• We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.

Tinto Talks #17 - 19th of June 2024

Welcome everyone to the 17th Tinto Talks, in this Happy Wednesday, we will give you further information about the most secret game you could ever think of, the one with the codename Project Caesar.

Today we will delve into the depths and mechanics of how the population system of the game actually works.

As a recap, we have 6 different social classes, with Nobles, Clergy & Burghers viewed as upper class, while Peasants, Tribesmen & Slaves make up the other three. Every location has a population, and each combination of social class, culture and religion creates a unique “pop” in the game. That Pop may contain 1 person, or 250 Million, but it is still referred to as a “pop”.


pop_browser.png

Design copied from an old game I made a decade or two ago… UI is a bit placeholdery, but i like the browsing capabilities..


Population Capacity
Each location has a population capacity which depends on quite a lot of factors. The core of it is vegetation, topography and climate, while the amount of buildings and development increases it as well. If your population is higher than its current capacity, then there is a very large impact on its migration attraction and population growth.

While there are no restrictions on how many peasants, slaves or tribesmen there can be in a single location, the amount of upper class pops there can be is limited, and depends on what infrastructure there exists for that type of pop. Of course, if their estates have money, they tend to want to construct buildings that increase how many they are to further increase their power in the country.

There are reasons why you want upper class pops, and not just always creating an egalitarian “all are peasants” society, and that is when the capital economy developing during this era depends heavily on burghers, so you want to have a fair amount of those. You also want clergy of your national religion as they will help with stability, and having nobles of proper culture will help with your diplomacy and warfare.


burgher_capacity.png

Having levies raised from a specific class, reduces the maximum population there can be for that certain class.


Promotion & Demotion
If there can be more pops of a certain social class, pops will promote to become that class over time. While there is a base value, promoting to some classes like nobles will just be a fraction of that each month. If you wish to speed this up in your country, you can use a cabinet member to increase it. There are many factors that impact how quickly pops can be promoted, some are affecting your entire country, some others are more local, like during Devastation or a Lack of Control. Demotion happens when you have pops over your capacity, and will happen much, much quicker than promotion.

promotion.png

16 peasants will be promoted every month to become what is needed in Kalmar...


Population Growth
Only peasants and tribesmen grow organically on their own, but all types of pops can die off from negative growth.

Overpopulation, Lack of food, War exhaustion and Devastation have a significant negative impact on population growth, while having access to free land & lots of food increases the growth.

Not to forget, the population can die directly from diseases and warfare as well.

pop_growth.png

Peaceful and nice, the population should grow nicely here…


Assimilation
Assimilation is a very slow process, and pops will assimilate to the primary culture in core locations if they belong to a culture that your country does not appreciate. Societal Values and Lack of Control have a significant impact on this, but there are buildings and other things that can impact it. In most majorly populated areas the natural growth of pops will outpace the assimilation. However, there is a cabinet action where you can increase assimilation in a specific province.

monthly_assimilation.png

Sadly this is a slow process in this location, 3 pops will assimilate next month..

Conversion
Converting pops works similarly to assimilation, but there are two major differences. First of all, there are mechanics and systems that sometimes change the religion of pops from what your country may desire. Secondly, there is normally no conversion, but you have to actively enforce religious conversion in a province by using a cabinet. The amount of the population that convert each month depends on what type of buildings you may have, your societal values, laws you can enact, or the privileges given to the clergy. If your clergy is very powerful as well, conversion is quicker.

monthly_conversion.png

103,26% of 0 base conversion is still going to be 0 pops.

Migration
There are several ways for pops to migrate, multiple ones regarding the colonization aspect of the game will be talked about in a later Tinto Talks. There is also content that does migration, where events, disasters or other scripted content will set up specific migration from one place to another.

However, there is also a natural migration mechanic, where the population will move between locations. Pops will move away from locations that have a negative migration attraction, and will go to one with higher migration attraction in the same market. Upper class pops are usually allowed to migrate, while not many countries allow their peasants to move freely.

As for other things, you can use your cabinet to control this, where you can have one member of the cabinet leading an effort to expel people from one province, severely reducing their migration attraction, while another one could attract people to another province. You can also construct buildings in lowly populated locations to attract pops to move there.

migration_attraction.png

The price of stone in Kalmar is not inviting, but it's calm and plenty of land is available..


Literacy
Each pop keeps track of its own literacy as well, and there are buildings, advances, laws and other things that impact how quickly it can grow and how high it can be. The average literacy of a country has an impact on the research speed of that country, and the literacy of a pop has some impact on its satisfaction. However, there is also an immediate impact on the location of the average literacy of all of the same social class. Amongst other things, the average literacy of the nobles in a location has an impact on how quickly control can increase there, and the average literacy of slaves in a location increases the unrest of the location.

literacy.png

Literate Burghers will definitely make you richer over the long term..


