With new attention going to population, will holdings per kingdom be reevaluated?

[mudcrabmerchant]

tl;dr Some areas of the map need to have fewer holdings (Britain and Scandinavia especially), some areas need to have more (especially Georgia); check the big image below for numbers justifying this; yes, I know population isn't a perfect metric, but it's a pretty good one; yes, balance takes priority

Basically, if we want the game to still be based in historical plausibility, some areas of the map should have a lot fewer holdings, and some should have a lot more.

The number of holdings in a realm determines the max income and army size of that realm, not counting trade post income from trade routes or merchant republics. It's hard to tie something as abstract as # of potential holdings to real life numbers, but I think population is a good proxy - your population is your tax base and your manpower pool, and differences in productivity between populations of the same size can now be represented by the new prosperity mechanic.

I put forward that the holdings in a given region should be tied to that region's potential population before industrialization. Not strictly, of course - population estimates for any region during this period are sketchy at best. And this is a game, not a simulation. But most players seem to want CKII to be grounded in history, and we can get a general idea of how many people lived in a given area throughout history, and how this compared with other regions.

So, let's look at the numbers. If you have more up to date scholarly estimates of pre-industrial populations of the areas depicted in CKII, do please provide them. These figures are for historical populations of areas within modern day borders, and I got them from Wikipedia and quick google searches; I counted the in-game holding slots that fall within those borders.

The important numbers are in the yellow columns.

France, Germany, and Italy all have about the same proportion of holdings to population, and I think that's a good baseline. Iberia and the Low Countries have similar figures, but northern Europe is way out of wack. England has twice the holdings per population (HPP), Scotland has 5 times more HPP, and Scandinavia's HPP is ridiculous, especially Norway and Sweden.

Meanwhile, poor little Georgia has the same number of holdings as the Brittany, with a max pre-industrial population greater than that of England and Wales (granted, 7.3 mil is an anomaly, most of the time they were between 2 and 4 - still comparable to medieval England, though).

What does this mean for the game? This is going to make me unpopular, but there should be massive reductions to max possible holdings in Britain and Scandinavia, possibly minor reductions in Iberia, and an increase in Georgia. I suspect that other areas nearby Georgia may also need a boost to possible holdings. I don't mean to slavishly tie holdings to population, but where we see massive disparities like in the pic above, I think the game should be changed.

How will this affect balance? Well, England will get a lot weaker, so will Scandinavia, and if this means they get regularly conquered, then holdings numbers should be buffed again. But IMO these places are too rich and too powerful as-is, and that's the reason I started this little study.

As for places like Georgia - these usually see a lot of wars, and so the development of the region should be naturally retarded compared to Europe.

OK, begin raging at me.

 

[orochi2k]

Time to create a 14-holding Iceland and make it the last standing against the rest of world falling in Black Plauge and Zombie Virus

 

[Thorkel the Tall]

I think your danish estimate is slighty too low.

This source say 1.1-1.3mio for Denmark (including Skania, Halland and Blekinge, Holstein, but NOT Hamburg/Bremen/etc, which in the game is de jure Denmark. This would bump the population further up. 0.7mio for medieval fits the current (much smaller) central parts of Denmark.
https://books.google.dk/books?id=lP...onepage&q=population denmark medieval&f=false

Still I think you have a point, somethings seem odd. The outer regions in northern Europe is gennerally very larger, but didn't historically held than many people.

HOWEVER, the number of holding slots is not the only relevant figure: it is also a matter of how well developed they are. As Byzantine provinces is generally more updated than Scandinavian ones this might factor out the larger "potential" in Scandinavia (more spread out population). Today England have as many people of France (or more?), maybe due to a period from the 16th-19th century as a world empire, with an influx of people, population growth etc, thus we might suspect that being "central" in an empire tend to generate population growth. This would mean that the history which changes in CK should in fact allow the player (and AI) to develop a country more than it was historically.

Similarly towns might hold more people than bishopries and feudal rural areas.

