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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.


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!
 

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I believe it is done through a cabinet action
Do you please have an evidence from the developers? I couldn't find that for assimilation, only encouraging immigration and emigration. Or do you mean at the first state to encourage emigration from the desired province and when it is almost empty, to encourage immigration there and in the same time emigration from a province with enough of pops with primary / accepted culture?
 
Probably, because accepted PoP grow primarily and become ultimately dominant.

Appart from that, you will not core as much: you cannot, should not and need not.
No one culture, one religion, all-cored blob.
 
To clarify, population capacity only affects upper class pops and peasants are only limited by food?
No, population capacity affects the whole population and depends on topography, climate and vegetation.
Upper classes have their own limits (maximum numbers of Nobles, Burghers, Clergymen in a location).

And population capacity is not a hard limit, population in a location can be higher than pop capacity, but then pop growth decreases and people tend to migrate if possible.
 
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No, population capacity affects the whole population and depends on topography, climate and vegetation.
Upper classes have their own limits (maximum numbers of Nobles, Burghers, Clergymen in a location).

And population capacity is not a hard limit, population in a location can be higher than pop capacity, but then pop growth decreases and people tend to migrate if possible.
Seems redundant with food already affecting population growth, given it’s the main factor historically and is a less abstracted mechanic, but I guess we’ll see
 
Seems redundant with food already affecting population growth, given it’s the main factor historically and is a less abstracted mechanic, but I guess we’ll see
Already discussed multiple times.
Food was not enough (e.g. all those northern arctic locations produce Fish and Wild Game).
And historically it was not about food only.
 
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Already discussed multiple times.
Food was not enough (e.g. all those northern arctic locations produce Fish and Wild Game).
And historically it was not about food only.
An arctic province whose RGO is wild game still shouldn't be producing enough food to sustain a significant population. Availability of food should be the largest factor determining how large a population can grow, but the game completely sidelines it in favour of an arbitrary unrealistic value, which directly leads to absurd game design choices like using farmland to represent major cities instead of actual farmland.
 
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I'm really liking the population mechanics being described -- I have one point of concern though. I can understand the desire to not have upper class pops grow organically -- clergy for obvious reasons, nobles being a bit of a 'closed shop', and burghers due to the extremely high mortality in cities during the time period.

I am wondering how this would affect certain minority pops that would have been heavily concentrated in cities and other built up areas. Jewish pops, for example were heavily concentrated in urban professions (craftsmen, banking, trade, etc.), and I'm wondering if they and other related 'urban' pops might fade away fairly quickly in the game's timeframe?

I suppose the same question hold true for societies with a culturally distinct noble class -- like areas under Mongol control.
 
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I suppose the same question hold true for societies with a culturally distinct noble class -- like areas under Mongol control.
In this case they'd the primary culture of the state in question, which means they can't assimilate into something else.
I am wondering how this would affect certain minority pops that would have been heavily concentrated in cities and other built up areas. Jewish pops, for example were heavily concentrated in urban professions (craftsmen, banking, trade, etc.), and I'm wondering if they and other related 'urban' pops might fade away fairly quickly in the game's timeframe?
In the case of Jews at least they won't culturally assimilate until religiously converted. The question is if that's feasible, since historically Jews didn't convert to Christianity in large numbers, and it wasn't for a lack of trying on the part of christian polities.
 
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