Do arable land values need to be adjusted in light of the recent increase to pop fertility?

[WTH666444]

I didn't play very much pre-1.9, not sure what the values used to be, I just know them as they are now, and here's what I experienced:

Played a game as Russia, trying to make the most possible use of the plentiful starting population.
-10% mortality from food standardization, -20% from going for public hospitals (4) very quickly
+5% fertility from legal guardianship, +5% fertility from a very happy clergy, +5% from the grocery company, which made for my first company pick.
I ended up with population growth in the area of +2.75% a year. I closed my borders to prevent the outflow of people, which I gauged to be a greater possibility than any inflow.

It's April 1867, I have 131.5 million people and millions of unemployed laborers. My subsistence farms just spit them out once they're full, and there's little I can do (for lack of construction capability) to get them out of destitution. My subsistence farms are at 16.9m/19.9m occupancy.

I found a lot of discourse around what arable land is supposed to represent. Some say the US (at roughly 150% of what Russia has) was buffed to simulate migration and it corresponds to exploited resources as much as to potential resources and so on.
I can't judge these cases. I'm no agricultural historian. But if some balance consideration played into those values, and if population growth has been adjusted while arable land hasn't, aren't these values now totally out of whack?

 

[Jamey]

I’m not understanding the problem, beyond the fact that you’re not industrializing as fast as you’re growing your population.

 

[WTH666444]

I’m not understanding the problem, beyond the fact that you’re not industrializing as fast as you’re growing your population.

If nothing else (I could understand if you run into more problems if you double the AI birth-rate, even if only for 30 years and that the game might not be made for that), I want to understand what sort of abstraction arable land is, and if it's a good or a bad abstraction, in the latter case needing change.

I do believe, based on what I've read, that it's an abstraction of some sort.

 

[Jamey]

If nothing else (I could understand if you run into more problems if you double the AI birth-rate, even if only for 30 years and that the game might not be made for that), I want to understand what sort of abstraction arable land is, and if it's a good or a bad abstraction, in the latter case needing change.

I do believe, based on what I've read, that it's an abstraction of some sort.

Arable land is an abstraction of how much arable land exists within a given land area. Given the definition of the words “arable” and “land”, the concept is pretty self explanatory.

Mechanically, it serves two purposes: a cap on peasant populations and a cap on how many crops can be grown.

Whether the numbers they have selected for each state are too high, too low, or just right is going to be a matter of opinion.

 

[WTH666444]

Arable land is an abstraction of how much arable land exists within a given land area. Given the definition of the words “arable” and “land”, the concept is pretty self explanatory.

Mechanically, it serves two purposes: a cap on peasant populations and a cap on how many crops can be grown.

Whether the numbers they have selected for each state are too high, too low, or just right is going to be a matter of opinion.

I agree, that's what it ideally should (self-explanatorily) represent. I mentioned I only started with 1.9, because if you google around a bit, there's a lot of (mostly old) discourse on arable land, which is confusing to someone who didn't "live" through that. There were apparently major changes from 1.1 to 1.2, say.

But if you just question ChatGPT on arable land (in hectares) a bit, these values start to look weird.
Brazil around 1900 has one fourth of the US, historically. In game, it has a seventh of the US' arable land.
China has at worst half, at best 3/5s of the US. In game, it almost has 150% of the US, with a twice as much grain producing, twice as labour demanding subsistence building.

This is what you get after some prompts (it seems Vicky actually overcounts Russia, but let's just pretend that's not the case):

 

[Delterius]

But if you just question ChatGPT

please don't

 

[Black_Shade]

I agree, that's what it ideally should (self-explanatorily) represent. I mentioned I only started with 1.9, because if you google around a bit, there's a lot of (mostly old) discourse on arable land, which is confusing to someone who didn't "live" through that. There were apparently major changes from 1.1 to 1.2, say.

But if you just question ChatGPT on arable land (in hectares) a bit, these values start to look weird.
Brazil around 1900 has one fourth of the US, historically. In game, it has a seventh of the US' arable land.
China has at worst half, at best 3/5s of the US. In game, it almost has 150% of the US, with a twice as much grain producing, twice as labour demanding subsistence building.

This is what you get after some prompts (it seems Vicky actually overcounts Russia, but let's just pretend that's not the case):

I think the worst is Australia- it should have roughly the same arable land as Germany, but it has only a few hundred in game.

 

[strattonthebard]

ChatGPT is never a good source of info for anything but even if you were using a reliable source for modern arable land figures you're not going to get something that's accurate for arable land in 1836-1936. The Third Agricultural Revolution happened since and completely transformed how productive agricultural land can be and what kinds of land can be made productive.

 

[TheFlemishDuck]

I didn't play very much pre-1.9, not sure what the values used to be, I just know them as they are now, and here's what I experienced:

Played a game as Russia, trying to make the most possible use of the plentiful starting population.
-10% mortality from food standardization, -20% from going for public hospitals (4) very quickly
+5% fertility from legal guardianship, +5% fertility from a very happy clergy, +5% from the grocery company, which made for my first company pick.
I ended up with population growth in the area of +2.75% a year. I closed my borders to prevent the outflow of people, which I gauged to be a greater possibility than any inflow.

