Pop growth and how 10 people reproduce as much as 200

[happyscrub]

As others said, the current system is exploitable. As a hivemind, I mass colonized and take over planets with no intention of building on them anytime soon. I just put down 1 building and leave them there for decades just so I can have more drone babies

 

[Foefaller]

I like your idea for multi-species growth. Much better than the current system.

However, I'm not sold on making the growth of a planet depend on its current population. That would lead to massive population growth on already populated planets, which doesn't really work with the way the game is structured. For instance, the cap on number of buildings would mean you'd eventually get a lot more pops than you have jobs for. Perhaps this system could work if you introduce another modifier that significantly suppresses population growth as it approaches some pre-determined limit based on number of districts.

It already exists though; Emigration pull increases if the planet gets overcrowded or runs out of jobs, which reduced pop growth on that planet to increase the growth on another.

 

[LeonOfOddecca]

It already exists though; Emigration pull increases if the planet gets overcrowded or runs out of jobs, which reduced pop growth on that planet to increase the growth on another.

Sure, but I was talking specifically about Shadowstriker's proposed system. I'm not sure that the current malus to growth would be enough to counter the massive growth of highly developed empires, if base growth = current population * 0.01. Imagine that you've settled all the planets in your borders, and they're all at minimum 40 population. Then all you have is massive growth with no where to move to.

 

[Shadowstrike]

One straightforward solution would be to have the housing (multiplicative) modifier go down to 0 if you have no housing - essentially shutting off population growth if there is nowhere to go. The amenities modifier could do the same thing. A more complex version would be to have a separate "cutoff" modifier which only kicks in if there is a) no valid emigration targets, and b) either the planet has no housing left, or no amenities left.

A somewhat darker answer could be that overpopulation eventually becomes a crisis of its own: you either have to impose draconian population controls (or ways to discourage people from reproducing), keep building habitats/ringworlds/ecumenopoli where people can live, start purging, or start going to war to remove population pressures. That could feed into galactic lore about repeated boom/bust cycles as empires rise, overpopulate, then either find a way to deal with it (by stagnating as fallen empires), or destroying themselves through cycles of war.

 

[Jorgen_CAB]

Sure, but I was talking specifically about Shadowstriker's proposed system. I'm not sure that the current malus to growth would be enough to counter the massive growth of highly developed empires, if base growth = current population * 0.01. Imagine that you've settled all the planets in your borders, and they're all at minimum 40 population. Then all you have is massive growth with no where to move to.

And this would be an interesting and realistic "problem" to solve. You could do this by using polices such as Social Welfare or Utopian Abundance or you can sign migration treatise and have them migrate away or you can get the ascension perk for habitats and ring worlds etc. Also, growth should eventually halt when housing start to become negative, but it should also lead to crime and social unrest unless you combat it somehow.

As a Hive the whole point is to have such growth you need to make war with the neighbors to secure new planets to grow on and spread like a locus.

Right now you grow in reverse of how you SHOULD grow.

You should need land to migrate POP to, not get land to emigrate from, that make no sense what so ever... at least not in the early to mid game.

 

[Blodo]

How about an empire wide pop growth rate that increases as a function of total population in the empire, and is then divided across all of the currently colonised worlds? It's a neat little solution to mass colonising (colonise too much and your planetary growth rate will slow down to a crawl) but it also scales into the late game when your population level is getting high and you're getting pretty wide.

Edit: It seems like I should really read the rest of the thread before responding. Consider this my endorsement for Shadowstriker's proposed solution. And if some people are concerned about a snowball, it doesn't have to be a linear function, it can be some kind of parabolic with a "max" amount of pops, maybe as a function of total possible pop capacity on all planets?

 

[Seedy]

I like your idea for multi-species growth. Much better than the current system.

However, I'm not sold on making the growth of a planet depend on its current population. That would lead to massive population growth on already populated planets, which doesn't really work with the way the game is structured. For instance, the cap on number of buildings would mean you'd eventually get a lot more pops than you have jobs for. Perhaps this system could work if you introduce another modifier that significantly suppresses population growth as it approaches some pre-determined limit based on number of districts.

Seems like total pop, up to a certain point, should increase growth. If you aren't over crowded then given 10 pops should reproduce faster than one, if otherwise the same growth rate.
There should be a relative malus for habitability too, i.e. my 25 alpine pops should grow faster than the 1 desert pop, on an alpine planet. And yet I keep seeing one race only for years and year, then a single refugee lands and nothing else grows. That one refugee grows on all my planets.

 

[HydroAC]

Interesting discussion. In my Driven Assimilator run my robots churn out based on factory capacity. That makes sense, and I can increase the robot factories if I want. The cyborgs have a set reproduction rate as noted above. I didn't pay much attention since my focus was to find new raw material for assimilation.

While I agree with the OP that higher pops can generate more pop babies, but there are many factors that influence birth rate. For instance, the USA has a reproduction rate that is just a bit less than what is needed for replacement (e.g. no net population growth) and the USA population grows because of immigration. Some larger countries (China, Japan, Italy) have sharply negative pop growth. There are many reasons for this and comparing countries to worlds is an imperfect reference at best, but the bottom line is that more population does not necessarily mean exploding pop babies on a planet.

