Provinces

[Lord God Jinnai]

True, but only if the lines become static for a long period of time does the provincial fracturing become permanent. And a conqueror can recombine those at will at a later date. I don't think this is a problem, YMMV. Besides the dynamic of history is toward larger geographic units since military power tends to go with size. I expect we would end up with something like 200-500 provinces in the entire world for most of the game using my approach. Bitty (1-2 square) provinces will tend to go away as time moves on. There will be a steady-state number of them that will not be that large, maybe 100 or so IMO.

I think we should, reguardless of technological level, create a maximum size possible without heavy ineffiency. Otherwise in modern times Russia could be 1-2 provinces total which is what Rodrigo was aiming against (atleast that's what it seems to me). Also i wouldn't completely get rid of the 1-2 square provinces or small polygonal units. At the same time you say there is a tendancy to become bigger for efiency, provinces don't get to big because of ethnic and local divisions that divide the small area from the rest of the area and don't want to be associated with them. Sometimes like in the Balkans or Indonesia, these create new contries, but sometimes like in Germany, they create city-state provinces. And don't think city-state provinces being created in modern times is a thing of the past, New York (prior to 9-11 atleast) constatly thought about breaking away from New York state because their views and lifestyle vastly contradicted with the rest.

[Gary Thomas]

From Mark:

So none of your objections except the one about Russia hold. My system can do a one-square country just fine.

I didn't think I had any objections to your system. I merely added a "social level" to it. My comment about the Baltic states was just another attack on the fixed size province idea (which I rather thought that Rodrigo was advocating).

I'm not sure Russia is a province by my definition of province.

How else would you describe the individual republic of the Soviet Union? Technically it was a federation, just like the USA. Would you regard Texas as province? Or Rhode Island?

From LGJ:

At the same time you say there is a tendancy to become bigger for efiency, provinces don't get to big because of ethnic and local divisions that divide the small area from the rest of the area and don't want to be associated with them.

No tendency, merely a possibility. Provinces would not grow by themselves, they would only grow if the player or AI made them bigger. If that makes them inefficient because they are too big, them make them smaller again.

Having an upper limit to player or AI determined province size should not be necessary, and would just be an arbitrary limit that is not found in real life - big awkward provinces are simply too inefficient to use.

This is using provinces in the economics/administration sense, and assumes that the social aspects are dealt with by regions (Rodrigo) or districts (me).

Cheers

[Mark_Everson]

Hi Gary:

Originally posted by Gary Thomas
I didn't think I had any objections to your system. I merely added a "social level" to it. My comment about the Baltic states was just another attack on the fixed size province idea (which I rather thought that Rodrigo was advocating).

Gotcha, I missed a couple of key words right at the beginning of your post...

How else would you describe the individual republic of the Soviet Union? Technically it was a federation, just like the USA. Would you regard Texas as province? Or Rhode Island?

Texas or RI would definitely be provinces. On Russia... I just don't think losing a good game function for provinces is an acceptable price to pay for outlier things like the size of the former Russian Republic of the USSR. I sincerely doubt that more than 1 in 100 people would be troubled in any way by not having Russia as a province. In a scenario it might be as simple as having Eastern Russia and Western Russia provinces. Whatever number of provinces that might be required could be labeled as the region of Russia.

[Lord God Jinnai]

This is using provinces in the economics/administration sense, and assumes that the social aspects are dealt with by regions (Rodrigo) or districts (me).

Ahh, then that is where we differ. IMO provinces based purely on administative level will untimatly fail and collapse. IMO the two are too interconnected to be devided. The best way to put it would be that each region can itself become a potential province/civ if the soical and political situations deem it so.

[Gary Thomas]

IMO provinces based purely on administative level will untimatly fail and collapse.

Why? In real life Provinces are purely administrative constructs.

IMO the two are too interconnected to be devided. The best way to put it would be that each region can itself become a potential province/civ if the soical and political situations deem it so.

Don't understand these comments.

Cheers

[Lord God Jinnai]

Why? In real life Provinces are purely administrative constructs.

