A rounding problem with population
 

Long ago I took a province with 600 people in it. My dominion is long since imposed, growth 3.

It's still got 600 people in it.

Obviously, it's not growing enough per turn and the growth is being rounded down to zero.

Re: A rounding problem with population
 

The gene pool shr<font color="red">a</font>nk too much, and now everybody is related and can't marry each other. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

-Max

Re: A rounding problem with population
 

Well, it only counts in 10s, it's not exactly rounding. The pop is actually counted in memory as 60, and is not increasing by 1, or even .5 and therefor won't go up. You'd need about 850 pop to get it to grow even with G3, it looks like.

Re: A rounding problem with population
 

But it *IS* rounding--the fraction is being rounded down to zero as the field can't hold it.

I think this should be special-cased: If the growth rate is positive the population should grow by at least the minimum possible amount.

Note that this would also address LA Ermor, LA R'yleh and Hinnom depleted provinces.

Re: A rounding problem with population
 

Hardly, as +10 per month would still take 85 turns (7 years) to reach just 850 (where Growth 3 can first make an influence according to you guys.)

Re: A rounding problem with population
 

What happens with population decrease?

Is that also the same way, so a population that would drop by less than 10 doesn't drop at all?
Or does the decrease round up, so it drops by 10 every month?

Re: A rounding problem with population
 

It wouldn't make a big difference but it just seems so wrong that a depopulated province doesn't ever recover. People would move in!

Re: A rounding problem with population
 

I don't really agree Agrajag. Not with the maths that I'm sure you have spot on http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif But the problem is completely depleted provinces which cannot ever again produce even a 1 resource mage. Even a tiny population (enough to give a few resources or even just one) would be a huge boost. Often being able to build a unit (scout/ mage/ leader - even over a few turns) is what you want out of a province rather than a troop factory. The pop death does not remove the indi mage sites but it can make them worthless, especuially if surrounded by other zero pop provinces.

So a change to making growth scales give the minimum population growth would be a huge and IMHO welcome change.

Of course you are correct that until 850 pop is reached the difference between growth 3 and growth 1 will be zero, but that is not what is so bad about the death dom of Ermor et al. Nor what is good about growth 3.

Growth 3 only really pays off in big pop provinces. A pop 20000 province becoming a 40000 one (after X turns) gives a big income boost. But a 2000 to 4000 jump is still not giving a lot extra even if in percentage terms the growth is the same.

Re: A rounding problem with population
 

Exactly. That's why I hate depleted provinces--no indie mages from them.

I had another thought--it should only apply if there are people next door. People can't move in unless they are there to move in.

Re: A rounding problem with population
 

Loren wrote: "it just seems so wrong that a depopulated province doesn't ever recover. People would move in!"

Pre-industrial non-nomadic people didn't move very often. As in, peasants generally spend their entire lives within a day or two's walk of where they were born.

What are the existing ways to increase population in Dom 3? Offhand I can think of:

* Growth scale, as discussed here.
* Random events, which are more likely in situations... such as having positive growth scale.
* Wishing for population.

Re: A rounding problem with population
 

The game I played through as LA Ermor, I found it ridiculously annoying how long the last 10 or 20 people could hold out. Since even Dom 10 doesn't kill 50% a month, so you get these scruffy little hillpeople, eking out an existence from -I don't know what-. I actually started pillaging to try to get them to go away, it was not an easy task to hit 0 pop.


I do agree though, it seems like it would be simple to add a couple of triggers that just add 10 pop to all provinces under Growth, and remove 10 from all under Death. Yes, this would impact smaller provinces slightly more, as hitting 850 for example would suddenly yield 20 people, which is actually something like 2.2% growth. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Though personally I would love to see population shifts due to happiness and such. So incessant blood hunting in a province would start to scare people away for example. Also a really destructive dominion would herald itself to people outside of it. You might actually realize where LA Ermor is, first because of the enormous waves of refugees flooding into your lands.

Re: A rounding problem with population
 

Does something happen when you reach 0 population as Ashen Ermor, or were you just a perfectionist?

Re: A rounding problem with population
 

Unrest goes away, which can be important if you've got gold producing sites.

200% tax on a gold mine could be most of Ermor's income.

