A rounding problem with population

[B0rsuk]

PvK said:
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.

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.