No they aren't. They have boundries set by natural boundries that tend to also set natural boundries for cultures. While there are exceptions, that is generally the rule.

Don't understand these comments.

Each province created will generally be made up of 2+ regions. I'm saying that each region is a potential province/civ if the social and economic circumstances arise to cause it to form within the province (regions should shift and social and economic circumstances like provinces aren't static).

[Gary Thomas]

The countries with which I am most familiar (New Zealand, Australia, Canada, France, United Kingdom and USA) all have Province (or State, Department or County) boundaries arbitrarily set by central government.

Cheers

[Lord God Jinnai]

Originally posted by Gary Thomas
The countries with which I am most familiar (New Zealand, Australia, Canada, France, United Kingdom and USA) all have Province (or State, Department or County) boundaries arbitrarily set by central government.

I am unsure about Australia, but aside from that one you're either 1> wrong or 2> these arbitrary settings have in some cases broken apart.

US: While the US has been pretty stable there have been a few breakups. Virgina/West Virgina is one (broke during the civil war), Missouri almost did the same (almost broke along the missouri river), N. Wisconsin and western penersual of Michigan would like to form their own state.

Canada: NW territory have some of the natives there wanting the territory devided to represent them better and the preasure has been increasing over the years. In the west the provinces are based somewhat on the original colonial structure (same for US).

France and UK: For mainland this is 100% untrue. The provinces there are based on principalities which were based on conquests or the ethnic makeup. For outside this, yes this is true, but you've seen what happens with this (breakup of Yugoslavia, Iraq invading Kuwait, breakup of Pakistan and Afghanistan, breakup (somewhat) of indonesia. And most of Africa. I could go on and on...

And even when these boundries are 'arbitrary' in reguard to ethic/political makup, they try to use natural boundries such as rivers, lakes, mountain ranges, etc. whenever possible.

[roquijad]

You are all very productive!

Something I feel is wrong: handling economy at mapsaures. I'm problably misunderstanding things, but: economic decisions (investments, how many heads producing food, etc) are made in the econ model, AFAIK, based on prices. Those decisions will be incorrecly modeled if prices are set by a demand-suply interaction at the mapsquare level. Prices info must come from a more aggregate interaction between D and S for correct modeling. I can give examples if this isn't clear, but I think it is. Then, my conclusion is you need provinces (or any other aggreagtion of mapsquares) just like social model needs, Mark.

Anyway, Mark's ideas look good to me (romans/huns example). But I don't like the idea of a new hunnish province just for the mere presence of huns. A possible solution: you order a military unit to "occupy" a square (in enemy province) and a number of neighboring squares around the unit are used to create the new province (which are lost by the enemy). This new province is used normally for as long as your units are occupying the territory. Your occupation ends and the province becomes permanent/normal (you can move away your occupying units w/o losing the province) once a peace treaty is made and borders accepted. In that way at least the rearrangement of provinces will be less frequent and you don't need to check how much time a square has been in somebody's hand or anything like that. It also would reflect the intenton of the player to exploit the enemy territory.

Districts sound good too, but I have two problems with them:
1) the fact they are fixed implies we can't get social interactions in larger areas when comm and transp techs allow it. But it's not too serious and I could live with that if you think is the best way to go.
2) I don't like making econ/govt decisions at the province level (as a group of districts) because it assumes by default an administrative control of the land by grouping districts, which in a primitive empire wouldn't exist really (here I'm assuming you used the word "province" in its administrative sense). But you could sell me this: players use districts to make econ/govt decisions, pretty much like my region's proposal. But the player can decide, as an administrative decision, and facing some money cost, join districts to form a province (in the adm sense). In this case the adm bonus he gets (which I arbitrarily created in my proposal) comes naturally as a joining of economic production of districts (allowing FE faster units building). I'd feel comfortable with that.

