The pop mechanism is quite terrible in 3.0

[MrGuyPerson]

So how come stefan anon had 1000 pops in the cold war stream?

He integrated two large vassals, so he was able to effectively triple his pop growth (or at least have three independent entities each with their own growth rates). Considering he had ~1600 pops at the end, the 600 pop claim by the OP seems more or less correct.

 

[Verx90]

I still havent played enough to grasp a feel on how it is working, but indeed if you have 99 planets filled up to capacity and one empty world, the one should have high growth and the others slow/no growth.

Isn't it working like that though?

NO, now if you have a lot of planets and your empire has a lot of pops, the newly colonized empty world has low growth too.

actualy, YES.

it work as intended.

the price to grow pops is increased OVERALL . but the growth rate is increased\decreased by the planet itself .


if you have around 800 pops, a colony in the gold-time of growth rate wil take around 3 years to grow a pop, a planet "almost" full will take around 7-8 years .

 

[npc1054657282]

I was responding to his definition of tall. If you disagree with that definition take that up with him, not me.

I just cannot understand how to come to the conclusion that play tall is more viable.
Now I take the "play tall" as "non-conquest", opposite to "conquest".
So since your empire's pop is stricted limited, you are hard to get more productivity, and are very hard to defeat 25x crisis in 200 years.
Meanwhile, the way to conquest can continue get pop and productivity from wars, so they are not influenced so mush.

 

[Lykus Cerebros]

He integrated two large vassals, so he was able to effectively triple his pop growth (or at least have three independent entities each with their own growth rates). Considering he had ~1600 pops at the end, the 600 pop claim by the OP seems more or less correct.

Thanks was wondering about that.

Still disagree with OP though but nice to know how he managed that.

 

[Mastikator]

I just cannot understand how to come to the conclusion that play tall is more viable.
Now I take the "play tall" as "non-conquest", opposite to "conquest".
So since your empire's pop is stricted limited, you are hard to get more productivity, and are very hard to defeat 25x crisis in 200 years.
Meanwhile, the way to conquest can continue get pop and productivity from wars, so they are not influenced so mush.

Tall is more viable in 3.0.1 vs tall in 2.8

That is what we're discussing. Not tall vs wide.

I already said many times that I think tall in any version is LESS viable than wide. Not more. LESS.

Pay attention.

 

[Lykus Cerebros]

very hard to defeat 25x crisis in 200 years.

Just an idea:

Maybe it should be hard to defeat a 25 x crisis with a not 100% optimized built?

 

[MrGuyPerson]

Just a thought about growth rates: could it be worth releasing and reintegrating vassals? This would reduce your total pop count and give you and your vassal independent growth rates. Integrate them 30 years later or something and you'll have more total pops than you would otherwise. Maybe that's stupid and not worth it, though.

 

[npc1054657282]

Tall is more viable in 3.0.1 vs tall in 2.8

That is what we're discussing. Not tall vs wide.

I already said many times that I think tall in any version is LESS viable than wide. Not more. LESS.

Pay attention.

So, I repeat. Tall suffered much more than wide in 3.0.1.
All the empire are throughly suffered by the new pop mechanism. But tall suffers more.
Why you say tall is more viable? I just cannot understand this point. Because of the mineral station buff? Well, that is good, but we're talk about pop mechanism

 

[Lykus Cerebros]

So, I repeat. Tall suffered much more than wide in 3.0.1.
All the empire are throughly suffered by the new pop mechanism. But tall suffers more.
Why you say tall is more viable? I just cannot understand this point. Because of the mineral station buff? Well, that is good, but we're talk about pop mechanism

Having a certain cap on pop numbers means that wide will not have unlimited pops anymore since natural growth will stop at some point. That means that tall is more viable than before since before there was nothing from stopping wide empires from slamming down habitats to get more pops. Welll now there is, so while everyones pop grwoth was capped this is the first time that frwoth for wide empires is capped.


EDIT:

Making your letters bigger does not inmprove your arguments but makes you look like a little child FYI

 

[npc1054657282]

Just an idea:

Maybe it should be hard to defeat a 25 x crisis with a not 100% optimized built?

Well, totally different built cannot be all equal, but a good update should narrow the disparity instead of widening it. That is the balance.
In fact in 2.8.1 defeat a 25x crisis in 200 years with non-quest(even no other AI) is challenging but possible. In 3.0.1 it is much more harder, I doubt if it is possible now.
Pacifist is a normal ethics, not a challenging one, but now it is so poor.

 

[Mastikator]

So, I repeat. Tall suffered much more than wide in 3.0.1.
All the empire are throughly suffered by the new pop mechanism. But tall suffers more.
Why you say tall is more viable? I just cannot understand this point. Because of the mineral station buff? Well, that is good, but we're talk about pop mechanism

Firstly.

Like I already said. Tall suffered less than wide because of the pop mechanism. More pops = slower growth. So conquest = slower growth, slower growth = less density, less density = less ability to make full use of things like Ring Worlds and Ecumenopolis.

Secondly.

