Ethnically Correct Population Growth - Improving Immersion [IMPLEMENTED]

[ConjurerDragon]

A drastic change that would make the game both more challenging and more immersive would be that native villages would no longer teach planting experts (sugar, cotton, tobacco, cocoa and coffee). This would incite the player to use slaves for those tasks. And maybe later in the game, specialists could come either after a certain threshold of the ressource being produced triggers an event or another similar mechanism. The production bonus from slaves would then become more attractive as it wouldn't be in competition with specialists from start. Then, your growth mechanism would become a necessary evil for the player.

I'm posting this without being convinced myself it's necessarily a good idea. Probably it would be better to make of it a checkbox option at game start (unchecked by default).

There has already been an option made, which allows to choose if the native villages teach an unlimited amount of colonists --> specialists or only one at a time. Which already limits the amount of native schooling if selected.

 

[Ramstormp]

@raystuttgart, well, I actually have tinkered a bit with this concept, because I was curious to see how hard it would be to do what @Elven Liberation suggested; and I also got inspired by your canceled political ideas.

But it seems like this whole thing may be offensive to some people (I just like the how the word Mestizo sounds and that's about it); I also don't know if @Schmiddie has vetoed all of this out of existence, or if he came too late to the vote.

 

[Kendon]

[QUOTE="Marla_Singer, post: 16267415, member: 2791"I have a similar problem with treasure chests that are staying in my cities forever because they are worth less than a normal cargo, so it's never interesting to ship them to Europe [/QUOTE]

Treasures can be merged now as they arrive in your cities, or indeed any settlement including Native villages, up to a value of 3000 gold. Two of those on a galleon is 6000. That may be less than some cargoes but it's still pretty good.

 

[raystuttgart]

I also don't know if @Schmiddie has vetoed all of this out of existence, ...

No, don't worry. He is not modding anymore since more than a year and also said that he does not want to stand in the way of any team decisions.
If he should ever joins the team again his veto would get binding again, but until then his opinion is basically treated like the opinion of other community members.

But it seems like this whole thing may be offensive to some people ...

Everything can be offensive to somebody in this world. So that should not be worried about too much.

E.g. we also had lots of strange discussions about introducing "Slavery" when I suggested to introduce it.
I would consider it disrespectful to pretend that "Slavery" did not exist in the age of Colonization but many saw it different.

In the end I consider it the "political correct thing" to at least try to be authentic and accurate about history if game mechanics reasonably allow.
But of course games should also never glorify bad things or try to make them seem harmless by downplaying the fact. (But I believe that our feature does not do that.)

And currently I think that the current "Growth Mechanic" where everybody is born "white and free" depicts a wrong picture of colonial history.
The New World in Colonial times was not such a perfect open and integrative society as some would like to pretend.

-------

Summary:

If it is interesting to you, go ahead and implement it.
And of course the person implementing it can chose his own design.

Nobody could forbid a modder to implement something anyways.
Once it exists we can take a look and decide about integration in core mod.

 

[raystuttgart]

I was working a bit on graphics lately and created some for "Mestizo" (Child of Indio and White parents) and "Mulatto" (Child of Black and White parents).
(Yes those terms are considered racial in today's modern world but in the colonial era that this game plays they were historic reality.)

Mulatto - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Mestizo - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

We could discuss that "slavery" is racist and wrong as well, still we have it in the game.
Simply because it was also part of the historic realities of the new World.

I currently consider to also integrate a new Founding Father for "Mestizzos" and "Mulattos".
(Still need to figure out which Bonus he should then give.)

 

[raystuttgart]

I did not have much time today, since I needed to help my family do some renovation work in our old family house.
That is also part of my vacation - visiting family or actually getting summoned to help repair stuff in the house.

Spoiler :

And while doing so we found a huge nest of Wasps in one of the walls - they had dug their entry in the shutters of a window.
Thus spending half of the day just for getting that nest out and preparing to repair the damage these little beasts have done to the isolation fo the house.
(It was actually a huge mess and I still stink from the "Wasp Poison" even though I have already showered.)

Nontheless, I have achieved at least to create these 2 new Units.
(Including Buttons and Europe graphics - so they are ready to be used in a feature.)

Spoiler :

 

[raystuttgart]

By the way:
My algorithm has become a lot more simplified.

Basically it determines 2 factors for a new born Unit derived from existing population.
(Most of it is a non-deterministic, i.e. random based algorithm with thresholds again.)

