Population doesn't effect division of labor?

[Marshall Thomas]

The new manual states that population previously had an effect on division of labor/production allocation, but no longer does. Why was it decided to make this change? Just curious. Thanks in advance

[ericbabe]

The short answer is that we made that change in response to player complaints about the complexity of the economy (this rule was a stumbling block to many people who couldn't figure out why their production was suddenly falling off for no reason they could figure out), and also to address complaints that players were not able to increase their economy sufficiently.  The population modifier still exists for the Labor resource.

In the months after CoG was released we found there were basically two very different groups of players.  One group we might call "The Conquerors" -- their goal in the game was to conquer the whole map, and the sorts of complaints we got from them were things like "As Prussia, I've built a 1,000,000 man army but now there's no way my economy can afford the upkeep cost.  What am I doing wrong?"  (The answer is, "nothing", Prussia is not supposed to be able to afford an army that large; be careful not to build an army bigger than you can support!)  The other group we might call "The Historians" and the complaints we got from them were primarily issues of historical accuracy.  Surprisingly to me, The Conquerors gave us much more feedback than The Historians.  Before we released the game, I honestly expected most of the complaints would be about the historical flow of the game -- Crown of Glory is a fairly open-ended game engine, and the AI plays to win the game, not to re-create historical timelines -- but instead, I think that the clear majority of feedback was from people who wanted to turn the whole map their color and were having a rough time of it.

The change you cite was one of our major concessions to The Conquerors (this, and the rule changes that allow for the amelioration of Waste).  I don't think we tested it well enough in the 1792 Scenario -- in the "epic" version of that scenario, in particular, this rule change leads to a lot of economic over-heating.

For the expansion we're working on, I'd like to keep the changes we made, but add some sort of hard limit to the army sizes for each nation.  I'm not sure of the best way to do this yet.

[sol_invictus]

This is the main reason that I really didn't play the game much at all. As soon as I started seeing massive armies being formed, I lost interest. I am sure that it is very difficult to create all of the conditions that historicly prevented nations from recruiting 10% of their population, so if nothing else, just make a hard limit that closely approximates historical numbers. I would think around 2-4% of the population would be appropriate. I am really looking forward to COG2.

[Marshall Thomas]

I don't really fit into either of the two groups (historical or conquerors). I really enjoy the "open ended" nature of CoG. More possibilties result in greater control for the player. As far as history goes, CoG is historically accurate in more ways than we can possibly list. Making it more historically accurate could result in limiting player options and replay-ability. The way it is now, a scenario of CoG could easily turn out fairly historical. I suppose the important thing is that scenarios are set-up historically accurate, but then have a chance of going ahistorical at several points. Both the player and the A.I. should have the chance to change history, but in a way that's historically concieveable. I think CoG balances this quite well as it is.

As far as conquering the whole map and "painting it your national color" is concerned, I think this is both "gamey" and generally out of the realm of historical possiblilty. I like the glory point system. If instead victory conditions were something like conquer 50% or more of the map, this would degrade CoG and turn it into something that it perhaps really wasn't intended to be. In CoG you can utterly defeat a nation without simply absorbing it into your own (painting it your color), and this is quite realistic for that era. Personally, I just think that conquering the whole map (or most of it) is really boring. It turns most of your game into a "finishing" job, with it's ending being a forgone conclusion.

The "empire building" aspect of CoG makes you really feel like a head of state. The monarchs or emporers of nations didn't always involve themselves directly in all affairs of state, but they had the option to if they so chose. I've only just began CoG, but so far I really feel like I control the affairs of state. My thoughts and concerns while I'm playing feel like they may be similar to many of the thoughts and concerns of the actual rulers of the day. That's what I want most of any historical game I play.