28-11-2004 09:41									#1
	Provinces (Management & Size Limitations) Browse Apolyton AD-FREE

The post that spawned this thread is here.

In a mail, alms said:

quote: In addition to 'Rename Province,' 'Set to province capital,' and 'Set to civ capital,' on the right-click menu, can you add 'Reassign Province' so that the player can draw his own provincial borders? It would be really nice, though not necessary to also put a limit on provincial sizes, though I'm not sure of the best method to do so. In playing the Ancient Middle East Scenario, which has a single province called 'Native Land' that nearly covers the entire map, I've discovered that this feature would be very useful (at least for this particular scenario).

Laurent wrote:

quote: I guess you mean a menu that lists the provinces you currently have and which one you'd want to reassign to? But then we never decided how provinces are formed (there are some discussons in several old threads that I don't have time to look for right now). Are there limits on these provinces you would like to have (like only reassign if square is neighbour to the province)? Creating new provinces from scratch is another question, would you want to do it?

To which, my comment was, and still is:

quote: I'm not sure exactly what I want here. I just know that we need a way to reassign squares to another province.

	05-12-2004 16:20									#2
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Playing the scenario where there's a huge native province made me understand better what you want/need.
I managed to find an old thread which relates a bit to this subject: http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?postid=671887
I think an 'add to province' which creates the province if none of that name exists would do.
This would give total control to the player as to what a province is, what its borders are, etc. This looks like people agreed about such a solution at the time, the real problem having been not to have to reaffect a square after someone else conquered it.
I'll probably offer that to the player and let the ai ignore it, since it doesn't micromanage anyway at this stage (ai doesn't handle econ at province level but only civ level, so it makes little difference for it, and it doesn't really need provinces for presentation of data).

	05-12-2004 19:03									#3
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By the way Alms, you really shouldn't have one big province at the start for all the native peoples. That could lead to lots of problems, since all production for the province is pooled, and military units for a province are only created at the province capital. I'm not sure this criticism is relevant for your scenario, but at something you should know about anyway. You could tile the map with fifteen or twenty provinces in less than a half hour of design time.

I agree in general with the ability to assign a square to a province as Laurent has outlined it. At some point in the not-too-distant future, we should have a way to select multiple map squares in the same time so that whole provinces can be created fairly easily. Being able to "paint" in the selected area by just dragging the mouse over it would be valuable also.

Provided this sounds OK two others as an eventual game, I will add it to the requested feature list.

	05-12-2004 20:24									#4
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Mark, I've coded a first implementation of this (which helped me find another bug by the way).
My conclusion is that indeed one would need to be able to select several squares, but what I'd rather have is something like this:
When your province spread too far, then it can no longer conquer new squares. At this time, you should be prompted to create a new province, and select which squares will be part of it. Otherwise, the newly conquered square would be part of an automatically named province (like "South whatever-province-it-would-have-been-assigned-to-otherwise").
Or something like that...

	06-12-2004 02:43									#5
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quote: Originally posted by Mark_Everson By the way Alms, you really shouldn't have one big province at the start for all the native peoples.

I've already decided to break them up, partly for this reason, but mainly due to me wanting to have a few unsettled squares so the players can see/use automated settling.

	13-01-2005 21:04									#6
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What exactly is the maximum size you currently have coded, Laurent? I reached it once, though it's been a while and I've played several games since then, so I don't recall what it is exactly. However, I do remember it being rather large. Given the early timeframe of the scenarios we're currently doing, I'd think that no more than 10 tiles (though I could still be comfortable up to 15 tiles or so) per province would be more suitable, at least for the time being, while it’s hard-coded (that is, if we don’t do the following, or something similar).

In order to remove this from the realm of hard-coded data…

I think that, in the long run, it will be a combination of Infrastructure and Technology that will control the maximum size of a province. As of demo 8, adding Infrastructure means adding code, so for the time being, I think it would be best to leave Infrastructure out of the equation. Once Infrastructure is easily added via the scenario xml file, we can revisit its role.

So this leaves us with technology being the sole limiter to a province’s size. Having hammered out, and pretty much finalized the tier one technologies somewhat recently, I think we can conclude that Communications (c) and Transportation (t) technologies will be the driving factors. Given this conclusion, I think we can simply say that the maximum size of a province is the average of the two techs, with the decimal truncated, plus 10. It is a rather simplistic “formula” for now, and by no means is it meant to be used in the final version of Clash, but at least it turns one more aspect of the game into something the player can manipulate and look forward to improving, removing it from the realm of hard-coded data.

