Migration Controls exacerbate Starvation in small countries

[Svatopluk1]

Context:
This (vanilla?) issue affecting both balance and realism seems like something your suite of mods would be well-positioned to address, considering e.g. PLP already makes some thoughtful adjustments to border laws and institutions, and SIS adds new interactions.

Issue:
Lots of countries start with law_migration_controls, and many are poor unrecognized powers with their own independent markets. This often leads to severe starvation for small countries as they fail to feed their own pops. Single-state countries lacking in arable land are basically doomed. Worse, even as starvation and turmoil approach 100%, people are (somehow!) prevented from emigrating even after multiple revolutions and countless deaths and a total breakdown of society.

This happens frequently enough that at any given moment a large proportion of small independent countries around the world will have severe starvation and just not do anything about it even as years go by and the corpses keep piling up. Both realistically, and from a game design perspective, countries facing extreme issues should take increasingly desperate measures to solve them.

Suggestions:
I think this could be approached from a variety of different angles. Here are some ideas:

• Decreased migration_restrictiveness and increased migration_push as starvation and/or turmoil reach high levels. Effects like this need to be noticeably stronger than they currently are to be able to overcome the modifiers from law_migration_controls. Could be state-level of country-level or both.
• If a revolution occurs in a country where a large fraction of the population is starving, then immediately switch to law_no_migration_controls.
• Increased AI desire for starving countries to offer Investments Rights to rich ones.
• Increased AI desire to become subject of a stronger country when there are good relations between a small starving country and a rich powerful one. A starving country could even voluntarily propose their subjugation if conditions are bad enough (via revolution demands? or as a diplo action?).
• Reduced max institution level (only for restrictive forms of the Migration institution or for all institutions?) at high country-wide turmoil.
• A new Diplomatic Action or Treaty Article by which a country facing high starvation and/or turmoil could request assistance from a richer country they have good relations with, in exchange for some concessions. E.g. between a small starving country and a Bloc leader, the former could gain significantly increased Food Security and the latter significantly increased Leverage.

[MasterOfGrey]

Hmmm, well, let's look at the options here first.

• Decreased migration_restrictiveness and increased migration_push as starvation and/or turmoil reach high levels. Effects like this need to be noticeably stronger than they currently are to be able to overcome the modifiers from law_migration_controls. Could be state-level of country-level or both.
  • This is actually just not how this works - so this simply cannot work.
• If a revolution occurs in a country where a large fraction of the population is starving, then immediately switch to law_no_migration_controls.
  • This is not a bad idea. I'm not sure if it will fix the problem per se, but this could definitely be done and could help.
• Increased AI desire for starving countries to offer Investments Rights to rich ones.
  • Often this wouldn't actually help, I also deliberately don't touch AI strategies, so I don't think I could meaningfully affect this.
• Increased AI desire to become subject of a stronger country when there are good relations between a small starving country and a rich powerful one. A starving country could even voluntarily propose their subjugation if conditions are bad enough (via revolution demands? or as a diplo action?).
  • This could be done, it would even fit in with a new diplo action for voluntary subjugation, but it's also a bit like using a sledgehammer to get rid of a spider in the house...
• Reduced max institution level (only for restrictive forms of the Migration institution or for all institutions?) at high country-wide turmoil.
  • This isn't bad. Kind of a headache to make work in a useful way, and doesn't necessarily solve the problem in a lot of cases though.
• A new Diplomatic Action or Treaty Article by which a country facing high starvation and/or turmoil could request assistance from a richer country they have good relations with, in exchange for some concessions. E.g. between a small starving country and a Bloc leader, the former could gain significantly increased Food Security and the latter significantly increased Leverage.
  • Technically this can already be done with treaties to deliver food. Getting the AI to use these more falls back into the AI strategy problem though