First, some pop basics and tips:
1. The most important thing everyone should know, and I can't say it too many times, is that all pops represent only the working population. This is 1/4 of the real total population. 100,000 people = 25,000 pops, got it. The game will, in ledgers and various interfaces, multiply this up into the full population. Therefore when you check to see your nation's population it does show the full population. Remember: 1/4. Don't forget it... Many of us beta's have spent countless hours searching for pops that seem 4x what they should be and I'm sure there are still some we've missed.... Therefore if anyone sees an area with 4x or more population than it should post about it ASAP and we'll try to get it fixed.
2. Don't include laborers in pops... It's a waste of your time. The game will autoconvert farmers into laborers when needed, so it's best to call all non-industrial working-class citizens farmers... Why farmers instead of making them all laborers? Because popmaker, the program that turns pop .txt files into .csv files, will turn all leftover pops (pops that, due to percentages and decimals are rounded out) into farmers. These farmers are placed in that files "capitol".
This, of course, was something many of us only realized later... It doesn't necessarily hurt the pops to put in laborers (AFAIK), it's just a waste of your time (as a pop-coder). So don't bother.
3. Under no circumstances should pops of different religions or cultures be placed in the same file. If you want both Catholic and Protestant Irishmen in New York City then you need two files, one for Irish Catholic and one for Irish Protestant. Many states/regions, particularly in the USA and Eastern Europe, have provinces with many, many cultures, making for many, many files. It think the record is New York in '14: 11 files for one state/region. What can I say? I can be a perfectionist at times.
I'll post more here as I think of it... Now on to part two....
1. The most important thing everyone should know, and I can't say it too many times, is that all pops represent only the working population. This is 1/4 of the real total population. 100,000 people = 25,000 pops, got it. The game will, in ledgers and various interfaces, multiply this up into the full population. Therefore when you check to see your nation's population it does show the full population. Remember: 1/4. Don't forget it... Many of us beta's have spent countless hours searching for pops that seem 4x what they should be and I'm sure there are still some we've missed.... Therefore if anyone sees an area with 4x or more population than it should post about it ASAP and we'll try to get it fixed.
2. Don't include laborers in pops... It's a waste of your time. The game will autoconvert farmers into laborers when needed, so it's best to call all non-industrial working-class citizens farmers... Why farmers instead of making them all laborers? Because popmaker, the program that turns pop .txt files into .csv files, will turn all leftover pops (pops that, due to percentages and decimals are rounded out) into farmers. These farmers are placed in that files "capitol".
This, of course, was something many of us only realized later... It doesn't necessarily hurt the pops to put in laborers (AFAIK), it's just a waste of your time (as a pop-coder). So don't bother.
3. Under no circumstances should pops of different religions or cultures be placed in the same file. If you want both Catholic and Protestant Irishmen in New York City then you need two files, one for Irish Catholic and one for Irish Protestant. Many states/regions, particularly in the USA and Eastern Europe, have provinces with many, many cultures, making for many, many files. It think the record is New York in '14: 11 files for one state/region. What can I say? I can be a perfectionist at times.
I'll post more here as I think of it... Now on to part two....
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