	15-01-2005 20:27									#7
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There is no limit to the province size coded in right now.

	16-01-2005 10:25									#8
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That is odd. I could have sworn I had hit it once...

	16-01-2005 18:38									#9
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quote: Originally posted by alms66 Given this conclusion, I think we can simply say that the maximum size of a province is the average of the two techs, with the decimal truncated, plus 10. It is a rather simplistic “formula” for now, and by no means is it meant to be used in the final version of Clash, but at least it turns one more aspect of the game into something the player can manipulate and look forward to improving, removing it from the realm of hard-coded data.

Hi Alms:

I mostly agree with you in your argument up to the point where you propose a hard limit. I believe hard limits of that sort are a big problem with civ-type games in general. Such step-function changes make it hard to have a good AI, and also create the necessity for micromanagement. I am virtually always for "soft" limits.

In this case a soft limit might be that there are no penalties to economic function and tech generation for a province up to your 10+tech limit. Above that ideal there would be penaties of say squares / (ideal squares *4) in those functional areas. That way, adding a few squares beyond the ideal is not a biggie, but if the province gets twice as big as ideal the penalties would become quite severe.

However, I want to stress that Infrastructure is much more important than tech in this regard. For that reason we are probably better off just waiting for the infrastructure to be done properly than putting in a swag based upon tech level. Long-term I certainly agree that there may be a need to somewhat limit province size. However, if we balance things out, that may not be the case. Another issue with limiting province size is that historical scenarios that use real-world maps could have provinces that are in the range of getting big penalties. This doesn't seem desirable.

	16-01-2005 19:26									#10
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If you've got limits for province size you also need a limit for province number.

	16-01-2005 20:26									#11
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quote: Originally posted by LDiCesare If you've got limits for province size you also need a limit for province number.

Why? Communication distance from the capital and other factors are much more important than number IMO.

	16-01-2005 21:34									#12
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If you get a malus for having many squares in a province then the logical answer is to split your province in two. If there is no upper limit to the number of provinces, then the optimal thing is to have provinces of 1 square. That should be avoided. Although if there is no decreasing benefits from having a few several squares in a province, it is probably not needed. We must just check the model to see if there is a benefit from micromanaging a lot or if provinces are limited to a manageable number and still efficient.

	16-01-2005 21:52									#13
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quote: Originally posted by LDiCesare If you get a malus for having many squares in a province then the logical answer is to split your province in two. If there is no upper limit to the number of provinces, then the optimal thing is to have provinces of 1 square.

The minuses would only start at a the threshold value determined by infrastructure and tech. The system considered here would tend to drive province size down to that value, but no further since there are no advantages to size-1 provinces.

Rather than a fixed number of squares, in the past I had more been thinking of a critical distance scale from the capital. But this might lead to too much MM involving prov capital position.

There is a writup of some of my thoughts regarding provinces, their size, and the economcy here: Provinces and the Provincial Economy

	27-01-2005 04:01									#14
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I am assuming this refers just to the purposes of managing areas, because changing political province bounderies isn't something that happens too often, even if your an omnipitant ruler isn't still not that easy to change political boundries.

	10-07-2005 16:41									#15
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The only size limitation that should be put on provinces is that there has to be at least two inside an empire/state/country, and they have to be at least 1 tile in area, and by implication one disproportionately large province must leave at least one square left.

The other limiting factor is whether the state to which the province belongs has fixed or defined borders.
You could treat such border provinces differently - as Marches.

Provinces only exist in sophisticated pre-mediaeval empires; yet a lot of early empires are just religious centres from which power emanates and fades with distance - as in Mesopotamia, Mesoamerica and Southeast Asia.

Do you propose to have a game wherein from the dawn of time all civs create provinces? Provinces come with bureacracy, which civs must surely research as a tech. .

Fair enough, have them if you play a Roman Empire scenario, but do you want them as a blanket game feature?

	11-07-2005 03:46									#16
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quote: Originally posted by yellowdaddy Provinces only exist in sophisticated pre-mediaeval empires

??? What about Provinces in modern countries and states in the USA? Do you mean ... and later governments?

quote: Do you propose to have a game wherein from the dawn of time all civs create provinces? Provinces come with bureacracy, which civs must surely research as a tech. .

Provinces are meant to streamline organization and gameplay for the player. Even though they don't really exist for very early civs we wanted them in for those reasons. another of those realism vs playability tradeoffs.

	11-07-2005 15:22									#17
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quote: Provinces only exist in sophisticated pre-mediaeval empires

Whoops! did I type that! (I think I forget to finish my sentence!)

