1.2 Not enough workers in smaller countries

[dr_AllCOM3]

I tried several times to grow Colombia into a large economy, but I'm always stopped by not having enough workers.

• I use all the techs that decrease workers required
• I try to make immigration as easy as possible (although Multiculturalism now happens too late and by then I've ran out of workers)
• Natural population growth is far too slow

By 1880 I literally have to stop building stuff, because there are not enough workers and my country completely stalls.
The only solution I see is to conquer more pops, but that gives me too many radicals and the majors are also vert trigger happy.

What do?

 

[ShoGuL]

I tried several times to grow Colombia into a large economy, but I'm always stopped by not having enough workers.

• I use all the techs that decrease workers required
• I try to make immigration as easy as possible (although Multiculturalism now happens too late and by then I've ran out of workers)
• Natural population growth is far too slow

By 1880 I literally have to stop building stuff, because there are not enough workers and my country completely stalls.
The only solution I see is to conquer more pops, but that gives me too many radicals and the majors are also vert trigger happy.

What do?

Become the protectorate of a great power - that makes you part of their market and you can now receive internal migration. Then put the +50% immigration decree on all your states, make the intelligentsia powerful and happy (+50% global immigration bonus), and get multiculturalism asap for the +25% global bonus from the liberalism path.

I'd suggest Russia or the UK, their markets have the largest populations and iirc Russia starts with no border controls now (it's vital you don't join someone with closed borders! India only allows migration of English pops for example so it's not useful for your purposes - the other UK countries still have a lot of pop, but you need much higher migration to get them than from Russia).

As long as you ensure you have open jobs and high living standards, migrants should start coming in.

 

[Bisonmask]

Do you have screenshots? It's possible you're just growing your economy too quickly but your other post suggests this isn't the case. What's your growth rate, standard of living, gdp, etc?

Try to get the feminist tech earlier I guess?

For the radicals you have to make sure standard of living is always going up when possible and that you have high government legitimacy when possible. When you're in between pushing transformative laws just swap governments to whatever is popular and lay off the taxes sometimes, if you're growing fast enough you'll have a surplus regardless

The other suggestion is good too and should fix the exact problem you're having, I personally don't do it because I find having a sovereign makes the game too easy

 

[shoebird]

Multiculturalism should solve the issue. Alternatively you can get into a custom union (don’t really need to surrender your sovereignty as @ShoGuL suggest). The rest of their suggestions are also valid to this case.

In general population growth is huge in this game, and if you enact multiculturalism too early, you might need to change that later to stop unemployment from getting out of control).

Aside from that remember the basics, SoL as high as possible and health care institution and workplace safety as soon as possible. If you are manually managing the economy, focusing on farms and plantations at the beginning of the game might help, as mortality there is lower than in mines and industries.

 

[Meneye]

Multiculturalism should solve the issue. Alternatively you can get into a custom union (don’t really need to surrender your sovereignty as @ShoGuL suggest). The rest of their suggestions are also valid to this case.

In general population growth is huge in this game, and if you enact multiculturalism too early, you might need to change that later to stop unemployment from getting out of control).

Aside from that remember the basics, SoL as high as possible and health care institution and workplace safety as soon as possible. If you are manually managing the economy, focusing on farms and plantations at the beginning of the game might help, as mortality there is lower than in mines and industries.

Multiculturalism can't be passed early unless you're in Europe or a leader just happens to roll the radical trait, as the intelligentsia doesn't start with it anymore. The OP could go, and from their post probably did, most game without it.

 

[Meneye]

If you haven't done so already, you could focus more on workforce ratio, which gives you more employable pops from the same population, rather than focusing on population growth. It can get really, really strong, to the point of having constant unemployment problems.

The most direct way to increase it is to pass gender equality laws, with each progressive law granting a higher ratio. If you have a powerful trade union group, making sure that they're happy enough to give you their second bonus would give you a higher ratio as well.

There might be more you could do, but we would need more context for that.

 

[dr_AllCOM3]

The most direct way to increase it is to pass gender equality laws, with each progressive law granting a higher ratio. If you have a powerful trade union group, making sure that they're happy enough to give you their second bonus would give you a higher workforce ratio as well.

I have passed what I can without getting a radicals death spiral. Even then, 5% won't do much. It would just delay the inevitable by 5%.