Factor 1: Ethnicity*
Factor 2: Social Status

* Sorry, I do not mean to be offensive, but I lack a better term.
(I considered "Color" but it may be confusing considering readability of code.)

enum EthnicityTypes
{
NO_ETHNICITY = -1,
ETHNICITY_EUROPEAN,
ETHNICITY_INDIO,
ETHNICITY_AFRICAN,
ETHNICITY_MESTIZZO, // requires either both European and Indio Population, or Mestizzo
ETHNICITY_MULATTO, // requires either both European and Black Population, or Mulatto
NUM_ETHNICITY_TYPES,
}

enum CitizenStatusTypes
{
NO_CITIZEN_STATUS = -1,
CITIZEN_STATUS_FREE,
CITIZEN_STATUS_INDENTURED
CITIZEN_STATUS_ENSLAVED,
CITIZEN_STATUS_ELITE, // currently unused
NUM_CITIZEN_STATUS_TYPES,
}

---

It will simply check the exisiting population and then run a chance based algorith to check what kind of Citzen "Growth" should create.
(The number of Citizens of specific Ehtnicity and Status within the city determin the chances of which Units may be created.)

Possible outcomes currently:

Free Colonists:
1) Free Colonist
2) Converted Native
3) Freed Slave

Indentured:
4) Indentured Servant
5) Mestizzo
6) Mulatto

Enslaved:
7) Criminal
8) Native Slave
9) African Slave

 

[Guynemer]

This is your mod, and you obviously can whatever you want with it,

BUT

Man, this doesn't feel good to me. Especially in a game where there is no concept of technological or civic advancement, we're basically being forced to play as a slaver. It already doesn't feel good to be constantly offered slaves from the King and the First Nations, but adding this compounds it.

If I could make a suggestion to add to this, that would both make me just generally feel better and also adding in a interesting decision for gameplay: since I am the Viceroy and am running the colony as I see fit, let me manually free slaves/indentured colonists, at a cost. Either a monetary cost, or a cost to relations with the King, or both. The trick, of course, would be if the AI would be "teachable" for this choice.

 

[Kendon]

This doesn't feel good to me. ... since I am the Viceroy and am running the colony as I see fit, let me manually free slaves/indentured colonists, at a cost. Either a monetary cost, or a cost to relations with the King, or both. The trick, of course, would be if the AI would be "teachable" for this choice.

It also bothers me. I recognize that England doesn't ban the slave trade until 1807, and slavery itself in 1833, after the game period; but I don't think our allegiance to history has to be, well, slavish.

I agree that teaching the AI would be key. That way we can play as a governor who chooses to free slaves and see if we can still beat the AI or, in multi-player, our money-mad slaver opponents.

That would add to the challenge, which is a good thing. We should also be able to treat overseers and bounty hunters as enemy soldiers during wars.

 

[raystuttgart]

@Kendon or @Guynemer
To be honest I do not really understand you concerns with this feature.

Because:
If you do not buy / own any Slaves, you will never get any Slaves generated by Growth.
So you are not forced to anything actually - the game will just react to your gameplay.

Thus:
You can still completely ignore all the Slave Trade Features and never really notice any of this.
But if you play with Slaves you will simply get a bit more content to making the game more immersive.

------

Summary:
Almost nothing will change for people not playing with Slaves Features, other than your Indentured Servant sometimes also having children.
People playing with Slaves Features however will get a more immersive gameplay, because your growth will fully react on your types of Citizens.
------

In other words:
No, you will NOT be forced to play with Slaves if you do not like to do so.
(If you do not get any by other features, you also not get any by Growth.)

 

[raystuttgart]

If I could make a suggestion to add to this, that would both make me just generally feel better and also adding in a interesting decision for gameplay: since I am the Viceroy and am running the colony as I see fit, let me manually free slaves/indentured colonists, at a cost. Either a monetary cost, or a cost to relations with the King, or both. The trick, of course, would be if the AI would be "teachable" for this choice.

That is a feature of its own, which may one day also implemented.
(It just needs a volunteer with enough time to work on it.)

------

This thread is at first just about "Immersive Population Growth" that reacts to the Population you actually have in your colonies.
It will only generate types of population according to the Population you already own.

 

[raystuttgart]

We should also be able to treat overseers and bounty hunters as enemy soldiers during wars.

You are, they are "Combat Units" not "Civil Units".
They cannot be captured. If they are defeated, they are destroyed.

