Theorycrafting - Pop growth w/o empire modifier

[Incompetent]

Neat, these do explain some of the pain.

Basically, the GROWTH_CEILING caps out very quickly at 3+3, and then above 50% capacity the lower threshold starts choking even that lower number off -- and it seems like the LOWER_THRESHOLD is not scaled by the GROWTH_CEILING so you suffer a penalty which would compensate for the uncapped growth number, even though you never get that much growth to begin with.

The LOWER_THRESHOLD is just a conditional floor of 0 on the bonus growth modifier (and by default, it applies when you are below 50% capacity). You don't start getting penalized as soon as you go over 50%, it's just that the floor is gone, so the modifier *can* go negative (exactly when depends on the shape of the curve, but it certainly won't go negative at 51%). Until you hit zero, LOWER_THRESHOLD doesn't do anything.

The low GROWTH_CEILING, however, is a problem. It means Ecumenopolises and Ringworlds still make a negligible contribution to population growth compared to their capacity (they only manage 3+3, which as you say is achieved quite quickly on much smaller colonies), and so they have to be "fed" with a bunch of regular planets and habitats. This is especially bad with the empire modifier to pop cost, but even without it, it would be an issue. So I would effectively remove the ceiling, but make the gradient of the curve a bit less and/or lower the base amount of growth, so that big planets with substantial populations actually count more in proportion to their size, whereas colony spam doesn't count for so much.

Also, this is probably not possible by editing the defines files, but one for the devs: if a planet has net emigration, that should count as a certain amount of extra capacity, because the logic of "my kid won't have enough space to live" doesn't apply when you know for a fact your kid will be living on another planet with plenty of space. This sort of change is needed especially to make a plausible model of early colonization, where the homeworld is crowded but most population growth happens there, while the colonies are mostly empty and grow mostly by immigration.

Getting around that penalty via vassals feels pretty well designed - it incentivizes you to reduce micromanagement for yourself and also makes the galaxy a bit more dynamic in the late game, since your vassals might rebel against you.

Compared to other Paradox games, Stellaris is extremely pro-overlord. Theoretically vassals can rebel, if you are at peace and they have a realistic chance of beating you. But if either of those is not the case, they're doomed. Vassals do not get a veto on the integration process, even if they are "disloyal". The options for another independent empire to intervene are also pretty limited, beyond the basic "support independence". So the dynamism is pretty limited in practice.

 

[HFY]

The LOWER_THRESHOLD is just a conditional floor of 0 on the bonus growth modifier (and by default, it applies when you are below 50% capacity). You don't start getting penalized as soon as you go over 50%, it's just that the floor is gone, so the modifier *can* go negative (exactly when depends on the shape of the curve, but it certainly won't go negative at 51%). Until you hit zero, LOWER_THRESHOLD doesn't do anything.

The low GROWTH_CEILING, however, is a problem. It means Ecumenopolises and Ringworlds still make a negligible contribution to population growth compared to their capacity (they only manage 3+3, which as you say is achieved quite quickly on much smaller colonies), and so they have to be "fed" with a bunch of regular planets and habitats. This is especially bad with the empire modifier to pop cost, but even without it, it would be an issue. So I would effectively remove the ceiling, but make the gradient of the curve a bit less and/or lower the base amount of growth, so that big planets with substantial populations actually count more in proportion to their size, whereas colony spam doesn't count for so much.

What I've seen across a few games -- and what I'm testing right now on a soon-to-be Ecumenopolis -- is that the bonus +3 disappears as soon as the population exceeds 51%, and instead a penalty is levied.

It's stark and not at all like a smooth curve should behave.

What I suspect is going on under the hood:

- The original math had an exponential growth formula, moderated by a super-exponential penalty which resulted in growth leveling off after an exponential increase

- The current math has a cap on the exponential portion (limited to 2x base), so the intended super-exponential moderation over-compensates immediately.

That's from some limited testing, and I may be wrong about one or both of those, but that's what I've seen and that's what I infer about the system.

 

[Oculument]

I've heard conflicting statements about the reason for the empire pop limits.

Some have said it's to stop snowballing, while others say it's to reduce endgame lag.

Those are the same thing. It is not enough to just reduce each planets growth by half when the number of places pops can grow increases from your 1 starting planet to 30 or 60 by end game. Stronger growth inhibition is needed, and the empire wide pop mechanism does it.

 

[Wigow Mowtis]

The performance issues with high pops were due to how often certain events were triggered right? Was the trigger mostly time based or event based? I feel like this was something they could have fixed without touching pops. The real reason to touch pops is a balance one. I actually like this update a lot as the auto-resettlement is easy to control and convenient, but the planet capacity is a bit of a pain (I play voidborne) and forces a bit of micromanagement (would have been nice if they had provided an icon when you have pop growth penalty). The game kinda needs high pops to take advantage of some of its features, so drastically lowering end game pop numbers seems like a bad idea.

Assuming you could fix the performance numbers, I think something like below would work

• more pops on planet = higher growth rate (linear makes the most sense, but logarithmic might be better in practice)
• ditch planet capacity (this is a new thing right?) and just use housing for penalties (start penalizing at 90% housing usage?)
• happiness affects growth rate
• have a similar empire wide pop cost increase per pop, but cap it (so that you can balance for mid-late game without making the early game too slow)

This would need to get paired with a lot of other balancing things. Ideally, you want colonizing to temporarily slow down growth so that a single high pop planet can match multiple low pop ones. You want happiness to affect growth rate to counteract spiking the growth rate through war. On that end, having an unhappy or unstable planet should have steeper penalties and you should be able to allocate your envoys domestically to help protect against them. I think there should also be steeper penalties for exceeding admin cap and happiness or planet stability should affect it (unhappy pops or an unstable planet requires more administration).