Base pop growth = 0? WTF?

[unmerged(8351)]

In the period represented by the game global population doubled from 1 billion to 2 billion with 80% of the growth coming in the second half of the period. The British Isles in particular grew like crazy during this period, more than doubling despite pretty substantial emigration.

Between 1820 and 1870 the population went up less than 20%.

 

[Foxbyte]

I saw the base growth stat, but what I did for my game is decrease the minimum life rating needed for growth down to 25, instead of the default 30 [which means all provinces with 30 wouldn't grow anyway]. To compensate, I reduced the bonus per point of life rating over this by half.

This resulted in provinces with 35 life rating getting 0.6-7% growth instead of 0.5%, and gave provinces with 30 life rating a small amount of natural growth. Very tiny.