Population Needs
Each pop has its own needs for goods, and if they can’t get all of those goods, their satisfaction will be lower. The goods that a pop requires depend on their social class, their culture, their religion and where they live. They also may start caring about goods when they know about them, as the demand for tobacco will only appear in Europe when the pops actually know about it. Obviously people in colder climates want more lumber or coal, while a Jain pop is not wanting any fur at all.

pop_needs.png

I am not entirely sure why these burghers want mercury…

Satisfaction
The population needs impact their satisfaction in two ways. If they can't get the goods that they want, it's a penalty to their satisfaction. However, the prices of the goods also affect their satisfaction, as if the prices are high, then satisfaction drops, but if you can get the goods they require cheaper in the market they live in, their satisfaction will increase, but their literacy impacts how much they understand the price impact though.

Satisfaction also depends heavily on the status of their culture in the country, the religion they belong to, and how satisfied their estate currently is. There are other ways to make pops more satisfied like certain buildings, or the good old method of stationing armies.

Pops with low satisfaction will join and start supporting a rebel faction.


satisfaction.png

Of course, these poor pops lack one of the most important things in life.

Even though pops may not be upset enough to rebel, their satisfaction has other impacts, as the average satisfaction of all pops in a location has an impact on prosperity and control.


average_satisfaction.png

Here even the paradox maths check out!


Stick around, as next week we’ll be talking a bit about laws!
 

Attachments

  • monthly_conversion.png
    monthly_conversion.png
    118,2 KB · Views: 0
  • 189Love
  • 172Like
  • 8
  • 4
  • 1
Reactions:
I always wondered why there was no religious pressure from neighbouring provinces that are not under same tag. Like for instance, what if I as Oman, who is Sunni would conquer an Indonesian locations, that is Hindu. I'd expect that some pops in neighbouring provinces that I didnt conquer would eventually start to covert to Sunni (based on circumstances). Or for better example Australia. When I colonize Australia as England, wouldn't convertion of Native pops that i didn't colonized yet make sence?
 
  • 1Like
  • 1
Reactions:
Shouldn't the clergy promote religious conversion? For example, if I build clergy buildings in a "wrong religion" province, only "right religion" pops should be promoted to fill them and they will start converting other pops so that their religious makeup matches the one of the clergy? Of course, this should be modified by various religious laws, for example, I can annex a Muslim province as a Christian country, but adopt a law that stops conversions in their lands to lower unrest. And then simply promote migration of Christians into the new provinces instead, bwahaha.

it has an impact yes
 
  • 40Like
  • 1
Reactions:
While this happened historically, I'm a bit ambivalent about portraying "culture x is better at Y than Z"

The only workaround to this I could see is if culture bonuses were dynamic. e.g. dutch/franconian culture pops exist in heavy cloth goods producing province/location and slowly accrue cultural 'proficiency' in cloth production leading to bonuses. Hence importing or migrating those dutch pops could provide bonuses to the province/location they newly moved to.
 
  • 7Like
  • 1
  • 1
Reactions:
Great dev diary, took me a while to go through this one but thoroughly satisfied with it! I keep seeing all these actions like assimilation and conversion be described at the "province" level. Will it be possible, if the player desires, to convert/assimilate pops of only a location. For example, lets say a province has only one location that is a city, the rest are all towns or villages. Will it be possible to convert the pops of only the city location to the desired religion?
 
  • 2Like
Reactions:
Welcome everyone to the 17th Tinto Talks, in this Happy Wednesday, we will give you further information about the most secret game you could ever think of, the one with the codename Project Caesar.

Today we will delve into the depths and mechanics of how the population system of the game actually works.

As a recap, we have 6 different social classes, with Nobles, Clergy & Burghers viewed as upper class, while Peasants, Tribesmen & Slaves make up the other three. Every location has a population, and each combination of social class, culture and religion creates a unique “pop” in the game. That Pop may contain 1 person, or 250 Million, but it is still referred to as a “pop”.


View attachment 1150374
Design copied from an old game I made a decade or two ago… UI is a bit placeholdery, but i like the browsing capabilities..


Population Capacity
Each location has a population capacity which depends on quite a lot of factors. The core of it is vegetation, topography and climate, while the amount of buildings and development increases it as well. If your population is higher than its current capacity, then there is a very large impact on its migration attraction and population growth.

While there are no restrictions on how many peasants, slaves or tribesmen there can be in a single location, the amount of upper class pops there can be is limited, and depends on what infrastructure there exists for that type of pop. Of course, if their estates have money, they tend to want to construct buildings that increase how many they are to further increase their power in the country.