Re: A rounding problem with population
 

Oh, interesting. I noticed unrest drifted down to zero when the population got low, but I hadn't noticed a change at zero - I thought one lost all income at that point. I didn't realize you got more income for killing the last survivors at a mine. I'll have to pay more attention!

Re: A rounding problem with population
 

Well for me, it was your first guess. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif It just bugged me terribly that I had some ragged survivors in my otherwise pristine apocalyptic wasteland. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/redface.gif

I don't know what they were eating, but it couldn't have been brains, judging by the complaints I was getting from the zombies.....

Re: A rounding problem with population
 

Yeah it counter-intuitive PvK. You do lose all income from population, but the sites produce gold regardless of pop. You would, in turn, think that taxes would not effect the income from those sites, but it does. Pretty tangled up, really.

Re: A rounding problem with population
 

Seems like the gold produced by sites is actually scaled by population (when above zero), though, since frequently a province with low population and no unrest produces less gold than its sites add up to at 100% tax.

Re: A rounding problem with population
 

I'm saying to do this only if the effects of the scale got rounded to zero.

Yes, I have been thinking something along these lines would be a good idea, also.

Scales, unrest &amp; bad dominions would determine a happiness rating for the province. The greater the happiness difference between a province and it's neighbors and the more people would move. Make LA Ermor's dominion unhappy enough and you could actually get rid of the pop kill effect, just chase them off instead.

Perhaps the pretender's bless would also have an effect. I would think people would prefer to live in a place with a nature bless and certainly wouldn't like a place with a death bless.

Re: A rounding problem with population
 

True, but
1) non-nomadic people existed. It seems silly to rule out nomadic peoples in early era, at least. And even if you assume a strictly stationary society of late era, there are still
- bandits, outlaws (depopulated areas would be better for a hideout)
- gypsies
- bards
- beggars
- various homeless people. By the way, it wasn't ALL about settlements in medieval ages, at least not in Poland. Owning land meant power - true. Land can't really burn down like a windmill or workshop may. Everyone wanted to own land, but if you couldn't you could still work as a worker on somebody's land. And they wouldn't pay you for sitting idle, so you'd have to move on once the harvest is over. Hopefully someone else would have other crops, or other work to do.

Unlike peasants, townsfolk were technically free to move around. Artisans and guilds in particular would sense an opportunity in being the sole supplier of a small population. No or little competition etc.

2) Even if we assume people don't move at all, there would be more room for everyone who's left. More resources, food, space. So there should be a population boom, just like there typically is after a war. Speaking in ecology terms, there's environment capacity. It works primarily for animals, because humans are able to work around since the Neolithic Revolution (transition from hunters/gatherers to agriculture/livestock ). But humans would still benefit.

Overall, it looks like you're looking for an excuse to justify current mediocrity of growth scale.
I think it's too late to change it now. But it would be sweet if population growth was sort-of inversely proportional to current population size. So a depopulated province should grow much faster provided there's a growth scale. This would both make growth scale more useful and the game more realistic. Win-Win.

Re: A rounding problem with population
 

(IIRC) Raise taxes to 200% and start patrolling, as that kills a fixed amount of population per unrest lowered http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: A rounding problem with population
 

I think you're wishing for logistic growth curves like in Master of Orion, where you have a theoretical maximum population and a sort-of-exponential growth rate when there's excess capacity and a diminishing growth rate as you approach capacity.

-Max

Re: A rounding problem with population
 

Just curious, when you get the event where a chunk of population leaves "looking for a better life", do they actually go to other provinces, or simply disappear?

Re: A rounding problem with population
 

I've never seen the "looking for a better life" peons move into another province I controll (but maybe they do with no notification, I don't check every turn the pop in all my provinces(booh, lazy me)).
So we can suppose they all meet ravenous wolves during their travel to a better land.

Re: A rounding problem with population
 

And I'm saying that when programmers think someone is just "being a bit picky", they often look at the amount of effort required to make the small fix, and tell you not to hold your breath. When it's just inserting a couple of small lines of code that should have absolutely 0 chance of mucking up the rest of the formulas, then you may be in business. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif


And damn, I didn't think to patrol..... I am always so careful with my little computer people, they're my sweet little digital cows that I milk for gold. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: A rounding problem with population
 

I think you want to both patrol and blood hunt and/or pillage, because small populations seem to have their unrest evaporate, even under 200% tax, at least when in a strong Ashen dominion.

