"Pops" are very misleading

[Anzeginame]

I dont think you have the clear picture of the difference here. What you have said is true but thing is Victoria 2 offers a much larger diversity in pops than this game since pops in that game are specified not only according to what you said but also their profession. The pops in Victoria 2 are also quantified which I doubt stellaris "pops" will be BUT the most important thing is that there is an indepth economic simulation for all these pops and since there is no simulated economy in Stellaris I dont see how these "pops" could in any way be as alive and dynamic as the ones in Victoria 2

I don't think the game is designed to handle hundreds of cultures, religions, and occupations, across tens of races, It'd be like multiplying all of V2 across every race and planet. I don't think this is what the Devs want with Stellaris. The Economies of Stellaris are thousands of times larger than all of V2, and are representing more of the PPP of an empire rather than its GDP. The POPs in Stellaris aren't meant to feel alive, they are the workers creating stuff for your empire. if a single POP represented 1 family V2 style, you would be dealing with literally billions by the end of the game, this wouldn't be immersive, it would be impossible to manage.

 

[Safehold]

I think the difference between an economic simulator in V2 is very clear from a simulation of the population mechanics. The economy is not the population, even though some historical games like to link them together for gameplay and history lore reasons.

 

[CptWilly]

Why would you be disappointed about that? Any planet must have a maximum amount of resources they have to sustain a population. Then increasing this with tech or farms on the planet would make sense

It strikes me that your point only applies to a planet in autarky. With a whole galaxy of resources at its disposal and dozens or even potentially hundreds of agricultural worlds from which to import food, what is to limit population? Physical space on a planet is certainly not the limiting factor most 4X games imply it is... The entire present population of Earth could fit into the state of New Jersey quite easily if no accounting were made for comfort or provisions.

Population growth should definitely depend on in-game factors and planetary conditions, and populations should be able to plateau and experience periods of zero growth (or even population loss) under the appropriate circumstances, but a hard cap (essentially saying, "population growth has stopped because your planet is now full") is silly and artificial. I fully understand why someone might be disappointed with that.

 

[Danarcis]

It strikes me that your point only applies to a planet in autarky. With a whole galaxy of resources at its disposal and dozens or even potentially hundreds of agricultural worlds from which to import food, what is to limit population? Physical space on a planet is certainly not the limiting factor most 4X games imply it is... The entire present population of Earth could fit into the state of New Jersey quite easily if no accounting were made for comfort or provisions.

Population growth should definitely depend on in-game factors and planetary conditions, and populations should be able to plateau and experience periods of zero growth (or even population loss) under the appropriate circumstances, but a hard cap (essentially saying, "population growth has stopped because your planet is now full") is silly and artificial. I fully understand why someone might be disappointed with that.

I just saw the cap as the representation of the resources they are able to pull in. Regardless of whether it is from other planets or from high tech agricultural facilities.
Having the cap rise and fall, with squalor or population growth as a result, would be part of my view of how a cap would work.. Like CIV 5, but with a visible upper limit to reach, with the current situation in mind.

Though I am not really sure how it will work in the released version.

 

[CptWilly]

I think we're effectively talking about the same thing... I think the disappointment stems from an impression (I'm not sure whether it is accurate or not, but some are certainly opperating under it) that if a planet only has 30 workable tiles and only one POP is allowed per tile, the planets population will be hard-capped at 30 POPs regardless or resource availability or technology.

 

[VineFynn]

I feel like the POPs in this game were, for lack of a better word, "inspired" by the POPs from EU Rome. Relatively shallow when held up to the better known Vic2 POPs, but fully and suitably functional in the context of their own game.

That game had some pretty good mechanics locked up behind poor execution.

 

[SIEGE-109]

They're similar in having ideologies and probably certain other social stats. They differ in having simpler economics and lacking profession (which is consistent with the overall simplification of the economy - I wish they hadn't simplified it quite so far) and in being of uniform size (which is a definite improvement, streamlining gameplay and statistics and making them easier to understand, without actually removing complexity).

 

[Harle]

Why would you be disappointed about that? Any planet must have a maximum amount of resources they have to sustain a population. Then increasing this with tech or farms on the planet would make sense

While that is obviously true, it would definitely be a 'soft cap' in reality, given that different species would have different impacts on the environment based on their size, living requirements, respiratory systems, etc, and that's before you start factoring in technological solutions.

I'm not entirely sure how the cap will be handled in Stellaris, yet. The impression I got was that each 'province' on a planet can hold one pop, and you can create more space by freeing up 'blocked' provinces. I understand why they did this, and it's not a dealbreaker, but I can't say I'm a fan. At least not yet. I am open to changing my mind once I get a better idea of how it works.

I'm not a huge fan of hard caps on anything, frankly. I like natural fulcrums, where the system tends toward a peak in terms of efficiency and cost. Because this lets the system fall out of balance, or be pushed out of balance by the player to achieve some goal. With consequences. It's tough to imagine that kind of dynamic working with a 1-province/1-pop limitation, but it remains to be seen how things will actually play out. Paradox is pretty clever with systems, so.

 

[GeneralPetrov]

Actually my theory is that paradox is using this game to make this the definition of pops for the EU4 Ck2 and soon to be Hoi4 crowd so that they can implement it in Victoria 3. Then they will in turn only receive outrage from the Victoria 2 players who are a minority and thenot dumbasses like quill 18 will say "So this is Victoria 3, well I never really played Victoria 2 but I CAN say that this is very much like stellaris in its population system". And suddenly you have acceptance for this game and "streamlined" Victoria 3.

It's a conspiracy maaan! They're gunna take our pops!