Cities of the world that should be richer (based on a history)

[Krajzen]

This is a list of top 30 cities of 1400-1500 period based on estimated populations (wikipedia, list of historical top cities in Europe/world). Of course all those are estimates and I am pretty sure there are many cities from less documented areas that should be here, but it still allows on some fresh observations.


1) Beijing - 600k
2) Vijayanagar - 400k
3) Cairo - 300k
4) Cusco - 300k (by 1500)
5) Hangzhou and Guangzhou - 250k
6) Constantinople - 200k
7) Tabriz - 200k
8) Tenochtitlan - 200k
9) Paris - 150k
10) Granada - 150k
11) Nanjing - 150k
12) Gaur/Gauda - 150k
13) Kyoto - 150k
14) Naples - 150k
15) Seoul - 125k
16) Fez - 125k
17) Bruges - 125k
18) Milan - 100k
19) Venice - 100k
20) Ahmedabad - 100k
21) Genoa - 100k
22) Jaunpur - 100k
23) Samarkand - 100k
24) Moscow - 100k
25) Thessaloniki - 100k
26) Ghent - 80k
27) Barcelona - 70k
28) Lisbon - 60k
29) Florence - 60k
30) London - 50k

Kiev: population of 50-100k at 1240 but completely razed by Mongols, by the time of PLC it was not even among its top 5 cities.


Now let's look at EU4 top developed provinces by the Base Tax:

Nanjing, Beijng, Yangzhou, Hangzhou, Canton, Lahore, Milan, Chengdu, Central Doab, Moscow
Kiev, Paris, Roma, Florence, Venice, Genoa, Suzhou, Wuchang, Bengal Delta, Cairo,
Savoie, Constantinople, Mantua, Waichow, Tanjore, Ghent, Cremona, Quanzhou, Pozsony, Antwerpen


My humble opinion:


Kiev is, for some reason, absurdly overpowered. It is 11th most developed 1444 province while IRL it wasn't even one of the major PLC cities. It definitely should be nerfed, as well as most of Lithuanian Rus provinces.

Provinces that should have higher development:
*Cairo
*Tabriz
*Kyoto
*Tenochtitlan
*Cusco
*Vijayanagar
*Granada
*Seoul
*Fez
*Naples

All those were one of the world's greatest metropolies of an era.

 

[Galaahd]

Vijayanagar for sure.

 

[SantoshKashyap]

How come Delhi is missing. May be Timur had looted it around 1398.

 

[SantoshKashyap]

Vijayanagar for sure.

Ibn Batuta, Nicolo De Conti do give an account of richness of Vijayanagara.

 

[Grand Historian]

Keep in mind that population does not directly translate to wealth. It certainly plays a hand in it, but Venice and Florence undoubtedly had more wealth than, say, Cusco or Seoul (and, likewise, had a larger GDP as well).

Also, Kyoto would not be a good province to buff in game, per my opinion. Within three decades of the game's start, Kyoto would be completely ravaged by the participants of the Onin War (which usually occurs only within a few years in most games). A better province to buff would be Suo, which has Yamaguchi as it's capital (and it was otherwise known as the Kyoto of the West as well as being one of the most important trading hubs in Japan), and/or Settsu, containing both the wealthy merchant cities of Sakai and Osaka.

 

[PiriReis]

Fez, Granada and Seoul could indeed use some extra development looking also from a gameplay perspective.