Maybe it's an actual use for the Executioner's Axe?

Re: A rounding problem with population
 

Yes. Bandits and outlaws are already directly represented as independent units and events. Beggars, indigents and refugees aren't liable to increase your tax income. In fact, population from which a medieval overlord extracted wealth and resources was generally limited to peasants and tradesmen. I don't see gaining much or any tax wealth from wandering minstrels and gypsies, and besides, they will keep moving on.

Act now! Be the only blacksmith in Deebsdale, where 97% of the population was exterminated by magic last year in the Ascension Wars - now's your chance! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

No, you do have some good points, but there are also good counterpoints. What you suggest would I think happen, eventually, though not I think very quickly, in most cases.

Yes, but again, only eventually, not right away, and it depends on details that aren't explicitly included in Dom 3 game data. I don't think the game even tracks a base population capacity for each province, and the map generator intentionally gives great variety when it sets initial population levels (though this is based on terrain and other values).

Well I'm offering counterpoints to your suggestions mainly just saying what I see as so - what comes to mind when I read your suggestions, and not merely to be argumentative. I do find it interesting that values don't quickly regenerate. I like Dominions' contrast to other games in that war is mostly destructive and some disasters are nearly impossible to repair.

Hmm. I'm not sure that's exactly the mechanic I'd choose, but I'd welcome more detailed population modeling including growth scale effects, or even just more random events including occasional re-migrations from over-populated to under-populated regions.

Re: A rounding problem with population
 

PvK you make some reasonable counter arguments but I suspect there are always a reasonable sized minority who would move to somewhere better for them fairly quickly (within months).

There are few examples of complete depopulation in European history. In fact I can't think of any. But even in medieval times I suspect that there would always be a few, more enterprising peasants, who would move to farm their own lands rather than someone elses.

If you look at the later examples of the colonisation of the US (and other Oz etc.) people flooded in to get their own lands and make their own fortune. I know there were some actual people owning much of that land but that just shows the powerful draw of 'empty' land. People flocked to it even if they needed to fight for it.

Bringing it back to dominions 60 people (the smallest population block?) is just a few families, not many. Plus you have a Pretender God who cares about these things (growth scales) providing 'encouragement'. It doesn't seem that unreasonable to me even in Dominions time scales.

There are three things that could be done to change the current system should the devs wish. Which they may not of course.

The first and best would be to create a spell or ability (like preaching or reanimation) to summon people from other provinces. Perhaps linked to nature paths and/or growth scales. But this would be a big code change for what the devs may consider a very minor issue. So I think it's extremely unlikely.

The second is simply to round up, rather than down, population increases under growth. This should be a simple change. Just a line or two of extra code in the growth formula.

The third is your suggestion of extra re-migration events. I play with luck and growth scales a lot, especially single player. These events are extremely rare IME. Although maybe they require growth 3 which I rarely use? The population leaving appears very common by contrast if you have neutral luck or any misfortune. But there would have to be a lot. Like the magic gem finds, to make this useful. After all it would usually affect provinces with plenty of population.

Re: A rounding problem with population
 

I agree that eventually people would move to repopulate devastated lands. The rate at which it would occur is what we might or might not agree on. The conquest of America is of course an example of population migration, in the industrial era. A more timely example might be the migration of various peoples along the vector from Mongolia though Rus and Ukraine and into Europe. Both though seem to me more like invasions in Dominions that population adjustments. Another example to consider might be Norse attempts to spread into Vinland, which looks like a good model for medieval people trying to spread into problematic conditions. One could also look at the scale and behavior during medieval plagues. Adding detail to migration without adding detail to why migration might have problems, could be unbalanced from a realism-oriented perspective like we've been discussing.

Not that that's the orientation of Illwinter, who have mentioned some of their views on this issue over the years.

All that said, I don't see any problem with your most recent suggestions. I wonder if you can't put a negative number for a spelleffect that kills population, to mod in new spells which create population. The message would probably still be the disaster message though.

Rounding up population growth ya is probably trivial to do and I have no problem with.

PvK