The Malthusian Future

[Captain Conundrum]

• stop growth and make your people unhappy. This is probably the worst option because your whole empire suffers for it.
• build habitats endlessly and dump your trash in them
• send your homeless off to a penal colony filled with upgraded forts. Who cares if they're unhappy as long as nobody ever needs to see them and the forts keep stability high enough to avoid rebellion?
• your neighbor has more planets than they really need. Help them out by borrowing a few.
• slave market
• put the trash people on a trash planet and release it as a vassal.
• become robots and stop robot production
• neutron sweep
• delicious livestock

Not all of these options are available for all empires, but there's always something you can do. I really like that this scaling problem exists because it introduces a new set of problems for successful empires to solve. The problem is that pop resettlement isn't automatic unless you use the mod for it. You can usually hold well over 100 pops per planet before you start needing to get creative, but eventually every empire runs into problems like this if you allow yourself to grow endlessly.

 

[Agamemnic]

Lol. I remember making a thread about this. I argued that pop growth should slow down as he planet advances.

Real life contradictions aside, it spoils the end game:
1. Epic snowballing
2. Tedious pop ressetlement
3. Tedious unemployment warning popups

 

[Pat Casey]

I'm going to say your planetary management is terrible.

Planets with few districts become forge or tech worlds, because upgraded version of those buildings can employ lots of pops. An Advanced Research Complex creates 8 jobs. That's more than enough to open another building slot for, you guessed it, another Advanced Research Complex.
Planets with many districts become refinery worlds, as they have enough districts to support a large pop base so you don't need the extra employment to open more building slots.

Looking at my current game, I have 126 employed pops on a size 13 tech world. No Mastery of Nature. I have 110 employed pops on a size 20 refinery world. Your planets still have a lot of growing to do.

Now, I don't know the exact options available for you lesser, food species, but I doubt they're off by that much.

I get that advanced buildings can employ more workers, but they also require exotic materials as inputs.

Those exotic materials, in turn, come either from really small space deposits, or from factoriers in building slots.

So, to support one advanced research complex I need 2 exotic gas.

1 Building Slot for the Advanced Research Complex -> Employs 8 pops
1 Building Slot for the Exotic Gas Refinery -> Employs 1 Pops

2 Building Slots, 9 Pops employes, average of 4.5 Pops/Slot

Its better than 2, I agree, but its far from the 8 you suggested.

16 building slots, 4.5 pops/slot = 72 Pops employed in buildings ... not that many.

My complaint here isn't that its impossible to run up the job count on a single world by putting all the high employment jobs there and all the feeder industries offworld. Rather my complaint is that, for my empire as a whole, pop count radically exceeds job count by the mid game.

 

[Matoro_TBS]

I get that advanced buildings can employ more workers, but they also require exotic materials as inputs.

Those exotic materials, in turn, come either from really small space deposits, or from factoriers in building slots.

So, to support one advanced research complex I need 2 exotic gas.

1 Building Slot for the Advanced Research Complex -> Employs 8 pops
1 Building Slot for the Exotic Gas Refinery -> Employs 1 Pops

2 Building Slots, 9 Pops employes, average of 4.5 Pops/Slot

Its better than 2, I agree, but its far from the 8 you suggested.

16 building slots, 4.5 pops/slot = 72 Pops employed in buildings ... not that many.

My complaint here isn't that its impossible to run up the job count on a single world by putting all the high employment jobs there and all the feeder industries offworld. Rather my complaint is that, for my empire as a whole, pop count radically exceeds job count by the mid game.

You can just buy those strategic resources. Trader enclaves sell them 10 energy per resource and galactic market sells infinite amount with slightly higher cost. That way you don't need to use pop and building slot to synthesize stuff.

 

[Badesumofu]

2 Building Slots, 9 Pops employes, average of 4.5 Pops/Slot

Its better than 2, I agree, but its far from the 8 you suggested.

No need for the refineries to be on the same planet as the advanced buildings they support. Put refineries on planets with plentiful jobs (planets with a large number of deposits, or Ecumenopolises). Use the resources to create more jobs on urbanised planets. If you're filling up your planets at 65 pops then you just aren't managing your planets properly.

 

[Pat Casey]

No need for the refineries to be on the same planet as the advanced buildings they support. Put refineries on planets with plentiful jobs (planets with a large number of deposits, or Ecumenopolises). Use the resources to create more jobs on urbanised planets. If you're filling up your planets at 65 pops then you just aren't managing your planets properly.

