Some thoughts about a "Vicky-esque" pop system

[Kliwarrior]

The Solonian reform in Athens (and similar constitutions in other greek Poleis ) as well as the classical constitution of Servius Tullius in Rome, divided the population in different classes based on census.

So , using the Vicky term of POP's (for sake of clearness) I would like to see those modeling

- Land based aristocracy - The Patricians in Rome , but similar concept was common in all the classic world. Nobles since the old time of kings, the patricians are the most conservative and exclusive class. They constitute the high ranks of civil administrations (consuls, archons, kings, ephoris, whatever names you like) as well as the bulk of the senate (or apella, or gherusia) .. at least until other classes claim their rights.
Their aims? Keep their privileges!

- Rich traders - Knights (Equestrian) were called in Rome. They tend to compete with patricians for the real power. Actually in Rome there went to be the "new patrician", almost undistinguished from the old ones. In Athens of the gold era and in Carthage, they kept the true powers instead of the Nobles/Patrician.
They tend to keep the power, with the patricians or against them.

These two classes form the bulk of ancient armies because they are the only ones who can buy a full war equipment (Hoplite or Legionary or anything you like)

- Mid/low level traders and Artisans - Something in between. There are a lot in developed cities, very few in undeveloped/country territories. Obviously they would prefer a more democratic constitution where they can access at least at some minor public officers.

- Farmers - Almost the equivalent of artisans , but in countryside. They are on the verge of become too poor and be substituted by some slaves for the production, becoming just "proletarians"

Just a small part of them could be used in army. Another part can join as light infantry or perhaps as sailors..

Proletarians - The mass of people in cities with little or no wealth. They don't pay taxes, cannot be used in army. But they could be used as "angry mob" by some smart politician. Something like "Make Athens big again.."
Note that in Rome after Marius, the can be used as manpower for the army. Just the State as to pay in advance for their equipment and provide a monthly salary, and possibly some "retirement bonuses"

Slaves - Obviously they are on the very bottom of the social scale. They work, in countryside or in mines ("ad metalla") . A small farmer could own one or two slaves, a rich noble thousands..
Just raw manpower, anyway. (oh well .. who is Spartacus?)

So I divided the free men in 4 classes + slaves ( historical division was more accurate, in Rome as well in Greece) but I think that those would be enough.

Actually this is good inside a single Polis . But expansion or other events may bring foreigners inside the same country. So these classes should be coupled with a race/citizenship/whatever because usually a "not citizen" , even in the high social class , has less rights/privileges that a poorer full citizen.

 

[Buladelu]

There's much lesser need in V2-style POPs because problems of economic and social changes will probably not be the main part of the game. Plus migration had much more important role in the period.

Modeling of 3 or 4 classes would be enough to model anything devs would reasonable want to model.

 

[Kliwarrior]

It depends on what you think "social changes" are.
The greek sociery just emerging from the "greek dark age" (800 BC) was quite different from that in the Persian wars (500-450 BC )
Rome of the early republic is greatly different from the Rome of Augustus

IF Rome.2 would model the society of the classical world, probably something better than "patricians / plebeians / slaves" is required

 

[khardinal]

In the M&T Mod for EU4, we have a complete population system for the 2.0. But, it's mainly based on rural/urban/elites types, because the era of the game is about urbanization. The social classes are much more represented with our new estate system (less/greater nobility, burghers, bureaucracy...); which are still very linked to urbanization, as the burgher estate.

For a game in the Archaic/Classical/Roman eras, it's very different, as you said.
Still, it's a great era of urbanization and rise of sea trade in the mediterranea; and the Greek/Roman society more than ever is centered around the poleis, even if the economy is basically centered around agriculture.
But, I do not think that you can do the same as we do in M&T, because the social classes which are the hearth of the society is different from the urbanization.
For instance, large parts of Athens' citizens were living in Attica, not in the city itself. Slaves were as living in both rural and urban environments.
So, to me, the best system would be the one that could model both the Urbanization And the Social classes.
And, even after this, the scale of the citizenship too. Like, in Sparta, citizenship would be restricted for High Classes, when in Rome, every High/Middle classes would have it. But it's still simplified, because in Athens, you had citizens from the top to the complete bottom of the society. So an other way would be to class populations by tax-based system like they were in Roma or Athens. And then you have a percentage of citizenships in each class (like 100% in High Class, 50% in Middle and 25% in Low Classes + Slaves), according to your citizenship policies. With Spartan Laws, you would end with practically no citizenships in Low Classes and Middle Classes...
Once this sytem is done, then everything else can rise around it :
The trade development with urbanizations
The army system : High Classes gives Cavalry/Elite Infantry; Middle Classes gives Infantry/Sailors; and Low Classes (Proletarri/Slaves) gives nothing for Military.

In Victoria 2, they did the choice of having 2 Pop Classes for Rural/Urban (Aristocracy/Capitalist; Farmer/Craftsmen; Clergy/Clerks, Artisans, Bureaucrats)
But, it would be a bit clunky, and would not very represent urbanization.