Aye lad, I was referring, of course, to the existence of provinces in pre-mediaeval times is limited to sophsiticated empires like China and Rome, and in all post-mediaeval societies (mediaeval in terms of tech and development - so don't start piping on about amazonian indians and the like!)

	17-07-2005 16:51									#18
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quote: The only size limitation that should be put on provinces is that there has to be at least two inside an empire/state/country

Why 2? If you have a single square, you can't have two provinces. If you have several squares that are not contiguous, they should probably be separate provinces, or become so after a time.
It would depend on the transportation/communication tech: If you're unable to reach one place from another in less than X time, then you can't have both places in the same province (or the capital of the provicne must be at less than X distance from every other point of the province - this being the system used to create "departements" in France: you had to be able to reach the capital by horse in one day from any point).

	11-08-2005 15:10									#19
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Ir really depends on whether for less advanced civilizations you can program in a projection of power that decreases the further from the capial you get Also maybe some extent major cities could act, for lack of better term, boosters to help expand your area beyond its natural reach, although they could act against it as well.

Then the more ineffectient and larger your empire for this one technological advance, it would actually help. But as i said this is only if you can adequatly represent both decreasing power and influence as well as muliple influences in those border regions between far flung capitals of those states.

	12-08-2005 23:38									#20
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Spreading influence is quite easy. I do it for the military and the ai. Crossing the sea, though, needs some work.
Moving a capital would have some effect on that and the player would have to adjust things then. I don't know how to handle that easily.

	13-08-2005 09:25									#21
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quote: Originally posted by LDiCesare Spreading influence is quite easy. I do it for the military and the ai. Crossing the sea, though, needs some work. Moving a capital would have some effect on that and the player would have to adjust things then. I don't know how to handle that easily.

No not spreading influence, but dual or tripple influence in border areas where multiple nations are involved.

	13-08-2005 10:38									#22
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Many sources of influence you mean? That's ok too. I usually just do a sum of (us vs them) influences, but could have a more detailed, civ by civ, influence map if needed (just takes more space).

	14-08-2005 23:35									#23
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quote: Originally posted by LDiCesare Why 2? If you have a single square, you can't have two provinces.

What is the point of having one country that consists of one province? To all intents and purposes, the province doesn't exist.

quote: If you have several squares that are not contiguous, they should probably be separate provinces, or become so after a time.

That is entirely subjective, there surely exist provinces in the world that do not have (entirely) geographically contiguous borders: Michigan in the USA; in the Phillipines, Newfoundland & Labrador.
There exist(ed) also non-contiguous states: pre-partition Pakistan; Azerbaijan & Nakhichevan; Malaysia; Brunei; Angola & Cabinda; Eq. Guinea and Rio Muni; Palestine; the wibbly bits along the border of France and Spain...

quote: It would depend on the transportation/communication tech: If you're unable to reach one place from another in less than X time, then you can't have both places in the same province (or the capital of the provicne must be at less than X distance from every other point of the province - this being the system used to create "departements" in France: you had to be able to reach the capital by horse in one day from any point).

Clearly not all of (or even most of) the world bases it's provinces on the French system.

	15-08-2005 02:12									#24
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quote: What is the point of having one country that consists of one province? To all intents and purposes, the province doesn't exist.

Provinces are a necessity even if there is one because there are things done at that level. Did you ever play OCC in civ? What's the point of having cities if you only have one? Well, there is a point. USer interface, functions handled at city level. It's a layer of management different from the civ level. There are things that are done at civ level (research...) and others at province level (riots...). We actually also have things going on at square level.
If you're saying that the province doesn't add anything until there's a second one, ok, but since we won't have specific user interface for civs with a single square or province, the limitation isn't meaningful.

quote: Michigan, Newfoundland, Labrador, Philippines

All these are islands or small straits separations. Their parts are so near from one another that, if you wanted to depict them at the scale of a few squares on a game map, you couldn't even show the strait unless going for very small squares, they would be contiguous landmasses for the most part. I am not advocating making a separate province of every island. To me contiguous mostly means that each part can be reached from another part of the same province reasonably fast without crossing a (land) border.

quote: There exist(ed) also non-contiguous states: pre-partition Pakistan; Azerbaijan & Nakhichevan; Malaysia; Brunei; Angola & Cabinda; Eq. Guinea and Rio Muni; Palestine; the wibbly bits along the border of France and Spain...

