Emigration Code and Population Cap

[JPierreD]

The overpopulation/hunger cycles are typical of the medieval ages, but there should be more to it than just having people in large cap cities starve hurting region stats. I'll try to make a proposal for a system to make those cycles more interesting and less demanding regarding monkey-tasks for the players.

The first idea is a Population Cap, much like the one it already exists for each region, but that its Lord could lower (say he decides these woods are his hunting spot, and that large region of the city will be a plaza). This would cause some slight region stats penalties, but would make cities like Port Nebel and Darfix more manageable (instead of having the players have to exploit the hunger code, sending half the required food each turn, or sending one turn food, and not the next).

The second idea is to make the starvation cycles more interesting, and real in the process, by modifying the Emigration Code. The explanation might make the proposal look complex, but its effects would require very little more effort for the players to understand, or to manage its consequences (though its implementation would be certainly for the future).

Right now regions grow until they reach the population cap, when they magically stop growing (planned parenthood is implemented I suppose), instead of starting to have overpopulation issues. Only if some of the peasants emigrate there is further growth. My idea would be to create a region stat parallel to Population, or as a complement to it under brackets, perhaps called Outlaws. It would mark all the pariah of society (homeless, rogues), and those serfs that lost the Lord's protection and were expelled from their/his lands (Jewish persecuted and expelled in Portugal, Moors in Spain), which would live off consuming whatever resources they had, banditry, mendicancy or illegal hunting in the wild. They would seek to emigrate from the region that does not welcome them, and seek a region to colonize, to become Freemen/Population.

Let's put it in terms of game mechanics. Consider three regions having the following stats: Current Population/Population Cap/Outlaws. Consider a growth rate of exactly 1%, for simplification.
At turn 1 Region A has 8000/8000/80, Region B has 6000/6000/60 and Region C has 5000/1500/0.
Region A borders B, which also borders C (A and C do not share borders).
This way, at the start of turn 2 we will have 80 outlaws in Region A which will seek to emigrate, in this case to Region B, its only option, and 80 new outlaws will be made from population growth (births).
In Region B we will have 60 outlaws emigrating to Region C, where there is space, but it will create 60 more due to births, and receive 80 immigrants from Region A.
Region C's will grow 15 from births and 60 from immigration.
So, at turn 2 Region A has 8000/8000/80, Region B has 6000/6000/140 and Region C has 5000/1575/0, and at turn 3 Region A stays the same, Region B too, and region gains 140 immigrants, besides growing 1%. And so on.

This would create some interesting situations: in densely populated areas overpopulation could be an issue. After the Outlaws reach a certain % of the population you there would be a small chance they will form an armed militia in desperation. There would be two ways to combat that: police work (hanging outlaws should have minimal, if any, effect on the region stats, as they are legally out of the laws) or warring the neighbor to find space for your growing population.

This can nicely blend with the ideas of personalized knight estates (which can promote the hunt and hanging of outlaws, or simply patrolling the streets minimizing the chance of a Peasant Militia being formed), and the Fear/Loyalty region stats (in my mind hanging outlaws would rise the Fear, and either rise or lower the Loyalty, depending if the peasants are grateful you eliminate the foreign bandits or if they resent you for killing their cousins who fell in disgrace).

Thoughts?

[egamma]

Aren't you basically putting flavor text on the region stats we have currently, with the old estate system?

[JPierreD]

We have no Overpopulation system (regions at max population don't grow unless they lose peasants to another region), no Outlaw population (we have Control, but as regions don't suffer from overpopulation they don't suffer from what I described: landless bandits that in high enough number would spawn a militia), and there is no Population Cap.

[egamma]

okay, I would like a population cap option, although realistically, how are you going to enforce that? China's one child policy? sending your police to disembowel pregnant women?

taxing families based on children is really the only way to do this, but that would only slow population growth, and I would expect morale and control to suffer quite a bit from doing that.

[Chenier]

While I would be the first person to wish a way to control population, I fear it would either be too lax and people would abuse the !@#$ out of it, or too severe and wouldn't be worth it.

I do agree that I hate the idea of sending half rations to cities in order to bypass starvation. I would never do this, and I find it rather unfair that some do, it seems like an abuse to me really... Perhaps it would merit discussion on the magistrate forums...

[De-Legro]

While I would be the first person to wish a way to control population, I fear it would either be too lax and people would abuse the !@#$ out of it, or too severe and wouldn't be worth it.

I do agree that I hate the idea of sending half rations to cities in order to bypass starvation. I would never do this, and I find it rather unfair that some do, it seems like an abuse to me really... Perhaps it would merit discussion on the magistrate forums...

I believe it has been discussed before, and was determined not to be an exploit. I could be wrong though. I also personally dislike it.

[Chenier]

I believe it has been discussed before, and was determined not to be an exploit. I could be wrong though. I also personally dislike it.

I doubt it got much discussion. Having a person or two comment on it on some obscure thread wouldn't qualify as a discussion, but I'm going to bed now so I haven't checked where it might have been brought up.

I could see the trouble to police such a thing weigh against it being considered an exploit, though, but I still think it's pretty lame. The game should offer an option to put the peasants on rations, this just seems like an easy way to half a realm's food consumption without any significant drawbacks. If I could indeed just send food every second day, I believe D'Hara would be self-sufficient in food, just to illustrate...

[De-Legro]

I doubt it got much discussion. Having a person or two comment on it on some obscure thread wouldn't qualify as a discussion, but I'm going to bed now so I haven't checked where it might have been brought up.

I could see the trouble to police such a thing weigh against it being considered an exploit, though, but I still think it's pretty lame. The game should offer an option to put the peasants on rations, this just seems like an easy way to half a realm's food consumption without any significant drawbacks. If I could indeed just send food every second day, I believe D'Hara would be self-sufficient in food, just to illustrate...

It was my understanding the comment was from Tom, which lets face it when we are talking about exploits is one of the few opinions that matter.

[JPierreD]

okay, I would like a population cap option, although realistically, how are you going to enforce that? China's one child policy? sending your police to disembowel pregnant women?

taxing families based on children is really the only way to do this, but that would only slow population growth, and I would expect morale and control to suffer quite a bit from doing that.

I said it in the first post: limit the area in where it is allowed to build residences. The new population will become Outlaw, and attempt to emigrate. However, too many Outlaws in a region are dangerous...

[Anaris]

I said it in the first post: limit the area in where it is allowed to build residences. The new population will become Outlaw, and attempt to emigrate. However, too many Outlaws in a region are dangerous...

Why would they need to build brand-new houses?  There are plenty of houses that were abandoned by the last people to live there before they died of starvation.

[vonGenf]

Then destroy them. You know there's no room. If these houses exist you, as a noble, will be poorer and command a weaker army. Just burn them.

[Chenier]

Then destroy them. You know there's no room. If these houses exist you, as a noble, will be poorer and command a weaker army. Just burn them.

People will always limit it to just enough population to have 100% production, though. Sure, in a way, one could assume that the rest of the population would be overcrowded (hence why they don't increase production), but still...

[egamma]

It would be nice to control population through taxation.

The current population-migration code should be affected by taxes. Do you want people to move from Port Nebel to Nebel? Then set the tax rate at 12% in Port Nebel and 8% in Nebel, and watch the number of people migrating go from 200 a day to 400.