The core design of Stellaris pop increase mechanics can be summed up like this:
What if there was instead a pool of "pop increase capacity" that we could distribute between pop growth and pop assembly?
If pop increase was designed as per the above, it would also enable a frequently mentioned origin idea: an empire consisting only of rogue robots, with "individuals" rather than a central machine intelligence. Under current game mechanics, such an empire would fall far behind in the pop count due to lacking pop growth; with a pop increase pool, they could instead keep up using only pop assembly.
(Under the above mentioned design, the pop increase capacity's value could even be made a game setting.)
Thoughts?
Would it work?
Would it be fun?
Are there any major issues I have overlooked?
- Each colony produces pop growth at a rate that is based on a "base growth" (specific numbers vary depending on circumstances, but the base value is 3).
- From the beginning or shortly thereafter, each colony can also produce pop assembly at a rate that is comparable to the base growth (specific numbers vary depending on circumstances, but often in the 2-4 range).
- The two types of growth do not affect each other, and pop assembly is an "optional" addition on top of pop growth. Colonies and empires that do not assemble pops are immediately at a disadvantage, effectively making pop assembly a non-choice.
- Pop assembly usually requires a building slot and one or two jobs, while allowing the production of a chosen pop template. This template likely has desired traits, which the natural pop growth template may miss, and it can also be from a template in servitude to the main template.
- Essentially: pop assembly not only (approximately) doubles the pop increase rate, it also enables creating a populace composition with much more versatile traits, and a greater economic optimization of colonies.
What if there was instead a pool of "pop increase capacity" that we could distribute between pop growth and pop assembly?
- Essentially: if a colony has access to both means of pop increase, the pop increase capacity would be distributed between them; if the colony only has access to one of them, it would receive the entirety of the pop increase capacity. The distribution settings would presumably be 10/90, 25/75, 50/50, 75/25 and 90/10 (percents).
- Basically, it would be possible to choose a desired ratio of growth vs assembly, depending on the target pop composition. Some empires may prefer a 50/50 ratio to leave all menial jobs to assembled pops, while others may prefer a ratio of 75/25 since the naturally born pops are talented at some worker-level jobs and only want to leave some to the assembled pops, while yet other empires may prefer a 10/90 ratio as it would leave most of the naturally born pops in wealthy ruler jobs (Isaac Asimov example: Solaria).
- The chosen ratio would essentially reflect the government or society choosing which ratio of pop increase it wants to facilitate and support.
If pop increase was designed as per the above, it would also enable a frequently mentioned origin idea: an empire consisting only of rogue robots, with "individuals" rather than a central machine intelligence. Under current game mechanics, such an empire would fall far behind in the pop count due to lacking pop growth; with a pop increase pool, they could instead keep up using only pop assembly.
(Under the above mentioned design, the pop increase capacity's value could even be made a game setting.)
Thoughts?
Would it work?
Would it be fun?
Are there any major issues I have overlooked?