The pop mechanism is quite terrible in 3.0

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Carrying capacity should already do most of the job. Let growth be per planet instead of empire wide. I get what they what they were going for, as nation's population increases birthrates fall across the board. But it's not based on pure population, but economy. Carrying capacity already achieves some of this. IMHO carrying capacity + S curve + immigration tweaks should be enough

There needs to be some controls for gaming the system through breeder planets, which is why I think carrying capacity empire wide should be the determining factor, not sheer number of pops.
 
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I always would have thought the game would try to follow the patterns we see in the real world when it comes to growth. Seems to me that growth patterns follow more of a bell curve, where growth starts out fairly slow then ramps up as the following generations become viable, then tapers off as you have to start dealing with die off. Each of these factors would be location specific, yet also be tracked on a macro level. Essentially, new colonies should have their own growth rates as a base, and let techs, civics, traits, or other features affect these rates. I think over simplifying pop growth by making it empire wide, serves one play style while penalizing another, and now you are playing whack-a-mole with game balancing.

I thought we already had the mechanic in place to deal with high population empires, Empire Sprawl. Perhaps, empire sprawl needs a bit of a rework to deal with high populations? Perhaps, as your population gets to specific benchmarks, there is a small benefit and a larger penalty above and beyond its normal mechanics? Just thinking about ideas to make all play styles viable.
 
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I thought we already had the mechanic in place to deal with high population empires, Empire Sprawl. Perhaps, empire sprawl needs a bit of a rework to deal with high populations?
It was a good(ish) mechanic. Bureaucrat planets neutered it.

It would probably be more interesting if it drove things like stability on outer rim planets instead of just being a 'some things more expensive' mechanic you could power through and mostly ignore.
 
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There needs to be some controls for gaming the system through breeder planets, which is why I think carrying capacity empire wide should be the determining factor, not sheer number of pops.
I get some detailed ideas about the exploit of breeder planets.
In the reality, people's fertility desire is related to their happiness. People with too much life pressure will be less willing to breed.
And, about the breeder planets, they have very distinct features:
is_breeder_planet = {AND = { is_not_fully_developed=yes resettlement_occur_many_times=yes}}
is_not_fully_developed = {OR = {some_jobs_are_closed=yes districts_unconstructed_remained=yes buildings_slot_unbuilt=yes blocks_not_cleared=yes}}

Now, if the planet is not fully developed, but a lot of people move out , it means that the gonvernment does not constrct the planet for a long peroid and leave it undeveloped. Of cource it is reasonable to trigger an event, which add a planet modifier to harshly decrease the pop happiness by 60% on the planet for 10 years because of people's disappointment about the colony construction. The theatres can only provide 20% happiness which are not enough to save the happiness.

And the last step, add a considerable happiness penalty on pop growth. Different from the stability, it does not related to the polical right weight but just the pop average happiness on the planet. Because of the low happiness on breeder planets, its pop growth cut down by 60%, and is not attractive at all.
And a happiness penalty to pop growth can make players be more aware of the pop's happiness. Factions then becomes something players need to worry about.
 
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I always would have thought the game would try to follow the patterns we see in the real world when it comes to growth. Seems to me that growth patterns follow more of a bell curve, where growth starts out fairly slow then ramps up as the following generations become viable, then tapers off as you have to start dealing with die off. Each of these factors would be location specific, yet also be tracked on a macro level. Essentially, new colonies should have their own growth rates as a base, and let techs, civics, traits, or other features affect these rates. I think over simplifying pop growth by making it empire wide, serves one play style while penalizing another, and now you are playing whack-a-mole with game balancing.

I thought we already had the mechanic in place to deal with high population empires, Empire Sprawl. Perhaps, empire sprawl needs a bit of a rework to deal with high populations? Perhaps, as your population gets to specific benchmarks, there is a small benefit and a larger penalty above and beyond its normal mechanics? Just thinking about ideas to make all play styles viable.
I think sprawl from systems should be significantly increased. The tie pop growth to empire sprawl. This gives a definitive wide vs tall. Wide empires have lots of territory but little of it is developed (Think Canada, the US, or Russia) while tall empires have few systems but it's highly developed (singapore & the netherlands).

Personally I think it should be based on empire sprawl above your admin cap, but to do that you would have to change bureaucrats to give diminishing returns. Maybe make them decrease empire sprawl from pops by a percentage, while making them planet unique?
 
I think sprawl from systems should be significantly increased. The tie pop growth to empire sprawl. This gives a definitive wide vs tall. Wide empires have lots of territory but little of it is developed (Think Canada, the US, or Russia) while tall empires have few systems but it's highly developed (singapore & the netherlands).

Personally I think it should be based on empire sprawl above your admin cap, but to do that you would have to change bureaucrats to give diminishing returns. Maybe make them decrease empire sprawl from pops by a percentage, while making them planet unique?
The empire sprawl can expand a n*log(n) curve (or a parabola curve, which is more radical). Since the bureaucrats still supply the administrative ability linearly, then players need more and more bureaucrats.
Cutting down the bureaucrats' output may make some players feel a bit uncomfortable, though it takes the same effect.
 
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There needs to be some controls for gaming the system through breeder planets, which is why I think carrying capacity empire wide should be the determining factor, not sheer number of pops.
There will always be exploits. No system is perfect, but I think the adjustments I mentioned fall into the realm of reducing pops enough without being outright frustrating.
 
The empire sprawl can expand a n*log(n) curve (or a parabola curve, which is more radical). Since the bureaucrats still supply the administrative ability linearly, then players need more and more bureaucrats.
Cutting down the bureaucrats' output may make some players feel a bit uncomfortable, though it takes the same effect.
I like this solution. A big issue I have with the current system is that players have no agency. Once you hit 500 or so pops that's it. There's no way to reduce the penalty other than gaminess.