Pakistan illustrates my point, since it became separate after time.
Nakhichevan is, if I'm not mistaken the name of the whole connex province of Azerbaijan? Thus it is a province unto itself?
Brunei is made of Belait and Temburong, each having a name and being identifiable. But then again, they are so near one another, and connected by sea with a really small distance.
Cabinda is a province of Angola. No part of Angola which is not connex to it is part of it, and vice versa.
Rio Mundi and Fernando Poo are 2 provinces of Eq. Guinea.
All of these examples show that the non connex part is a separate province and illustrate my point.
Palestine has been in such a stable state that it isn't really worth considering. As I said, "after a time" the province would separate. Remains to be seen if that wouldn't be the case here. But again, Palestine and Israel are so complex that trying to have a model precise enough to model these is not my goal. The Gaza region is currently being treated differently rom other parts of Palestine by Israel, thus showing there's the ability to apply different policies to the different parts.
Which bits along France are you talking about? There are non connex departements in the Pyrenees but the states are quite connex from each part of the frontier. The holes in the Pyrenees Atlantiques are so small, in size and population, that it's hardly worth mentioning (effectively 2 villages).

quote: Clearly not all of (or even most of) the world bases it's provinces on the French system.

Thanks, I knew that.
But if you decide an arbitrary 2 provinces system, nothing prevents one form making a huge province and one square for the other province.
I maintain that, unless each connex part is very small, connex parts of land should be in different provinces, or become so (through incentive or mechanically) after some time.

	15-08-2005 06:22									#25
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quote: Originally posted by yellowdaddy There exist(ed) also non-contiguous states: pre-partition Pakistan; Azerbaijan & Nakhichevan; Malaysia; Brunei; Angola & Cabinda; Eq. Guinea and Rio Muni; Palestine; the wibbly bits along the border of France and Spain...

I don't think Laurent suggested that non-contiguous states couldn't exist (though I may be wrong - if he did, I'm sure he didn't mean it ). I think he simply said, and agree, that 99.9% of provinces that have or will ever exist are not spread half-way around the world. There is a certain amount of distance, usually quite small, where it simply becomes easier and more cost effective to make the "new" land a new province.

	15-08-2005 13:12									#26
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quote: I don't think Laurent suggested that non-contiguous states couldn't exist

Yes, that's not what I ment. I ment that non contiguous provinces (nto states) would probably end up split as different provinces in order to be administered correctly. If they are not, administration effectiveness should probably get lower.

	16-08-2005 05:18									#27
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quote: Originally posted by LDiCesare Yes, that's not what I ment. I ment that non contiguous provinces (nto states) would probably end up split as different provinces in order to be administered correctly. If they are not, administration effectiveness should probably get lower.

I still say after inital formation of provinces they should have inertia and only change because of politcal shifting of power.

	28-08-2005 00:37									#28
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quote: Originally posted by LDiCesare Yes, that's not what I ment. I ment that non contiguous provinces (nto states) would probably end up split as different provinces in order to be administered correctly. If they are not, administration effectiveness should probably get lower.

aahhh - so what you really mean is NON-CONTIGUOUS PROVINCES are unsustainable!?

I can see that, though Newfoundland & Labrador?

Aren't french overseas territories treated as departements though? there's no devolution there - I mean that's a pretty disparate political system - though I take your point that they all are separate provinces.

(I was getting lost with the meaning of this word "connex")

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I still don't see the point in 1-province states - you can't edit the size or shape of the province because it is the state.

I understand what you're saying about actions at the province level, but as far as I can see small/1-province states tend to behave rather like provinces anyway - Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, San Marino, Andorra, Gibraltar, Isle of Man, Channel Islands etc... with all their foreign affairs and that dealt with by their larger neighbouts...

What's the difference between a 1 province state and a 0 province state anyway?

	28-08-2005 00:56									#29
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quote: What's the difference between a 1 province state and a 0 province state anyway?

None. But in terms of user interface and coding, it's much much easier to have civs with one province or more than civs with either zero or 2 or more.
I doubt Luxembourgeois would agree that their foreign affairs is decided by their neighbours (which one - the Belgians, French or Germans?)

Connex means contiguous. Except non contiguous is between things, at least in French, so one thing alone is not contiguous, it is connex. Connex is the correct mathematical term.
I consider connexity here as being able to go from any point to any other in the province without crossing the territory of another province. Islands will typically be separate provinces or attached to the province of the nearest land mass.

	03-09-2005 15:03									#30
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I see what you're saying.

The only non-connex provinces I can think of are little enclaves along French-Spanish and Dutch-German borders, but they're so small, it's probably not worth bothering with them.