What does 1 pop equal out to be in population numbers?

[JaggedyJack]

Hello All,

Pre 2.2 I took it that 1 pop equaled to 1 billion people and Earth started with about 8 pops, or 8 billion if I remember which is a reasonable number. Now with 2.2 the Earth starts out with a population of 24 billion if I take it 1 pop for 1 billion. I wonder about this because I like to know just how many billions if not trillions of lives are riding on my decisions and "24 Pops" just doesn't do it for me.

Am I not seeing a part in the UI that tells me this? Anyone got any mathematical mumbo jumbo that can help me make a reasonable population number out of it? It would be most appreciated.

Enjoying the game immensely.

 

[GC13]

Paradox has always refused to say 1 Pop = X people because different races would probably have different conversion ratios.

Still, if 8 Pops on 2200 Earth = 8 billion humans = 1 billion humans per Pop, why would 24 Pops on 2200 Earth not still equal 8 billion humans and therefore 333 million humans per Pop?

 

[InvisibleBison]

Having a pop equal a specific number of people doesn't work. You end up with either sparsely settled new colonies somehow having a population in the hundreds of millions to billions range, or densely populated encumenopoleis with a population of less than ten million. And you can't say that a pop on one planet is a different number of people than a pop on another planet, because of resettlement. You just have to accept that a pop is an abstract unit of population that doesn't correspond to any specific number of people.

 

[Razzlie]

It means whatever you want it to mean. It's been deliberately left up to the player's imagination how much is one pop.

 

[JaggedyJack]

I did have to stretch my imagination that 1 colony ship housed 1 billion people, 2 after the perk, and do it all on a single ship.

I just like having a good reference to just how many people there are and the 1 pop = 1 billion worked well enough for me. I do like GC13s idea that 1 Pop could equal 333 million and I can use that. Thank you!

 

[daisha]

I think of pops as abstract and variable in size. A newly colonized human planet I assume would have around 5000-10,000 adult individuals in its single pop, and maybe like 50,000 per pop when it first develops a second pop on up to maybe a half billion per pop at 10-15 pops. But as that scales up I assume that population-per-pop declines again. Pops aren't a true measure of population, but a measure of how a planet allocates its labor power. Think of the slums blocker. That's a ton of biological individuals who don't form a pop until you clean up their digs.

Of course, my account makes no sense and I doubt anyone's account makes sense because of the relationship between time and population growth in the game. Like everyone of every species must just be born a fully capable adult or something. Everyone discovers hypermaturation chambers before hyperlanes.

 

[Lor360]

Its NOT supposed to equal anything. Otherwise a ringworld would be able to house 200 000 pops and that would be a lot of icons to fit on the screen.

 

[Badesumofu]

Yeah, it equals one Pop. Anything beyond that is head-cannon which by its nature everyone is free to make up for themselves.

 

[stavern]

Always enjoyed Discovery programs and there was one who said you could fit entire human race within Texas state. Earth itself can easily hold a trillion humans. It is water and food for that trillion that would be a problem. Much blah blah about recycle salt water, crops who grow in 3 days etc etc.

Earlier always thought of one pop as a billion. 25 billion living on a planet i thought was good enough. But now that see planets with 150++ can not say like that. But who cares just a computer game....

 

[nuyu]

Put human in container like in The Matrix, inject them with life support systems and let them live in VR, you can put trillion humans on earth.

 

[Nurgle84]

I would say its an exponential number. 1 pop is not the half of 2 pops and it depends on tech and circumstance. 1 pop total on a stone age world could be 1 million, while 1 pop total on a new colony might only be a few tens of thousands. But the step from 8 pops (~8 billion) to 16 pops total could be like 32 billion.

 

[MK1980]

1 pop == many people.

you won't get a more accurate number that is still plausible in every situation.

 

[Rock Lord]

This feels like it's always been a mystery or ambiguous for as long as I've been playing 4X games.

 

[The Boz]

9 people, a dog, a cat, and a goat.

 

[Draconaes]

About 12 oz., usually, at least in the U.S.

 

[wundte]

When i was playing fungi i imagined that each pop is just one gaint fungus growing over hundreds of square km

 

[Ecervele]

1 population unit > 1 people... and <∞

Fairly accurate IMHO...

 

[anamiac]

As long as we're recognizing that we're straying into head-canon and not actual facts, then we can have fun with this.

IMO, 1 pop is equivalent to about three billion humans. I base this on the fact that when primitives advance beyond early space age, they enter the game with 3 pops. Ergo, 3 pops is about equivalent to current population of earth.

But that's humans. I base equivalency on weight. So if a human weighs 150 lbs and your space-penguins weigh 15, then it takes 30 billion space penguins to make a pop. Your 1500 lbs space walruses only need 300 million to make a pop. etc. Colony ships thus can hold 450 billion lbs of colonists (900 billion if you have the exploration tradition).

 

[RoboticManiac]

Personally, I like to think that one pop is equal to five hundred million. Newly settled planets could still be considered sparse, and well developed ones well into the billions.

 

[Mastikator]

I like to roleplay that it varies from species to species. Maybe in one case they are giants and a single pop is a few hundred thousand, in another they are small as cats and a pop is a billion.

Especially the hivemind pops, each pop can be a single mega-individual if you like