead of a standard Greek city complete with a stone wall and an Acropolis, Oppida would be a wooden fortified enclosure and people all lived inside the walls.
    1. There's also a list of Oppida in Wiki. Many famous modern cities would be located near them, since the Romans also reused the sites. But I am seeing a lot of these listed do not have a counterpart City in the game right now.
  8. Now we need to review the Cities in the game
    1. The Tribes would eventually urbanise for the Centralisation efforts. So giving access to them around 550 AUC would make sense. But increasing Centralisation with the mechanics right now, even if you're only enabling Laws which increase 0.05 monthly instead of the ones which increase 0.1, reaching 30 and thus unlocking the Law for reducing costs of founding Cities would only take 30 years. So the timeline doesn't match.
    2. Also since the Tribes would be fortifying their cities with Woodwork instead of the Stonework foundations of the Greeks, it doesn't make sence to cost an extra 25% even after taking the relevant Law (Infrastructure Tenets -> Nomadic Lifestyle, costs reduced after changing to Formalized Agriculture or Hill-Fort Initiative).
    3. Before the Tribes began centralising into Oppida, they would still have more-or-less the same amount of Pops, but lived seperately in smaller Hill-Forts. These Hill-Forts would be different to just Building a Fort on a piece of land in the game, since life in Hill-Forts would technically have the same social hierarchies in a regular tribal city.
    4. The Tribal people living outside main settlements may also be different to what is perceived as 50% Tribesmen and 50% Slaves.
  9. Since the tribal people had social hierarchies, so it doesn't make sense to have an all-encompassing Pop Type call "Tribesmen". Tribal people would still occupy roles as Nobles, Citizens, Freemen and Slaves. Although I would argue that their ratios will be different to those of Rome or Greece. But we just don't have anything about that. So keeping the same ratio for balancing purposes would not be that bad a thing.
  10. Misc:
    1. Tribal people had different goverment types. Some were monarchies and some were similar to republics.
  11. A collection of all my suggestions:
    1. Redesign of populational distribution of Tribes. They would live out more evenly in occupied lands inside Hill-Forts. All Hill-Forts should have some basic foritifications.
    2. A new mechanism for urbanisation. Unlocked in 550 AUC that the Tribes can found Oppida with a much reduced price.
    3. Pop desired ratios should be kept constant for all settlement types - Oppida and Hill-Forts.
    4. Pop Type "Tribesmen" should be replaced by "Villagers". They represent people living outside central populated areas. This applies to both Tribals, Roman and Greeks. Greek Villagers may also be considered a symonym for Perioikoi (Surrounding-dwellers).
    5. Scrap the idea of unfortified cities. Greek cities had stone walls and an Acropolis. Tribal cities had wooden enclosure. I don't know what unfortified cities represent. Only scattered villages were unfortified, especially for Tribes since raiding nearby villages was their favourite pastime.
    6. Rename "Settlement" to be "Scattered villages" to represent that you don't have anything built in that location. These Scattered villages should only contain Villagers intead of a ratio of Freemen and Slaves. Can you imagine an unwalled location with a lot of Slaves? They would run away unless you lock them up in cages.
    7. Villagers may just move around without your control. They should also represent nomadic people. Although their lifestyles would be radically different, their roles in the eyes of a centralised government would be similar. Of course, they would also be prime targets for mercenaries.
    8. All conquered Pops should be somehow processed instantly instead of having to wait for a Noble to Demote. There needs to be a way to handle conquered civilised people for Tribes, and the other way around. I would make sense to drive old inhabitants into exile and thus becoming Villagers who were denied living inside the Walls after taking over a big settlement.
    9. Tribal governments should be redesigned somehow. I have the gut feeling the tribes right now are modelled after Native American Tribes in the timeframe of EU4.
  12. References
    1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Tène_culture
    2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oppidum
    3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillfort
    4. https://brewminate.com/celtic-warfare-from-the-ancient-hallstatt-to-la-tene-cultures
 
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Iosue Yu

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From the discussion in this thread, there seems to be two parts to the discussion.

