Freemen do not have an economic role?

[Mr. Wiggles]

Seriously

[Mr. Wiggles]

Originally posted by GoldenTalon:

Bogus - probably add it with a DLC

Pecunia non olet
I guess

[mbpoblet]

Not an economic role as such (unless you base your economy on subjugating your neighbours), but they do provide manpower[forum.paradoxplaza.com].

Originally posted by Dev Diary #5, 2018/06/25:

There are four different types of pops in the game.

• Citizens - They provide research and commerce income. These represent the patricians in Rome, and nobility in monarchies
  
• Freemen - They provide manpower. The plebs of Rome is included in this group.
  
• Tribesmen - These provide a tiny amount of manpower and tax income. These are the barbarians or uncivilized parts of your areas.
  
• Slaves - These provide tax income

That said, according to that same dev diary it should be trivial to mod them to instead produce money, or food, or any other resource in the game... or added through modding, which should also be fairly trivial (if you're familiar with Stellaris modding in the latest patches, it seems like it'll be quite similar to how resources work there).

[Richon]

Originally posted by GoldenTalon:

Bogus - probably add it with a DLC

The logic behind the various pop types has already been explained. Quit lying.

[The Former]

Makes sense. As I understand it, the concept of levying taxes from farmers and such wasn't really a thing until feudalism. Wealth came from those who produced it; artisans, merchants, trade tariffs, that sort of business. That's what the citizens represent. Those of reasonable affluence whose wealth drives the economy.

Freemen represent those people who are too poor to meaningfully contribute to the coffers, but still provide a workforce and, more importantly in the context of Imperator, a levy pool for your armies.

Makes enough sense to me.

("But why do slaves provide tax income?" Most likely representing that slaves were the backbone of most nations' economies in antiquity. Particularly Rome's. Yeah, commerce was driven by affluent citizens, but the infrastructure for all that to thrive was built by folks like Spartacus. ... Well, not Spartacus himself, but you get my meaning.)

[Richon]

Originally posted by GoldenTalon:

Originally posted by Richon:

The logic behind the various pop types has already been explained. Quit lying.

Well the OP didn't think so and I agree.

So, without facts, you just assert bluntly that a feature was left out in order to be added in as paid DLC, despite the reality that there is an actual explanation for why the mechanics are the way they are, and that explanation utterly contradicts your baseless assertion?

[Captain_Narol]

There is something wrong with the population names, which creates confusion.

Plebeians ("Freemen" in the game) were CITIZENS in Roman Republic and voting in the elections.

The world "Citizens" for the first category doesn't fit and should be replaced by something else like "Elites", "Aristocrats" or "Wealthy".

[The Silver Santana]

A proper reference would indicate what citizen class boundaries we are talking about. In Rome, your wealth in property-usually land-*directly* correlated with your political and military power. I would guess that Freemen represent the last two or three sections of the roman citizenship, third, fourth, fifth, and proles classes. Those represented the ultra-majority of the population, but were poor and had virtually no taxable income, commercial impact, or political representation (the first class of citizens and the equites had a majority of the vote, despite representing a *tiny* minority of the population, and controlled the majority of the wealth).

Hence, citizens represent the top three or four classes of citizens, and freemen represent the last three or four. Naming them freemen is perhaps based on the fact that, while freemen in Rome were citizens (freed-men, no longer slaves), and their children were full citizens, they were almost always Proles and were considered non-natural born citizens, to compare to the US constitution (they could not hold political office). Their children were afforded full rights though.

It's not really possible to say with any certainty what classes they are meant to represent, because the relative power of the classes was very dynamic. By the end of the republic, wealth was stratified to a massive degree; earlier, it was merely overrepresented.

As for why slaves produce taxes-it's because they were literally taxed. The state didn't (by large) own the slaves directly, but instead taxed the owners of the slaves (as slaves were property). Hence, you're really taxing the citizen classes for the slaves they own.

Now, not all places functioned like this-hence why *Tribesmen*, pops which don't quite fit into the Roman (or hellenic) class system exist. They provide both manpower and tax, representing that, in those societies, taxes were generally leveled on the population at large, which also served as soldiers at large.

