How will the number of locations affect gameplay for certain regions?

[prinscky]

They are not comparable. Netherland is an impossibly small region divided between outrageously small polities, small locations are necessary to portray the political fragmentation of it.
China on the other hand was always either one massive country, or several very large ones, where in civil wars regions several times larger than the entirety of the Netherlands routinely changes ownership like they were nothing. In China, things are on such a large scale compared to Europe that it's not really fair to compare the biggest country in the world to the smallest in Europe.


Here is where you are wrong, the game can be considered "location based" but only if you ignore the fact that it is actually population+building-based. Johan and the devs confirmed several times that large/populous locations with many buildings and a high RGO level are much better to have than many smaller ones.

Not only it costs the same amount of money to build a single one of the same production building in 5 locations than building 5 of them in one location, it is actually more profitable to have a less, more specialized locations according to Pavía and Johan.



No, this is not true, you CAN build multiple different types of production buildings in the same location, only RGOs are limited to a single type per location and those can be scaled aswell, with the primary limiting factors being 1. workforce and 2. development iirc.

That's good to hear, I guess we just have to wait for the game release to see if its true.

 

[Stami]

Man you didn't follow. No matter what level of facilities you have, you can only have one facility in each location, and the facility in each level only employs certain number of people, big location with far more pop doesn't count. Its the number of facilities that matters, and the raw materials were also location based, so more location means more facilities, and more production output/trade values or whatever it is.

By "facility" are you talking about RGOs? If so you are correct that one location only has one RGO type.

However, there are many buildings that produce goods and they can all be built in a location. I think a lot of people here are looking at the RGO as the most important thing, when there are buildings that can do the same. Some examples:

Sheep farms produces Wool
Saltpeter guild produces Saltpeter
Winery produces Wine

Using the 200k location vs four 50k location:

The four locations can potentially have 4 different RGOs, however since there are plenty of buildings that can also produce raw goods, you can build them all in the 200k location which essentially has the same outcome. The con to this is the fact that RGOs do not require other goods to be produced, unlike buildings.

Of course, the comparison we are making is assuming that everything else is the same when comparing 1 location with 4 others, but there can be a lot of variation when it comes to:
- topography
- vegetation
- climate
- presence of river(s)
- being coastal

I would argue that a 200k farmland flatland oceanic river coastal location is more valuable than four 50k locations in which 1 has a river, 1 is a mountain, 2 are coastal, etc.

This to say that, there are so so so many factors to consider in this wonderfully complex game, that nitpicking on the size of locations as being the absolute most important thing when it comes to gameplay is not just reductive to all the work and detail the devs have put into the game, but also it is wrong.

 

[Stevo76]

Man you didn't follow. No matter what level of facilities you have, you can only have one facility in each location, and the facility in each level only employs certain number of people, big location with far more pop doesn't count. Its the number of facilities that matters, and the raw materials were also location based, so more location means more facilities, and more production output/trade values or whatever it is.

No, it's not. Because there are many building levels. Higher building levels are exponentially more powerful than lower ones. The upper limits to the building levels in each location are determined by factors like population. Go back and read some of the Tinto Talks on how buildings work.

 

[ArVass]

That's good to hear, I guess we just have to wait for the game release to see if its true.

Indeed, I'm hope I'm right about this (at least I'm pretty sure).

If not, and y'all were right, (which I don't think, as Johan has addressed this concerns before), I will eat a hat or something

 

[SAmaster]

It's creator provincialism- the devs being european have better access to european histories and how the geography impacted it, than they do for non-european languages. I think this also impacts a lack of province density in the America's.

That said- in EUIV's lifespan the density of these areas were improved as they added new content for these regions, so I imagine it'll be improved likewise in the future.

 

[PEliaz]

It's creator provincialism- the devs being european have better access to european histories and how the geography impacted it, than they do for non-european languages. I think this also impacts a lack of province density in the America's.

That said- in EUIV's lifespan the density of these areas were improved as they added new content for these regions, so I imagine it'll be improved likewise in the future.

Yes, but they mentioned that they don't want to make changes to map after release. The feedback they will use for after release is not going to change density of locations(massively at least) but make other changes. From what I recall of what was said in 2024, but they might have made changes.

 

[JettyLoungers]

Yes, but they mentioned that they don't want to make changes to map after release. The feedback they will use for after release is not going to change density of locations(massively at least) but make other changes. From what I recall was said 2024, but they might have made changes.

There was a dev reply on the India feedback thread what said something along the lines of a future correction. I've checked it right now

 

[prinscky]

By "facility" are you talking about RGOs? If so you are correct that one location only has one RGO type.

However, there are many buildings that produce goods and they can all be built in a location. I think a lot of people here are looking at the RGO as the most important thing, when there are buildings that can do the same. Some examples:

Sheep farms produces Wool
Saltpeter guild produces Saltpeter
Winery produces Wine

Using the 200k location vs four 50k location:

The four locations can potentially have 4 different RGOs, however since there are plenty of buildings that can also produce raw goods, you can build them all in the 200k location which essentially has the same outcome. The con to this is the fact that RGOs do not require other goods to be produced, unlike buildings.

