Pop mortality – what if pops did not last forever?

[Lorenerd11]

The Overclocked traits in Toxoids got me thinking.

All of them will shorten leader lifespan.

But that's the thing; both these traits and the Fleeting trait only affect leaders. They have no effect whatsoever on pops, and as such, do not affect the game at all if you don't hire leaders from those templates (which you can achieve more easily with the Residence rights).

Not to mention there's this semi-permanency when it comes pops and their species templates; once you modify a pop, it stays like that forever.

So, what if the pops were not immortal? Instead, they die out over time, just like leaders do. Of course, pop growth would need to be adjusted to outpace pop aging, but it would also represent generational cycles. Traits like Enduring, and Fleeting would also affect this, meaning they now no longer only affect leaders, but pops as well, making them play a much larger role in gameplay.

 

[Ryika]

Until someone comes up with a good implementation, I'd categorize that under "Things that sound cool, but probably lead to all kinds of annoying problems."

Main issue that comes to mind immediately is that an unlucky steak of deaths can actually significantly reduce your resource income from one day to the other, especially since pops will move up into higher stratum jobs, so it'll always be the base resource production that suddenly drops away completely.

But then there's also the issue where you suddenly plateau when you reach the stage where your pops start dying at the rate that you replace them at. The game would need a fundamental redesign where you're no longer expected to always grow to gain in power, and I don't think that's really in the scope of things that we're going to see.

Stability may dip suddenly if the wrong pops die on a small planet, your pop growth may reset if the last pop of a species dies while another one is growing elsewhere, etc. etc.

A thematic idea, but I don't really see how one would design it avoid these problems.

 

[The5lacker]

Remember, the individual Pop units are an abstraction of the general number of bodies in your empire. Those bodies aren't the same bodies across the whole of the game, but it's presumed even with zero pop growth people are still making babies enough to reach replacement rate.

 

[InvisibleBison]

The game would need a fundamental redesign where you're no longer expected to always grow to gain in power

Isn't this already something that happens, thanks to the pop cost scaling? There's no real difference between growing one pop every thirty years and not growing at all.

 

[Critical Ethics]

The problem is the one pop at a time growth. Due to how that all works it frequently results in one species' "growth" being stolen by another species, in sometimes obvious ways (the infamous humans traveling to mars and turning into blorg from back when it was first announced). As long as it stays one pop at a time they can't really properly utilise the decline mechanics because it would exacerbate the flaws in the system until they become unignorably visible.

 

[Weyird]

I think the simplest way was if pop growth was reduced by shorter lifespans. But even that would necesitate an entire rethinking of pop growth and traits that would end up just cancelling each other out and end up playing the exact same way as before - a lot of work on the devs part for not a lot of reward.

But i do agree with you in principlal and it's on my wish list for Stellaris 2.

 

[Sir Roderick]

Pops shouldn't be affected, and anyway you would have to stack a lot of negative modifiers to make pops live less than fertile age so it's not an issue.

 

[Critical Ethics]

I think the simplest way was if pop growth was reduced by shorter lifespans. But even that would necesitate an entire rethinking of pop growth and traits that would end up just cancelling each other out and end up playing the exact same way as before - a lot of work on the devs part for not a lot of reward.

But i do agree with you in principlal and it's on my wish list for Stellaris 2.

One of the advantages of regular pop decline would be template cycling. Since new growth is heavily weighted to maxed out templates your pops dying off would be replaced by upgraded pops naturally without messing about with manual projects. Also you could remove the pop teleport system and replace it with pops "dying off" on one world due to emigration while boosting growth elsewhere, which would be a huge optimisation boost.

 

[Sir Roderick]

One of the advantages of regular pop decline would be template cycling. Since new growth is heavily weighted to maxed out templates your pops dying off would be replaced by upgraded pops naturally without messing about with manual projects. Also you could remove the pop teleport system and replace it with pops "dying off" on one world due to emigration while boosting growth elsewhere, which would be a huge optimisation boost.

