Large landmass =/= large population. Population = Strength.
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Why does Lithuania have more development than France in 1444?
- Thread starter Scurek
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Large landmass =/= large population. Population = Strength.
Muscovy and Russia always had a problematic economy. Peter's reforms grossly empowered the military government branch of the state, giving Russia the ability to project power internationally with an army and a navy. However, no one can claim that his reforms got the rest of Russia ahead. It is generally agreed that his economic reforms were superficial and/or misguided and taxing, and if anything lead to more oppressive backwardness (hello entrenched serfdom and bondage factory) that neatly set the stage for the revolution.
Of course the PLC strangled all of its potential Peters as far as the army is concerned and got what they deserved, but in any case the point was never that of who had the more "development". Muscovy and Russia would do very well early in their wars but the logistical difficulties always overwhelmed them immediately after, the reason why the peaces it signed were always borderline mediocre.
So the whole "Russia had manpower" is more like pop history - eg in the Smolensk war of the early 1600s half the Russian forces were mercenaries. Most of that so-called massive (potential??) manpower was tied up in peasant rebellions who occupied large swathes of the country every now and then, and defending the land from the the annual Crimean raids.
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That being said obviously I can't agree with the present state of Lithuania. Ruthenia having pre Mongol invasion levels of development is historically unjustified. The King
Lithuania got buffed in AoW along with the ROTW so that those regions wouldn't make for a frustrating experience. Then Poland couldn't keep it under a PU so Poland got buffed in a following patch. The problem is exactly those design choices that are based on bad game mechanics (development = success) and half baked historicity. Eg the Teutonic order was not exactly a pushover for Poland. They only managed to bring it into the fold because of its internal disintegration. The game just throws development to the problem.
Then the Teutonic Order had many forts, but forts are very expensive in game, so let's give ahistorical development to ingame Prussia so that TEU can maintain its historical forts, because, well,
TBH things like that need sitting in the deisgn room and are beyond minor tweaks.
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Ha ha, I love this part. Every time I've read something about Prussia and Junkers, it's always how they managed to build a major power out of worthless land. Then you look at that worthless land in game and you wonder what happened for it to be top soil.
They clicked the development button.
jokes aside though, the Teutonic Order as a Crusading Order probably got a pretty decent chunk of money via donations and from the Polish Crown to convert the heathens, early in their history which they used to build up their powerbase.
No, what I meant is that the provinces for Prussia in game are very good, nothing comparable to what is actually described in historical books.
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While it certainly helps I wouldn't say it equals strenght, sweden took on the PLC and won despite having a substanially smaller population. England got within an inch of taking the french throne despite having like 1/10th of their population. Centralisation and the quality of the army matters too. And the PLC had really crappy centralisation. Even if we don't decrease the development (and we perhaps should) we should increase the autonomy of the ruthenian lands, perhaps even add some separatism.
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At this time period effective leadership made a huge difference, but generally speaking a larger populous (all other things being equal) is better.
Just out of curiosity, are you even closely familiar with the population density numbers or urban centres cover of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania regions in the 15th-17th centuries? Former Smolensk principality territories weren't even closely in that terms with Lithuania Propria (Vilnius and Trakai) or even Samogitia in the 15th-16th centuries.
As to the subject - yes, the mentioned situation with the development points look strangely ahistorical, if you compare them between Western and Eastern Europe.
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Lithuania had a fairly low population density, so it doesn't make sense for their development to be directly correlated to their size. It's pretty unequivocal that Lithuania has ahistorically developed provinces (Kiev being the most preposterous example).
Well Kiev used to be a big city (relativly speaking) before the mongols sacked it right?
I think you are miss understanding me. I'm saying that current development levels are not justified because it's too developed for the amount of population they had. I'm not talking about size in terms of square miles.
Yes, and it was nothing more than a minor city until the 18th century (never over 10 000 people), and even then, it was still irrelevant (roughly 15 000 people). Look at its development, it has 28, same as Paris and more than Venice. What kind of joke is that?
http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s5285.pdf
There's a graph later on that shows the population of the city over time.
My mistake.
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Well they seem to have a habit of forgetting certain cities were sacked in the late ck2 era. Both Kiev and Constantinople have development like they were never sacked.
Have anyone checked rome's development after it's sack in the early 1500ds?
The region around Brandenburg and Pomerania seem accurate; these territories are about 2-4 in each development type and basically mediocre. The Oder region sucks; it's largely inferior to the Pol/TO land east, Bohemian land south, and Hansa etc land west. Historically, these lands were drained and cleared and settled with religious refugees to build them into prosperity. The game would need some kind of decision to convert these to grass/farm or something to railroad history, otherwise, I think most people get used to them sucking and Brandenburg wins by going wide not tall. The region held by the Teutonic Order is a tougher one. Even with inflated values TO gets eaten routinely. Kill some of these values and its going to be a wasteland. I think a nicer fix might be to have TO be an unruly Polish march, lower province values, and improve some of those trade goods so its not mostly grain and naval supply garbage that nobody wants to invest in.
204 years before the game even starts. After that I think it's unfair to consider Kiev at the level of the truly largest cities in the game. Even before the 1482 sack it's simply not something that should be held at the same level as the truly major cities, except perhaps for grain production. Kiev frankly never fully recovered from Batu Khan.
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Well when I speak of Prussia, I mean actual Prussia, where the Junkers held their estates. They were notoriously poorer lands than what was West and South, and since the estates were so large and hereditary, the younger nobles joined the military, which led to the extreme importance of the military in Prussian culture. The most shocking in all of this, is those relatively poor estates were to house the elite of what would eventually be Germany, a nation of extreme wealth and prosperity. That's why the in-game Prussian provinces create this awkward contrast with reality, where the region is fairly wealthy and important, whereas 1444 Teutonic lands got their wealth mostly from trade if I'm not mistaken, not estates.
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Brandenburg is waaay richer than it should be compared to, say, Saxony. That area was still the typical boggy primordial forest that was slowly being cleared and its Slavic pockets assimilated. Prussia was even worse. Masuria and Lithuania Minor (everything east of Sambia, not just Memel) took their name exactly because the Teutons invited Mazovians and Lithuanians to settle there, because the area was desolate after centuries of being a crusading frontier (same with Mazovia/Podlasia). Without Huguenots there would be no textile industry in BB. Without Salzburg/Mazovian Protestants no estates in southern/western Prussia.
I suppose the devs want BB to be viable in the 1444 start and that's OK. Its position is tame, it's short of the development critical mass for guaranteed success. But the Teutons? Why care? History surely didn't. As you say they will always be routinely eaten, so better bite the bullet and give realistic development, than maintain the pretension of survivability. Otherwise it's just Poland that gets even more ahead.
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but russia should, because they did historically. I wish i could witness the event of the partition. Its in the game, but the requirements are never ever met. 2000 hours of gameplay and not seen it once
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Yeah that was my point that they like with constantinople have given the province the development it would have had gotten in 1444 if it had never gotten sacked. I get why they do it, everyone has heard of kiev, the mother city of the rus and so on, like everyone knows about the great city of constantinople. But they were both basically ghost towns in 1444. They should have lower development, with increased chance of the urbanisation event (you know when a development moves to the capital from a rural province) to happen if they are the capitals, showing how they are still important ideological symbols if no longer great cities.
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