Why so few people in the cities?

[Antmanbrooks]

Hi, as the title suggests why did you choose to reduce the population of the cities down so much? I'm playing on Eternity on the GEM World Map, have 9 cities after 1273 turns and my cities are 13, 12, 10, 9, 8, 6 and 3 size 1's and I have a total population of 21,150. The number of soldiers I have is 2,182,000.

Just wondered what the thought process was behind reducing the number of population so much for each city size? I'm pretty sure the population of Egypt at the time would have been anything between 4m and 10m people IRL?

Can I alter this and change the population each city size has? If so, can someone explain how?

 

[Petete]

I noticed that too in the demographic screen, just a minor esthetic bug I assume, I count the million soldiers in thousands.

 

[Praetyre]

You can blame me for the pop number revisions; I took populations to represent metropolitan conurbations (rather than regional areas) and thus thought it was a tad weird that prehistoric nomadic camps had greater populations than most Bronze Age towns. The numbers used to be stored in some obscure DLL equation, but are now fixed, nonlinear sums; my intention was that the size thresholds be shifted accordingly, but that's been shelved until the initial-pop numbers of settlers are XMLized. I can quote you the original planning document, if you'd like.

 

[Koshling]

You can blame me for the pop number revisions; I took populations to represent metropolitan conurbations (rather than regional areas) and thus thought it was a tad weird that prehistoric nomadic camps had greater populations than most Bronze Age towns. The numbers used to be stored in some obscure DLL equation, but are now fixed, nonlinear sums; my intention was that the size thresholds be shifted accordingly, but that's been shelved until the initial-pop numbers of settlers are XMLized. I can quote you the original planning document, if you'd like.

Furthermore the reported number for 'soldiers' is actually just a measure of military power which the screen decides to call 'soldiers', and has absolutely no relation to any sort of population measure, so can easily exceed your total population early on. I am advocating changing it to 'military power' on that screen so that people don't go 'what?' when they see 'soldiers' > population.

However, so far I have had no comments on the proposal so have not done anything about it.

 

[Antmanbrooks]

You can blame me for the pop number revisions; I took populations to represent metropolitan conurbations (rather than regional areas) and thus thought it was a tad weird that prehistoric nomadic camps had greater populations than most Bronze Age towns. The numbers used to be stored in some obscure DLL equation, but are now fixed, nonlinear sums; my intention was that the size thresholds be shifted accordingly, but that's been shelved until the initial-pop numbers of settlers are XMLized. I can quote you the original planning document, if you'd like.

It's a weird one isn't it. Do you just take population within the city or the surrounding areas? I like the surrounding areas idea personally. I often think the best way to tie in city size with the demographics of a nation is to imagine that the area within the city borders is taken into account as well as the city square itself. So if you have hamlets, villages, camps, mines and farms etc. all around the city square they add to the overall city population count.

I don't suppose it could hurt to have the original planning document quoted if you have time? It's a minor aesthetic issue but one that bugs me all the same. Thanks in advance if you do get chance to post the quote.

 

[KingArthur666]

Furthermore the reported number for 'soldiers' is actually just a measure of military power which the screen decides to call 'soldiers', and has absolutely no relation to any sort of population measure, so can easily exceed your total population early on. I am advocating changing it to 'military power' on that screen so that people don't go 'what?' when they see 'soldiers' > population.

However, so far I have had no comments on the proposal so have not done anything about it.

I would say ignore it for now, there are plenty of far more important/interesting things for you to work on.

 

[Petete]

@KingArthur666

Amen to that.

 

[Praetyre]

It's a weird one isn't it. Do you just take population within the city or the surrounding areas? I like the surrounding areas idea personally. I often think the best way to tie in city size with the demographics of a nation is to imagine that the area within the city borders is taken into account as well as the city square itself. So if you have hamlets, villages, camps, mines and farms etc. all around the city square they add to the overall city population count.

I did consider proposing population boosts for improvements, but that would have been potentially problematic when you take into account differing map sizes and eras. The "Cottage" improvement may represent settlements amounting to 100,000 people in Ancient on a big map, while on smaller maps it may only be a few thousand at most. In any case, the purely cosmetic nature of it (city pop has practical implications as far as gameplay and balance is concerned) made me relent.

I don't suppose it could hurt to have the original planning document quoted if you have time? It's a minor aesthetic issue but one that bugs me all the same. Thanks in advance if you do get chance to post the quote.

Alright then, here's the revised table:

1: 50
2: 100
3: 250
4: 500
5: 750
6: 1000
7: 1500
8: 2000
9: 2500
10: 3000 (threshold for Town Hall and other buildings that used to require size 6, ideal max for Prehistoric era)
11: 4000
12: 5000
13: 7500
14: 10,000
15: 15,000
16: 20,000
17: 30,000
18: 40,000
19: 50,000
20: 60,000 (threshold for City Hall and other buildings that used to require size 13, ideal max for Ancient era)
21: 70,000
22: 80,000
23: 90,000
24: 100,000
25: 125,000
26: 150,000
27: 175,000
28: 200,000
29: 225,000
30: 250,000
31: 300,000
32: 350,000
33: 400,000
34: 450,000
35: 500,000
36: 550,000
37: 600,000
38: 650,000
39: 700,000
40: 750,000
41: 800,000
42: 850,000
43: 900,000
44: 950,000
45: 1,000,000 (threshold for Metropolitan Administration and other buildings that used to require size 25, ideal max for Classical/Medieval/Renaissance era)
46: 1,100,000
47: 1,200,000
48: 1,300,000
49: 1,400,000
50: 1,500,000
51: 1,600,000
52: 1,700,000
53: 1,800,000
54: 1,900,000
55: 2,000,000
56: 2,250,000
57: 2,500,000
58: 2,750,000
59: 3,000,000
60: 3,500,000
61: 4,000,000
62: 5,000,000
63: 6,000,000
64: 7,000,000
65: 8,000,000
66: 9,000,000
67: 10,000,000
68: 12,000,000 (ideal max for Industrial era)
69: 14,000,000
70: 16,000,000
71: 18,000,000
72: 20,000,000
73: 22,250,000
74: 25,000,000
75: 27,750,000
76: 30,000,000
77: 35,000,000
78: 40,000,000
79: 45,000,000
80: 50,000,000
81: 55,000,000
82: 60,000,000
83: 65,000,000
84: 70,000,000
85: 75,000,000
86: 80,000,000
87: 85,000,000
88: 90,000,000
89: 95,000,000
90: 100,000,000
91: 110,000,000
92: 120,000,000
93: 130,000,000
94: 140,000,000
95: 150,000,000
96: 160,000,000
97: 170,000,000
98: 180,000,000
99: 190,000,000
100: 200,000,000

If anyone gets beyond 100, even under my 10,000 turn scenario, I'll be astounded, but I'll be happy to bring it up to 200.