Multiculturalism should solve the issue. Alternatively you can get into a custom union (don’t really need to surrender your sovereignty as @ShoGuL suggest). The rest of their suggestions are also valid to this case.

In general population growth is huge in this game, and if you enact multiculturalism too early, you might need to change that later to stop unemployment from getting out of control).

You can't enact Multiculturalism "early" as Colombia. Tech is slow, you're way behind and other techs are also important (like reducing labor required).
I actually have it researched, but I can't pass it. Even the Intelligentsia opposes it.

It's possible you're just growing your economy too quickly but your other post suggests this isn't the case. What's your growth rate, standard of living, gdp, etc?

What good would slowing down my growth do? I'd just hit the ceiling slower. It's all fine, until I run out of workers.

Become the protectorate of a great power - that makes you part of their market and you can now receive internal migration. Then put the +50% immigration decree on all your states, make the intelligentsia powerful and happy (+50% global immigration bonus), and get multiculturalism asap for the +25% global bonus from the liberalism path.

Is being someone's protectorate that powerful?
Do trade agreements boost immigration?

Maybe I'll try my next run with what you suggested and see what happens. I'll choose Russia, because the UK market might mess with my economy too much and they're just too big.

 

[shoebird]

Multiculturalism can't be passed early unless you're in Europe or a leader just happens to roll the radical trait, as the intelligentsia doesn't start with it anymore. The OP could go, and from their post probably did, most game without it.

You can't enact Multiculturalism "early" as Colombia. Tech is slow, you're way behind and other techs are also important (like reducing labor required).
I actually have it researched, but I can't pass it. Even the Intelligentsia opposes it.

With early I’m talking around 20 years before game end. The population growth can be quite explosive. In any case, a custom union should work. I’m playing Central America now, inside UK’s custom union and never had a problem with population, when it seems I’m going to run out of them, they come in big numbers.

Nevertheless it seems than multiculturalism can’t be passed by American nations (unless RNG I guess), because I’m also surprised that the option has been greyed out during the whole game. I’m not sure it makes sense.

 

[Bisonmask]

What good would slowing down my growth do? I'd just hit the ceiling slower. It's all fine, until I run out of workers.

That's why I'd need to see your metrics. Your population should grow/you should see immigration at a rate that surpasses your ability to give them jobs, if that isn't happening you're probably making mistakes elsewhere especially if you have issues with radicals as Colombia

 

[Meneye]

Population growth is impacted by a lot of different factors, it would help the most if you uploaded your save file so we could see what's going on

 

[dr_AllCOM3]

Population growth is impacted by a lot of different factors

Is that documented somewhere, so I can read up on it?

 

[praftd]

What good would slowing down my growth do?

There are a lot of technology and laws post 1880 that give massive boosts to workforce and populations. More post-1880 than pre-1880. Everything is exponential in V3. Your population will grow more betwee 1910-1930 than the entire 1836-1910.


Growing too fast can be just as self-destructive as growing too slowly or not growing at all.

 

[ShoGuL]

I tried several times to grow Colombia into a large economy, but I'm always stopped by not having enough workers.

• I use all the techs that decrease workers required
• I try to make immigration as easy as possible (although Multiculturalism now happens too late and by then I've ran out of workers)
• Natural population growth is far too slow

By 1880 I literally have to stop building stuff, because there are not enough workers and my country completely stalls.
The only solution I see is to conquer more pops, but that gives me too many radicals and the majors are also vert trigger happy.

What do?

I just played a game as Gran Colombia to show the impact of pledging under Russia as a protectorate. I puppeted Venezuela and Ecuador to form Gran Columbia, and took the central american states up to Mexico but otherwise I have not expanded.

Here is my population 30 years in.

You can see very clearly when I managed to switch from State Religion to Total Separation - until that point all I got was Poles and other Catholics in the Russian Empire, but once I got Total Separation, the Orthodox started swarming in and my population exploded.

This game I'm planning to unite all of South America, probably grab a couple of Asian colonies for Opium and Silk, and then declare independence from Russia when my population exceeds theirs.

 

[ShoGuL]

I played another 10 years... I feel like this really demonstrates the exponential nature of Victoria.

No further conquests, 10 years still saw my population rise by 50%, I now have the same population as Spain. And my economy.. well It's a bit funny that I have the exact same amount of peasants as 10 years earlier.

I just got insanely lucky though, my ruler just died and was replaced by a Radical.. time for multiculturalism!