1) what do the pops mechanically represent in the game
2) what should the pops represent

Number 1) is going to change slightly with 2.0 when they add levies. There might be other changes as well that we don't yet know about.

Number 2) really depends on the amount of realism people expect in the game, and if they see the pops as social classes, wealth classes, or economic roles (by economic roles I mean what job they do)

Addressing Number 1, I think that mechanically the pop classes represent the following currently
Slaves) well, slaves. They do manually labour
Freemen) They are labourers that do not own their own land or businesses. In settlements they are tenant farmers, in cities they are hired labour
Citizens) they are self employed urban residents (shop owners, craftsmen, etc.)
Nobles) wealthy landholders, own slaves and hire freemen. Could also be wealthy merchants
Tribesmen) they are kind of special. I have come to agree with other posters in this thread that they represent people who are used to a lifestyle free of state interference. They would live in relatively self-sufficient small communities and would pay nominal homage to their overlord. (Without overhauling tribes, there isn't much sense in changing them just yet)

Despite the original naming used, I don't think citizens are meant to actually be citizens (in the Roman sense). Also Nobles are a wealth class and not necessarily just patricians (in Rome's case).

The current system seems to be a mix of representing the economic role (job) of the pop and the wealth of the pop.

Nobles are both a role (landowner) and a wealth class, but citizen seems to be a role while slave and freemen are wealth classes. With the changes to the levy system, this becomes problematic, because most levy systems were based on wealth classes, but we are missing some important pops that aren't represented currently when we have this strange mix. The most important pop type missing is the small landowner who works their own land (this is what the majority of the Roman levy was made up of, even velites owned their own land).

Now in my opinion, there are two routes you could go to fill in the missing pops.

The simplest is to make all pops represent wealth classes. Everyone except citizens already fits this mould. Citizens would keep their current status as wealthy urban dwellers (craftsmen, etc.) but would now also represent small landholders. As a result, citizens would have to also be present in settlements. This would work for the levy system, although in this case freemen should no longer get levied. If the developers decide to expand the economic simulation in the future, it would make it difficult to model the dual roles of citizens as rural food producers and urban craftsmen though. One simple way would be simply to have citizens in cities represent craftsmen and citizens in settlements represent small landholders (depends how, and if, they revamp the resource system)

The other option is to vastly expand the number of pop types and have all pop types represent the economic role of the pop. For example, freemen and citizens would both be divided into a rural and urban pop. In this case though, separate population caps would be needed for rural and Urban pops in cities. It would also only make sense to go this route if they also revamp the economic system, and it wouldn't really work with the integrated culture system either.

Personally, I think having pops represent wealth classes is the best option. It makes the pops make sense and fit in with the current system, without making it too complicated. The main thing I would change would be to have citizens, freemen and slaves in settlements produce food.

Personally I would also like to see a revamp of the trade system. All settlements should only produce rural goods, and all cities should only produce urban goods. Freemen should also contribute to the resource production, and it would be neat if citizens in cities could produce a fractional percentage of random goods (like artisans in vic2? Never played Vic2, so not really sure how they work).

Edit: Just want to say, I would love a full on trade system with realistic production of goods, but I don't think it is realistic to expect something so complicated to ever be stable unless it was the heart of the game.
I have a random thought about good productions though. I think Nobles should handle it. It's more on the side of "These Nobles own the farm for Olives, or a mine or stuff." Trade Goods are tied to what's called "Latifundia". So Goods being produced in these privately owned estates being owned by Nobles who then supply the state with a portion of the Goods would make sense.

Think of Nobles as "Company owners", so adding more Nobles are like opening up a new mining or farming company. At least Goods like Wine, Olive Oil and mined Metals would fall nicely under this new perspective.
 
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TwiddleFactor

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I have a random thought about good productions though. I think Nobles should handle it. It's more on the side of "These Nobles own the farm for Olives, or a mine or stuff." Trade Goods are tied to what's called "Latifundia". So Goods being produced in these privately owned estates being owned by Nobles who then supply the state with a portion of the Goods would make sense.