Of course, the comparison we are making is assuming that everything else is the same when comparing 1 location with 4 others, but there can be a lot of variation when it comes to:
- topography
- vegetation
- climate
- presence of river(s)
- being coastal

I would argue that a 200k farmland flatland oceanic river coastal location is more valuable than four 50k locations in which 1 has a river, 1 is a mountain, 2 are coastal, etc.

This to say that, there are so so so many factors to consider in this wonderfully complex game, that nitpicking on the size of locations as being the absolute most important thing when it comes to gameplay is not just reductive to all the work and detail the devs have put into the game, but also it is wrong.

What you said can only work if the RGOs are scaling with population, so a location with 4 times more population can produce 4 times more raw materials, which I'm skeptical about. However I am content with what we have so far.

 

[Stami]

What you said can only work if the RGOs are scaling with population, so a location with 4 times more population can produce 4 times more raw materials, which I'm skeptical about. However I am content with what we have so far.

Oh another thing I forgot to mention is the difference between urban and rural locations. The buildings I mentioned are exclusive of urban locations, which have less RGO levels than rural locations. So there's yet another layer of complexity to take into account. I don't know about the "more population = more RGO" part though. Maybe so, maybe not.

 

[Stami]

There was a dev reply on the India feedback thread what said something along the lines of a future correction. I've checked it right now

is this future before or after release? it would also help if you linked your sources, for further context.

It would be nice if after release they would review parts of the map... but that is indeed a lot of work. There's always mods!

 

[Gurtannon]

I wasnt aware that the forum had that much eurocentric trolls

They probably influxed with the official announcement

 

[Stami]

I wasnt aware that the forum had that much eurocentric trolls

They probably influxed with the official announcement

idk who you are referring to, but from everyone in this conversation, the newest members are you and OP.

 

[Gurtannon]

idk who you are referring to, but from everyone in this conversation, the newest members are you and OP.

So what?

I meant the recent influx to the eu5 forum after the official announcement and the ck3 china update which angered eurocentric dudes as their game will run slower

the overall forum account age doesnt matter as I am in the eu5 forum since the beginning which is what it matters

 

[PEliaz]

There was a dev reply on the India feedback thread what said something along the lines of a future correction. I've checked it right now

Was I wrong... or what? They have 2 feedback's, if that is what you meant.

 

[Stami]

I meant the recent influx to the eu5 forum after the official announcement and the ck3 china update which angered eurocentric dudes as their game will run slower

I know what you meant. I don't know who you're referring to though. I don't think there's any eurocentric argument in this conversation specifically, regardless of whatever else happens elsewhere.

 

[Gurtannon]

I know what you meant. I don't know who you're referring to though. I don't think there's any eurocentric argument in this conversation specifically, regardless of whatever else happens elsewhere.

I meant the dislikers to OP’s post

They dont want India and China to be as detailed as Europe

 

[Stami]

I meant the dislikers to OP’s post

They dont want India and China to be as detailed as Europe

Ah I thought you meant the commenters. I've been clarified.

 

[Sirbab]

Pdx fans try to argue politely without restoring to ad hom attacks challenge: Impossible.
More seriously, I'd prefer to see how the game works before I cast any serious claims on if China has enough provinces. It would be pretty obvious if gameplay issues are a problem due to the low location or province count. And if such a thing comes to pass, I think we can obviously assume pdx will receive oodles of feedback on it post launch and fix it.

 

[Shaftjuice]

Stick to Denmark, my guy. It's obvious you just dislike China and India.

Garbage analogy too. In this case, the levels of resolution are the same (Provinces-1080p and Locations-4K)

Not exact numbers, but if 20 provinces in EU4 are generally corresponding to 120 locations then the same 20 provinces are corresponding to almost half the number of locations in India and China (60-70)

 

[Chieron]

If I didn't miss anything, location size has no impact on population capacity which is calculated based on climate, terrain and other modifiers.

If paradox doesn't fix this issue then location density matters a lot, if they do I don't personally think it matters that much beyond a certain limit.

It will only matter, if reaching the population limit of a location is common. And if it happens too early (and the location definitely could support many more people), then that would be an argument to split a location.
Similarly, resource diversity can be a factor that also has diminishing returns, as long as all relevant RGOs are present in a reasonable area.
Having many smaller, low pop locations conversely can easily lead to issues with economies of scale, and general tedium of management.
The smaller locations will have more once-per-location-buildings, but will at the same time need a higher share of their population to work these. A large number of small locations also has some effect on maneuvers.

There are good arguments to split up India further, simply because of its fractured political situation (similar to Europe). But this doesn't apply the same way to China, even though China also has some candidates for splits, simply because they are neighboring more fractured parts.

In the end, there is not yet an established meta to tell, what population size per location is best. Tat is, if you have e.g. 1 million pop to distribute, how many locations would be optimal for economic and military purposes, assuming that you do not get much higher RGO diversity. Maybe it is 50 locations with 20k pop each, maybe it's 20 locations with 50k each or a varied mix. And if you want to conquer locations, smaller ones probably are better for the conqueror, with smaller chunks to digest at once. Think of keeping a lid on a location that has more people than your entire country but your enemy has only metropolises.

In the end, it is also a game, so there can be arguments to have some variety in the depiction for balance reasons and to have these areas play differently.