Do you consider it cheating...

[recentiy03]

To move populations from one city to another?

For instance, if you plan on selling a city, or if you see a large army is coming for it, isn't it common sense that a large portion of the population would flee for the high ground, so to speak?

I was doing this for a while in my current campaign, and I thought it was fine, although then I realized Constantinople replenishes at a much higher rate than most smaller cities so I wasn't sure if it is a fair strategy to move populations.

Perhaps it's fair to move people in the event of an incoming siege, or if you're selling the city, but it's not fair to move populations just for the sake of reaching a population threshold for a wall increase?

[jado818]

I think it would be practical for some people to leave.. but certainly not a large part of the population.


Poverty prevented a lot of people the freedom to move around in the middle ages.

it costs money to move.. even to flee.. need to buy food etc.. and set up in a new town.


iirc most common folk in the middle ages would be lucky to ever see more than 20 miles from where they were born.


I don't think it would make sense to finance a move of the population back then either.

[Larkin]

Well it's not cheating if you send a bunch of people out of a city when an army is coming to "protect them". If anything, it's more realistic, there just isn't really a way to do it as part of the game. Adding population just to expand your cities would be considered cheating though.

[tudor93]

To move populations from one city to another?

For instance, if you plan on selling a city, or if you see a large army is coming for it, isn't it common sense that a large portion of the population would flee for the high ground, so to speak?

I was doing this for a while in my current campaign, and I thought it was fine, although then I realized Constantinople replenishes at a much higher rate than most smaller cities so I wasn't sure if it is a fair strategy to move populations.

Perhaps it's fair to move people in the event of an incoming siege, or if you're selling the city, but it's not fair to move populations just for the sake of reaching a population threshold for a wall increase?

wow, never thought of this
I think it's fun and it makes campaigns more interesting
but I also see jado818's point ...

[PapaRosario]

I like how in RTW you could disband 100 units of peasants in a settlement. Instant Huge City.

[Byg]

You can do that in BGRV too BTW, not with 100 units though.

[PapaRosario]

BGR looked too intimidating for my first couple SS campaigns. Perhaps I shall work up the courage to use it on my next one.

[Stephan de St. Omer]

Although this is a tantalizing idea, I guess in reality the poor folks of the medieval times - as owned subjects of their lord and liege - were simply not allowed to move. They were bound to their land and their respective owners and you could not just move to another city, find a new job or anything like this. Though I do not know how this was enforded upon the people, but maybe poverty simply made it impossible to move away. That is why many poor citizent took the cross and went on a crusade because it was one of the few possibilities to leave your land, province or city.

P-Ape Stephan de St. Omer

[Byg]

Cities changed that though and people could run away to cities.

[Geoffrey of Villehardouin]

Although this is a tantalizing idea, I guess in reality the poor folks of the medieval times - as owned subjects of their lord and liege - were simply not allowed to move. They were bound to their land and their respective owners and you could not just move to another city, find a new job or anything like this. Though I do not know how this was enforded upon the people, but maybe poverty simply made it impossible to move away. That is why many poor citizent took the cross and went on a crusade because it was one of the few possibilities to leave your land, province or city.

P-Ape Stephan de St. Omer

Since you mentioned the Crusades, it was actually common in the Crusades for people in conquered cities to request permission to leave with their belongings (at least it seems to have happened with the Christian populations of some cities), which suited presumably also the conquerors because it reduced the chances of future attempts of reconquest. Also both Alexios Komnenos and Manuel Komnenos launched major campaigns exclusively with the aim of conquering cities held by the Seljuks only to "free" the Christian subjects and take them to safer locations within the Byzantine Empire. The cities were then abandoned to the Seljuks.

However, I am not sure this would necessarily fit with the mechanics of the game and I was not aware it was possible. I would expect in reality, famine and disease would probably reduce the numbers of the refugees quickly, unless they could repopulate some border region recently ransacked by an enemy faction.