 

[raystuttgart]

By the way:
In my latest build, these here also do not run away anymore.
(They just have a Malus on certain productions, but also a Bonus on others.)

Also they can directly become Experts.
(So they do not have to become "free" first.)

Indentured:
4) Indentured Servant
5) Mestizzo
6) Mulatto

The only ones that run away and revolt are these.
(Although they have gotten massive amounts of new feature content.)

And those also need to become "free" first.
(So they cannot directly become Experts.)

Enslaved:
7) Criminal
8) Native Slave
9) African Slave

----

Generally:

1) Slave gameplay is much less punishing (e.g. by "Slave Masters" / "Slave Hunters")
2) Slave gameplay is much more immersive and diversified (e.g. by Immersive Growth)
3) With all the new Yields Slaves have been balanced to really have a role (Yield Bonusses)
4) Slave gameplay may still be completely ignored if you chose to (Simply do not get them)

----

So just relax and give it a try once you get a new release. Then judge if you like it or not.
The mod has changed quite a lot since the last official release more than 1,5 years ago.

 

[ConjurerDragon]

It also bothers me. I recognize that England doesn't ban the slave trade until 1807, and slavery itself in 1833, after the game period; but I don't think our allegiance to history has to be, well, slavish.

I agree that teaching the AI would be key. That way we can play as a governor who chooses to free slaves and see if we can still beat the AI or, in multi-player, our money-mad slaver opponents.

That would add to the challenge, which is a good thing. We should also be able to treat overseers and bounty hunters as enemy soldiers during wars.

It would not. Slavery is one good option after all the changes - but it is not as prevalent and extensive as it should be. After all slavery in huge masses only took of in the second half of the game after cotton became really profitable with the cotton engine. Usually a time in game where most players have more than enough specialists to fill all jobs and slaves are a tiny minority instead of a quarter to a third of the population (even more in some areas).

To make it a challenge to act out nowadays conscience in a time where that did not yet exist the profit from slavery would need to be considerably higher or some cash crop not plantable without african slaves and their resilience. As it is, it is no challenge at all to play as if slavery would have been seen as a bad thing in 1492 - people would have considered someone like that irrational like those today who deny climate change completely.

 

[Guynemer]

On the contrary, William Penn is something of an anomaly among Quakers in that he owned slaves; most Quakers were against slavery.

Also, the argument that "people thought differently back then" doesn't hold a lot of water. Some people thought differently back then, but the enslaved certainly had a different view from the enslavers.

 

[Guynemer]

Also, you can inadvertently obtain slaves from capturing another civ's colony, so it's not so simply as simply not purchasing them from the King.

 

[historix69]

Imho the children of indentured servants should be free.

see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indentured_servitude_in_British_America

Farmers, merchants, and shopkeepers in the British colonies found it very difficult to hire free workers, primarily because it was easy for potential workers to set up their own farms.[18] Consequently, a common solution was to transport a young worker from Britain or a German state, who would work for several years to pay off the debt of their travel costs. During the indenture period the servants were not paid cash wages, but were provided with food, accommodation, clothing and training. The indenture document specified how many years the servant would be required to work, after which they would be free. Terms of indenture ranged from one to seven years with typical terms of four or five years.

The indenture is used only to pay for the passage from Europe to the Americas but the children are already in the colonies. It's not slavery.

 

[raystuttgart]

It's not slavery.

No, it was not slavery. It was a "social practice" / "social status" that existed both in Europe and also in the Colonies.
(It was actually not a Colonial invention. The practice existed already for centuries in Europe. Especially in Central and Eastern Europe.)

What the link above does not tell you is, that often the children of "Indentured Servants" were so poor that they needed to hire as "Indentured Servants" themselves for the first years of their adulthood to be fed and after 5 years being give a piece of land by the "land".

Yeah Indentured Servants might also have been given few cents each week additionally but it was more or less just enough to each week by a bit of "luxury" from the town grocery like e.g. coffee, jam, salt, apples ... or maybe new shoes once a year to make their lives less miserable.

Societies of these days for example also saw little issues if "Indentured Servants" were being beaten for being lazy.
Also e.g. if such a contract was not fully fulfilled because the servant died legislation sometimes enforced that a relative then had to fulfill it.

---------

If you call people that had to sell several years of their life for just a few cents each week "free" just so they could survive,
then you have a really strange sense of what being free actually means.