Something else I think is that pop assembly cost should be based on traits, and only traits. This means once your empire reaches its carrying capacity, either through a mix of the carrying capacity and S curve or through empire sprawl, increasing population becomes a matter of building new pops. That way you can keep growing pop, at a significant cost.

Make cloning available to all and have bio ascension remove the pop assembly cost penalty from traits.
 
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I wonder if making bureaucrat buildings planet unique would be enough of a fix.
A hard limit feels too arbitrary to me. It's basically saying it's too good of a building so instead of balancing it we won't let you use it beyond one. I personally like the idea of making bureaucrats only apply a reduction to the over sprawl penalty, so they are effectively useless if you are under sprawl, and only become useful when you go far over. This would give sprawl some real teeth so players would have to pay attention to it. It would also mean the dictatorship bonus stops being useless as it is now.
 
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I like this solution. A big issue I have with the current system is that players have no agency. Once you hit 500 or so pops that's it. There's no way to reduce the penalty other than gaminess.

Something else I think is that pop assembly cost should be based on traits, and only traits. This means once your empire reaches its carrying capacity, either through a mix of the carrying capacity and S curve or through empire sprawl, increasing population becomes a matter of building new pops. That way you can keep growing pop, at a significant cost.

Make cloning available to all and have bio ascension remove the pop assembly cost penalty from traits.
For me pop assembly is something hard to be balanced. In the past versions, the ascension perk "Synthetic Evolution" dominate the game because it provides a lot of assembly jobs. If pop assembly is not restricted by the planet, then it is hard to control the pop growth even with a S-curve nomal pop growth.
But how to reasonablly restrict pop assembly? Cut down the basic assembly speed? Or trigger some event like "people protest against more robots/cloned people assembly since they snatch their work"? It was hard to find a perfect plan to solve it.
 
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The s-curve per planet is a fine addition but the total empire cost increase is ridiculous. My ringworld, which I built as early as I could had about 12 pops per segment by the time I pushed the big red button.
If you purge all the xenos, as is right and proper, The only planets producing anything are your first core worlds.
 
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I imagine some of them are even proud of the result, because the code base has got to be tough to work with by now, and every victory counts.

I tried to mod Stellaris to test out some ideas, and boy you are right. The system files are a convoluted nightmare, and every change I made completely broke the AI. I think the reason they slapped on new features instead of doing a real rework is because it's less of a headache in the short term. It makes the long-term problem of codebase unwieldiness worse, but at this point they probably don't care. They needed to get something done right now.
 
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For me pop assembly is something hard to be balanced. In the past versions, the ascension perk "Synthetic Evolution" dominate the game because it provides a lot of assembly jobs. If pop assembly is not restricted by the planet, then it is hard to control the pop growth even with a S-curve nomal pop growth.
But how to reasonablly restrict pop assembly? Cut down the basic assembly speed? Or trigger some event like "people protest against more robots/cloned people assembly since they snatch their work"? It was hard to find a perfect plan to solve it.
I think adding a base cost increase of 10 for every trait point used. That way if a pop costs 100 base assembly, and you use 5 trait points, now it's a cost of 150. Since you cannot add negative traits without bio ascension you can't reduce used trait points. This also means specialized pops take longer to grow, creating an active decision the player has to make.

Synthetic ascension would function similarly to bio ascension, except their pops would build slower. This means bio ascension gives more pops, while synthetic ascension gives better pops. Trait effects would have to be adjusted to match, but I prefer this solution to the current one since it creates more active, strategic choices for the player.
 
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I tried to mod Stellaris to test out some ideas, and boy you are right. The system files are a convoluted nightmare, and every change I made completely broke the AI. I think the reason they slapped on new features instead of doing a real rework is because it's less of a headache in the short term. It makes the long-term problem of codebase unwieldiness worse, but at this point they probably don't care. They needed to get something done right now.
Eu4 is having a focus on reducing technical debt, it might be time for stellaris to have one too.
 
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I think adding a base cost increase of 10 for every trait point used. That way if a pop costs 100 base assembly, and you use 5 trait points, now it's a cost of 150. Since you cannot add negative traits without bio ascension you can't reduce used trait points. This also means specialized pops take longer to grow, creating an active decision the player has to make.

Synthetic ascension would function similarly to bio ascension, except their pops would build slower. This means bio ascension gives more pops, while synthetic ascension gives better pops. Trait effects would have to be adjusted to match, but I prefer this solution to the current one since it creates more active, strategic choices for the player.
Maybe players can find a strategy to build a lot of robots with no traits and apply a template together after they are produced? I think it can be a strategy because the most important tech in the late game is physics (that is another unblanced point because the engery weapon dominate the war), and applying a robot template needs engineering points, so players are willing to apply the template.
 
The problem with an empire penalty, is they are too many ways to exploit it.
Imagine players selling pop on the market to another player buy them, in a coordinated way...
so 1 of the team have a big empire and others have a good pop growth...
The worst, is you can give the income to the buyer...

They are too many ways to exploit this "wall".
 
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Maybe players can find a strategy to build a lot of robots with no traits and apply a template together after they are produced? I think it can be a strategy because the most important tech in the late game is physics (that is another unblanced point because the engery weapon dominate the war), and applying a robot template needs engineering points, so players are willing to apply the template.
There will always be exploits. Even the current system has the exploit where you release sectors as a vassal, then reintegrate. Having pop growth slowly switch to assembly being faster than growth gives the player options in how to handle the reduction in pop growth. The current system gives few options, which is why I think people are frustrated with it.
 
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