There are reasons why you want upper class pops, and not just always creating an egalitarian “all are peasants” society, and that is when the capital economy developing during this era depends heavily on burghers, so you want to have a fair amount of those. You also want clergy of your national religion as they will help with stability, and having nobles of proper culture will help with your diplomacy and warfare.


View attachment 1150375
Having levies raised from a specific class, reduces the maximum population there can be for that certain class.


Promotion & Demotion
If there can be more pops of a certain social class, pops will promote to become that class over time. While there is a base value, promoting to some classes like nobles will just be a fraction of that each month. If you wish to speed this up in your country, you can use a cabinet member to increase it. There are many factors that impact how quickly pops can be promoted, some are affecting your entire country, some others are more local, like during Devastation or a Lack of Control. Demotion happens when you have pops over your capacity, and will happen much, much quicker than promotion.

View attachment 1150376
16 peasants will be promoted every month to become what is needed in Kalmar...


Population Growth
Only peasants and tribesmen grow organically on their own, but all types of pops can die off from negative growth.

Overpopulation, Lack of food, War exhaustion and Devastation have a significant negative impact on population growth, while having access to free land & lots of food increases the growth.

Not to forget, the population can die directly from diseases and warfare as well.

View attachment 1150377
Peaceful and nice, the population should grow nicely here…


Assimilation
Assimilation is a very slow process, and pops will assimilate to the primary culture in core locations if they belong to a culture that your country does not appreciate. Societal Values and Lack of Control have a significant impact on this, but there are buildings and other things that can impact it. In most majorly populated areas the natural growth of pops will outpace the assimilation. However, there is a cabinet action where you can increase assimilation in a specific province.

View attachment 1150379
Sadly this is a slow process in this location, 3 pops will assimilate next month..

Conversion
Converting pops works similarly to assimilation, but there are two major differences. First of all, there are mechanics and systems that sometimes change the religion of pops from what your country may desire. Secondly, there is normally no conversion, but you have to actively enforce religious conversion in a province by using a cabinet. The amount of the population that convert each month depends on what type of buildings you may have, your societal values, laws you can enact, or the privileges given to the clergy. If your clergy is very powerful as well, conversion is quicker.

View attachment 1150381
103,26% of 0 base conversion is still going to be 0 pops.

Migration
There are several ways for pops to migrate, multiple ones regarding the colonization aspect of the game will be talked about in a later Tinto Talks. There is also content that does migration, where events, disasters or other scripted content will set up specific migration from one place to another.

However, there is also a natural migration mechanic, where the population will move between locations. Pops will move away from locations that have a negative migration attraction, and will go to one with higher migration attraction in the same market. Upper class pops are usually allowed to migrate, while not many countries allow their peasants to move freely.

As for other things, you can use your cabinet to control this, where you can have one member of the cabinet leading an effort to expel people from one province, severely reducing their migration attraction, while another one could attract people to another province. You can also construct buildings in lowly populated locations to attract pops to move there.

View attachment 1150382
The price of stone in Kalmar is not inviting, but it's calm and plenty of land is available..


Literacy
Each pop keeps track of its own literacy as well, and there are buildings, advances, laws and other things that impact how quickly it can grow and how high it can be. The average literacy of a country has an impact on the research speed of that country, and the literacy of a pop has some impact on its satisfaction. However, there is also an immediate impact on the location of the average literacy of all of the same social class. Amongst other things, the average literacy of the nobles in a location has an impact on how quickly control can increase there, and the average literacy of slaves in a location increases the unrest of the location.

View attachment 1150383
Literate Burghers will definitely make you richer over the long term..


Population Needs
Each pop has its own needs for goods, and if they can’t get all of those goods, their satisfaction will be lower. The goods that a pop requires depend on their social class, their culture, their religion and where they live. They also may start caring about goods when they know about them, as the demand for tobacco will only appear in Europe when the pops actually know about it. Obviously people in colder climates want more lumber or coal, while a Jain pop is not wanting any fur at all.

View attachment 1150384
I am not entirely sure why these burghers want mercury…

Satisfaction
The population needs impact their satisfaction in two ways. If they can't get the goods that they want, it's a penalty to their satisfaction. However, the prices of the goods also affect their satisfaction, as if the prices are high, then satisfaction drops, but if you can get the goods they require cheaper in the market they live in, their satisfaction will increase, but their literacy impacts how much they understand the price impact though.

Satisfaction also depends heavily on the status of their culture in the country, the religion they belong to, and how satisfied their estate currently is. There are other ways to make pops more satisfied like certain buildings, or the good old method of stationing armies.

Pops with low satisfaction will join and start supporting a rebel faction.


View attachment 1150385
Of course, these poor pops lack one of the most important things in life.