 

[Trin Tragula]

Long post coming up

Development is no exact science. One of the reasons a big city does not always mean as high development as another is that urban population in this era was so sensitive.
This is especially true for the capitals of great empires. From your examples both Tenochtitlan but especially Cusco (which was nothing special at all in 1444 from what we know) likely attained their sizes in the period between game start and 1500. When the Mughal capital is moved to Lahore the city is estimated to have grown by more than 200 000 in just a few years, only to loose that population again when the capital was moved away.
Likewise things like war and disease can decimate a city in just a few months (Vijayanagar is a good example shrinking to around 50 000 quickly after the battle of Talikota).
When dishing out development things like the population of the entire province, density and durability of urban concentrations as well as (when available) actual information about what income a state in the area could get from that part of their lands. While it is often true that a capital would be situated in a wealthy region we prefer not to make a region wealthy just because there was a big capital there (after all the capital may not remain in the game).
Of course often we have to base of these things on pretty shaky figures in the first place as knowledge of historical demographics is often not that good for many regions (there are for instance no written sources of inca history prior to the arrival of the Spanish, so all we know is deduced from what people could remember at that time + archeology).

To continue with the Vijayanagar example: The coastal Tamil lands where extremely fertile and densely populated and housed many thriving cities with strong and old merchant communities. The city of victory itself was huge and the land it occupied was nothing to spit at, but when it came to economics the Vijayanagara rulers trusted the southern lands to feed the city, the city itself was not a major production hub or source of tax income. Indeed in the end what happened was the outlying regions deciding they had no use for the center and the city shrunk rapidly as It no longer functioned as the capital of all of southern India.

That said perhaps there are some of these regions that could do with a boost. I just want to object to big city = rich province.

 

[Trin Tragula]

I appreciate the post though, I to love to look at numbers like these
We'll see if a few of these might not be tweaked a bit all the same.

Kiev is, for some reason, absurdly overpowered. It is 11th most developed 1444 province while IRL it wasn't even one of the major PLC cities. It definitely should be nerfed, as well as most of Lithuanian Rus provinces.

Here though you should check those numbers again

 

[Chief of Staff]

This is a list of top 30 cities of 1400-1500 period based on estimated populations (wikipedia, list of historical top cities in Europe/world). Of course all those are estimates and I am pretty sure there are many cities from less documented areas that should be here, but it still allows on some fresh observations.


1) Beijing - 600k
2) Vijayanagar - 400k
3) Cairo - 300k
4) Cusco - 300k (by 1500)
5) Hangzhou and Guangzhou - 250k
6) Constantinople - 200k
7) Tabriz - 200k
8) Tenochtitlan - 200k
9) Paris - 150k
10) Granada - 150k
11) Nanjing - 150k
12) Gaur/Gauda - 150k
13) Kyoto - 150k
14) Naples - 150k
15) Seoul - 125k
16) Fez - 125k
17) Bruges - 125k
18) Milan - 100k
19) Venice - 100k
20) Ahmedabad - 100k
21) Genoa - 100k
22) Jaunpur - 100k
23) Samarkand - 100k
24) Moscow - 100k
25) Thessaloniki - 100k
26) Ghent - 80k
27) Barcelona - 70k
28) Lisbon - 60k
29) Florence - 60k
30) London - 50k

Kiev: population of 50-100k at 1240 but completely razed by Mongols, by the time of PLC it was not even among its top 5 cities.


Now let's look at EU4 top developed provinces by the Base Tax:

Nanjing, Beijng, Yangzhou, Hangzhou, Canton, Lahore, Milan, Chengdu, Central Doab, Moscow
Kiev, Paris, Roma, Florence, Venice, Genoa, Suzhou, Wuchang, Bengal Delta, Cairo,
Savoie, Constantinople, Mantua, Waichow, Tanjore, Ghent, Cremona, Quanzhou, Pozsony, Antwerpen


My humble opinion:


Kiev is, for some reason, absurdly overpowered. It is 11th most developed 1444 province while IRL it wasn't even one of the major PLC cities. It definitely should be nerfed, as well as most of Lithuanian Rus provinces.

Provinces that should have higher development:
*Cairo
*Tabriz
*Kyoto
*Tenochtitlan
*Cusco
*Vijayanagar
*Granada
*Seoul
*Fez
*Naples

All those were one of the world's greatest metropolies of an era.

What do those color coding signifies?

 

[Krajzen]

What do those color coding signifies?

Cities of China and Italy. Did it for some weird reason