Introduction

***--WIP--***

Basic introduction to the fundamental changes designed as a new player's first stop. Not meant to be an in-depth look at any one feature, just enough to be able to reference them in later more specific articles without having to explain everything everywhere.

Each category will link to a more in-depth article explaining that topic.

## Development to Population

### Dynamic Population Changes

Rural population slowly develops over time, while city population heavily depends on the infrastructure built in the province. Enemy sieges, plagues and famines reduce the population for a while, until the next generation fills in the free economic opportunities.

### Urban Pops

The juicy, productive, taxable city dwellers like craftsmen and merchants.

### Upper Class Pops

The nobles and aristocrats, they want to be educated and will provide artistic works in return.

## Food

Grown by rural pops according to farming efficiency, eaten by the whole population in their region.

Regional food pools allow cities to draw upon more agrarian provinces to sustain their city population

Continental food pools can provide large cities with even more food from faraway producers

## Wealth

The people in your country have their own money, and will use it to improve the provinces on their own. A portion of this fluid wealth will be taxed and given to the government. If a province is sieged, most of the local wealth is taken as loot.

## Urbanization

Cities that gather enough trade power relative to other cities in the trade node have a chance of getting a center of trade, attracting even more merchants. Having a lot of trade power may upgrade this to a major center. With a similar mechanic, cities with lots of production can get a production center that will slowly improve production skill.

## Disasters

Here disaster refer to "Works of God" rather than the civil "disasters" paradox implemented in the Stability and Expansion tab like civil wars. They will be discussed somewhere else, ehh this naming is confusing.

### Plagues

While the most devastating outbreak of the Black Death swept through Europe shortly before game start, smaller bouts of plague will hit pockets for the first 150 years. Plague will first appear in an important coastal Center of Trade and will spread to the surrounding region. Plague will rip through populated provinces easily and with devastating effects on urban and rural populations. It will have difficulty, however, spreading across harsh terrain or expanses of low population, reducing in strength until eventually petering out. Besides spreading through adjacency, plague infested ships will cause outbreaks semi-randomly in other CoT, with the more prominent centers having the greatest chance.

Plague can ravage populations immensely, often killing between \_\_\_\_% and \_\_\_\_%, but unlike other disasters it leaves wealth relatively unaffected. Additionally, if a country is wealthy enough, measures can be taken to mitigate the intensity, but not nullify it completely.

### Famine

A famine represents a large scale food shortfall severe enough to stifle population growth, cause wealth to be spent on food imports and potentially devastating mass die offs. Famines occur at the regional level and are caused by a combination of severe weather conditions, poor local food availability, overcrowding, looting and Province Trauma in general. While they trigger at a regional level, each province will be affected differently based on the conditions on the ground.

Famines tend to hit on the heels of other trouble, so be remember that getting half your country looted hurts, but watch out for a famine to sweep in and exacerbate your citizen's plight.

## Looting

When a province is sieged, a portion of its wealth is deducted from its total wealth pool with some being destroyed and the rest being transferred to the victorious army's coffers. The amount of loot seized is largely influenced by the Loot Policy chosen at war's start, with greater looting leading to lower combat effectiveness. After signing a peace treaty, countries choose how much loot the crown receives compared to the soldiers. The crown can claim anywhere from 10% to 40% [not verified], but higher portions will anger the soldier leading to moral hits and unrest [not verified].

While loot can go a long way to paying off war debts or financing a new building project, the main benefit is the wealth that is distributed to your country's provinces from the soldier's portion. This boost to Rural Wealth is used for a host of things including: increasing Farming Efficiency, Rural Production and warding off Famine among others.

Cracking large cities may be more difficult with their greater defenses, but can yield huge payouts for the victors and set you back thirty years if it's your unfortunate city.

## Trade

Works the same way as in vanilla, the only change is that the trade centers will move to the best trade power provinces dynamically.

## Production

Production is spread out into three parts, rural production from farmers, urban production from craftsmen and mine production from, you guessed it, miners.

### Rural Production

Rural population produces a rural good. These are for example grain and pasture.

### Urban Production

Urban societies start out by producing common, generic goods. If the city manages to attract a center of production or is close to a highly developed center, it will gain production skill. High production skill not only increases production further, but also enables the city to specialise their urban trade good, improving the value and potentially gaining a country-wide abundance bonus.

### Mine Production

Mines are independent of population and instead produce goods based on the mine building built there. They do however attract some urban population. Mine production spikes when a new deposit is found, and then slowly decreases until the next production rush starts. The mining efficiency and size/frequency of new deposits depends on the mine building level. Regular mines output in the form of trade value for the whole trade node, while silver and gold mines provide a third of their income to the owner directly.