Is there a way to slow down population boom?

[superdeluxe]

Now that everyone has upgraded homes, they are breeding like rabbits, I feel like I can't build homes fast enough for all the babies.

I want to get more specialists, but you only get those through refugees, but I can't build for refugees because everyone keeps on having babies. It feels a bit like a whack-a-mole. at this point.

I'm thinking about destroying all my homes, and putting people back into tents and emergency shelters so they stop with the relations.

 

[Archiver_2k4]

yes, its the 2 storey housing causing all those babies.. destroy them & go back t earlier shelters.

 

[gilschwartzman]

yes, its the 2 storey housing causing all those babies.. destroy them & go back t earlier shelters.

While this is technically a solution, it isn't a good one. Why even have high quality housing if the end result is always an unsustainable population boom?

Hopefully the devs have plans for some sort of government or rules that can be applied to society, one of which could be restricting child birth. It's pretty much essential in Surviving Mars, no reason why it would be any different for StA.

We also need natural death from old age in the game. As it is, if you play the game well, people don't die, further contributing to an unsustainable population.

 

[Archiver_2k4]

why tenement ( no babies ) & 2 storey houses ( way too many babies ), house the same number of people & they are cheaper to build.

 

[Dextarious]

kids are good. teach at a school eventually you get an "improved worker". build lots of tenements and only a few houses to manage population(pop) keep that school at 100% capacity, remember the school is consuming a worker/carrier! Demo house if need to for pop control. Amass resources, turn off medics during disaster, control game speed and let adults die off keeping kids and teachers alive.

 

[Horemvore]

3-6 Two Story Houses and the rest as Tenemants will give you a steady increase in population. (3 giving around 1 pop a day)

 

[xXXUndeadEnigma]

I pretty much only use tenements for housing, with a couple (2-4) top tier houses designated for "breeders". This allows me to trickle in enough children to keep 1-2 schools filled with kids that with get the 15 % productivity bonus as adults. I cull the older un-educated population by periodically shutting down all med buildings and letting Darwin take the wheel as radiation, infections and injuries naturally thin the herd.

 

[Archiver_2k4]

lol.. seems harsh but effective.

 

[clayffo]

I would agree that for 100+ communities there is little need to recruit unless you have a catastrophic event; the breeding is sufficient to grow at a sustainable rate.

It would be nice to be able to train existing specialists with a new building.( improve skills) Also same building would allow for either spawning of or training new specialists at defined intervals

 

[gilschwartzman]

why tenement ( no babies ) & 2 storey houses ( way too many babies ), house the same number of people & they are cheaper to build.

Because better housing gives a happiness boost. There should be a way to have the happiness boost that comes with the best housing without ending up with unsustainable population growth.

kids are good. teach at a school eventually you get an "improved worker". build lots of tenements and only a few houses to manage population(pop) keep that school at 100% capacity, remember the school is consuming a worker/carrier! Demo house if need to for pop control. Amass resources, turn off medics during disaster, control game speed and let adults die off keeping kids and teachers alive.

I shouldn't have to use disasters to cull an unsustainable population. Similar to the above, this comes with a penalty to happiness. Hopefully the game will eventually introducing aging within adults, and natural deaths that do not negatively impact happiness. This would allow us to do as you say, have births, school, and then educated workers without the crazy population boom.

 

[ichadwick]

I want a Soylent Green/Modest Proposal solution. Why waste all that good protein?

 

[superdeluxe]

Welp right after my request for population help, i entered into what I would call a 'Death Spiral' I lost 100+ to famine and radiation. I tried to boost/raise food production, but people kept on dying..which means i had less and less workers. I reverted to a old save before I went crazy building two story homes.

 

[ichadwick]

i entered into what I would call a 'Death Spiral' I lost 100+ to famine and radiation.

Yep. Saw that in earlier releases, but not this one yet. Population crashes, and they take their clothes and tools with them. I imagine an afterlife with parkas and hammers.

 

[Czert99]

Yep. Saw that in earlier releases, but not this one yet. Population crashes, and they take their clothes and tools with them. I imagine an afterlife with parkas and hammers.

jup, for now, until unlimited resources are added, we need that every dead body is striped from any clothes/tools before burried at pit. and idealy for some penalty to hapines we should use deead bodies as fertizer for temporal boost of food production at fields.
for many reasons frostpunk is one of best apocalypse games ever.

 

[Anutha_1]

So from my understanding, the colonists start breeding like rabbits when you start building two story houses. Are there dependencies built around it; e.g. like building more two story houses that can house more than the current population you have in your colony itself or if you built just enough 2SH to house your current population this won't occur or what exactly? So even if your 2SH are all at full capacity, the "rabbit breeding" still takes place?

If once you start building 2SH and this "rabbit breeding" starts occurring regardless of your population, how quickly before it starts taking effect? Immediately or after so many days time or what?

 

[Gilgamoth]

It's not just 2SH, it anything that makes them happy and well rested, so houses and 2SH, although they do bread in Shanty's just not as much.

 

[Anutha_1]

It's not just 2SH, it anything that makes them happy and well rested, so houses and 2SH, although they do bread in Shanty's just not as much.

Okay, that makes more sense then. I'm currently at a population 55 all housed in eight 2SH with nine open spots available but am still receiving a Average Happiness indicator under the Happiness identifier in the top drop-down menu with the message underneath it indicating the following:

Colonists are neither sad nor happy, hoping for the best and fearing the worst.

I haven't built any of the other buildings/structures yet that grant happiness bonuses of any sort (Memorial, Arena, etc.) and my current population has yet to start breeding it appears like as my population hasn't increased on its own yet but that it more than likely due to their happiness still only being at Average Happiness as well though, I'm assuming. So, in and of itself, having 2SH alone isn't the reason they breed like rabbits eventually, thus if you want to control population growth, I would think it would be easy enough to just not construct those certain Happiness structures that push them over the top as far as Happiness is concerned. Yeah, you may not be able to build all of the buildings the game is allowing you to but it's at your discretion if you want to face the consequences of doing so, which in this case is resulting in your colony over-populating itself.

 

[Gilgamoth]

but am still receiving a Average Happiness indicator under the Happiness identifier in the top drop-down menu with the message underneath it indicating the following:

Yeah, Happimess isn't fully complete yet. The fact that you are +138 for Happiness for well-rested is the current indicator

 

[Anutha_1]

Yeah, Happimess isn't fully complete yet. The fact that you are +138 for Happiness for well-rested is the current indicator

Yeah, but what is this same indicator indicating for those players whose colonists are breeding like rabbits?

Can't imagine Average Happiness, correct?

Except for bread not providing a Happiness bonus as it indicates in-game it should be doing and currently isn't, Happiness as a whole may be working exactly as planned and executed by the developers possibly, I'm thinking?

By that, I mean, it's the player's choice whether they want to build all of the Happiness structures that are available to build and thus, if they do, face the wrath of their colonists breeding like rabbits upon doing so and their colony growing exponentially population wise.

 

[Gilgamoth]

Except for bread not providing a Happiness bonus as it indicates in-game it should be doing and currently isn't, Happiness as a whole may be working exactly as planned and executed by the developers possibly, I'm thinking?

Bread may give happiness, but only for a short time after it's consumed. If you center your view on the food storage and see a little happy face when someone exists, check your happiness breakdown then. I know you get a short booster after a birth, may be the same after eating.