Pop growth and diseases in different regions, Part 2.
So I made a post some days ago to highlight what I think is Europe being systematically having disadvantage in population growth or disease outbreaks. People criticized that data from one game is statistically not meaningful enough. (which I only partially agree with) In response I originally wanted to make two additional observer games, but sadly one crashed around ~1579 and the other I started is probably obsolete with the new patch.
BUT (!) This is not supposed to be a doctoral thesis! Observer games take fkng ages. I do not have enough time for tests to present conclusive and completely undisputable results. The point is rather to highlight a potential (!) problem that goes beyond mere global population growth, that is regional differences in this regard.
So I decided to add the data from the one observer game in the year 1579 and post it anyway. Maybe I will do some more testing with the new patch as pop growth doesn’t seem to be patched with the potential problem described above in mind.
Country | 1337 | G1_1630 | G2_1579 | Change Game 1 | Change Game 2
EUROPE
portugal | 1,2 | 1,1 | 1,2 | -8% | +0%
spain | 6,9 | 6,1 | 7,4 | -11,6% | +7,2%
france | 14,7 | 10 | 11,3 | -32% | -23,1%
italy | 10 | 10,7 | 9,3 | +6,5% | -7%
south germany region | 7,5 | 8 | 7,1 | +6,7% | -5,3%
north germany region | 8,7 | 10,3 | 8,9 | +18,3% | +2,3%
scandinavia | 1,9 | 3,8 | 3,3 | +100% | +73,7%
britain | 4 | 3,5 | 4,3 | -33% | +7,5%
MIDDLE EAST
egypt | 5,2 | 7,5 | 7,8 | +44% | +50%
crescent | 3,7 | 4,7 | 5,7 | +27% | +54%
arabia | 3,7 | 7,5 | 6,9 | +102,7% | +86,5%
persia | 4 | 7,5 | 7,6 | +87,5% | +90%
maghreb | 5,8 | 9 | 9,3 | +55,2% | +60,3%
INDIA
deccan | 22,3 | 28,2 | 31,7 | +26.5% | +42,2%
bengal | 21,6 | 27,5 | 22,9 | +27,3% | +6%
hindustan | 27 | 33,3 | 29 | +23,3% | +7,4%
EASTERN ASIA
korea | 2,9 | 5 | 4,5 | +72,4% | +55,2%
japan | 9,8 | 16,5 | 14,3 | +68,4% | +45.9%
north china | 21,5 | 28 | 19,9 | +30,2% | -7,4%
As you can see:
There are more fluctuations in Europe but also constants, such as Scandinavia, which has more “abundant free land” with its population growth. France seems to consistently suffer.
The Middle East is doing even better, likely because I played Byzantium in the first game, which hampered the population growth in the Egypt, Crescent and Persia regions a bit.
India has more fluctuations but is on average still doing better than Europe
Eastern Asia is doing as expected with the exception North China Region even losing population.
In conclusion, I think the data suggests that there could be a problem with regional variations in population growth or the spread of disease and that Europe is disproportionally disadvantaged in at least one of these aspects (or maybe some regions are overly advantaged) and the devs should be looking into this and test this themselves.