Depopulation

[Kristoffer O]

To raise a child takes time, and even though lust and good harvests might speed up the *!* , breeding is a rather slow process.

Population is a resource, much like gold or metals. During ancient times chinese warlords force-moved farmers from one province to another. This was probably done by other ancient empires as well. After all, population was the most important resource of an empire. We realized that a game mechanic that allowed moving populations would cause all inhabitants to be gathered into capitals. Not a very good solution.

I like the fact that it is impossible to increase the population. It is the only non renewable resource in dominions.

Last remark: There are three kinds of spells I can think of that would increase population: teleport thousands into your province, create thousands out of thin air or force grow thousands. I do not like the first two options and the Last one strikes me as inefficient if you want to create a farming population. I prefer to keep crossbreeding for war only purposes.

[licker]

Originally posted by Mortifer:
That wont help, if almost all provinces are depopulated.

As I said there should be some major spells to populate a province, or maybe some other options.

Hmm, well if almost all provinces are depopulated then I'd guess that Ermor (or whomever) had pretty much won. Besides where does the new population come from? Even with as much magic as there is in the game, it doesn't make alot of sense for people to just pop out of the aether. Spells that increase the %growth make sense, for that reason, being able to forcibly move enough pop from one place to another, then slap on some spells to make them @#%# like bunnies (so sue me ) or make them happier where they are make more sense.

Maybe for some nations it makes sense to create population from nothing, but the entire aspect of who lives in where is pretty well abstracted I think. Better to not think about it too logically perhaps, or else you'll lose your perspective on the game as a whole, by getting bogged down in arguments about realism and the like

"We realized that a game mechanic that allowed moving populations would cause all inhabitants to be gathered into capitals. Not a very good solution. "

But surely you could implement population caps based on scales and province size, ... for various provinces, and as such trying to cram in too many people would cause bad things to happen? If you look at MoO3 they had this exact dynamic (though you couldn't really force move people either), but once a system (province) started to get too many people in it, unrest would go through the roof, and alot of the people would leave to go to less crowded places.

Also a decreasing rate of return as you swell the population somewhere would work as well. I don't really mind the situation as it is now, but its not that difficult to implement a system to allow for population transfer, especially if its forced and by design takes up commander and troop time, as well as increasing unrest in the provinces it affects.

[ September 25, 2003, 19:23: Message edited by: licker ]

[Nerfix]

Hmmmmmm...
Crossbreeding for war purposes only...
Apparently you still like crossbreeds...
We even got the R'lyehian Tentacle Boogeymen/Human Crossbreeds...
(if you don't know what i am talking about, then forget...)

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Originally posted by Truper:
So a question for the vets: did the world start feeling empty towards the end of a long game, and how did you feel about it, if so?

LOL... it reminds me of one of my first big PBEMs, I managed to conquer Atlantis early and after a while my twin capitals were past the 4Ok pop mark - great!. At this point a coalition of all the remaining players (bar just two) decided I was a really stinking squid and they poured Black Deaths on my big sea provinces like if there was no tomorrow. 14 turns after the first hit, and despite the fact I had domes of AW on every 20k+ province even before the onslaught started, Atlantis was down to 11k, R'lyeh to less than 4k (!), and although I had conquered a dozen more provinces (mostly Abysian wastelands, sheeesh!), I had 65% less pop! That was the first time I was subject to mass devastation, and it left me somewhat... shocked ;-)

Every game I played after that, especially on small crowded maps, was pretty brutal on the pop if it were to Last more than 50-60 turns. Pillaging your ennemy's territory is sometimes more profitable than storming his fortresses.