It's April 1867, I have 131.5 million people and millions of unemployed laborers. My subsistence farms just spit them out once they're full, and there's little I can do (for lack of construction capability) to get them out of destitution. My subsistence farms are at 16.9m/19.9m occupancy.

I found a lot of discourse around what arable land is supposed to represent. Some say the US (at roughly 150% of what Russia has) was buffed to simulate migration and it corresponds to exploited resources as much as to potential resources and so on.
I can't judge these cases. I'm no agricultural historian. But if some balance consideration played into those values, and if population growth has been adjusted while arable land hasn't, aren't these values now totally out of whack?

First of all, you consciously min maxed for pop frowth early on. Wont get much better than 2.75% anywhere afaik, part in thanks to Russias religious IG too and because you can take power bloc institution so fast. Grocery company is cherry on top, but a pro pick i must admit.

Yes if you continue at this rate you will have hundreds of millions of pop by end game, this is all compounding growth so it will get rather crazy by the end. If you really maximize for max pop growth early the end results can be pretty OP, quite valid strat tbh though for Russia. its arguably ahistorical that pop growth could be so high and then compound for 100 years but hey its fun for some challenges, like one poster here who actually grew the Chinese population beyond a billion and made the country pretty rich at it too. You know the kind of games where by end game you queue industry by stacks of 100 of a type.

Its not nessecarily so "accidental" that you find yourself with such huge popgrowth and neither the normal experience, the efforst which must be done to stack pop growth modifiers are considerable enough especially if it all must be done early in contrast to other potential priority's.

Though its true that you will feel the crunch of lack of resources "somewhat" if you succesfully build out such a high pop country it is overcomeable by my previous experiences. The issue you seem t have is that your not expanding your economy enough to provide more jobs per period than the workforce is growing, eventually resulting in large amounts of unemployment which can have somewhat dangerous consequences, wel especially if the state would need to subsidize a ever growing army of unemployed such could lead to a budgetary death spiral that is rare to see.

 

[WTH666444]

First of all, you consciously min maxed for pop frowth early on. Wont get much better than 2.75% anywhere afaik, part in thanks to Russias religious IG too and because you can take power bloc institution so fast. Grocery company is cherry on top, but a pro pick i must admit.

Yes if you continue at this rate you will have hundreds of millions of pop by end game, this is all compounding growth so it will get rather crazy by the end. If you really maximize for max pop growth early the end results can be pretty OP, quite valid strat tbh though for Russia. its arguably ahistorical that pop growth could be so high and then compound for 100 years but hey its fun for some challenges, like one poster here who actually grew the Chinese population beyond a billion and made the country pretty rich at it too. You know the kind of games where by end game you queue industry by stacks of 100 of a type.

Its not nessecarily so "accidental" that you find yourself with such huge popgrowth and neither the normal experience, the efforst which must be done to stack pop growth modifiers are considerable enough especially if it all must be done early in contrast to other potential priority's.

Though its true that you will feel the crunch of lack of resources "somewhat" if you succesfully build out such a high pop country it is overcomeable by my previous experiences. The issue you seem t have is that your not expanding your economy enough to provide more jobs per period than the workforce is growing, eventually resulting in large amounts of unemployment which can have somewhat dangerous consequences, wel especially if the state would need to subsidize a ever growing army of unemployed such could lead to a budgetary death spiral that is rare to see.

Yeah, doing the math (and assuming constant growth of 2.7%, somewhat generous since literacy will shave a few points off of fertility still, and you can't account for what SoL will do, though the ratio between fertility/mortality is very similar from 8-20 and I didn't anticipate going much beyond that, granted it was also only really my third game past 1840), you'd end up with 833 million people in 1936. Quite a sight to behold.

Weird that China can employ 82 million subsistence farmers on its rice paddies, though, four times as many as Russia.

 

[WTH666444]

ChatGPT is never a good source of info for anything but even if you were using a reliable source for modern arable land figures you're not going to get something that's accurate for arable land in 1836-1936. The Third Agricultural Revolution happened since and completely transformed how productive agricultural land can be and what kinds of land can be made productive.

Again, no agricultural historian, but the third agricultural revolution seems to have mainly affected the developing world.
You can find the values for modern arable land easily enough. China is stated to be able to use 10% of its land area. So divide its area by 10, multiply that by 100 (to get a hectare value, though you could skip this step, if you so wanted) and you end up around the value the LLM spit out, 130 million.

The (modern) numbers for the US are even more readily available. Multiply it's land area by 0.16, multiply by 100 and you have a larger value. So why does China sit at 150% of the US, at a point prior to benifitting from the third agricultural revolution, prior to which the imbalance must assumedly have been even less in its favor? Is rice just counted completely differently to grains predominating in the West?

