Yes, I know ideas similar to this have been proposed in the past(for example, here:
http://forum.battlemaster.org/index.php/topic,3154.0.html) . However, I would like to add a more realistic approach to it, and hopefully one that satisfies both those who want city pillages to remain something you can't take lightly, and those who want to see their realms rebound faster so that they can get out on the battlefield.
Title: Increase pop. growth in cities during peace
Summary: Increase the population growth in cities during peace time to add a more dynamic and realistic feel to the game while also compromising for both those who want slower rates of growth and faster rates of growth.
Details: It takes an appropriate amount of time for rural regions to recover(and not so short a time either, as I know there are still a few rural/badland regions that still need to hit 100% in Nivemus), or, at least, an appropriate amount of time considering one consensus is that, although this is
Battlemaster, we still want to make sure that strategy, in particular the total war strategy many use, continues. However, cities, which are the hubs of gold and infrastructure, take
forever to recover.
For example, Oroya, Nivemus' richest city as well as it's biggest, has a maximum population of 21500 population according to the wiki. In the 8 months that Nivemus has had this city(and trust me, we have taken all of the precious few routes we could to help the city to grow at a maximum rate), we have gained perhaps 2/3s of the population needed to reach full population. This means that a smaller-medium city(as Oroya is fairly small considering it is smaller than at least 16 regions when at full population, 12 cities, 1 townsland, and 3 rural regions) would take roughly slightly under a year's time to recover. Many times, this means an entire realm will need well over a year before they can even think about warring someone. This currently has many people frustrated, myself included, as to the length of time, and I can only imagine how frustrating it will be for Eponllyn to restore Ibladesh, especially considering this restoration process literally could be a thing that takes
years. This isn't even mentioning the fact that many of these realms that are born out of these wars into these war torn territories are often on shaky ground diplomatically speaking(e. g. Dunnera, Eponllyn, Armonia, Nivemus), and therefore are pretty defenseless for quite a while.
Also, cities and rural regions I have found tend to recover at around the same rate, but cities have a larger maximum population, and therefore take a much longer time to be the producer that they should be for a realm. However, cities have always been hot beds of well... hot beds. Cities have had 'looser morals' and higher birth rates throughout time. City folk reproduce like rabbits: eventually there are so many feeding them is the problem. In fact, more often than not, empires had problems feeding their cities than problems with cities being completely decimated. A certain level of this decimation must be retained, to preserve the strategy, but we must alleviate the frustration on the players that want to do battle, that want to make war, that want to play
Battlemaster in their realm.
So, here is what I propose. We increase birth rates a good bit in cities
during peace time. This peace addendum also adds a more realistic feel to it, as when the men are off fighting and dying in war, population growth rates should go down, especially in cities where a lot of the infrastructure is based. Just look at WWII and then the baby boom afterwards. While at peace, so long as a realm can be in a rebuilding state of mind, it can be relieved that it is doing everything it can to becoming a stronger realm. Add that reason to all the others I have said before, and that is the reasoning we should increase the population growth in cities during peace.
Benefits:
1. Decreases time between war cycles.
2. Helps cities recover faster based on realistic principles.
3. Does not increase population growth across the board, and therefore a decimated region/realm will probably still be decimated for quite a while.
Possible Exploits:
Not necessarily an exploit, but it could cause a lot of realms to die young because if you keep that new realm with weakened regions in war, it will not be able to receive the benefits of this addition. Not sure if this will happen, but thought it deserved to be mentioned.