Ah, another fun 'death' game: common random events, and every player had to pick max unluck + max turmoil. I got 3 floods on my capitol in the first 8 turns, reducing it to just above 8k. A few barbarian invasions and emigrations later, I was down to less than 4k. My closest neighbor was in an even worse shape, at the same time he had just 1200 pop left at his capital. The only lucky event I had was the visit of the hero team, since I managed to convert Bogus and his fellow Troll archer to my cause ;-). After a while every regular troop you could raise was a virtual deserter because of gold shortages. At some point I suicided all my standard leaders to cut on my upkeep (I had no regular troop left for them to lead anyway), so I could buy a couple more summoners. OFC Ermor wasn't allowed in this game, but it turned out the most succesful players had 'Ermorian' dominions and pretenders (and strategies). The game Lasted more than 70 turns and I don't think the largest province was bigger than 5k in the end ;-)

[Kristoffer O]

Originally posted by licker:

But surely you could implement population caps based on scales and province size, ... for various provinces, and as such trying to cram in too many people would cause bad things to happen? If you look at MoO3 they had this exact dynamic (though you couldn't really force move people either), but once a system (province) started to get too many people in it, unrest would go through the roof, and alot of the people would leave to go to less crowded places.

Also a decreasing rate of return as you swell the population somewhere would work as well. I don't really mind the situation as it is now, but its not that difficult to implement a system to allow for population transfer, especially if its forced and by design takes up commander and troop time, as well as increasing unrest in the provinces it affects.

Yes, we could implement some ways to keep people from crowding a few well defended provinces. I have an idea right now on how it might work, but it will change the game and the balance a bit so for the time being it will not be implemented. I actually like the idea of moving populations, but the micromanagement involved would be the opposite of what we try to do with the taxing/patrolling. We don't want micromanagement to be a means to victory.

[Mortifer]

Originally posted by Kristoffer O:

Last remark: There are three kinds of spells I can think of that would increase population: teleport thousands into your province, create thousands out of thin air or force grow thousands. I do not like the first two options and the Last one strikes me as inefficient if you want to create a farming population. I prefer to keep crossbreeding for war only purposes.

Excellent. These 3 options will be enough.

Dont forget that this game has NOTHING to do with reality, so I see nothing wrong, by creating population out of thin air. In fact this will BALANCE the game.

[Kristoffer O]

Perhaps. It has not been tested.

[licker]

[quote]Originally posted by Kristoffer O:
[quote]Yes, we could implement some ways to keep people from crowding a few well defended provinces. I have an idea right now on how it might work, but it will change the game and the balance a bit so for the time being it will not be implemented. I actually like the idea of moving populations, but the micromanagement involved would be the opposite of what we try to do with the taxing/patrolling. We don't want micromanagement to be a means to victory.

I agree that micro should be avoided like the plague, however, if some action is uncommon enough, then making if micro is probably ok. Anyway, my suggestion would be to allow for the player to 'mark' provinces for immigration. I would imagine this working by having an extra box or check on the province info screen where the player could set a certain amount of cash to encourage people to migrate there. So you wouldn't gain any population to your entire kingdom, but you would be able to pursuade your citizens to move around some. As I envision it, the money would have to be paid every turn, and there would be no gaurentee that anyone would actually move. I don't know how, or even if, migration is handled in Dom2, but it would be an interesting addition... add some effects that allow you to 'encourage' enemy pretenders population to move to your border provinces, and you have a new way of fighting your enemies with gold rather than magic

[ September 25, 2003, 20:02: Message edited by: licker ]

[Daynarr]

There can be also some sort of spell that will bring people from parallel universe or another world (Dimensional Gate or something like it). Of course war is always destructive on population but population is always finding its own way of survival too, so it may be easy to kill some of the population but to kill all population is a bit too much and unrealistic. Heck, in our own history towns and villages have been razed to the ground and there always would be survivors. So I think that, at the moment, rate of population destruction is way off scales.

Lower taxes would probably lead to more babies and that would lead to more population. So it would help population growth just not instantly. As it is now, lower taxes have no effect at all on population.

I guess I vote for population instead of Death.

[ September 25, 2003, 20:14: Message edited by: Daynarr ]

[Daynarr]

And there are two additional good ways/spells to increase population:
- Spell that would reduce accidental deaths (good luck) among population, which would reduce death in province and thus increase population.
- Spell that will increase life span of population (Spell of long life maybe). That would also have immediate effect.