Is Pop Migration still a thing?

[markusr]

So, I'm playing Stellaris again after quite a while and one of the things they seemed to have changed in Le Guin is that pops don't migrate any more on their own. Am I missing something or is the only way to move already existing pops from planet to planet by resettling them actively? I hope I'm missing something, because that makes the new system tedious, when you don't want any more pops on a planet, but don't want to waste its growth...

 

[Delthor]

Pops don't move wholesale anymore. Instead, in the pop window next to the number of pops, there's an icon for immigration/emigration. These concepts now operate as a modifier on your growth. Different things cause immigration pull and emigration push. If emigration push is larger than immigration pull, you'll see a penalty to pop growth speed, and that growth will be distributed to other worlds where pull is greatear than push, proportionate to the net pull. In these worlds where you have immigration, you get a bonus to pop growth speed. If you sum up all immigration and emigration numbers, the two values should be nearly identical, plus or minus bonuses to immigration, since those don't affect emigration; just growth from immigration (the diplomacy opener and nomadic are two cases of this). There's also a cap to these two values. I've heard immigration is capped at 5, and emigration doesn't seem to reduce pop growth below 0.3 no matter how high it goes (which is effectively zero, as that's about one pop per 300+ years).

 

[markusr]

Hm, okay. I know about the passive modifiers to growth, but I still would like already existing pops to migrate, that is once housing/jobs on a planet are lacking, pops should migrate to greener pastures, where both are in overabundance, on their own. This would *greatly* reduce really bad micromanagement.

 

[Ramiel]

The Pops won't move directly, but existing pops can decline and eventually vanish on a planet, especially if paired with heavy emigration. Combined with growth from immigration the net effect should be as if pops were moving from one planet to another.
At least that's how it should work eventually. Right now the actual numbers are all whack, so some pops will immigrate to 20% habitability planets while others kill themselves off with pop decline. I'm sure it'll get all worked out eventually though.

 

[Delthor]

I still would like already existing pops to migrate, that is once housing/jobs on a planet are lacking, pops should migrate to greener pastures, where both are in overabundance, on their own. This would *greatly* reduce really bad micromanagement.

If you don't need any more pop growth on a planet, use the "stop growth" decision. It'll change all but 0.3 of your growth into emmigration. If you're egalitarian, it's a bit more expensive, but you keep the tiny bit of pop growth.