In 2.2.5. pop growth is still bonkers

[Arutar]

While in 2.2.5. habitabilty does seem to have a more significant impact on pop growth selection (yay!), the underlying nonsensical math apperantly sadly has not change much beyond that.

It still essentially seems to prevent old/ majority species from almost growing entirely if a new species is present.

Example of my empire last game between 2272 and 2287 (no active migration treaty, no species has any rapid / slow breeder traits)

2272
Pop A (90 habitablity, nomadic) 102
Pop B (80 habitablity) 22
Pop C (90 habitablity) 17
Pop D (20 habitabilty) 5

2287
Pop A (90 habitablity, nomadic) 103
Pop B (80 habitablity) 41
Pop C (90 habitablity) 39
Pop D (20 habitabilty) 6 (due to low habitiy, the pop only grows on one Gaia planet)
​

So while species B and C could double within 15 years, my main species A grew by only one single Pop on 5 planets for no other reason than it being the main species. Well I guess under 2.2.4. species A would have grown by 0, so we can call it the smallest progress possible?

 

[KingAlamar]

I'm thinking there needs to be more policies / settings to figure out who grows where & when. Even if it just nudges the system I believe options like:

• Encourage primary species growth [also applies to Syncretic & associated templates] .. Give a large increase to the chance of growth of this species
• Encourage [targeted] species growth ... basically pick a species to focus growth on.
• Grow by habitability ... give a HUGE increase to the habitability factors
• Tie growth to jobs ... Large increases in growth for species able to fill specific [open] jobs. The more open jobs the more likely a species match for that job will grow
• Encourage Slave Growth .... Gives large bonuses to the chance of growing a "slave" pop ...

There are likely much better ideas out there but at least considering some of the above elements would certainly be nice

 

[Treybor]

Pops of a species in the minority should only outpace the majority either from migration or the rapid breeders trait imo

We just need proportional growth

 

[AlanC9]

Computationally, that could get pretty bad as species self-modify and immigrate. Instead of updating one or two variables per planet, you'd be upgrading , potentially, a couple of dozen. Probably not a big deal as long as you don't mind a bit of monthly stutter.

 

[durbal]

Computationally, that could get pretty bad as species self-modify and immigrate. Instead of updating one or two variables per planet, you'd be upgrading , potentially, a couple of dozen. Probably not a big deal as long as you don't mind a bit of monthly stutter.

Why do people keep saying stuff like this? It's such a trivial thing to calculate -- especially for a computer -- and it very rarely even needs to be calculated.

 

[Kryndude]

With Syncretic Evolution you're getting less serviles than before. Now you don't have a shortage of specialist pops but then don't have enough serviles to fill in worker jobs. The new pop growth system is just wonky and doesn't make much sense.

 

[Arutar]

I'm thinking there needs to be more policies / settings to figure out who grows where & when.

While more tools could be good, the important hing is that the baseline growth (i.e. before taking into account any policies/Rights etc.) should make logically sense and be determined by factors which reasonably would actually affect growth (i.e. fast / slow breeeder, immigration, habitability, etc.).

This is still not the case, unfortunately. Quite the opposite.

 

[Urza1234]

        NEW_POP_SPECIES_DIV                    = 0.25    # The higher this is, the more planets will tend to grow species that are underrepresented on the planet

This is the infamous value that was enforcing the 50/50 ratio in 2.20-2.2.4. In 2.2.5 it was adjusted down to the value you see above, but its still having an absolutely huge impact on pop growth.

        NEW_POP_SAME_SPECIES_WEIGHT            = 1.0    # The higher this is, the more new pops will be weighted by number of same or subspecies pops
        NEW_POP_EXACT_SPECIES_WEIGHT        = 0.5    # The higher this is, the more new pops will be weighted by number of exact same species pops

These values have been in the game since the start of 2.2, but up until 2.2.5 pretty much no one noticed, since they were being completely overridden by the effect of NEW_POP_SPECIES_DIV.

What you're seeing is a shift from the paradigm of all species being equal because of the 50/50 effect, to a new paradigm in which all multi-xeno planets will eventually adjust towards 1 dominant species, enforced by NEW_POP_SAME_SPECIES_WEIGHT, and a bunch of lesser species all with populations roughly equal to eachother, but much less than species A.