Think of Nobles as "Company owners", so adding more Nobles are like opening up a new mining or farming company. At least Goods like Wine, Olive Oil and mined Metals would fall nicely under this new perspective.

The problem with having trade resources be based on noble pops is that then it would be possible to have huge resource output with a population full of only Nobles. It is already possible to have all Nobles with with super cities, but it isn't sustainable, as you wouldn't have any goods to feed your pops. The Nobles aren't the actual ones working, so they shouldn't produce goods

On a side note though, I feel noble populations should be limited by your number of slaves and freemen. How can they have any money if there is no one to work for them?
 
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IsaacCAT

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I have a random thought about good productions though. I think Nobles should handle it. It's more on the side of "These Nobles own the farm for Olives, or a mine or stuff." Trade Goods are tied to what's called "Latifundia". So Goods being produced in these privately owned estates being owned by Nobles who then supply the state with a portion of the Goods would make sense.

Think of Nobles as "Company owners", so adding more Nobles are like opening up a new mining or farming company. At least Goods like Wine, Olive Oil and mined Metals would fall nicely under this new perspective.
Not always, only when having a holding. Without a holding, the state would be the owner.

In my suggestion Game of POPs I described a system of social mobility that would allow noblemen to appear in settlements.

 
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Gurkhal

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From what I have read previously on Wiki, the Spartans were just 3 kinds of people.
  1. Spartans, who had undergone the Agoge and only just train fighting without doing anything else.
  2. Perioikoi, the surrounding-dwellers, who would be buying and selling between settlements and contribute to their economy.
  3. Helotes, who had a different treatment to regular Slaves but occupied the same role as Slaves for Spartans. The Spartans also had an annual festival to simply kill and butcher Helotes performed by the Krypteia to keep the numbers of Helotes under control.
Note also Spartans didn't even have minted coins as currency and used a barter system.

I actually would argue the Spartans were more closely represented by being a Tribal government but just with 2 Kings. Or perhaps 1 King with another 1 King being a Clan Chief.

But sure I could be mistaken. Anyhow, the Helotes were allowed to be fodders and taken to the battlefields, despite being the bottom-most stratum of people. The Spartans would even want to trim down their numbers.

But under the current game's assumptions... I am lost for how these pieces of information can be used.

Well, without me being a specialist on Sparta I would say you've gotten a few things wrong here.

While the Spartiates were supposed to only train for war their presence in the Panhellenic games for example tells me that they probably did a fair bit of things they were not supposed to do, and I recall reading about a passion for hunting dogs. People being people and all that meant that the public image of the Spartiates may or may not have added up to the practical reality. Now I don't think the whole image of the Spartans was a big scam either but I think there were more leeway than the image would allow.

The perioikoi not only contributed to the economy but were the economy in that if we believe that the Spartiates were acutally forbidden from owning money and only trained for war, the perioikoi were the only way the Spartiates could get hold of equipment for war in the first place by either taxing the perioikoi so that the state could buy abroad or it was made by the perioikoi. The same for every single application of crafts, investments or business deal the Spartan state had to make.

But no, the helots were not slaves and were never slaves. They were far more like serfs. Brutally repressed and feared serfs, yes, but still serfs and not slaves.

One solution, which could perhaps also help with areas in the east, would be a POP-type about indentured peasants. People who are not slaves but not as prosperos as Freemen, which I think would include more like self-owning farmers of some modest prosperity and such. Although this might risk opening a dangerous with with a potentally bloated list of POP-types.
 
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The problem with pop design is that it tries to represent both social/political classes as well as economical. They should overhaul it to represent just economic classes now that we have all the culture system with pop rights and all that.

Another problem is that the game cannot represent economic development. More pops = more money. This forced them to give unrealistically low pop nunbers to all of europe outside Italy and Greece, when we know there was as much population everywhere in europe, it was only more decentralized and disperse, as opposed to the greeko roman world which had more cities. They also lacked the institution that allowed for economic development. But not even, it is proven that in Spain there were tribes and settlements that had cities and cultures just as advanced and developed as other mediterranean places. Just not as Rome. But the game fails to represent this, so they have to give ridiculously low pop numbers to Hispania or Gaul Germania to represent it.

