Pop growth in large empires slows to a crawl, no matter what.

[aroddo]

Damn, that's what you get for ignoring patch notes.
I totally thought that growth progress has to always hit 100 for a new pop to spawn.

... thousands of hours in this game and I never noticed that the ceiling can change.

And here I thought it was a good idea to waste tons of influence to integrate conquered empires ...



Update: I'll quote myself on how to handle that problem:

If the default ruleset slows down pop growth when your empire bloats, then the solution is to make your pops more efficient.

In my case the solution looked like this:

1. Disable crap jobs, i.e. clerks, since I do Merchant spam and have tons of clerk jobs as collateral.
2. Reform government and adopt Corvée System civic, which waives all influence cost for pop resettlement.
3. Shuffle all the excess pops over to your prime estate.
4. Reform again later when Corvée System isn't needed anymore and rely on Direct Democracy's automatic resettlement chance to auto-adjust.

This works in my case since energy income isn't an issue and I just have to efficiently pass the time until the 25x crisis comes around. And build up fleet and tech. 50 years until 2350 ...

Update 2: Got around to conquer a FE Ringworld. Filling that to even normal colony level by normal means would take a thousand years, so I proceeded like this:

1. Identify economically weak sectors with plenty of pops.
2. Build up Gene clinics and Cloning Vats on the emigration colonies.
3. Unemploy ruler and specialist ties, then shuffle most of them over to the ringworld sections. The unemploying prevents workers from filling up high tier jobs when moving them. Moving workers first would lead to workers becoming promoted immediately to higher tier jobs at their destination, so I filled up specialist/ruler jobs first with the respective pops.
4. After source planet pops have been largely emigrated to the ring world, cut the source sector down as much as possible.
5. Create a vassal from the depopulated sector.

The new vassal will have maximum pop growth while the empire barely notices the loss.
Maybe 20 years later, the vassal can be reintegrated as a source of fresh new pops for your optimized but underpopulated worlds.

 

[Nirmara]

This was introduced as a way to put a soft cap on the galactic population thereby massively improving the performances of the game.

You can tweak the growth curve and adjust the ceilling in the settings if you wish to do.

 

[Ryika]

And here I thought it was a good idea to waste tons of influence to integrate conquered empires ...

It is a good idea. You'll never be able to grow pops as quickly as you can acquire them from other empires.
Lategame growth is essentially about abducting pops, conquering planets or subjugating empires to gain pops now.

 

[Scyobi_Empire]

It is a good idea. You'll never be able to grow pops as quickly as you can acquire them from other empires.
Lategame growth is essentially about abducting pops, conquering planets or subjugating empires to gain pops now.

Or using old mods that increase the popgrowth by how many Pops are on a planet, like it should be.

Somehow, the larger the population there is the slower it grows when it should be the inverse.

 

[exi123]

Or using old mods that increase the popgrowth by how many Pops are on a planet, like it should be.

Somehow, the larger the population there is the slower it grows when it should be the inverse.

Thats correct, and thats how it worked on the old tile system. We also had a system which resettled pops to new colonies...

Going further, artificial ceilings for pop growth feels very bad to play. We need mechanics to control growth like automatic population controls when the empire has to much unemployment and overcrowdng and a good working migration system that scales well to big empires in the lategame.

 

[aroddo]

makes sense from a design perspective, i guess.
intuitively, it seems inplausible that the total empire population would affect growth on a planet perfectly suited for it.

 

[Echo Candor One]

On an Ecu or Ring-World you can get growth up to like 14 a month on standard settings.

 

[Incompetent]

It is a good idea. You'll never be able to grow pops as quickly as you can acquire them from other empires.
Lategame growth is essentially about abducting pops, conquering planets or subjugating empires to gain pops now.

This is true for most empires, but there are some that don't have this option. In particular, if you're playing a non-assimilator Machine Intelligence, no matter how expansionist, you still have to assemble practically every drone (to a first approximation) with your own alloys and labour, and then it is pretty frustrating to see the assembly cost constantly increase. As a Gestalt, you're also shut out of cheesing the pop formula with vassals. I mean sure, most non-assimilator MIs can make some use of captured organics, but past a certain point they're worth far less to you per pop than more drones would be worth, and merely having those organics in your empire adds even more to the cost of the drones you're currently assembling.

Strict isolationists don't have great longevity either, but I think Inward Perfection and the Pacifist ethic in general have always been intended to be self-imposed challenges, so that's nothing new.

