After reading a
thread that discussed how unrealistic it is for the general population's literacy to contribute to advancement speed (tech speed, basically) I came to completely agree with it and decided to write this thread with a thought out suggestion for how to make it work well.
As currently implemented it seems like literacy works the same way it does in Victoria 3: higher literacy = faster research. The difference is that you now have less methods of making your population literate. This is flawed from a historical perspective and a game design perspective.
Let's examine two cases that show why this doesn't make sense.
- Let's suppose I am a 14th century peasant in Languedoc who happens to be literate. Hooray! Unfortunately for me, though, I am literate in a local varient of Occitan and not French or Latin. Even if I knew the court language of France, though, my literacy would still have had exactly 0 influence on France's technological/societal progress, because I completely lack the institutional power required to contribute to any advancement that does not have something to do with my actual day-to-day life of farming in the fields. And my literacy wouldn't make any difference in my day-to-day life, of course, since the printing press was not invented yet and I wouldn't have access to any books or manuals.
- Say I play as the Papal States and realize the way literacy is tied with advancements. Clergy power, by the way, is also tied with advancements for some reason. What I could do is release all of my Italian holdings as subjects so that I only hold Avignon (which is a tier II town) and stack it with clergy buildings, particularly ones that give literacy. Soon enough the clergy would be a large part of my population, I would make them strong and happy as an estate, and my country's literacy would be high. I would then invent gunfire and the scientific method and rocket science, and soon enough I'd start the Papal space program.
The core takeaway is that advancement speed should not be tied to country-wide literacy, as that was irrelevant during almost all of EU5's gamespan. Instead it should mainly be tied to whatever estate has an interest in a particular advancement. Advancements are not just "techs", they're ways in which your society and government develop. Using estates to make the advancement system more in depth would be great since it is likely that each such advancement would have the estates supporting or opposing it.
These are my suggestions to fix the literacy mechanic and make it more immersive:
- Instead of tracking country-wide literacy, track the literacy rate of each estate. Make the sources of literacy affect particular kinds of pops more than others, thus making estate literacy a strategic buildup. Higher literacy would simply significantly increase an estate's power, and there could be privileges that give bonuses that depend on the literacy rate. I think this is the most elegant implementation of the meaning of high literacy: Literate barons manage their baronies better. Literate priests allow for a more organized religion - well, they should be scripted to always be literate in Abrahamic religions. Literate burghers are much more efficient in trade. Etc. An additional gameplay dynamic would be that increasing the literacy of burghers and peasants would give them the power to demand change.
- This effect of literacy would be low until the institution of the printing press comes around.
- Literacy could also affect the rate at which a pop is "promoted" to a better class, giving you an incentive to spread literacy to peasants if you want to create more burgher jobs in the future.
- Each advancement would have estates that support it or oppose it. This is static and specific for each advancement. Support/opposition to an advancement would grant the country a research speed bonus/malus depending on the estate's power. Because if I am Poland and everyone is completely illiterate, but my nobles practically control my government and want winged hussars, we will have winged hussars.
- Beside empowering the estates that push for the advancements you want for your country, there might be some actual sources of advancement speed such as the innovative societal value, certain buildings, privileges, advancements, etc.
- Literacy buildings should push the literacy up to a certain equilibrium, and should such a building stop operating in full capacity the literacy equilibrium in that location should drop, causing a gradual lowering of literacy (over dozens of years ofc). Idk if it already works like this but I felt this is necessary to mention.
This idea makes it possible for the devs to play around with which advancement branches would be quicker for your country to research given your country's estate situation, making for a more varied gameplay between countries. And making the estates more relevant in general is great.