Hopefully in the economic overhaul patch they will tackle this. The distintion between settlement and city was a great step in the right direction. Just not enough, as it still fails to represent outside rome and greece
 
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Iosue Yu

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Well, without me being a specialist on Sparta I would say you've gotten a few things wrong here.

While the Spartiates were supposed to only train for war their presence in the Panhellenic games for example tells me that they probably did a fair bit of things they were not supposed to do, and I recall reading about a passion for hunting dogs. People being people and all that meant that the public image of the Spartiates may or may not have added up to the practical reality. Now I don't think the whole image of the Spartans was a big scam either but I think there were more leeway than the image would allow.

The perioikoi not only contributed to the economy but were the economy in that if we believe that the Spartiates were acutally forbidden from owning money and only trained for war, the perioikoi were the only way the Spartiates could get hold of equipment for war in the first place by either taxing the perioikoi so that the state could buy abroad or it was made by the perioikoi. The same for every single application of crafts, investments or business deal the Spartan state had to make.

But no, the helots were not slaves and were never slaves. They were far more like serfs. Brutally repressed and feared serfs, yes, but still serfs and not slaves.

One solution, which could perhaps also help with areas in the east, would be a POP-type about indentured peasants. People who are not slaves but not as prosperos as Freemen, which I think would include more like self-owning farmers of some modest prosperity and such. Although this might risk opening a dangerous with with a potentally bloated list of POP-types.
Sparta needs special care that's for sure.

With that still being "Sine Die", I think the quickest solution is to make Helotes Slaves, Perioikoi Villagers and Spartans Citizens, and to add different output modifiers to them. But this is a duct-tape solution. Something more elegant would require some care from the Devs. I think maybe it'd be a good time to have Sparta getting itself a unique society when they finally decide to put 2 Kings for Sparta.
 
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Gurkhal

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Sparta needs special care that's for sure.

With that still being "Sine Die", I think the quickest solution is to make Helotes Slaves, Perioikoi Villagers and Spartans Citizens, and to add different output modifiers to them. But this is a duct-tape solution. Something more elegant would require some care from the Devs. I think maybe it'd be a good time to have Sparta getting itself a unique society when they finally decide to put 2 Kings for Sparta.

I can absolutely understand the wish for some specific Spartan mechanics, partially for historical interest and partially for the popularity of that state in games.

But I would personally make a change to Sparta with both a special Spartiate culture, only available to nobles and citizens, a new POP-type for serfs who could also be found on Crete, Thessaly and in some other places as well as in Egypt and other regions where indentured peasants were a thing in the economy. And some changes so that Spartiate POPs does, in Sparta, primary provide manpower for legions and really good heavy infantry for levies.

And so on. Lots of potential here.
 

Iosue Yu

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I can absolutely understand the wish for some specific Spartan mechanics, partially for historical interest and partially for the popularity of that state in games.

But I would personally make a change to Sparta with both a special Spartiate culture, only available to nobles and citizens, a new POP-type for serfs who could also be found on Crete, Thessaly and in some other places as well as in Egypt and other regions where indentured peasants were a thing in the economy. And some changes so that Spartiate POPs does, in Sparta, primary provide manpower for legions and really good heavy infantry for levies.

And so on. Lots of potential here.
Lots of potential but also such a deep abyss to invest in.

Redesigning the roles of the Pops, redesigning a barter economy instead of currencies, redesigning citizenships so only Lacondaemonians having undergone Agoge could be Citizens, redesigning Perioikoi, redesigning output and trades...

Lacondaemonia would become so different to others. And good formulae to transform Pops into different strata would have to be established for both conquering new Pops and Lacondaemonian Pops being conquered by others.

It's an abyss. I am not seeing a profit in the shoes of the Devs since Sparta is just one tag in the historical footnote at that time period.
 
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Marcus Pica

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My post on twitter teaser thread related to what pops represent: