growth rate and education decline

[Schattensand]

Have to bring it up again.

Playing Prussia it is 1854 now and while everything else is in good shape my education rate has been going down to 80% in general.
While in the most provinces it is still over 90% in others it is down to a mere 60%. Even in my capital Berlin it is only 62% by now.
That goes along reciprocal to the growth rate.
In regions with a growth rate over 1,6 education is down to less than 70.
In regions with a growth rate under 1,5 education is over 90.
I have no tool to influence education in general or in special in a single region.
No school or university building improvement or anything else what I see I can do to bring my country back to the enlightened year of 1850 where everybody was at least able to read and write.
What can I do? What did I oversee? What game mechanic I am simply not aware of?

[Schattensand]

I still need an answer for this.

[von Sachsen]

The Phils at least should be able to answer, but they are in Sweden for the next few days.

[Schattensand]

thx for the answer, seems the game is still a mystery for most of us and only a few enlighten ones are able to teach game mechanics.

[Cruzeiro]

You´ll be able to raise literacy by technological progress and resulting decrees. It´s something like "Educational System" or similar. It´s not available from the beginning. Pops up later in the game (in the 60s if I remember correctly)

[montgomeryjlion]

Does seem rather absurd to start with 90% literacy, have it drop to 60%, then get it raised back up to 90% by technology though doesn't it?

You should really start at 20-25%, raise it slowly and then when technology kicks in in the latter quarter of the century or so it should go up fairly rapidly.

Just my opinion based on no solid evidence, just a basic knowledge of history.

[Cruzeiro]

in fact, influencing literacy needs modified data. Until the research option of "educational system" finally appeared my literacy had dropped down to exactly 60%. The 3 new decrees (3 different school types) available after research could only be used once. They increased literacy rating around 10 % in total (if I remember correctly) which is not too much without additional possibilities. Now it´s 1877 and literacy has dropped down to around 63 % again. And I haven´t seen any possibility to increase it again yet.

However, technological funding seems to work much more efficiently than increasing literacy. When I noticed that I cannot rely on literacy I started funding. 2 tech types at least at the same time, mostly 3 and during extra-ordinarily wealthy financial situation (especially during war when you conquer important key locations and national morale boosts up to 200 points) I was easily able to fund 10 and more techs at the same time without running out of money. This increased my technological rating from 55th to 1st after 1 or 2 years. So it´s a sort of workaround until the possibilities to influence literacy are modified by the designers.

[Schattensand]

Halleluja, an answer even with experience.
If it is so it is so and I do not have to restart, cause I did terrible mistakes.
I remember that I read at the very beginning, that Russia had funded some sort of school. A choice I never had.
But to go a little deeper in the matter, if you dont mind to look up your data, the decline is significantly greater in half of the provinces - that one, that have a high growth rate. Why I have no clue - may be something to do with building many units there, but I am not sure. You have an educated guess?

[Cruzeiro]

No, you won´t need to restart. I´m still playing Prussia/Germany and I´ve been 1st in technoligical rating for around 10 years now (playing on "normal" difficulty though, at least I did not change anything if there are different levels). Just start funding as much as possible. Don´t hesitate to fund too many techs at the same time only to give them a break in between if financial matters get worse. It helps a lot. Especially techs before the 70s have a very fast progess via funding. The latter techs take much more time even funded but it helps nonetheless.

I don´t mind looking into data a bit deeper but I have to admit that I haven´t checked recruitment during 26 years of gameplay. I did never try to vary my recruitment spots, so I think I´ve recruited most units near the borders and hid them in the garrisons until finished. Short way to the front. Became obsolete after having built railways everywhere however.

I started a similar topic in the Paradox Forum as well, but there wasn´t any substantial information confirmed by the developers. Another player stated that decreasing of literacy seems to be connected to increasing population. "The more they grow the dumber they get" or something similar. If I took a guess I´d say it´s completely linked to increasing population and no influence by recruitment. But I don´t have any proof for that.

I´ve also heard that Russia has early school options. But they start at a significantly lower level as well. So that imbalance seems to be intentional if there is any. The message you´ve seen is probably the colonial school option. Doesn´t improve literacy, it´s only for colonial penetration and/or development level. It´s a bit confusing because it´s only called "schools" in the game messages and not "colonial schools" as it should be.

[Schattensand]

No they got Fachschools, I played it in german language then, switched now to english, just to have the right original expression at hand, if I post at the forum. Fach is an adopted German word in english language by now, but I am not sure , wether that is the original game expression in this case.

[Schattensand]

Btw could you answer my other question about the war-peace way to go with Prussia too?

[Cruzeiro]

Done. I was not completely successful though as you will see in the descriptions.