City's max population seems very low?

[Qyasogk]

Is it hard coded into the game? does it ever change? if so, what changes it?

I rule a rather small realm that has only one city, but that city's max population is set to 8.1k. Compared to other cities I've seen throughout the game, this seems VERY low. Indeed, I have two rural regions adjacent to my city region that both have populations above 10k.

All the cities stats are ridiculously high, Production 99%, Morale 100%, Loyalty 100%. I can build the same number of buildings as I can as another city I'm Lord of in one of the other continents, but that city has a max population of 37K.

Is a city with a max population lower than my adjacent rural's normal? expected? any way to improve it?

Thanks for any insight anyone can provide!

[vonGenf]

Is it hard coded into the game? does it ever change? if so, what changes it?

I rule a rather small realm that has only one city, but that city's max population is set to 8.1k. Compared to other cities I've seen throughout the game, this seems VERY low. Indeed, I have two rural regions adjacent to my city region that both have populations above 10k.

All the cities stats are ridiculously high, Production 99%, Morale 100%, Loyalty 100%. I can build the same number of buildings as I can as another city I'm Lord of in one of the other continents, but that city has a max population of 37K.

Is a city with a max population lower than my adjacent rural's normal? expected? any way to improve it?

Thanks for any insight anyone can provide!

It is hard-coded and there is no IC action that can change it.

Also, you can count yourself lucky. If your city could grow to 37k peasants, you would need to feed them, and the gains in gold are not necessarily commensurate. A low-pop/high gold city is ideal.

[Velax]

Cities on FEI also have a lower population than cities on most other islands.

[De-Legro]

Cities on FEI also have a lower population than cities on most other islands.

Part of why I love FEI

[Qyasogk]

It is hard-coded and there is no IC action that can change it.

Also, you can count yourself lucky. If your city could grow to 37k peasants, you would need to feed them, and the gains in gold are not necessarily commensurate. A low-pop/high gold city is ideal.

That seems like a missed opportunity though. Why wouldn't a thriving, productive happy city slowly grow in population? A city that can be fed should be able to grow, and a city that can't be fed should shrink, even if only 1 or 2% a year?

So much of Battlemaster is dynamic and responsive, that when I come across these artificially arbitrary/fixed limitations it's always a bit of a surprise.

[Anaris]

That seems like a missed opportunity though. Why wouldn't a thriving, productive happy city slowly grow in population? A city that can be fed should be able to grow, and a city that can't be fed should shrink, even if only 1 or 2% a year?

So much of Battlemaster is dynamic and responsive, that when I come across these artificially arbitrary/fixed limitations it's always a bit of a surprise.

Consider what happens if it can grow like that...without limit.

Then consider that there are regions in this game that have been pretty much untouched by war for a decade straight.

At this point, with the game able to understand population density, we could code in dynamic limits that would prevent the population density in any given place getting above a certain value...but as things stand, there's such a wide variability in population density, due to the way the regions were originally drawn, that any attempt to do this would result in some rather ridiculous things happening, one way or another.

If we even had the manpower to devote to such an effort. Which, as you might surmise, we don't.

[Qyasogk]

Consider what happens if it can grow like that...without limit.

Thank you for your quick reply!

I didn't mean to imply that there should be no limit. Only to suggest that the limit be affected by the realm's ability to keep the city happy and fed, as oppose to some hard coded value by the game masters long ago that has no ability to go up or down.

I have been looking for opportunities to contribute more and would be willing to help in implementing features like this, if you are open to considering them...

[Anaris]

Thank you for your quick reply!

I didn't mean to imply that there should be no limit. Only to suggest that the limit be affected by the realm's ability to keep the city happy and fed, as oppose to some hard coded value by the game masters long ago that has no ability to go up or down.

I have been looking for opportunities to contribute more and would be willing to help in implementing features like this, if you are open to considering them...

If you have reasonable PHP skills and are interested in joining the dev team, please send me a private message and we'll talk.

[Haerthorne]

If you have reasonable PHP skills and are interested in joining the dev team, please send me a private message and we'll talk.

Look at other games that try to simulate this using the same kind of numbers BM uses (in other words actual populations rather than an more arbitrary number of lvl 1,2,3, etc). Populations become completely ridiculous. The difference is that BM is multiplayer and balance is always an issue.

[Qyasogk]

Populations become completely ridiculous.

As I said before, the availability of food (or lack thereof) to actually feed those populations should keep the numbers from getting out of hand, but still add some dynamism to city size and strength.  Cities do grow and prosper, shrink and collapse into ghettos, etc...

[De-Legro]

As I said before, the availability of food (or lack thereof) to actually feed those populations should keep the numbers from getting out of hand, but still add some dynamism to city size and strength.  Cities do grow and prosper, shrink and collapse into ghettos, etc...

Yes, when you don't feed them the population crumbles. I just view the current "max" population as the maximum population you can cram  into the space the city occupies. Now obviously there are inconsistencies here, due to the way the maps and cities were originally created, though I like to imagine that some cities are simply happier to have massive poor quarters with people packed in like sardines, while others take a approach that attempts to give the lowly peasants a slightly better life.

Perhaps what could be done is to change population similar to what happened to region stats. 100% is no longer the "standard" for region stats as I understand it, what if there was a lower soft limit that could be considered the "normal" population level, and above that is for when a city is particularly well managed.

[Psyche]

I think it would be easier to express a long-term stable and happy population with a small,  short-lived production boost beyond 100%, similar to investments.   However,  no more than 5-10% total.  It could be at once, or an accumulative 1% a day until they experience a negative region buff.  Considering that it could be quite difficult to avoid negative buffs, it would keep things from getting unbalanced.

[Tom]

As I said before, the availability of food (or lack thereof) to actually feed those populations should keep the numbers from getting out of hand, but still add some dynamism to city size and strength.  Cities do grow and prosper, shrink and collapse into ghettos, etc...

Might & Fealty has dynamic populations, but had to completely re-invent the entire economic system to make it possible.

[Shizzle]

Also note that some cities will never reach max population, because it takes longer to fully populate the region than the starvation/war cycle to reset.

[Indirik]

Also note that some cities will never reach max population, because it takes longer to fully populate the region than the starvation/war cycle to reset.

That is not true. It is absolutely possible for every region in the game to hit max population. If you can't protect your city well enough for it to reach max population, then that's really your own fault.