Fewer total pops mean that by comparison Megastructures are now stronger, and since mega structures are limited and give fixed (huge) benefits they give comparatively more to tall empires than wide empires.

As such the huge chasm between wide and tall that has always existed is a little bit less chams-y in 3.0.1 than it was in 2.8

 

[MrGuyPerson]

I know that the mechanics being discussed here have some bearing on optimal empire size, but can this thread please not devolve into another tall vs. wide and "what does tall really mean?" thread? There are plenty of those already. Maybe it's time to start another.

 

[maitue]

So, I usually play Rogue Servitor. I found out that Biopop growth is linked to housing still, which doesn't make sense since the way they play disconnects their biological population from their housing stats, and have their jobs provide a -1housing effect for them instead, giving the playstyle that organics are separate from your regular robot force.

Now, as Rogue Servitor, to get high Biopop counts, you have to make small planets or habitats that have extra robot housing and an organic preserve to reproduce your Biopops, and send them to your main complex drone collection planet/ring.

I guess Nihilistic Acquisition will be required now too?

 

[npc1054657282]

Having a certain cap on pop numbers means that wide will not have unlimited pops anymore since natural growth will stop at some point. That means that tall is more viable than before since before there was nothing from stopping wide empires from slamming down habitats to get more pops. Welll now there is, so while everyones pop grwoth was capped this is the first time that frwoth for wide empires is capped.


EDIT:

Making your letters bigger does not inmprove your arguments but makes you look like a little child FYI

Oh I see, when you talk about tall, you still do conquest in the end. You just ignore the non-conquest playing.

 

[npc1054657282]

Firstly.

Like I already said. Tall suffered less than wide because of the pop mechanism. More pops = slower growth. So conquest = slower growth, slower growth = less density, less density = less ability to make full use of things like Ring Worlds and Ecumenopolis.

Secondly.

Fewer total pops mean that by comparison Megastructures are now stronger, and since mega structures are limited and give fixed (huge) benefits they give comparatively more to tall empires than wide empires.

As such the huge chasm between wide and tall that has always existed is a little bit less chams-y in 3.0.1 than it was in 2.8

I did not understand one thing: when you talk about tall, do you conquest in the end? If you conquest in the end maybe you're true, because whether early-conquest is the best powerful playing is stilled need to be tested. I still do not think it is a bad playing because the early-conquest can accelate your early playing development and wait other empires to grow only slow down your game pace. If you take end-game year in 2250, development still need a rapid pace.
And the most important thing, do you consider non-conquest from start to the end? It is the only playing for Pacifist

 

[GrandJM]

The main problem for me is, that these changes devalue spending resources and time on ecumenopolises and ring worlds by a lot. Before these changes, conquering was already more efficient. Now, it is not even a comparison.

By the time you can build a ring world, you already have a bunch of population. And now you will never be able to fully utilize them, because your pop growth is too slow at this time in the game.

I like to play different play styles in this game. Sometimes as a warmonger, sometimes as a peaceful empire.
Right now, the civic Inward Perfection is a dead civic.

I agree that population growth shouldn't be linear, but it also shouldn't solely depend on conquering after a certain point in the game.

 

[Mastikator]

I did not understand one thing: when you talk about tall, do you conquest in the end? If you conquest in the end maybe you're true, because whether early-conquest is the best powerful playing is stilled need to be tested. I still do not think it is a bad playing because the early-conquest can accelate your early playing development and wait other empires to grow only slow down your game pace. If you take end-game year in 2250, development still need a rapid pace.
And the most important thing, do you consider non-conquest from start to the end? It is the only playing for Pacifist

I'm talking pacifict, as in war is only allowed against purifiers and liberation against hostiles. By tall I mean you build your two colonies and then a few habitats and then you inevitably get left behind just as you always have. And in 3.0.1 your get less left behind.

Still not a good strategy, nor has it ever been. Tall was a losing move in 2.8, in 2.5, in 2.2, in 2.1, in 2.0 in 1.9, in 1.6, in 1.4, in 1.2, and in 1.0
The only difference over the versions is how much it was a losing move, in 1.9 it was possible to just barely scape by with a single planet if you also took every neighbor as a tributary. That was it. And it was never that again.

 

[arosenberger14]

Conquest has been overpowered compared to other mechanisms of growth for years now. They should make civilian casualties from invasions/bombardmants much higher, as well as give rebels some sort of teeth but that's just me apparently.

 

[Bayes]

I have not made my mind up about the change yet, but sad thing is, if it turns this is a change for the worse it is not going to be easy to change. Big parts of the game including techs, buildings and perhaps even enemy scaling(unsure about that one) is balanced around this lower pop count now, so just going into the files and changing the number isn't going to do it.

 

[RageOfAnubis]

It's funny, people have been clamoring for total empire pop count affecting growth for over a year. Now that it's here people are angry. LMAO this forum is a gift that keeps on giving

It is almost as if the forums are filled with lots of different people with wildly different ideas on how the game should develop, rather than being populated by a hive mind.