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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.

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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What johan said, plus in Paradox tradition "Literacy" is not just literal ability to read but also represents the general level of education among the population.
Still, even if it's 'education level' (and it really should be called that instead of literacy, if it's not just literacy), then burghers should have much higher levels than peasants.
 
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Hello!
Very solid TT, however upon seeing the Kalmar population diagrams I thought I'd ask whether Finnish culture is going to presented as uniform or not.
I think there is room for an 'Eastern Finnish' culture, which would encompass the Finnish Karelian tribe (not to be confused with Karelians) and Finns from the modern-day Kainuu and Savo regions.
 
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People that live outside the normal economy. They don't produce or consume anything (except if certain buildings are built I would guess).
Ok, why not, though i struggle to see who in europe would be them (granted i'm not knowledgeable about medieval europe, but i would have though everyone in the countryside was more or less farming/raising cows/making tools and interacting with other communities).

And then what is the "Tribes" government we saw in the tinto maps about ireland and great britain ?
What is the difference between a tribe in africa and the medieval kingdom of france ? Both leaders have to move around to maintain their authority, both have subjects who are fairly independant and who can take their place if they gain enough support. If "tribe" is just for the small leaders under the emperor of Mali, then we have the counts and barons of France that are the same.
 
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Its a nice abstraction to seperate them from peasants etc.


The burghers being gated off from the upper class (influence, privileges, etc.) was a huge driving force of the early modern period transitioning into the modern period (French Revolution). It feels weird for them to be considered upper class four hundred years early.

I am concerned this is a bit too much of an abstraction.
 
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While this happened historically, I'm a bit ambivalent about portraying "culture x is better at Y than Z"
Given how important it was to the modernization of some countries historically, SOMETHING is needed. My suggestion: Migration of pops from a country, or otherwise having large minorities of a culture when there exists a country with that culture as primary, with better technology than you will help YOUR country develop that technology. It simulates most of the historical pressures, while neatly side-stepping the issues of "is a culture X better at Y" by instead tying the better-ness to whatever tag culture X is prominent in.
 
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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

was the sami resistant to it, or did the state don't give a fuck about a tiny semi-nomad minority on the fringe of society?
 
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Does this mean that nobles assimilate as slow as the peasants? Wouldn't they convert both religiously and culturally to keep their position in society

This is usually the order in which a place is converted, from the top down (I don't have a doctorate on this or anything but...)
 
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Two questions:
1. Does technology (or "social technology", that is), impact the desire for goods and other factors in religious people? For instance, I would think as secularism develops, muslim pops would begin to desire more alcoholic drinks, and some secular jains would begin to desire fur.

2. Is technology tied to the state (as in country) or the pops? Historically, while rulers sponsored research when it was in their interest, before our current times most research developed autonomously, and was posteriorly "adopted" by the country.
For instance a location might be very rich in intellectuals and develop new technology, it is up to the country then to "take it" and spread ir to other locations, but if the location was taken over by a different country, the intellectuals (as long as they were not expelled) would remain in the location. In this view, technological spread is way more organic than clicking a tree option and waiting, although you could choose to finance research into specific options for a cost, of course.
 
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The burghers being gated off from the upper class (influence, privileges, etc.) was a huge driving force of the early modern period transitioning into the modern period (French Revolution). It feels weird for them to be considered upper class four hundred years early.

I am concerned this is a bit too much of an abstraction.
Also in Japan, merchants (which clearly would be burghers) were at the bottom of the social hierarchy, so having burghers as upper class wouldn't fit there either.
 
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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?

the likelihood of it being <0 at start with no other factors applied is slim to none
 
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Very cool.

Regarding assimilation/conversion: What happens with ethno-religious groups like Jews or Druze? While the system makes sense for most of the world, in some cases, culture was directly tied to religion. Can it be tied in the game too for certain cultures?
Also, in those cases, conversion/assimilation seems to be more challenging historically even for relatively small communities. Can this be represented in-game?
 
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How the system will approach situations where non accepted cultures assimilated in new non-accepted cultures?
For example, during colonization african pops members of a multitude of different african cultures assimilated in the Americas in cultures like afro-american, afro-caribbean and afro-brazilian.
All these cultures, the original african ones and the new afro-new world cultures were non accepted by colonial governments.
 
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