What you mean with maxed out templates?

 

[Critical Ethics]

What you mean with maxed out templates?

The game currently prioritises building templates that have the most trait points. e.g. if you have a bunch of templates with solitary on them, then you research gene tailoring and dupe all those templates but with solitary removed, the game deprioritises the old solitary templates because they're worth less points.

 

[Silesian Burd]

All of this ignores the fact that Overtuned is going to be a nightmare to take in MP, because everyone will rush your booty to have your amazing Pops.

 

[Sir Roderick]

All of this ignores the fact that Overtuned is going to be a nightmare to take in MP, because everyone will rush your booty to have your amazing Pops.

Why, wouldn't you need biological ascension? And is booty a pirates reference?

 

[Silesian Burd]

Why, wouldn't you need biological ascension? And is booty a pirates reference?

Well, you're gonna be able to keep and use whatever superhumans the Overtuned player comes up with.

And by booty, I meant butt, as in "they shall kick it and take your Pops".

 

[ZeeHero]

Hell no. I'd much rather they work on revamping the pops system to the point you don't have individual pops which all have their own checks in the code for everything.

Single biggest reason this game STILL has massive performance issues, especially with any significant modding.

 

[Sir Roderick]

Well, you're gonna be able to keep and use whatever superhumans the Overtuned player comes up with.

And by booty, I meant butt, as in "they shall kick it and take your Pops".

Don't you have to wait they finish genetic ascension and use all trait points before you do that though?

 

[ImaTomato]

Pops grow and sustain themself.Making them die off from age is stupid and makes no sense.

 

[BrokenSky]

I mean adding a continuous pop decline to all planets is something I do thing would be good, but that would be specifically as part of a much large pop growth overhaul which moved the majority of pop growth to pops (so each pop contributes an amount of planetary growth and planetary decline based on things like traits, living standards, tech/traditions etc.) with only a small baseline amount so that early-game colonies aren't dead in the water.

By itself though, I'm not sure.

 

[Silesian Burd]

Hell no. I'd much rather they work on revamping the pops system to the point you don't have individual pops which all have their own checks in the code for everything.

Single biggest reason this game STILL has massive performance issues, especially with any significant modding.

I still want to be able to tag and follow a Pop around, like I thought I'd be able to do in Victoria 2 and Imperator: Rome... heck, like the characters in Crusader Kings 2, but not that intensive. Why Paradox has never had this story-telling function despite it being one of a few excuses for the game lagging out of reality is beyond me.

 

[苏白@夢璃花]

If you want this, go play city skyline instead of grand strategy games

 

[HFY]

So, what if the pops were not immortal? Instead, they die out over time, just like leaders do. Of course, pop growth would need to be adjusted to outpace pop aging, but it would also represent generational cycles. Traits like Enduring, and Fleeting would also affect this, meaning they now no longer only affect leaders, but pops as well, making them play a much larger role in gameplay.

The game has Sterilization Purge so there is a mechanic which assumes pops could have limited lifespans, and that purge allows the pop to live out its natural lifespan but not replenish itself.

Right now the purge feels kinda dumb because pops don't have limited lifespans.

Also, immortal pops means job stratification get set in place once and doesn't change naturally over the course of the game. What I'd like to see happen is that immigrants & refugees come in taking low-tier jobs -- Clerk perhaps -- and then over time they move up to jobs they fit better.

To get that effect, and to make Sterilization Purge feel less dumb, one simple mechanic might be:

- When a pop "dies", remove that pop and immediately add a new one of the same type as if it were freshly grown.
- If the species is being Sterilized, don't replace that pop.
- Track pop age so traits like Enduring can have their intended effect, or don't and just use those traits as weights when rolling for death.

This would allow job movement over time, as Specialist and Ruler pops die off over time and are filled with the best pop on the colony.

Since every pop is immediately replaced by an "offspring" pop, there is no need to mess with growth rates. Everything would work the same as now, except Sterilization Purge would feel less forced, and pops would naturally filter up & down in strata over time.