 

[Harkinian's Dinner]

Or using old mods that increase the popgrowth by how many Pops are on a planet, like it should be.

Somehow, the larger the population there is the slower it grows when it should be the inverse.

That's not how it works at all though. Population growth in real life doesn't depend on the population number, it depends on available resources and/or living standards. Human population is growing slower now than 50 years ago, because we have reached a kind of "soft cap" where we don't want to have too many children.

 

[theBigTurnip385]

It is a good idea. You'll never be able to grow pops as quickly as you can acquire them from other empires.
Lategame growth is essentially about abducting pops, conquering planets or subjugating empires to gain pops now.

Except you can just turn off at game start and then its never a problem

 

[Nevars]

As it should be, you know about sub replacement fertility problems that a lot of modern nations are now facing right?

So under this model, it is more realistic than the old unlimited growth though it's not 100% realistic ofc nothing ever will but at least it is better.

 

[theBigTurnip385]

This is true for most empires, but there are some that don't have this option. In particular, if you're playing a non-assimilator Machine Intelligence, no matter how expansionist, you still have to assemble practically every drone (to a first approximation) with your own alloys and labour, and then it is pretty frustrating to see the assembly cost constantly increase. As a Gestalt, you're also shut out of cheesing the pop formula with vassals. I mean sure, most non-assimilator MIs can make some use of captured organics, but past a certain point they're worth far less to you per pop than more drones would be worth, and merely having those organics in your empire adds even more to the cost of the drones you're currently assembling.

Strict isolationists don't have great longevity either, but I think Inward Perfection and the Pacifist ethic in general have always been intended to be self-imposed challenges, so that's nothing new.

If you want to run a pop growth only empire, turn off scaling.
Run Pacifist + Fanatic Xenophobe

Use the Syncretic Start combined with double budding, both your species need budding, run a megacorp, pleasure seeker, catalytic Processing.

domestic servitude your slaves and have them work 2 jobs, farmers + servants, run merchant spam, plus science, tech rush.

Once you have gene modding mod your slaves into two templates
Template 1 - Food - keep them as chattel slaves working farms until you can nerve staple them, then livestock
Template 2 - Servants - these are set as domestic servants and thanks to pleasure seekers that produce 10 amenities, any planet that is low on amenties gets one of these sent on over.

This works very well for growing pops due to budding and livestock + Servants only use .25 housing so you can place a lot of them on a single planet/habbitat.

 

[Archael90]

View attachment 765342

Damn, that's what you get for ignoring patch notes.
I totally thought that growth progress has to always hit 100 for a new pop to spawn.

... thousands of hours in this game and I never noticed that the ceiling can change.

And here I thought it was a good idea to waste tons of influence to integrate conquered empires ...

Now You have to proritize which worlds you want to develop, and which has to stay at lower development state.
Close workplaces on worlds from which you want pops to move, and wait. Each month some unemployed pops will go to the world with open jobs, and the undeveloped worlds will still (slowly but still) produce new pops.

 

[Scyobi_Empire]

If you want to run a pop growth only empire, turn off scaling.
Run Pacifist + Fanatic Xenophobe

Use the Syncretic Start combined with double budding, both your species need budding, run a megacorp, pleasure seeker, catalytic Processing.

domestic servitude your slaves and have them work 2 jobs, farmers + servants, run merchant spam, plus science, tech rush.

Once you have gene modding mod your slaves into two templates
Template 1 - Food - keep them as chattel slaves working farms until you can nerve staple them, then livestock
Template 2 - Servants - these are set as domestic servants and thanks to pleasure seekers that produce 10 amenities, any planet that is low on amenties gets one of these sent on over.

This works very well for growing pops due to budding and livestock + Servants only use .25 housing so you can place a lot of them on a single planet/habbitat.

Sounds like a Lathrix build, am I correct?

 

[Tsavong]

I always set the ceiling to 0,1 now instead of the 0,25 . This still allows pops to grow in a reasonable way in 2300 and also still reduces the pop explosion that happens without such modifier.
Without the modifier the pop-growth becomes faster and faster over time do to % modifiers like cloning and planets being in the sweet spot for max growth and additional pop assembly.
With it set to 0.1 its as fast in 2300 then at the start in my impression. Since i'm already in end-game then and most times stop playing about 2375 or earlier thats fine .

 

[BrokenSky]

Thats correct, and thats how it worked on the old tile system. We also had a system which resettled pops to new colonies...

Going further, artificial ceilings for pop growth feels very bad to play. We need mechanics to control growth like automatic population controls when the empire has to much unemployment and overcrowdng and a good working migration system that scales well to big empires in the lategame.