An interesting test would be to see how large levies, gold, and retinue points the different regions have in the late CK starts (after 1250), and compare that to historic populations. These figures might be better served to compare each country's population, than number of slots. Scandinavia/Scotland should after all comprise of larger areas with few people, than lets say Italy or Flanders, with a few huge cities (Brugge had something like 100.000 people during the late medieval period, this this one "slot" had as many inhapitants than many Swedish provinces).

My guess is that Scandinavia would be as far ahead of the rest if these figures where used (though I suspect the programmers to have made Sweden too strong for its historical reality, perhaps a little patriotism?).

 

[Robmel]

Feudalism as in Frankish Europe (France, Germany) didn't exist in medieval Scandinavia even after the age of vikings (In CKII as Tribal governments).

Solution:
There should be different kinds of feudal government variants available for each European region and respective holdings should yield different numbers of troops and money.
Decreasing available holdings in Scandinavia and Britain would be more simple solution.

CKII currently is way too simplistic to show the diversity of government types in medieval Europe. There is no difference in gameplay whether you are king in Castile, Scotland, France, Sweden, Hungary, Byzantium (save for viceroyalty, it still plays as western feudal realm) etc.

 

[Thorkel the Tall]

"Feudalism as in Frankish Europe (France, Germany) didn't exist in medieval Scandinavia even after the age of vikings (In CKII as Tribal governments)."

Not at the beginning, no. But stuff like counts etc was introduced gradually, similar a knighted class holding castles and providing levies, having serfs etc. Neither did "feudal" mean the same in 9th century france than in 14th century france. I see this reflected in A. the technology which changes how many and how good troops you have awailable, which laws can pass, how much the noble customs have evolved etc, and B thebuildings. 9th century France feudal holdings have not so developed castle/castle towns/ castle wall, barracks etc as the 14th century ones (all things that affect your levy output or gold for buying mercenaries), the same is true of 11th century Scandinavian ones.

Thus decreasing the available holdings would wrong, as both in England and Scandinavia (the southern part - the northern part have too poor agriculture) there was the foundation for a more intensive land use (thus Danish fishers, farmers etc supplied north German towns with food due to historical reasons, but who is to say a massive Scandinavian empire couldnt have had more large towns?). Most of the plots in Scandinavia is built, perhaps some areas need more "built" plots (which they to some degree already have..), but that would take away player agency in determining what should be located there.

The skewness of plot distribution is only a problem if it produces a result where Scotland and Scandinavia produce to much money and/or levies, compared to historical events. In most start dates, that does not seem to be the case... (at least I haven't seen the calculations, comparing levies+gold to past populations, is a more accurate way, and "plots/holdings" should be compared to "area" - possibly "arable area", excluding mountains).

Could there be a greater difference between the different realms in term of game play? Sure, but it would be rather hard to balance, and still have the player be able to "change" history. Saying; oh Denmark had elective right until 1660 means you cant change the law in CK-timeframe, would be annoying. However people would likely not mind as the Danish heritage laws meant that it was only members of the royal family who could be elected (gavelkind but without the split...). Similar elective meant something completely different at least until 1200 (every free man could in theory wote at the assemplages, and definitely any man belonging to the richer farmers, lower nobility etc, thus barons, all commanders/advisors (also commanders of barons/bishops), all members of "great houses" etc should get a wote. From around 1200 and finalised in the 14th century, the danecourt and later national counsel became the ones electing (and thus not a similar system with electoral provinces as in the holy roman empire).

It would be fun to have multiple elective systems, then the barons should be able to form counter factions to the counts/dukes in order to promote more egalitaran woting rights.

 

[mudcrabmerchant]

I think your danish estimate is slighty too low.

This source say 1.1-1.3mio for Denmark (including Skania, Halland and Blekinge, Holstein, but NOT Hamburg/Bremen/etc, which in the game is de jure Denmark. This would bump the population further up. 0.7mio for medieval fits the current (much smaller) central parts of Denmark.

My sources were for areas within the modern borders, so that would explicitly exclude Scania from Denmark, and include it in Sweden - which I took into account when counting holdings per region. The overall pop for Scandinavia is consistent.

