modding population?

[Javolenus]

Hi There,

I want to modify population levels in MTW2 - is this possible? If so, how do you do it? Which file(s) need to edited?

Also, is there a limit or 'ceiling' for population levels in MTW2? I mean, is each city level determined by population size and if so, what are the figures involved?

Will modifying population cause the game to crash? Can this be avoided?

Looking at estimtes for Medieval population rates (they're pretty speculative) there are big differences: for example, the population of France was three times that of England. Can this be reflected in MTW2?

Any help and guidance appreciated on this.

[Lonck]

settlement lvl can be change in descr_settlement_mechanics.xml at the end of the file, open with notepad/wordpad.

[pwijnands]

The only way you can reflect France having three times more people then England in the long run is by giving France more regions.

The file mentioned by Lonck tells the game the minimum, maximum and upgrade population levels for all city/castle levels.

[Javolenus]

Hi pwijnands,

Yeah, you are right - the same thought occurred to me a few hours after I posted this. The key thing is territory.

But I heard that the rate of population growth can be modded, though I haven't tried this . . .

[Tsarsies]

if you change the settlement population levels in descr_settlement_mechanics.xml, you will also need to alter every settlements starting population in descr_strat to reflect the changes. or you will get a CTD.

you can change the rate of population growth itself in the same file. You can also change the base farming level in descr_regions, i think thats the file.

But you may want to know that there is a fine line in balance, some settlements may not be able upgrade to the next settlement level due to other factors, such as squalor, health etc.

[Javolenus]

Hi Tsarsies,

Thank you for this - that's very useful information. It seems that modding population may not be so straightforward, and something to consider carefully. Thanks again for the info.

[Lord Condormanius]

What I have done is cut the population growth and squalor factors and increase the levels needed for upgrade. If you set the minimum at 400 for all levels, you don't need to modify the populations in the existing descr_strat. You may want to increase some of them, depending upon what your new modded levels are.

[Javolenus]

Hi There,

Thanks for this - OK, I'll experiment a bit with this and see how it goes. I wouldn't have thought of that, so thanks again!

[AlfonsoVIII]

Be careful when changing population, because if you raise the initial value in the descr_strat.txt too high then the city will need to be upgraded to the next tier castle / city and it would be a waste. You need to carefully plan what you want to achieve and then post it so we can make sure your doing it right.

[Javolenus]

Hi Alfonso,

Thanks for this. Yes, you are right, I need to be more specific.

Basically, what I wanted to achieve was to reflect population levels in Medieval times more accurately. That means that France, Hungary, Russia had bigger populations than England, Scotland, Venice, Milan etc.

But I think the only way to do this, is to give some factions more settlements . . .

[Lonck]

you can also give buildings pop growth capabilities and give these capabilities to only specific factions. And mod squalor so that pop doesn't get out of hand.
Like so

capability
            {
                population_growth_bonus bonus 1  requires factions { france, hungary, russia, }
            }

[alpaca]

What about increasing the farming_level in descr_regions? That will result in a higher population over time.
You can counter-balance that by removing some of the food bonuses from buildings or increasing some pip value in descr_settlement_mechanics

[Javolenus]

Hi alpaca,

That's a really good idea and probably how it worked out in reality anyway. I'll give it a try and see what happens. Thanks again.

[alpaca]

Hi alpaca,

That's a really good idea and probably how it worked out in reality anyway. I'll give it a try and see what happens. Thanks again.

No problem. If you want to hear my opinion, you should also take down the growth levels a peg in general. Vanilla settlements grow too quickly in my opinion and doing this would increase the difference between slowly growing (maybe 0.5%) and quickly growing (maybe 2%) settlements. It also adds importance to tax levels and building bonuses.
About the latter, you should keep in mind that there's the normal pop growth bonus, the farming bonus and an additional 0.5% growth per 10% happiness bonus (only happiness, not law)

[Javolenus]

Hi alpaca,

Thanks for this. Mmm, some stuff to think about.

I think that sounds a fair point about slowing growth generally, so I think I'll implement that, while giving countries with historically larger populations an edge. I guess it's a matter of experimentation. Thanks again - much appreciated.

[J@mes]

why not write a script for the start of the campaign? giving france a population bonus for the first amount of turns?

[Javolenus]

Hi J@mes,

Thanks for the suggestion - this sounds interesting and maybe the right way to get to what I want. Thing is, I'm pretty new to modding and haven't looked at the campaign script yet. I didn't even know this kind of thing was possible. But I'll check it out and see what I can do.

Meanwhile, I lowered farming production rates by 1 point for all nations except France, Hungary and Russia. Then I lowered it again by 1 point for countries that - as far as I know - had low populations in Medieval times. Then I increased by one point a few select towns in France, Hungary and Russia. And then I decreased the squalor pip value.

I ran the game for 100 years to see what would happen. France did get a big population (actually, it was 3 times that of England, which is amazingly accurate) and so did Hungary and Russia. But they were not the top of the population chart. Ahead of them were Byzantium, HRE and the Egyptians.

I let the game run a bit more but the population issue became complicated by conquest. For example, Byzantium got pretty much dismembered so its population fell dramatically.

And so, in a way, this method worked. But longterm I don't know what the implications are. Maybe following your idea of scripting growth say, for the first 100 years, would be better?

Thanks again for the reply.

[alpaca]

Well to do that would in my opinion require switching building bonuses on and off with event counters. It can be done but isn't the simplest of jobs for people new to modding.

[J@mes]

Hello Javolenus

if you wanted this to work for the A.I you could write something like this:

monitor_event FactionTurnStart not FactionIsLocal
and FactionType france
and I_SettlementOwner Paris = france
and I_TurnNumber < 5

console_command add_population Paris 5000

terminate_monitor
end_monitor

alpaca is the master he knows more about this then me

[Javolenus]

Hi There,

Many thanks for the replies. I'll mull this over and try some experiments. Will let you know how I get on. And thanks again!