The main thrust of this is still merely that I want to know how the abstraction works. That's all

 

[TheFlemishDuck]

The main thrust of this is still merely that I want to know how the abstraction works. That's all

Honestly i think its all fairly arbitrary but much with the purpose of balancing, even on the matter of balacing where immigration flows will go its a fairly important factor afaik. Still i think many would agree that arabale land is somewhat weirdly distributed when considered from a historical perspective and often rather constraining in availability in certain smaller nations like say Denmark as opposed to Uruguay but then Russia is likely considered "relatively resource rich" by most but then blowing up its poppulation to 800+ million is just a extreme step you take that should come with challenges, because if you can pull of a 800 million Russia with a high GDP per capita it will be very very stronk indeed, i guess you have to take the punches with it if your extra ambitious right? Its a very stronk strat given its huge potential.

 

[I_Always_Need_Help]

I think the worst is Australia- it should have roughly the same arable land as Germany, but it has only a few hundred in game.

Living there yes very much so, there are companies with agricultural land usage over twice the size of Belgium, south Australia is just a cattle ranch with some ranches bigger then size of countries. I think we are number 7 in the world of arable land.

 

[TheFlemishDuck]

Living there yes very much so, there are companies with agricultural land usage over twice the size of Belgium, south Australia is just a cattle ranch with some ranches bigger then size of countries. I think we are number 7 in the world of arable land.

But then also very low poppulation density, Australia is roughly as big as the US and the Eu combined but it only has around 27 million people., but also only about 7 million people in 1936. As i presume that arable land is more set in size with consideration of where immigration might go, i guess 7 million pop in 1936 is why Australia has relatively few arable land in game. A few 100's in arable land should allow to sustain a far larger poppulation than 7 million even trough autartic production in Australia by 1936.

 

[I_Always_Need_Help]

But then also very low poppulation density, Australia is roughly as big as the US and the Eu combined but it only has around 27 million people., but also only about 7 million people in 1936. As i presume that arable land is more set in size with consideration of where immigration might go, i guess 7 million pop in 1936 is why Australia has relatively few arable land in game. A few 100's in arable land should allow to sustain a far larger poppulation than 7 million even trough autartic production in Australia by 1936.

Yeah, that was Australia's issue America is already established and much closer to the EU while a trip to Auz is literally the other side of the world. The next update does separate population from arable land so I hope they can improve Australia after as the resources are dreadfully low. Though I do like playing Australia as a country with nothing in it and building from scratch haha. I hope they add a resource discovery or some development flavor for the future.

 

[strattonthebard]

But then also very low poppulation density, Australia is roughly as big as the US and the Eu combined but it only has around 27 million people., but also only about 7 million people in 1936. As i presume that arable land is more set in size with consideration of where immigration might go, i guess 7 million pop in 1936 is why Australia has relatively few arable land in game. A few 100's in arable land should allow to sustain a far larger poppulation than 7 million even trough autartic production in Australia by 1936.

Immigration should be less strictly tied to arable land but the actual factors that made the US a major immigration target are challenging to model with current game mechanics. Even the journal entry named after the New Colossus requires multiculturalism which absolutely does not represent the US's policy or cultural reality at any point in the game's time period.

 

[Sledjer]

I think arable land should probably receive a second pass, but it should be based purely on actual arable land rather than pop growth dynamics. In cases where arable land is increased or decreased already due to population/migration dynamics, I think it would be better if that was replaced in favor of other mechanics to handle that.

As far as OP's specific problem goes though, no rebalancing by the devs is needed at all to solve that problem. You need to build more construction sectors.

 

[WTH666444]

Yeah, that was Australia's issue America is already established and much closer to the EU while a trip to Auz is literally the other side of the world. The next update does separate population from arable land so I hope they can improve Australia after as the resources are dreadfully low. Though I do like playing Australia as a country with nothing in it and building from scratch haha. I hope they add a resource discovery or some development flavor for the future.

Where do you have that info from? Don't remember reading that in the "What's next" post...

 

[Jamey]

But then also very low poppulation density, Australia is roughly as big as the US and the Eu combined but it only has around 27 million people., but also only about 7 million people in 1936. As i presume that arable land is more set in size with consideration of where immigration might go, i guess 7 million pop in 1936 is why Australia has relatively few arable land in game. A few 100's in arable land should allow to sustain a far larger poppulation than 7 million even trough autartic production in Australia by 1936.

Land size (per Wikipedia):
Australia: 7,688,287 km2
US: 9,833,520 km2
EU: 4,225,104 km2

Australia is huge, but it isn’t as large as the US, much less the US plus the EU.

Edit (quoting Wikipedia as I’m going down the rabbit hole here):
“The contiguous United States occupies an area of 3,119,884.69 square miles (8,080,464.3 km2). Of this area, 2,959,064.44 square miles (7,663,941.7 km2) is actual land, composing 83.65 percent of the country's total land area, and is comparable in size to the area of Australia.”

 

[I_Always_Need_Help]

Where do you have that info from? Don't remember reading that in the "What's next" post...

It was in the next patch notes that will be released some time this week, I just went and searched for it.

• Removed the pop birth rate penalty from high population relative to arable land, as there are now other mechanics to handle this

I did ask "This was in the patch notes, it mentions their are now other factors that limit pop growth, what exactly are they? Also this means you can build tall in low arable land states now without issue right?" but got nothing.