Its not really a better paradigm, but at least its different. Try the mod in my sig if you want more realistic growth.

 

[klopkr]

Each species really needs their own independent growth factor per planet so the one with the highest growth factor gets to spawn next once you grow a pop.

 

[Arutar]

More observations from 2.2.5:

My new empire got the subterranean colony event, where one pop of the subterranean species joins you empire.

At this point I had 35 pops of my main species (A), one pop of the subterranean species (B) and 3 planets.

Species A: 35
Species B: 1​

20 years later:
Species A: 38
Species B: 19

So in 20 years, species A grew by less an 10%, and species B by 1.800%.

Also "interesting" is the way the growth happened per planet:

My homeworld (I) has grown exclusively the subterranean species (B) for 20 years now (and no sign of stopping).
My second planet (II), were the subterran colony is, has also grown exclusively the subterranean species (B) for 20 years now (and no sign of stopping). The subterranean species (B) is now the 2/3 majority there.
My third planet (III), however, appears to be aiming for a 50-50 split and is alternating growth between A and B since parity was achieved (in fact all my 3 Pops of species A which have grown in the last 20 year are on this planet.)

So not much has changed really. And we are sadly still at the point were even a pure random chance (i.e. a 50-50 coin toss) would be more realistc than the current System.

 

[Industrious81]

Hopefully it is addressed soon. Makes playing any multi species empire, undesirable/inefficient.

You can use some population control policies but you are most likely taking a big opinion hit depending on your chosen government.

 

[Badesumofu]

It seems like the only real change is that low habitability pops won't grow much which is a substantial improvement. It means acquiring new pop types to cover habitability classes will work again. It's still quite ridiculous that if you get a single pop of a different species anywhere in your empire with the same habitability as your main species, you will grow nothing but that new pop type until you hit parity.

 

[AlanC9]

Why do people keep saying stuff like this? It's such a trivial thing to calculate -- especially for a computer -- and it very rarely even needs to be calculated.

That's rhetorical, right? We keep saying it because the game is computationally challenged with the calculations it already has.

 

[Urza1234]

That's rhetorical, right? We keep saying it because the game is computationally challenged with the calculations it already has.

Lol, I wish people didnt treat "Disagree" like some kind of downvote. How can anyone actually disagree with this man's statement?

 

[Trueno33]

It's even worse than op in my 2.2.5 game. Species with 20% hab. are taking growing priority over my main species in my homeworld. They have alpine and tropical preference, yet they like wasting the resources in my arid world.
My main species has the slow breeders trait though. Perhaps the system is prioritizing growth over resources. Not too bad if you see it that way

 

[Urza1234]

My main species has the slow breeders trait though. Perhaps the system is prioritizing growth over resources. Not too bad if you see it that way

I dont think so, from my testing, growth prioritization from traits has a considerably lesser effect on the final result than Hab, or NEW_POP_SPECIES_DIV.

I'm not sure it would be possible to precisely reverse-engineer the hard-coded formula, but as far as I can tell to compare the values within a range you're ever likely to see its:
NEW_POP_SPECIES_DIV > Hab > NEW_POP_SAME_SPECIES_WEIGHT > Growth on traits.


I've found that NEW_POP_SPECIES_DIV is much more reasonable at values closer to 0.02-0.05. Thats all thats needed to make sure that new species in your empire have a decently high chance of being introduced to a new planet.
The 2.2.5 value of 0.25 is really unnecessarily high, and the previous 0.5 was, as we all know, ridiculous.
The only reason I'd consider values as high as 0.05 is actually the base purge effect that happens when your planet exceeds its housing cap. When that happens your planet will pick the species with the least growth prioritization to purge, and unless your planet is very populated, the combinded effects of NEW_POP_SAME_SPECIES_WEIGHT and hability will outweigh the very low value of NEW_POP_SPECIES_DIV, and low-hab species will be genocided off the planet. Up until housing cap a value of 0.02 feels very healthy.
Sometimes that purge actually good, but there are many exceptions created by traits, homeworlds, etc, and it can result in a species being completely genocided out of the empire entirely. Frankly, an Empire-wide equivalent of NEW_POP_SPECIES_DIV is needed, to prevent the last pop of a species from being accidentally genocided out of an empire, or even galaxy.