I get that I can move the refineries onto other, less populated worlds .

My experience with the game though is that by 2350 or so, I *have no* unpopulated worlds.

I think my most current game I have 30 or so "fully developed" worlds, and a grand total of two "not quite full" worlds that I colonized after conquering their star systems from the AI.

I also have Fen Habilus, but its full and it takes like 3 years to clear a district and build a new habitation module, which means I can ship, what, 2 pops/year there at steady state?

 

[Losttruppen]

Trader enclaves sell them 10 energy per resource and galactic market sells infinite amount with slightly higher cost

That only gives you 2.5 upgraded buildings, and the market will become cost prohibitive after a couple years providing for a single "full" world.

I think they were intending for more use of upgraded foundries and factories but you would be wasting strategic resources(SR) on those when you can just get arcologies for strait minerals instead of turning those minerals into SRs first. This results in the only "spammable" buildings being commercial zones and research labs, with a few niche things like fortresses and holocenters(up to point, then you have more fleet cap and unity than you could ever spend). There is also the point where no matter what size planet you have you will never need more than 10-12 city districts.

I would love to see more jobs per X pops like the merchants from the prosperity tree and certain special planets.

 

[Badesumofu]

I get that I can move the refineries onto other, less populated worlds .

My experience with the game though is that by 2350 or so, I *have no* unpopulated worlds.

I think my most current game I have 30 or so "fully developed" worlds, and a grand total of two "not quite full" worlds that I colonized after conquering their star systems from the AI.

I also have Fen Habilus, but its full and it takes like 3 years to clear a district and build a new habitation module, which means I can ship, what, 2 pops/year there at steady state?

How long have you had Fen Habanis for? I aim to always have that planet building something or clearing a blocker. By 2350 I have it nearly built out.

But the real problem here is that you clearly aren't developing your planets very well. If you consider them full at around 65 pops then you just aren't making good use of the tools available to you.

 

[CrowScape]

Those exotic materials, in turn, come either from really small space deposits, or from factoriers in building slots.

Very good. You read the part where I said...

Planets with many districts become refinery worlds, as they have enough districts to support a large pop base so you don't need the extra employment to open more building slots.

So, to support one advanced research complex I need 2 exotic gas.

1 Building Slot for the Advanced Research Complex -> Employs 8 pops
1 Building Slot for the Exotic Gas Refinery -> Employs 1 Pops

2 Building Slots, 9 Pops employes, average of 4.5 Pops/Slot

You food species are really inefficient, or bad at math. Either way, that's why you're food species.

My Advanced Research Complexes consume 1.8 Gas each.
A drone working an Exotic Gas Refinery produces 3.4 Gas.

So, 5.88 Pops/Slot

Its better than 2, I agree, but its far from the 8 you suggested.

I suggested no such thing. I stated that Advanced Research Complexes employ 8 pops, which they absolutely do. I then told you what planets are the best candidates to host them because...

16 building slots, 4.5 pops/slot = 72 Pops employed in buildings ... not that many.

...we're not talking pops employed in buildings. We're talking pops employed on planets.

My complaint here isn't that its impossible to run up the job count on a single world by putting all the high employment jobs there and all the feeder industries offworld. Rather my complaint is that, for my empire as a whole, pop count radically exceeds job count by the mid game.

That's a you problem, then, considering I run Fast Breeders with Drone Campaigns and Nutritional Plenitude with Clone Vats and Spawning Pools being the first things built on every world, and I still have more jobs than pops.

Now, resettling them all is micro hell and the only reason I ever dial it back, but that's another issue.

 

[Pat Casey]

At some level it doesn't really matter whether the ratio is closer to 4.5 (my number) or 5.8 (your number).

If its 4.5 we can get about 72 jobs out of buiildings.

If its 5.8 we can get about 93 jobs out of buildings.

Either way its a fixed number, well below where a planet grows to by mid game.

The basic issue is straightforward:

Pops grow (essentially) forever, but resources and jobs do not.

 

[Matoro_TBS]

Pops grow (essentially) forever, but resources and jobs do not.

Technically resources and jobs are nigh-infinite too, since you can build habitats and ringworlds. Of course it's easier to just stop the pop growth.
There's also stuff like social welfare, utopian abudance, domestic servitude and livestock which are all infinite job sources.

