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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”.


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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.


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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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!
 

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Really glad to see that climate will affect pop needs. How does good substitution work? Do pops always get upset if they don't have certain goods, or will other goods appease them?
 
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Is there a base positive for assimilation, and what determines primary culture?

Seems to me like you'd need some incentives or other forces for assimilation to happen, as simply existing in an area alongside people with another culture/language/traditions would not automatically mean the minority assimilating into the majority. Not necessarily with a either culture also being the culture of local rulers or administrators.

Anyways amazing TT. Really looking forward to play with pops of all sorts of religions and culture!

EDIT: incentives or other forces could be both buildings (schools, churches), administrative reforms and the like.
 
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Nice and meaty; love it. I’m at a movie theater reading this rn
 
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Since assimilation is a solid value, how does that work for minority populations historically resistant to assimilation? Think Assyrians, Sami or Jews
 
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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.
Slave pops should be able to grow naturally in game, it was very common for slave populations in Europe (Mostly Roma slaves) and in the New World to increase due to slaves having kids amongst themselves, or being raped by their enslavers. I would much rather if slave pops were able to grow naturally, but this would be affected by several laws around slave growth, such as banning the practice of raping slaves or banning slaves from having children. Many of these laws should also effect the satisfaction and output of these pops. Such as banning rape reducing slave pop growth, increasing slave output and satisfaction, but decreasing the satisfaction of their enslavers. I do hope that Project Caesar doesn't tone done how important and how cruel slavery was, it's a sensitive topic, but I hope it gets addressed properly in game.
 
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So since market accessibility/price and development are such a big reason for migration, what makes all my hinterland upper class not immediately try to move to Stockholm the moment I unpause the game?
 
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Not to sound boorish but the huge quantity of +/-0.XX% modifiers that all kind of loosely feed through three levels of other 0.XX% modifers is kind of why my eyes glazed over on Imperator and Vicky3. I think a big part of why EU4 endures is that you can stack up big chunky +10% morale, production, trade bonuses and it feels more like a video game that you’re playing, and not like a simulation you’re watching and very gently steering.

No point to make really, just a vague worry that this is going to be the third super-granular game that is fascinating on paper and fun in theory but low on player engagement.
 
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In a location with a base trade good that isnt food, will you need to import all the food needed to sustain that pop? Or is some of it provided by the location itself decreasing the amount of food needed?
 
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Every location is populated? Some locations in northern Québec, Labrador, and Canadian territories are - to this day - devoid of population with small distant pockets of Innu or Inuits inhabitants.

Can’t wait for the colonization DD.
 
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Does pop assimilation/conversion only become a country's 'main culture' as in The Imperator? I hope it will be more slowly and assimilated into the ‘accepting culture’ too. I wish it will be different from Imperator.
 
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...please tell me I don't have to micro the cabinet when it comes to WHICH province(s) they try to convert at any given time.
 
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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.
 
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