Population Growth seriously bugged?

[Arutar]

So, after playing while with my egalitarian empire (no population controls policy) I noticed that the way which the game decides on which pops to grow seems seriously bugged.

Whenever there are more than two species to grow, the game seems to always choose to exclusively grow the "minority" species until it has reached parity with the other species. Until then the majority species doesnt grow at all anymore.

I.e., I had the subterranean colony event, where my pop 10+ colony (humans) got one single refugee of the subterran species. From that point on, not a single human would grow anymore on ALL of my planets The game exclusively would only grow the subterranen species on ALL my planets until each planet reached a 50-50 split (at this point it seemed to alternate growth to retain the 50-50 split.

The same seems to be true if you have more species, i.e. with 3 species it seems to aim for a 33-33-33 pop split and so on.

It also affects robot production. I had two robot factories producing "my robots"and then colonized a planet which had a small existing robot pop. My factories would then start to produce the new robot type (!) until the robot population as well was split 50-50 between "my" and the "new" robots.

This can't be intended, right?

 

[krios41]

This can't be intended, right?

its WAD

 

[Renver]

It is irrational. How to change it? How to make decision which species to grow on which planet?

 

[Starisc]

You can force the growth in the population tab per planet but lose 20% growth speed or manage species rights giving you -10% happiness for that species.

Makes ascension paths quite clear for egalitarian & xenophile: you cannot have population controls enabled and definitely dont want to lose that precious growth speed. Thus you have to go bio ascension.

Authoritarian or Xenophobic Slavers will enslave xenos, so that -10% happiness matters less to you. So you could keep your main species growing and then ascend via psionic or synth paths.

 

[Orimichi]

In dev diaries, they said that the few pops they are the most likely it will grow, so it's intended, but it is really strange...

 

[Arutar]

In dev diaries, they said that the few pops they are the most likely it will grow, so it's intended, but it is really strange...

I would be ok with the minorty specied being "most likely" to grow, but as I said, the majority species appears to be not growing at all anymore. Which makes no sense at all. Why do my 80 humans on 4 planets cease to reproduce in my entire empire, because one single pop of another species has just appeared on one planet.

EDIT: Just to add, while I can see the devs reason that minorties should at least grow somewhat faster, even that doesnt make "sense" at all. If species A has ten pops and species B has one, in the time species B gets one more pop, species A should mathematically get ten (assuming the same Overall growth rate). Both populations doubled essentially in the same timframe.

 

[L4Psha]

I saw something like this yesterday and even worse. My core population were delining at alarming rates of 5 per month, and species who supposed to be slaves were growing. Why? They were not migrating just disappearing. I lost 8 pops when i find a clue who to stop it. There is no logic behind it.

 

[Kheiran]

Come to think of it in my last playthrough an uplifted species reproduced very fast too in my last game. This bug doesn't seem to apply to migrated species though.

Did you report this in the bug report forum and uploaded your save game?

 

[GothicEmperor]

I think it also factors in habitability. I've conquered a few Desert worlds, put some of my Tropical race in charge to administrate the slaves, and never had them grow any more of my snobby ruling class species, as it should.

 

[L4Psha]

I have a life-seeded race, colonised aplanet with 0% habitability, and everything were okay (relatively) until new species appeared in my empire. Then my core species started to decline.

 

[Kheiran]

I think it also factors in habitability. I've conquered a few Desert worlds, put some of my Tropical race in charge to administrate the slaves, and never had them grow any more of my snobby ruling class species, as it should.

This sounds plausible.

Does anybody actually now how the pop growth mechanic works now?

 

[Arutar]

It is irrational. How to change it? How to make decision which species to grow on which planet?

If you have the population control policy set to "allowed" you can then right click on the picture of the "growing species" in the planet (population) tab and manually select which ones to grow.

However as said before, this is bad choice as it will slow overall growth and if you have an egalitarian faction, they wont be happy about population controls. But then, as the automatic growth is broken, there seems to be no other option.

 

[Sigma 582]

This was described in one of the Diaries, so it is WAD.
I remember people (myself included) saying back then that it wouldn't make any sense and I still think it doesn't, but Wiz knows better ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[L4Psha]

But why pops are disappearing in my case then?

 

[Arutar]

This was described in one of the Diaries, so it is WAD.
I remember people (myself included) saying back then that it wouldn't make any sense and I still think it doesn't, but Wiz knows better ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I don't see it as WAD (or at least i sincerely hope that it is not).

Here is the excerpt from the Dev diariy (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...ary-122-planetary-rework-part-2-of-4.1115992/)

"This is the base level of Pop Growth on the planet from natural reproduction and immigration. A Planet will only have a single growing Species at any given time, but is not limited to the Species alreadyliving on the planet - any Species with theoretical access to the planet through migration will be able to start growing on a planet, and when choosing a Species to grow, planets will generally prioritize Species that are under-represented on the planet, meaning for example that an empire with Syncretic Evolution will generally have both its Species growing in turn on any new colonies, instead of being limited to only the Species that they used to colonize the planet."

My experience so far is not that "it generally prioritizes Species that are under-represented at the planet" but that it EXCLUSIVELY prioritises under-represented species, which is not the same and thus not WAD.

 

[Sigma 582]

I don't see it as WAD (or at least i sincerely hope that it is not).

Here is the excerpt from the Dev diariy (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...ary-122-planetary-rework-part-2-of-4.1115992/)


My experience so far is not that "it generally prioritizes Species that are under-represented at the planet" but that it EXCLUSIVELY prioritises under-represented species, which is not the same and thus not WAD.

I see. I reckon, in this case it's a matter of weighting. Being "underrepresented" seems to give too much weight to the pop so that it massively overweights everything else. Supposedly, it can be fixed by tweaking some weighting numbers, but the mechanic as a whole is still weird.

 

[Hyomoto]

What is not working correctly is the robot thing, for non-sentient robots population controls should not have an impact. But right now it's treated like a social issue, like Samsung ago produces Galaxy S3's again once parity with the latest model is achieved.

The other issue is I don't think you can dismantle again, it's just less of an issue because of how pops work now.

 

[Arutar]

I see. I reckon, in this case it's a matter of weighting. Being "underrepresented" seems to give too much weight to the pop so that it massively overweights everything else. Supposedly, it can be fixed by tweaking some weighting numbers, but the mechanic as a whole is still weird.

Yeah, thats what i was thinking. Somene weighed the "underrepresented species" factor in deciding pop growth way too high.

I'll hope they fix it, because it really makes population controls mandatory.

 

[Cymsdale]

I see the value in some prioritization of minority pops so you get some diversity and make things interesting, but the system is broken if it blocks majority pops from growing at all.

 

[Su-Pe-Biomech]

Kalergi plan in space lol jk jk