 

[ncourt]

Pop growth should flatten out naturally as development proceeds. Just look at developed countries on Earth. China, Japan, most of Europe, even the US (excluding immigration) and much of Latin America are now below replacement child birth. It is the poor, less educated and less developed countries, particularly those lacking female rights, that have high birth rates. You see this play out in large parts of Africa, the Middle East and South Asia - that is where all our current population growth is coming from. Presumably a well developed planet that is filling up will see a similar effect as we are already seeing in the developed countries of Earth.

 

[CrowScape]

Either way...

...it's a number you have stated you are not skilled enough to achieve. Figure out your economy, then come back.

Pop growth should flatten out naturally as development proceeds. Just look at developed countries on Earth. China, Japan, most of Europe, even the US (excluding immigration) and much of Latin America are now below replacement child birth. It is the poor, less educated and less developed countries, particularly those lacking female rights, that have high birth rates. You see this play out in large parts of Africa, the Middle East and South Asia - that is where all our current population growth is coming from. Presumably a well developed planet that is filling up will see a similar effect as we are already seeing in the developed countries of Earth.

Yes and no. Arbitrarily stating that the planet is full and growth should stop isn't optimal. It would be better to have a policy that sacrifices pop growth for productivity, as that's part of the trade-off you see in your examples.

 

[LeanneKaos]

Pop growth should flatten out naturally as development proceeds. Just look at developed countries on Earth. China, Japan, most of Europe, even the US (excluding immigration) and much of Latin America are now below replacement child birth. It is the poor, less educated and less developed countries, particularly those lacking female rights, that have high birth rates. You see this play out in large parts of Africa, the Middle East and South Asia - that is where all our current population growth is coming from. Presumably a well developed planet that is filling up will see a similar effect as we are already seeing in the developed countries of Earth.

We get... sort of that affect, but it requires putting up with enough unemployment and housing shortages to drive the 'emigration push' higher than the pop growth. Also, I'm not entirely sure if the emigration push actually kicks in without a corresponding world 'pulling' in immigrants as well.

I *think* I saw a post suggesting there's also a hard-cap at 1.5 times your housing, but I'm not entirely sure if I interpreted that one correctly.

 

[Eled the Worm Tamer]

...it's a number you have stated you are not skilled enough to achieve. Figure out your economy, then come back.

Yes and no. Arbitrarily stating that the planet is full and growth should stop isn't optimal. It would be better to have a policy that sacrifices pop growth for productivity, as that's part of the trade-off you see in your examples.

Well, the tappering off of population growth isn't tied to productivity it is instead related to 3 things that are at best byproducts or correlatavepartners of increaesd productvity.

Firstly and not presently modled by the game is equality, how many rights woumen have. Places where woumen are [more or less] equal see fewer births than places where they are openly and legaly second class citisens, mere walking woumbs.

Secondly, better access to health care means more of those births live to be adults. The gene clinic is about the only nod this gets.

Thirdly, and more usefully for us as a breaking feedback is, as it takes more resorces to clothe, feed, entertain and educate a child fewer children are had. More afluent people have fewer children but comit more resorces to each. We could simulate that by using strata/living standards. Pops of lower strata have more children/Pops on lower living standards have more children, and vice versa, with worlds that are heavy on specalists (the games equiv to edcated professionals of the RL 'middle class' ) and social wellfare or better living standrads ultimately becoming dependant on worker heavy 'raw resource' worlds and migration to stay stable or grow. (this would make more specalist heavy worlds akin to RL cities which need a steady input of people)

Note this would complicate slave using empires, and also robot heavy, BUT it would make the situation of population growth more realistic, in a way thats less frustrating than the present. Ideally it would create a situation where getting a 'full' world was an achvement not a wearying inevitability. It might also do bad things with the present multi-species issues.

 

[trojan1234]

I get that I can move the refineries onto other, less populated worlds .

My experience with the game though is that by 2350 or so, I *have no* unpopulated worlds.

I think my most current game I have 30 or so "fully developed" worlds, and a grand total of two "not quite full" worlds that I colonized after conquering their star systems from the AI.

I also have Fen Habilus, but its full and it takes like 3 years to clear a district and build a new habitation module, which means I can ship, what, 2 pops/year there at steady state?

If your problem is space to expand, change your playstyle toward more conquest. I did conquer entire galaxy (600size) by 2350, so I had nearly infinite space to expand.
And you don't even need 30 planets to do so in grand admiral.

Spoiler

 

[AlanC9]

While there's something attractive in having galactic conquest actually motivated by a real need for lebensraum, in practice doesn't this just trade one kind of tedious micro for another?