Pop - how many people

[Magnar]

Anyone considered how many people there are in 1 pop, or probably more appropriate for the time how many adult males of fighting age as that seems to be what many of the ancient censuses counted? What do you all think 1 pop is in numberS? is it consistent as in are pops of all types the same number of people? I guess they would have to be to consider the promotion/demotion mechanic.

Roman Census Figures

Roman Census statistics, from Servius Tullius to A. D. 48

www.csun.edu

if we were to go by this census data and compare it to the games start date it would indicate that 1 pop = approx 1000-1100 men 17+ years of age

Rome at games start date has 291 hellenic romans in its borders (304bce) (4 are roman slaves so makes it 287)
Rome census data around 290BC seems around 270,000.

Now if we compare this to Athens
317BC Census of Demetrius Phalereus
21,000 Athenians
10,000 Metics (foreigners)
est 100,000 slaves (400,000 in the census but prob includes women/children so divide by 3/4 )

If we compare that with in game however
Athens has
73 Athenians (excl 6 athenian slaves) (should this be reduced to 21 excl slaves)
34 Metics
31 Slaves

Im sure there is more data out there for other places

 

[olivenkranz]

I actually wondered that too. I guesstimated 1000/Pop.

 

[Samitte]

I actually wondered that too. I guesstimated 1000/Pop.

That number roughly holds up for Italy, but in Egypt its closer to 2400/pop, while in the Seleukid empire and India its even higher. Anatolia and the Caucasus it varies, some regions higher, others even a bit lower.

 

[Atey]

2000 if I had to go for a single universal number. As of the change to cohort sizes (500 men per cohort/pop -- only the able bodied men, not including women, children, elderly) it makes even more sense.

My original post where I got to the number:

This is interesting. If you look at the graph, in 550 (around 200 BC) the word has about 80 000 pops. If we assume that my estimate of the real population of the area is somewhat correct or could even be a bit lower we end up with a nice approximation of 2000 people per one POP (80 000 pops and about 160 000 000 real world population in 200 BC).
Population of the city of Rome was 100 000 in 300 BC according to Wikipedia. That would put the number of pops at game start at 50. Lo and behold the city of Rome actually starts with 58 pops in the game. (I fail to understand though why Alexandria which consistently ranks as one of the biggest cities of antiquity has lower population than both Carthage and Rome in game.)
What is very curious though is the growth we see over the following 200 years. Where my real world data estimate population increase of about 10%, Imperator ambitiously boosts the growth rate sixfold to about 60% population increase. Perhaps I'm reading something wrong.

In any case the game still misses a lot of plagues and other fun stuff so perhaps that can help keep the population in check.

The issue was also brought up in this interesting discussion. It could be argued that the number changes as there wouldn't always be 500 healthy male recruits for every 2000 people of the general population and then sometimes there could be more than that.

 

[Arthrodira]

Don't use Athens as your standard. Athens in particular has far too SMALL of a population in game, less than Sparta! (WTF?)

I believe historians use a ratio of something like 1:15 when estimating population sizes from army sizes (so 1k soldiers would indicate 14k civilians = 15k total).

You cannot assume 25% of the population are adult males in the ancient world. That's based on a modern family size of 2 children per parent, which is too low. Given population losses to war, disease, and famine in the ancient world, you would need a higher youth population simply to maintain a stable population and not face extinction. Also, wars create widows - you expect to have more women than men in a violent society (partially balanced by high mortality rates in childbirth, but less fathers means less children so...). Also, no country mobilizes every single adult man for war. The elderly are typically not going to be conscripted, nor are the middle aged (unless desperate). You also need to keep in mind that in all societies, ancient and modern, most adult men are still going to be working as civilians most of the time. Sure, many of them would have fought at some point in the classical world, but they are not all fighting at the same time.

So using 1:15 (which could be wrong, I'm not 100% sure on the exact ratio, but it's in that range), if you raise 500 militia per pop, then that pop represents ~7.5k people. So if Alexandria should have 300k people, then it should start with 40 pops, which is actually pretty close to how they have it! Though it does indicates they are not using the same ratio as 1:15.

 

[Magnar]

Do the inconsistent numbers then represent an imbalance in the game ? ie some nations/regions being unrealistically strong compared to others?

 

[Limbojack]

Do the inconsistent numbers then represent an imbalance in the game ? ie some nations/regions being unrealistically strong compared to others?