Personally, I'd like it if fighting over-population (or at least the problems it causes) was a deliberate late-game challenge, complete with major political issues as unemployed pops cause a little instability even when very happy (and disproportionately more when unhappy). People who don't have to spend time working all day have more time to cause trouble. People who can't afford basic living costs have more reason to cause trouble. Conventionally, unemployment gives people a hefty lump of both (and even if you give them utopian abundance, they still have the first, and people are kinda infamous for being really good at finding things to be upset about).

You could then have different ethic-aligned solutions; for example you might fight costly wars which reduce your population, you might upload people into AI who take up a fraction of the space, you might expand into other empires, displace or genocide the locals for space for your empire, you might resort to ecumenopolises or put habitats around every rock with enough gravity to be orbited etc.

Not sure how well it'd work in the game atm though, you'd need to tweak a lot of things. Maybe for Stellaris 2 though...

 

[Surimi]

That's not how it works at all though. Population growth in real life doesn't depend on the population number, it depends on available resources and/or living standards. Human population is growing slower now than 50 years ago, because we have reached a kind of "soft cap" where we don't want to have too many children.

While the real life slowdown in population growth is a bit more complicated (it has more to do with increasing wealth, education and contraception than with some realisation that the planet is full, which it kind of isn't especially if we're talking a few centuries into the future) the relentless focus on pop growth in Stellaris' economy has always been kind of ridiculous. All empires, regardless of ethics, kind of work like 19th century industrial economies with massive population growth and huge mining and farming sectors.

I don't think there's much that can be done to change that with the way Stellaris works now, but it would be nice if population growth were something that had to be incentivized or created through the right conditions (for example, by deliberately creating an impoverished underclass) but where it would also be a viable choice to trade in population growth for automation or efficiency benefits. I see no reason why in the future one highly educated worker with a lot of automated machinery won't be able to do the work of hundreds or even thousands of barely-literate neo-feudal serfs, and it would create a meaningful difference between different kinds of empires.

Also, having not every empire focused on massive population growth would probably solve much of the performance problem without the need for arbitrary caps.

 

[aroddo]

I always set the ceiling to 0,1 now instead of the 0,25 . This still allows pops to grow in a reasonable way in 2300 and also still reduces the pop explosion that happens without such modifier.
Without the modifier the pop-growth becomes faster and faster over time do to % modifiers like cloning and planets being in the sweet spot for max growth and additional pop assembly.
With it set to 0.1 its as fast in 2300 then at the start in my impression. Since i'm already in end-game then and most times stop playing about 2375 or earlier thats fine .

Nah, the solution to a puzzle isn't to change it.

If the default ruleset slows down pop growth when your empire bloats, then the solution is to make your pops more efficient.

In my case the solution looked like this:

1. Disable crap jobs, i.e. clerks, since I do Merchant spam and have tons of clerk jobs as collateral.
2. Reform government and adopt Corvée System civic, which waives all influence cost for pop resettlement.
3. Shuffle all the excess pops over to your prime estate.
4. Reform again later when Corvée System isn't needed anymore and rely on Direct Democracy's automatic resettlement chance to auto-adjust.

This works in my case since energy income isn't an issue and I just have to efficiently pass the time until the 25x crisis comes around. And build up fleet and tech. 50 years until 2350 ...

 

[Tsavong]

Nah, the solution to a puzzle isn't to change it.

If the default ruleset slows down pop growth when your empire bloats, then the solution is to make your pops more efficient.

In my case the solution looked like this:

1. Disable crap jobs, i.e. clerks, since I do Merchant spam and have tons of clerk jobs as collateral.
2. Reform government and adopt Corvée System civic, which waives all influence cost for pop resettlement.
3. Shuffle all the excess pops over to your prime estate.
4. Reform again later when Corvée System isn't needed anymore and rely on Direct Democracy's automatic resettlement chance to auto-adjust.

This works in my case since energy income isn't an issue and I just have to efficiently pass the time until the 25x crisis comes around. And build up fleet and tech. 50 years until 2350 ...

And why should I do that, if i dont like to?? . I'm playing the game to have fun afterall.

 

[rubert]

I really wish there was some long term way to increase effiency of the pops rather than only rely on the pop growth. I have always found it bit silly that your capital or the oldest colony can easily replaced by a random colony once you just build the buildings/districts and move pops over.

I think 100+ year stable colony world should be more efficient at producing research than a fresh colony which just has been filled by labs.