Calling them uncivilized is perhaps innaccurate though; in my view, more accurate would be to call them the effective middle class. The lower classes are consripts for the workforce, the middle classes may own a couple slaves and some taxable property and provide the main fighting force (in Rome, they were typically the legionarres; other conscripts were support), and the upper classes provide commerce and own the rest of the slaves, whom they are taxed for.

The main confusion is why Tribesmen are supposed to be uncivlized, not why Freemen aren't taxed. Given the wide time periods, we also could see a changing role of each class as time goes on, or changing distributions due to social stratification-though that's perhaps simply going to be an impact of roman "civilization". Ideally, Rome would start with lots of Freemen, Tribesmen, and Citizens in appropriate ratios, then, as they gained slaves, tribesmen would split into the freemen and citizens, the middle class being promoted or edged out as social stratification took effect, and the world become "civilized", as the slave owning Romans called it.

(That part is likely to be a focus of more DLC, I don't see that in the base-game, the social movement is very static, but the potential for those mechanics is there).

[premitive1]

The Roman Republic expanded suffrage over time. I believe that's a big catalyst for bread and circus.Those were sponsored by people, not by the Senate as such. It bought votes!

[mbpoblet]

Originally posted by The Silver Santana:

(...) the world become "civilized", as the slave owning Romans called it.

(That part is likely to be a focus of more DLC, I don't see that in the base-game, the social movement is very static, but the potential for those mechanics is there).

There is a civilization rating for cities and countires[forum.paradoxplaza.com], which can vary over time, and while pops can't change their social strata by themselves (except through events), you can move them yourself spending, if I'm not mistaken, civic power... so, while not complex, some of those mechanics are in the game.

Besides that, awesomely informative post, thanks!

[The Silver Santana]

The main thing is I'd like to see some modeling of the Roman economic collapse due to it's social stratification and slave labor, but that's a pipe dream for now. The pop system is basic, but has the potential for depth due to interactions here (it's also much more fixable than Vicky, which is a cesspit of confusion).

I do think that the system has enough flexibility to have some deeper interactions though, and I imagine it would not be impossible to add more pop types if desired. I'm really looking forward to seeing what modders do with this post-release.

[Mr. Wiggles]

Originally posted by Captain_Narol:

There is something wrong with the population names, which creates confusion.

Plebeians ("Freemen" in the game) were CITIZENS in Roman Republic and voting in the elections.

The world "Citizens" for the first category doesn't fit and should be replaced by something else like "Elites", "Aristocrats" or "Wealthy".

Yep, citizens should be the equites.
And the patricians?

[Mr. Wiggles]

Originally posted by Richon:

Originally posted by GoldenTalon:

Well the OP didn't think so and I agree.

So, without facts, you just assert bluntly that a feature was left out in order to be added in as paid DLC, despite the reality that there is an actual explanation for why the mechanics are the way they are, and that explanation utterly contradicts your baseless assertion?

I bet my ass they will completely rework this system sooner or later, probably the rework itself will be free but tied to new dlc mechanics, as usual.

[Richon]

Originally posted by Captain_Narol:

There is something wrong with the population names, which creates confusion.

Plebeians ("Freemen" in the game) were CITIZENS in Roman Republic and voting in the elections.

The world "Citizens" for the first category doesn't fit and should be replaced by something else like "Elites", "Aristocrats" or "Wealthy".

Nothing says that "freemen" in game are Plebeians. That is a false equivalence.

Originally posted by Mr.Wiggles:

I bet my ass they will completely rework this system sooner or later, probably the rework itself will be free but tied to new dlc mechanics, as usual.

Maybe they will. Maybe they won't. Either way, that completely obliterates the claim that this will be changed by DLC.

[Captain_Narol]

Wrong, Richon, i'ts' explicitely stated in the Dev Diaries :

"Freemen - They provide manpower. The plebs of Rome is included in this group."

Plebs (ie Plebeians) are part of the Freemen category in the game.

[Richon]

Originally posted by Captain_Narol:

Wrong, Richon, i'ts' explicitely stated in the Dev Diaries :

"Freemen - They provide manpower. The plebs of Rome is included in this group."

Plebs (ie Plebeians) are part of the Freemen category in the game.

I stand corrected. Doesn't change the fact that, realistically, this would not be all Plebeians, but mostly the lowest classes. Especially once we get to the Marian age, when the lowest order, the proles make up the majority of the Roman military.