Perhaps, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was an intended imbalance to stop the powerful nations at the start of the game from expanding like crazy - which is a good thing.

 

[cristofolmc]

Doesnt in game 1 levy cohort correspond with 1 pop?

 

[IsaacCAT]

if you raise 500 militia per pop,

no, around 50 soldiers per integrated pop

Doesnt in game 1 levy cohort correspond with 1 pop?

There is a typo on the levy screen. When it says POP it should say Unit.

The ratio Unit / POP is the Levy Size modifier that is around 10%. That means that 1 integrated POP = 0,1 Unit = 50 soldiers.

 

[Mr. Wiggles]

Don't use Athens as your standard. Athens in particular has far too SMALL of a population in game, less than Sparta! (WTF?)

I believe historians use a ratio of something like 1:15 when estimating population sizes from army sizes (so 1k soldiers would indicate 14k civilians = 15k total).

You cannot assume 25% of the population are adult males in the ancient world. That's based on a modern family size of 2 children per parent, which is too low. Given population losses to war, disease, and famine in the ancient world, you would need a higher youth population simply to maintain a stable population and not face extinction. Also, wars create widows - you expect to have more women than men in a violent society (partially balanced by high mortality rates in childbirth, but less fathers means less children so...). Also, no country mobilizes every single adult man for war. The elderly are typically not going to be conscripted, nor are the middle aged (unless desperate). You also need to keep in mind that in all societies, ancient and modern, most adult men are still going to be working as civilians most of the time. Sure, many of them would have fought at some point in the classical world, but they are not all fighting at the same time.

So using 1:15 (which could be wrong, I'm not 100% sure on the exact ratio, but it's in that range), if you raise 500 militia per pop, then that pop represents ~7.5k people. So if Alexandria should have 300k people, then it should start with 40 pops, which is actually pretty close to how they have it! Though it does indicates they are not using the same ratio as 1:15.

What do you mean by middle aged? We know men fought when in their 40s, and well. An ancient army wasnt a navy seal team

 

[Arthrodira]

What do you mean by middle aged? We know men fought when in their 40s, and well. An ancient army wasnt a navy seal team

Being able to fight and being conscripted are different things.

 

[Mr. Wiggles]

Being able to fight and being conscripted are different things.

They fought tho.

 

[Emre Yigit]

Let us say you end the game with 80,000 pops distributed across the entire map. At 1 pop = 1,000 people, that's 80 million. As that population includes most (really, all) of Europe and India, that would put global population at 200-400 million, which is in line with estimates for the time.

 

[Ruck]

Nothing like that. If devs would have intended otherwise then 1 pop would have the number 1000 or whatever would be accurate or they would have more realistic pop unit mechanics and numbers like Victoria II. had. The way it is now, is just 1 pop = 1 fictional game unit.

Johan explained it in the dev diaries : https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...ary-5-25th-of-june-2018.1107368/post-24411450

 

[Arthrodira]

Nothing like that. If devs would have intended otherwise then 1 pop would have the number 1000 or whatever would be accurate or they would have more realistic pop unit mechanics and numbers like Victoria II. had. The way it is now, is just 1 pop = 1 fictional game unit.

Johan explained it in the dev diaries : https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...ary-5-25th-of-june-2018.1107368/post-24411450

Agreed - it's undefined so it can represent different numbers in different places

 

[Kill_off1004]

Nothing like that. If devs would have intended otherwise then 1 pop would have the number 1000 or whatever would be accurate or they would have more realistic pop unit mechanics and numbers like Victoria II. had. The way it is now, is just 1 pop = 1 fictional game unit.

Johan explained it in the dev diaries : https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...ary-5-25th-of-june-2018.1107368/post-24411450

yes, can we please stop this discussion. comes up all the time and many just don´t understand it´s a game mechanic and thats it

 

[Magnar]

yes, can we please stop this discussion. comes up all the time and many just don´t understand it´s a game mechanic and thats it

its a grand strategy with abstracted simulation, its natural that people attempt to reconcile the game mechanic with reality.

 

[Magnar]

I went through the game files to recalculate and my above in game data is wrong.

correction: 235 non slave roman pops at game start, not 287 i had above.

 

[Jiben]

Since 1 pop gives 500 soldiers for migration i would say thats somewhere around 2-2,5k People per pop. That said it's been kept vague as a choice so i wouldent look too far into it.

 

[svalan_i_dalen]

It help my immersion a bit to think of pop as people that are relevant to the state and not as a population statistic.