And sometimes this happend for generations until the family could escape poverty and acquire enough money to buy their own land.
So no, the children of "Indentured Servants" were not automatically free. They were just free if they could afford it.

---------

There are very good reasos why these practices are forbidden today - at least in modern societies.
They basically ensured to keep a complete class in poverty and indentureship so landowners could exploit them.
(As it was much harder form families to escape that cycle of poverty and indentureship than some people may believe.)

 

[historix69]

If you call people that had to sell several years of their life for just a few cents each week "free" just so they could survive,
then you have a really strange sense of what being free actually means.

AfaIk the common description (in context of colonial history) is that they could not afford the expensive voyage from Europe to the New World where they hoped to get free land and start a better life. It were mostly single men, not families. I have not seen that they could not afford life at all in general, maybe in some cases.
The time was usually 5-7 years to pay for the passage and the greatest danger was that they died on the plantations due to tropical desease and hard working conditions during that time. The high death rate actually stopped many people in Europe in later years to use this method to pay for the passage. Also lower transportation costs to the colonies as well as economical and military changes in Europe in 18th century led to a strong reduction in number of indentured servants emigrating to the americas.
So plantation owners looked elsewhere for needed workforce and imported more slaves from Africa. The change from white slaves-for-limited-time to mostly black permanent-slaves is interpreted by some historians as the reason for development of the known american racism (black = slave).

"In 1700 less than 2 percent of New England's inhabitants were slaves, compared with 13 percent of Virginia and 78 percent for the English West Indies." (Alan Taylor - American Colonies)

 

[raystuttgart]

In 1700 less than 2 percent of New England's inhabitants were slaves ... Europe in 18th century ...

The game is not just about New England and it is not just about 17th or even 18th century.
The time frame of 15th and 16th century and also other colonial regions were much less civilized.

The change from white slaves-for-limited-time to mostly black permanent-slaves

The "white slaves-for-limited-time" still existed for the jobs that were less worse, than the jobs blacks were forced to do as slaves.
Especially in the less urban regions there was a huge gap between people that owned property and land and people that did not.

The true number of people that were "indentured" is not known officially because often it was not even with an official contract.
In regions that were hardly civilized land owners could basically do whatever they wanted with the poor land workers they had hired.

Also e.g. dock workers and other hard labour jobs for e.g. building railroads often were done with low paid contracts over e.g. 2 years - sometimes just being fired when done.
Some people were simply so poor that they just had to accept such contracts - they may not have been called "Indentured Servants" but in reality they were nothing else.

----

Narrowing down colonial history just to the things that sound romantic just serves to clean wash current generations to feel better.
Also arguing about if those people were officially called "Indentured Servants" or basically just lived under the same social circumstances helps nobody.

Not all social injustice commited in the New World was done to Natives and Africans.
Some of it was also done to Whites by other Whites - even though it might have been less brutal.

----

For me the "Indentured Servant" in this game is not necessarily a person who signed a contract to sail on a Ship to the colonies.
It is more or less just the poor Colonists that had much lower social status and rights - thus easily being exploited by society.

So are we really going to argue that this class of poor and exploited people did not exist?
Or are we now really going to argue that these "several year low paid contracts" did not exist?
Or are we really going to argue that they were free to chose whatever life they wanted - basically starve or accept those contracts?
Or are we really going to argue that poverty and social discrimation of a family did not impact the chances of their children?
...

----

Yes, the lives of these "poor people", often having to beome "indentured" to survive can not be compared to the misery of the actual slaves.
But still they were a social class of themselves living a life that was far from being truly free or equal or having the means to easily escape their conditions.

----

Summary:

We often tend to think in a very simplistic way of just "black and white", "free or slave" ... which is a way of thinking I do not like.
There is a lot of grey in this world as well ... and sometimes this grey is also pretty dark already ... and thus should sometimes also be talked about.

In a mod that tries to be "realistic", "immersive" and "complex" I think we should try to also have some grey.
Meaning not to give the impression that everybody born in the Colonies was "equal, free and rich" - because that was simply not the case.

----

If necessary to end this discussion we can also simply rename the "Indentured Servant" to "Poor Labour Worker".
(Personally however I consider this unnecessary because basically it was almost one and the same in those days.)

Being poor simply meant you had to hire for very bad and low paid jobs often also being forced to sign very long running contracts.
(They would range from 1 year to 5 years usually. And if you were not wealthy enough at the end you had to do the same again.)