Still I think you have a point, somethings seem odd. The outer regions in northern Europe is gennerally very larger, but didn't historically held than many people.

HOWEVER, the number of holding slots is not the only relevant figure: it is also a matter of how well developed they are. As Byzantine provinces is generally more updated than Scandinavian ones this might factor out the larger "potential" in Scandinavia (more spread out population). Today England have as many people of France (or more?), maybe due to a period from the 16th-19th century as a world empire, with an influx of people, population growth etc, thus we might suspect that being "central" in an empire tend to generate population growth. This would mean that the history which changes in CK should in fact allow the player (and AI) to develop a country more than it was historically.

My point is that almost all holdings get very well developed by a few hundred years into the game, and so the only way to ensure that realistic differences between regions is maintained is to make the differences based on holding number.

An interesting test would be to see how large levies, gold, and retinue points the different regions have in the late CK starts (after 1250), and compare that to historic populations. These figures might be better served to compare each country's population, than number of slots. Scandinavia/Scotland should after all comprise of larger areas with few people, than lets say Italy or Flanders, with a few huge cities (Brugge had something like 100.000 people during the late medieval period, this this one "slot" had as many inhapitants than many Swedish provinces).

We shouldn't think of one holding as strictly one town, because it could include outlying areas, or even just be part of a larger city - Constantinople's holding names are all different parts of the city, or even just single forts in the walls. That's why I think it's best to keep the comparison largely abstract, and be conscious of it - holding # generally should be tied to the general population of a given area. We shouldn't fuss so much over how many people each individual holding is meant to represent.

My guess is that Scandinavia would be as far ahead of the rest if these figures where used (though I suspect the programmers to have made Sweden too strong for its historical reality, perhaps a little patriotism?).

Final thing to note about Sweden, is that its population growth was much greater than either Denmark or Norway from 1500 to the mid 1700s - it basically doubled, and so I think we should consider the roof of pre-industrial growth in Sweden to be much higher. Basically, it should have about as many holding slots as Denmark + Norway combined, although in early start dates the actual built holdings should be comparable to just Denmark or Norway.

 

[mudcrabmerchant]

Thus decreasing the available holdings would wrong, as both in England and Scandinavia (the southern part - the northern part have too poor agriculture) there was the foundation for a more intensive land use (thus Danish fishers, farmers etc supplied north German towns with food due to historical reasons, but who is to say a massive Scandinavian empire couldnt have had more large towns?). Most of the plots in Scandinavia is built, perhaps some areas need more "built" plots (which they to some degree already have..), but that would take away player agency in determining what should be located there.

If even today the Nordic countries have significantly smaller populations than countries much smaller than them (compare Sweden with the Netherlands), I think it's safe to say that Scandinavia reaching German or even medieval English levels of productivity per square kilometer would be so implausible as to not warrant consideration in game.

The skewness of plot distribution is only a problem if it produces a result where Scotland and Scandinavia produce to much money and/or levies, compared to historical events. In most start dates, that does not seem to be the case... (at least I haven't seen the calculations, comparing levies+gold to past populations, is a more accurate way, and "plots/holdings" should be compared to "area" - possibly "arable area", excluding mountains).

Even if the current system leads to plausible numbers in game, I think it's still a design flaw. Max holdings should be reduced, so that you don't have the case where, say, Sweden can reach huge levels of wealth and development that a much more populous and rich region like Georgia will never be able to achieve in game. And the player will often fully develop a country, so this isn't just theoretical problem - it damages the gameplay for me (admittedly not by too much) that I can make Scotland 4x as rich and militarily powerful as Georgia.

 

[SigurdStormhand]

OK, I see the point you're making and with regards to Scandinavia I think you're right, but somewhat less so with Iberia and England.

Holding slots represent the number amount of viable land within a given area, not all holding slots are necessarily filled.

What I think you should do is make two comparisons.

1. Number of holding slots vs contemporary population, where all these regions are at a similar economic and technological level.

2. Number of filled holding slots at the final start date vs population in 1500.

That should give you a better idea of how heavily populated an area is vs its potential population capacity.