 

[faljen_isus]

One straightforward solution would be to have the housing (multiplicative) modifier go down to 0 if you have no housing - essentially shutting off population growth if there is nowhere to go. The amenities modifier could do the same thing. A more complex version would be to have a separate "cutoff" modifier which only kicks in if there is a) no valid emigration targets, and b) either the planet has no housing left, or no amenities left.

A somewhat darker answer could be that overpopulation eventually becomes a crisis of its own: you either have to impose draconian population controls (or ways to discourage people from reproducing), keep building habitats/ringworlds/ecumenopoli where people can live, start purging, or start going to war to remove population pressures. That could feed into galactic lore about repeated boom/bust cycles as empires rise, overpopulate, then either find a way to deal with it (by stagnating as fallen empires), or destroying themselves through cycles of war.

mostly agree, but 0 housing and 0 amenities stopping growth isn't the way to go, because overcrowding of habitable zones is kinda the staple of all organic life, before it balances out in different ways, but having leeway in your housing and amenities is, imo, the way to go

for instance, your planet produces 200 amen, 100 hous, you could have the the 0 growth modifier at -15%(x) where x is amen or housing effectively giving you time before you have to do something and to enable you to revise a strategy, hell, make it a 3tier policy with different thresholds:

1. mandatory housing policy: -5% mark stops growth, +2% stability, -2% pop happiness (gov controls over population numbers have made our society more stable, albeit not all are content /must not be fanatic egalitarian/)
2. flexible housing markets: -10% mark stops growth, 1 clerk job per 2 negative housing, -2% max stability, +1 minimum crime per negative housing, unemployed pops produce society research, but have increased consumer goods upkeep (our people have te freedom to live as they wish, and to work for a place of their living, the way they earn a roof over their heads is not our concern)
3. loosely regulated construction: -15% mark stops growth, -5% housing needs, -5% max stability, -2% ruler happiness, +5% worker happiness, 1 social worker job per 3 negative housing (food and consumer goods upkeep, produces unity and socio research, +0,5% happines per job for worker and unemployed strata, growth -1%), allows planetary decision "slumlord" that adds a district blocker which add a flat amount of housing and increases minimum planet crime by +15 (how the lowest of us live is up to them, we may find the time to help them, but if this is what makes them happier, so be it)

edit: renamed point 3

 

[Tim_Ward]

Yeah, this is one of the aspects of 2.2. that needs a rethink.

 

[TheGrouch91]

That's a pretty expensive option. Also where are you resettling them to? All the other low habitability planets you spam-colonized?

I'm not saying this play-style is impossible, maybe you can make it work. But it's not as though there aren't substantial costs associated with this. It's not just some kind of over-looked exploit, which seems to be the suggestion in this thread.

Uhm... nobody says that spamming colonies is an exploit. It is working as intended. Whether or not it is fun or balanced is another question.

And to answer your question. You're obviously not only settling shit planets. With standard settings you will have at least 3 habitable planets. On average you end up with 5 or more. And until those planets reach their absolute maximum pop cap you will easily have tech to either terraform, modify your species or build things to colonize. Also, if you keep the housing at exactly 10 then the natural emigration will take care of most of your resettling without any cost.

 

[Atreides]

If Habitability affected growth rate that would be an improvement.

If that 10% habitability planet came with a -40% growth rate, there would be significantly less reward for setting there.

 

[Aotrs Commander]

Among other things, the growth penalty for the manually selected species needs to go or needs to be reduced to something sensible, like 5%.

While pointing out that 20% less population gives you less than 20% more population because no single trait bonus is worth 20%... It occurred to me the penalty is double that of slow breeders.

That's ridiculous, and an arbitary slap on the hand for no discernable reason.

 

[faljen_isus]

i came up with a 4th tier to my policies list

4. free builders initiative: current system where pops grow infinitely, -7% max stability, -5% ruler/specialist max happiness, +10% minimum worker happiness, 1 social worker job per 3 negative housing (food and consumer goods upkeep, produces unity and socio research, +0,5% happines per job for worker and unemployed strata, growth -1%, for every 5% below the 10% housing/amenities a random district is replaced with an "overpopulated slums" district blocker that gives: +10 housing, +1 clerk job per 15 pops, +1 enforcer job per 50 pops, +1% sociology research modifier, +15 crime (note that not minumum)
this policy will enable a somewhat "spiral out of control" scenario where all your districts will be substituted with slums if left unchecked, where you will get an "imperial/republic slum planet" that gives an additional 10% pop growth on the planet, and a stackable +5% immigration empire level growth bonus, additionally there would be a +1 clerk job per tier of planet management per 30 pops (so +1/+2/+3 and a +1/+2 for T2/T3 capital on enforcer jobs
the slum planet would be comparable to ecumenopolis levels of pops but it would hardly be profitable as you wont get regular district jobs, just buildings slots and probably extreme levels of crime