My disclaimer is that I play with a mod that uses a system to add growth prioritization to pops according to the applied values of their traits, otherwise what I would be seeing would be the same dominant-species paradigm as 2.2.5, except the gap would be much larger.

Basically, the current growth model is fundamentally flawed. Their habitability prioritization mechanic is mostly fine, as long as the values are high enough, but the rest of the growth paradigm is completely dictated by NEW_POP_SPECIES_DIV and its ratio against NEW_POP_SAME_SPECIES_WEIGHT on a given planet.
No matter how much they play around with those two values the growth system will always be broken.

NEW_POP_SAME_SPECIES_WEIGHT is fine, it works realistically, weighting new pop growth by the subpopulation size on the planet.
NEW_POP_HABITABILITY_THRESHOLD is fine. Personally I play with this value all the way up to 1.5, rather than the vanilla game's much lower values, because the mechanic is exponential. However, besides the value the devs chose for this mechanic, the mechanic itself is fine, works great. They also added a new habitability mechanic in 2.2.5, I havent played around with it, but according to all reports I've seen its not currently doing much.
NEW_POP_IMMIGRATION_MOD_MULT and NEW_POP_GROWTH_MOD_MULT are great, they do exactly what you would expect them to do and scale linearly with the growth value of the trait
NEW_POP_SLAVERY_WEIGHT is actually extremely silly to even have in the game, this needs to be removed.
NEW_POP_SPECIES_DIV, the infamous value that is responsible for 90% of the growth problems the community has perceived, is actually also a perfectly fine mechanic, it just needs to be much much much lower. Its only actual purpose should be seeding planets with a pop or two of new species to give them a chance to grow.
The problem is that NEW_POP_SPECIES_DIV is currently the main mechanic that determines which pop grows on a planet, because its values are so high, and if its values are much lower then almost every planet will become pretty much homogeneous without some new growth mechanic being introduced

Thats what actually needs to happen, a new growth factor actually needs to be introduced, by the devs. The game just doesnt work when growth is nothing but a constant war between NEW_POP_SPECIES_DIV and NEW_POP_SAME_SPECIES_WEIGHT, which is all we get right now.
The mod I use hacks in this new growth factor prioritizing growth based on the species trait/job based economic competitiveness, but it would frankly be much better if the devs actually expanded the system some themselves.

 

[Derp]

as long as my worlds no longer get flooded with 20% hab species i'm fine. don't really care if some planets have more gleepglops than humans.

 

[LWE]

I dunno, in my Megacorp Gecko game, which I’m going to make an AAR of, the growth is OK, despite having many species in my empire, the capital planet remained Gecko, and smaller species remained smaller.

 

[Arutar]

NEW_POP_SPECIES_DIV, the infamous value that is responsible for 90% of the growth problems the community has perceived, is actually also a perfectly fine mechanic, it just needs to be much much much lower. Its only actual purpose should be seeding planets with a pop or two of new species to give them a chance to grow.
The problem is that NEW_POP_SPECIES_DIV is currently the main mechanic that determines which pop grows on a planet, because its values are so high, and if its values are much lower then almost every planet will become pretty much homogeneous without some new growth mechanic being introduced

In my opinion the main mistake was mixing normal growth and Immigration together in the first place. Before 2.2 those two where seperate mechanisms (Immigration made single pop units change planets over time, growth would let the pops of all species on a planet grow).

Honestly at this point I would like the old tile system back. Pop growth worked so much better and the game did not become micromangement hell in the late game. Keep the adavanced economy with alloys, consumer goods, and special buildings, but do it all on one tile system like before 2.2 (and not like now in essentially three seperate but interconnected systems, i.e. sectors, buildings and population).

 

[Tim_Ward]

Fun fact: a species growing on a planet can benefit from immigration even if there are no other species of that type on other planets in the empire.

So I guess people move to that planet and turn into the new species?

Back to the drawing board Paradox.