 

[mudcrabmerchant]

I don't think contemporary population is necessarily the best measure, because the industrial revolution did a lot to unshackle pop growth from pre-industrial limits on carrying capacity.

And also, if we look at, say, England vs. France, both have about the same population, but mostly because France suffered major setbacks to population and population growth due to the Napoleonic Wars and then WWI, which didn't affect England as hard.

Now, situational stuff like this could also affect pre-industrial populations, but I think the effects of random events would be less in a period where massive population growth isn't the norm.

 

[Talq]

Hmm, your estimate for Georgia is remarkable given its twice the current population of the area. Wikipedia's source for that is apparently an article in Russian in 1941 (which, oddly is neither translated, nor available online).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_demography

 

[Rorgloin]

It's also possible that instead of putting holding limits in, you could just make development more expensive in certain areas. So if you wanted to put the effort into developing England and encouraging prosperity, then you could make it very developed, but it would be hard compared to developing, let's say, the Po River valley.

 

[Thorkel the Tall]

"My sources were for areas within the modern borders, so that would explicitly exclude Scania from Denmark, and include it in Sweden - which I took into account when counting holdings per region. The overall pop for Scandinavia is consistent."

Fair enough.

"Final thing to note about Sweden, is that its population growth was much greater than either Denmark or Norway from 1500 to the mid 1700s - it basically doubled, and so I think we should consider the roof of pre-industrial growth in Sweden to be much higher".

In the period Sweden went from second to Denmark, to the leading Scandinavia country and the most developed. You cannot equate all "preindustrial" periods!

In 1450, copenhagen had 4-5.000 people, at the same time Lübeck had around 20-25.000, in 1800 (still before industrialisation), Copenhagen had 100.000 people (it doubled between 1450-1500! And might have held 30.000 before 1650), and Lübeck still below 30.000. Does this mean that pre-industrial growth is higher in DK than in Germany? No, it means that Copenhagen became a central trade hub, and Lübeck completely lost its influence, due to changesd power relations etc.

"We shouldn't think of one holding as strictly one town, because it could include outlying areas, or even just be part of a larger city - Constantinople's holding names are all different parts of the city, or even just single forts in the walls. That's why I think it's best to keep the comparison largely abstract, and be conscious of it - holding # generally should be tied to the general population of a given area."

But one holding can be one church, and it can be a keep AND a castle town, or a whole region.... The point is if it doesn't produce "soldiers" or gold, it isnt a representative of a population. As different holding types and different upgrades represent very different population sizes.

"We shouldn't fuss so much over how many people each individual holding is meant to represent."

But that is what you are doing.... you want the number of holdings to reflect the historical population.... that is the result of your calculations, that there should be a connection.

"My point is that almost all holdings get very well developed by a few hundred years into the game, and so the only way to ensure that realistic differences between regions is maintained is to make the differences based on holding number."

I havn't noticed that. Can you provide figures for that (for AI controlled areas)? I think the AI is very poor at developing holdings (and even worse at builting in unbuilt ones). Do you frequently see a 1300 century AI Norway mustering large armies?

"If even today the Nordic countries have significantly smaller populations than countries much smaller than them (compare Sweden with the Netherlands), I think it's safe to say that Scandinavia reaching German or even medieval English levels of productivity per square kilometer would be so implausible as to not warrant consideration in game."

I tend to agree with the northern part of Scandinavia, where agriculture is poor, but alot of modern day population is in cities, and this is difficult to calculate by the areas carrying capacity.

As I noted the major cities in northern Germany (and the Netherlands) had alot of food comming from Denmmark (and some from Noway/Sweden), thousands and thousands of cattle was brought to from Jutland to Hamburg every year, and the herring from the markets in Sealand and Scania was very important for north German economy. Still today Denmark is a huge exporter of agricultural products (bacon, cheese, butter, etc). The carrying capacity isn't related directly to population,

Denmark also have a higher population density (126 people per km2) than France (110), Spain (85), Poland (123), Greece (80) comparing with the Netherlands which probably have the highest population densities in Europe is kind of off. Yes, Sweden is very sparsely populated, mainly the northern and inland areas, while both the Stockholm areas, and Sourthern part is more normally distributed in European context (however Paris/Berling/London/etc cities scew modern picture as the have more people than some countires).