 

[icedt729]

First off, I think it's important to go over the economic differences between Vicky 2's timeframe and a classical one.

Vicky 2 covers 100 years, with the first stage being an agricultural revolution (massive increases to RGO output) followed by an industrial one (massive increases to factory productivity, plus new products). The expectation is that there will be rapid population growth and even faster economic growth, so things like agricultural production are very abstract but investment in railroads and factories get a lot of detail. This is also the age of great colonial empires and relatively free trade so a single world market is reasonable.

Rome 2 would cover at least a few centuries of steady across-the-board economic development, but nothing on the scale of the 19th century economic revolution, and also punctuated by the massive depopulation of certain areas (think the sack of Carthage or Corinth, or the desolation of Gaul during Caesar's campaign). If the game runs very far into the imperial era it will also have to cover the massive growth of the city of Rome through the annona system, and the web of second-tier cities that fed into it (namely Carthage, Alexandria and Antioch). Economic growth rests much less on technological advances and much more on spreading stable coinage, investing in infrastructure (roads, ports, irrigation works), and protecting trade routes (keeping the peace, suppressing piracy and banditry). So in this case the food supply needs more detail than it got in Vicky 2, because lack of food caused regional depopulation and surpluses of food could be harnessed to support cities of unprecedented size. Manufacturing is also a much, much smaller share of the overall economy and doesn't deserve the attention it gets in Vicky. And you need to model trade routes physically, because this is why building roads and harbors strategically had such an impact on the growth of particular regions and cities and on overall prosperity.

So, up front you need a specific mechanic for food supply, and there needs to be specific routing for the surplus of one area flowing into another, along a route that can be affected by invading armies, natural disasters, and the quality of infrastructure along it. And a sufficiently powerful and advanced state should have a way to guide that surplus towards their capitol through policy, and through judicious infrastructure planning. This would have the secondary effect of helping the growth of regional transport and manufacturing hubs. To support this there need to be transport costs built into the movement of goods, unlike in Vicky where goods immediately enter the world market at no cost, as well as transport capacity, so that infrastructure both reduces costs along a route and increases the route's ability to carry goods.

Money supply is much trickier to manage, and is actually one of the main reasons why the Vicky 2 economy crashes in the late game, but since you have much slower overall growth than in the Vicky timeframe it might be an attainable thing to manage. But if money supply is modeled, there should be a fallback 'barter' mechanic as well so that goods are still exchanged without cash, but at greatly reduced efficiency. But this would be a considerable design challenge so I wouldn't be surprised if the monetary aspect gets overlooked. But the spread of coinage did have a major impact on the classical economy (as did devaluations).

What I personally would also like to see is a land ownership mechanic, so that a given province has a certain amount of arable land, with a certain productivity (which can be improved through research and investment), and the land is distributed among the rural population. So some regions may have a large population of farmer-proprietors (the backbone of classical militia armies) and others may be dominated by major landlords (who may be easier to tax and provide better candidates for office but give up fewer quality soldiers). There should also be a tool for governments to intervene in land distribution, at the price of enraging the disadvantaged party. But this is more important for the political and military side of things (mass participation versus aristocracy and citizen-soldiers versus professionals) than for the economy, strictly speaking.

 

[Kliwarrior]

As correctly @icedt729 pointed out, there were no important economic or technological improvement [*] in the classic worlds, and the changes which involved the economy were much more related to the social changes.
The agriculture saw a constant tendency of latifundium (large estates) to engulf the property of small farmers , creating a large number of citizens with little of no income ( Thetes in Athens or Proletarians "those who own just their own sons" in Rome ) who flocked into the big cities.
Therefore the need to manage this mass of population, both in the political way ( manage some sort of democratization of the state) both in social way (expand to create new colonies , redistribute some lands in provinces etc.)


[*] unless the timeframe would start quite early, covering the transition from the late bronze / iron age.

 

[Will Steel]

Assuming this thread is about Rome, there will need to be a realistic portrayal of slave trade and capturing slaves through wars and such, for a good economic representation of that era in Rome.

Outside of Europe and Mediterranean, economies were vastly different. If they add India for example, there have to be the caste system that defines what economic and social category a character/population is considered to be in...and it can be flexible or rigid based on ruling dynasties. And there was no slavery either, despite having a gigantic urban and rural economy. And then there is Persia whose economy is based almost entirely on trade and Mesopotamian agriculture. Or Axum kingdom and Sabeans and Nabateans, who did not have any urban economy.

A system which can portray all that and still be deep, might not be similar to or same as Vicky2.

 

[Kliwarrior]

I use the Vic/Vic2 pop example because it's the most similar (in Pdox terms) to a modeling of a multi-class structure.
Obviously, the presence of all the kind of "pops" it's not required in every state/provinces. Slaves may/may not be the main work forces, merchant classes may be an important component of the state or just a minority etc.
What I would like to focus on is the need for such a modeling, expand to become way more deep than those used in Roma.1