[Mark_Everson]

Hola Rodrigo:

Originally posted by roquijad
Something I feel is wrong: handling economy at mapsaures. I'm problably misunderstanding things, but: economic decisions (investments, how many heads producing food, etc) are made in the econ model, AFAIK, based on prices. Those decisions will be incorrecly modeled if prices are set by a demand-suply interaction at the mapsquare level. Prices info must come from a more aggregate interaction between D and S for correct modeling. I can give examples if this isn't clear, but I think it is. Then, my conclusion is you need provinces (or any other aggreagtion of mapsquares) just like social model needs, Mark.

Hmm, I think the model works Better with the local prices in there. Perhaps this comment will help: If there are enough merchants working intra-province, prices will in fact be approximately equalized over a province. But handling the economy at the square level doesn't make them Have to be. So in modeling a very early economy it behaves more like "all squares for themselves" as happened in history. Only as transport and infrastructure improve can provinces really be like a single economic unit. This is superior modeling, although admittedly at the price of some increased use of computer resources.

Anyway, Mark's ideas look good to me (romans/huns example). But I don't like the idea of a new hunnish province just for the mere presence of huns. A possible solution: you order a military unit to "occupy" a square (in enemy province) and a number of neighboring squares around the unit are used to create the new province (which are lost by the enemy). This new province is used normally for as long as your units are occupying the territory. Your occupation ends and the province becomes permanent/normal (you can move away your occupying units w/o losing the province) once a peace treaty is made and borders accepted.

I'm not sure about the "number of neighboring squares" in all cases, but it could save a lot of dancing around with military. But clearly just moving a unit Next to a city and taking that square should not result in the city giving up. I think we can come up with good rules for this. I really dislike the idea of requiring a peace treaty... sometimes a peace treaty Never Happens. Look at Israel/Palestinians

[Gary Thomas]

But you could sell me this: players use districts to make econ/govt decisions, pretty much like my region's proposal. But the player can decide, as an administrative decision, and facing some money cost, join districts to form a province (in the adm sense). In this case the adm bonus he gets (which I arbitrarily created in my proposal) comes naturally as a joining of economic production of districts (allowing FE faster units building). I'd feel comfortable with that.

Essentially this is what I was proposing.

Cheers

[roquijad]

Hola Mark

I understand now why you talk about economy being handled at the mapsquare level. Your approach seems alright to me. It's in fact super realistic. I'm afraid you need an extensive use of merchants, though and that's maybe too expensive.... but I won't comment further on that. I'm too ignorant about the econ model to say anything intelligent!

Anyway, wouldn't your merchants need provinces (or any other grouping of mapsquares)? I suppose merchants aren't allowed to trade between any two squares in the world, even if transportation techs allow it. Something tells me the econ model needs at some point provinces for modeling purposes...

I really dislike the idea of requiring a peace treaty... sometimes a peace treaty Never Happens. Look at Israel/Palestinians

Ok, I dislike the idea of one civ exploiting a place just by passing units through it. I want something more formal. I want a clear decision from the player to start exploiting the place, with some associated cost. The cost is IMO particularly important to avoid the frequent change of borders. Can you offer me something like that?


Gary: Good. What about the other issue?:

Districts sound good too, but I have two problems with them:
1) the fact they are fixed implies we can't get social interactions in larger areas when comm and transp techs allow it. But it's not too serious and I could live with that if you think is the best way to go.

Do you think we can do something about it? What about joining together districts when comm and transp techs allow it?

One other thing, Gary: How in your proposal mapsquares would change hands?

[Mark_Everson]

Originally posted by roquijad
Ok, I dislike the idea of one civ exploiting a place just by passing units through it. I want something more formal. I want a clear decision from the player to start exploiting the place, with some associated cost. The cost is IMO particularly important to avoid the frequent change of borders. Can you offer me something like that?

Hmmm.... I really don't think passing units through is a problem long-term. If the people think the units are gone for good they would revolt immediately, no? If the civ that "just moved units through" can project enough power into the area to hold the people in check from reverting from their control then it is more than they "just" moved units through.

The big thing I'm worried about is micromanagement. Players don't like to see money disappear, so they may not want this to be automatic. Voila, we have created the need for micromanagement of whether a few conquered squares are really conquered. This probably bothers me at least as much as squares easily changing hands bothers you.