England today have a much higher population density than France, but the contrary was true in the Medieval period: it has nothing to do with carrying capacity, as food stuff already during the medieval moved where it was needed. It has to due with England being a world empire, while France stagnated.

I am not claiming that there isn't weird stuff going on sometimes (that it is even possible to create a great Merchant republic in Iceland (shifted back to pagan for the title "petty Serene Dodge" as I am doing in one game for instance), but taking number of provinces isn't as straightforward as is assumed, as other weird stuff then happens.

 

[Manic Eskimo]

I've always thought of the number of possible holdings as representing the possible max population. For instance the London province has a lot of potential room to grow but doesn't start huge. While other places might have had higher populations at the start the potential for London to grow was always there.

 

[Thure]

If even today the Nordic countries have significantly smaller populations than countries much smaller than them (compare Sweden with the Netherlands), I think it's safe to say that Scandinavia reaching German or even medieval English levels of productivity per square kilometer would be so implausible as to not warrant consideration in game.

Island for exemple had an higher population in the middle ages than today. Remember it was a warm period. So Scandinavia was much warmer than today with better conditions.

 

[Thorkel the Tall]

Island for exemple had an higher population in the middle ages than today. Remember it was a warm period. So Scandinavia was much warmer than today with better conditions.

Well that is disputed: most sources I have seen say 40-50.000, some slightly above at around 60.000 such as Jesse Byock "almost all the population, estimated at 60,000, lived on their farms"

http://www.viking.ucla.edu/publications/articles/governmental_order.pdf

That is below the current one (300.000), but higher than late preindustrial, and more than currently live in farms and do agriculture, certainly (roughly 200.000 of the present day population live in the Reykjavik area, the majority of the rest in smaller towns)

 

[iron0037]

If we're going by population, all of Europe should be halved and India tripled. I talked about this last year...

India is significantly shortchanged in terms of its historic population and economy at the time. Here is a summary of how CK2 compares to estimates of historic population and GDP:

Populations are in millions. GDP is in billions of 1990 US dollars. These are of course estimates and are by no means perfect. Nevertheless, it paints a picture in which Europe is grossly overrepresented in the game.

If holdings are an abstraction of the population at the time, then you would need to quadruple the number of holdings in India in 1066 to get it proportional to Europe. If instead, you think of holdings as an abstraction for GDP, then you'd need 6 times as many holdings! In fact, all of the map outside Europe is problematic. So if you're honestly concerned about performance and correctly representing what was historically significant, then you'd want to remove holdings from Europe and redistribute across the rest of the map.

Sources:
http://www.ckiiwiki.com/Duchies
http://www.ggdc.net/Maddison/other_books/appendix_B.pdf

If you were to take the existing number of provinces and rebalance them based on historical estimates, this is what it would look like:

So in a nutshell, if you were to go by population (my recommendation), then you would want to remove half the provinces in Europe and nearly triple the density in India. North Africa and the rest of Asia are a little overly densely represented in the game, but they're not too far off.

 

[Thorkel the Tall]

"If we're going by population, all of Europe should be halved and India tripled. I talked about this last year..."

Now on this I see a point: in general Europe is overestimated in the game, not only holdings but also in a tehoretical combined holdings/tax/levy output.

 

[Thure]

If we're going by population, all of Europe should be halved and India tripled. I talked about this last year...

How did you came to 40 million population for Europe in 1000? Urlanis estimated around 56 in 1000 and 83 in 1450. India was mostly around 100 million during the whole era... so... the max holding numbers for India shouldn't be that much higher than for Europe.

 

[iron0037]

How did you came to 40 million population for Europe in 1000? Urlanis estimated around 56 in 1000 and 83 in 1450. India was mostly around 100 million during the whole era... so... the max holding numbers for India shouldn't be that much higher than for Europe.

There's a citation to a paper in my post. The average estimate from 5 different scholars is around 40 million in Europe.