Hrmmm...*tugs beard*
*does some intense thinking*
Huh.
As of <Decision point> our policy spread looked like this.
1 base + 3(cities) + 1 Law Infra + 1(census) with an assignment like this:
3x Infra(+1 the unlisted Law), 1x Forest, 1 Defense. With Stallionpen and Redhill now existing we have two unassigned.
If we assume that Redhill and Redshore both become FC's then they will both take two other policies. Redshore is likely to take Trade, which narratively is mostly sea based but they do have to sell to people near us so I figure the HK will be included some fashion. Likely quite limited but this is a factor I think we should keep in mind. It also may not work this way, we should ask AN when/if it happens.
And I'd see Redhill going for Industry for that sweet sweet Tech drip you, and also I, like. Narratively probably gives a subtle flavor to our innovations towards metal *shrug* that's speculation though.
So all in all we have two to play with. One in general trade to try and keep the Diplo-wagon going and one in vassal support to slow the potential break away and to set the bed for our influence use. Vassal support is quite useful with the sheer number we have as well and actually gives another slot. In particular we also have to think about the NTP now on top of our two new gains and the NTP could use the trickle feed from Vassal Support till it is no longer in yellow dependency.
If only one is converted then we would be sorta restricted in our choices.
It'd be Redhill, so we'd have only a Industry thing going if my speculation is right. But we'd still have two unassigned and one could be trade and another could be vassal. So less focus on trade, but we would actually be actively spending a policy on it. I could see the thread actually going for trade and vassal more here, instead of the one where we get both FC's.
I guess this is all simply stuff to think about, I'm certainly not trying to sell you on anything. Just shaking out the probable picture we'd be seeing as far as I can guess.
On the Policy, I'm dubious of them going for the Trade and Industry policies off archetypes alone.
Our subordinates are not stupid.
They go for local optima, which means that the
most important Policy for any Free City is Infrastructure, because it's the only policy that directly invests in the health and prosperity of their local city.
So lets look at Redhill and Redshore's infrastructure
-Aqueduct - Done. Desired due to disease lowering effect and powering mills. Raises City's EE threshold.
-Baths - Not done(Partial in Redshore). Desired due to disease lowering effect. Raises City's EE threshold. Requires Fuel, so may be deferred for Forestry.
-Governor's Palace - Not Done. Desired due to utility for Free City administration power.
-Library - Not Done. Desired due to utility for Free City administration power, as well as innovation and inter-city competitiveness.
-Temple - Not done. May or may not be desired, if desired, Redshore wants a not-yet-represented by temple sea god as well as the miner god, and Redhill wants the miner god. May be deferred if RA is too high.
-Colossal Walls - Not done. May be desired due to boosting City Stability by raising EE limit. May be desired for increased access control(which boosts the Free City's administration power by quashing smuggling). May be deferred for cities in safe areas or due to high progress cost.
As such, Free Cities can be expected to prioritize Infrastructure Policy first to build stuff for themselves due to the doubling of progress. They can on their own finish 2 projects every 3 turns except for the colossal walls, and that doubles if we set them to Infrastructure as well.
Damn it, I blame the HIGH RA, people actually listened to stop fornicating because they asked
Actually no, we've been able to do this since the ancient drought before the Three Peoples, which left a deep cultural scar such that we centrally regulate the number of children you are allowed to have.
All of these is basically the Advantage of Backwardness.
For a long time, we could be considered the backwater of the Fertile Crescent, with the dominant power in the region being Thunder Horse/Xohyr. But this is precisely our advantage because we are forced to develop technology that remove the disadvantages of being in hilly terrains with crappy soil.
Similarly, other civilizations will eventually rise to prominence once they figure out how to farm their particular biome.
However, the Ymaryn is building a trading outpost that will let us take on new challenges to develop new agricultural technologies.
Basically, notice how our agricultural innovationed pretty much tapered off once we managed to master our local biome after all.
Sorry to say it but in that timeframe from what i can find china had still more pop. / the same pop as all of europe that only really changes if you start counting the pop that could be could outside of europe and even then no single nation had more than china. You aren´t beating 30% of the world pop that easy (yeah china had at time more than 30% of the overall world population ...), hey at least that is something we could try to match
.
Best source i could find :
List of countries by population in 1600 - Wikipedia (there sadly isn´t that much data for the pop outside of europe that i could find.)
that compares the nations overall pop (including oversee ) number for 1700 and forward are also there in links up to the 1900 where the Uk came pretty close to beating china as they had india to give them a boost.
In the eco, tech department yeah they beat china there, but they never had the amount of people china has.
The main thing keeping China back originally was that it was just too damned huge to administrate, so in it's early history it semiregularly broke up to stab each other, much like the lowlands.
Once it finally unified, it calcified because it was adapted to avoid the hell out of any stability shocks.
Well, AFAICT, religion hasn't actually hindered government since the time of WotG. Worst case scenario at high RA, the priests get more influence, and... we get new Stability options? More cultural influence on vassals? They don't stand in the way of innovation any more.
We had a few, but our Kings had always gotten their way over the priests so far due to low RA. Copper, Iron, horse riding, etc.
We've just shaped it so that for the most part the priests ask for things we want to do to begin with.
