Greetings all! In todays dev diary, well be covering the details of the reworked population simulation in the Cicero update. As a small note: those opting in to the Cicero open beta will already have experienced many of these changes in action.

Reworking the Simulation

Perhaps one of the largest tasks in the Cicero update has been the creation of an organic, living population simulation, which reacts to, and interacts with, the fabric of the game. Up to and including the Pompey update, the manipulation of pops required direct player involvement, either through manual pop conversion/assimilation, or through the invoking of an appropriate governor policy. In Cicero, all aspects of the pop simulation will be dynamic, driven by situation, and occur over time in any given territory. Each poptype will have unique base speeds for assimilation, conversion, promotion and migration, which will be modified by numerous local factors such as local unrest, differing dominant culture or religion, and city/settlement status.
In addition, territories will have a desired ratio for each poptype, and population will promote or demote to attempt to fill this ratio. Promotion and demotion will increase in speed based on the size of the territory they are resident within, rendering it possible for large cities to have functional social mobility.

Migration

Migration is a new concept to Imperator, both replacing and augmenting in equal measure the pop movement feature included in the base game. Every territory will now have a Migration Attraction value, derived primarily from how much free pop capacity is present. Pops within a territory will consider any territory that is either neighboring, within the same Province, or if coastal, a Port province, as a valid migration target. If the attraction of a potential target is higher than the territory in which they reside, a migration will begin. Only 1 pop can be migrating from a territory at any one time. Importantly, Slaves will not migrate of their own volition, they must instead by moved manually. For Tribal nations, tribesmen may be moved manually. Both these actions will cost gold, and rather than moving each pop individually, a more accessible menu has been created:
Sieges, low food supply, and outright starvation will cause pops to flee their homes, bringing a new dynamic to warfare and attrition. Interaction with the City and Settlement feature detailed in last week's dev diary is high; you will be experiencing a much more centralized, city-weighted population distribution as the game progresses, using settlements primarily as resource production sites. As before, these changes are available in the Cicero open beta branch if you feel like checking them out. /Arheo ---- Click here to discuss this week's development diary with our team!