Even though pops may not be upset enough to rebel, their satisfaction has other impacts, as the average satisfaction of all pops in a location has an impact on prosperity and control.


View attachment 1150386
Here even the paradox maths check out!


Stick around, as next week we’ll be talking a bit about laws!
I know it has nothing to do with this tinto talks, but I would like to know if the game will be translated into Italian. thank you
 
View attachment 1150382
The price of stone in Kalmar is not inviting, but it's calm and plenty of land is available..
Why does the raw material price in the location affect migration attraction?
Wouldn't raw material production depend on how much capacity you have for peasants working in the mines/quarries/fields?

Does that mean that even if the capacity for peasants producing a raw material in a location is maxed out, a high price would still attract more migrants to come, even though they can't actually work on producing that raw material?
 
  • 1Like
  • 1
Reactions:
1.
If the regular migration system only works inside markets, how do you handle migration between adjacent locations in different markets?

E.g. is there no migration between the Netherlands (in the Brugge markets, iirc?) and North Rhine-Westphalia (in Lubeck market, perhaps?)?

2.
Also, might I suggest that the Burghers membership in either the Upper or Lower social classes could be toggled depending on laws or cultural customs? At least if membership in either of those two groups matter?
 
  • 2Like
  • 1
Reactions:
I always wondered why there was no religious pressure from neighbouring provinces that are not under same tag. Like for instance, what if I as Oman, who is Sunni would conquer an Indonesian locations, that is Hindu. I'd expect that some pops in neighbouring provinces that I didnt conquer would eventually start to covert to Sunni (based on circumstances). Or for better example Australia. When I colonize Australia as England, wouldn't convertion of Native pops that i didn't colonized yet make sence?
Speaking of Indonesia, Islam spread there far more by trade than by conquest historically, so I hope some spread of religion along trade routes is a thing and Indonesia doesn't stay Hindu for 500 years, or require special unique mechanics to islamize.
 
  • 3Like
  • 1
Reactions:
nice. do you lack any good to make it 100? :p

The dev diary about technologies has the potential to close the gap, I'm really hyped about this one, especially as the few hints I saw in this DD are making me hopeful you went for the direction I was hoping for.

The other raw goods I'd need are sadly not something that PDX GSG can provide me, as much as I love them :D
 
  • 3Like
Reactions:
The only workaround to this I could see is if culture bonuses were dynamic. e.g. dutch/franconian culture pops exist in heavy cloth goods producing province/location and slowly accrue cultural 'proficiency' in cloth production leading to bonuses. Hence importing or migrating those dutch pops could provide bonuses to the province/location they newly moved to.
That is also a decent partial fix. In terms of pure simulation quality I like it more than my idea of migration from tags with more tech generally causing a tech boost, but in practice that level of culture dynamism sounds like a serious programming and performance drag.
 
  • 2Like
  • 2
Reactions:
Can pops migrate to land not currently owned by anyone? For example, around the game start the Kainuu region saw settlers from Southwest Finland, Norway, White Karelia and Ladoga.
 
  • 3Like
Reactions:
Will there be certain range a group of pop can migrate into? Or there are no range/regional limit at all, cause obviously it will be strange to see pop of middle eastern culture suddenly flocks mainland europe or into part of central/southern africa that will drastically change its demographic landscape, and that might ignite some disatisfaction? How do you regulate the migration pattern?
 
  • 1Like
Reactions:
One question: What is "prosperity"? Is it another aggregate of many things too minute to model, like how Development represents local infrastructure?

we will talk about it later.
 
  • 31Like
  • 7
Reactions:
Really great post. I'm sceptical of the emphasis on literacy increasing prosperity. In the Mali Empire, writing wasn't really used even by Burghers, the constitution was never written down and was memorised by clerks/archivists, along w court proceedings, and some passed down via oral tradition, along with most of the state apparatus, and Mali was incredibly prosperous due to controlling the Bambuk and Bure goldfields and most of the key Saharan trading cities of Aoudaghost, Oualata, Gao, Timbuktu. This was the case for almost all sub-Saharan African kingdoms/empires.

I think it might be good to have another mechanic to partly replace literacy in oral civilisations (in non Muslim/Arabic, Ethiopia, Calabar completely replace as they didn't have a script) that represents the efficiency and efficacity of a society's recording of information via oral tradition, as this differed greatly, and depended on the procedures around the practice (such as the number of recordings within a generation and how rigorous/perfectionist collaboration was, the climate of the performance, and the frequency of recitation/performance). In Burundi, traditions were informal and short performances with no specified roles, whereas in Rwanda traditions were formal, professional performances to entertain a noble. In Dogon society in West Africa, some traditions were only recited in public once every 60 years. Vansina, 1971
 
Last edited:
  • 3
  • 2
  • 1
Reactions: