BUG? If no the pop growth is a cosmic disaster and needs to be redesigned.

[Akkadian]

I'm a veteran Stellaris player, I've loved the game since it came out and have over 2300 hour played.

Redesigning is often a great opportunity to refresh the game, and I appreciate all the effort the team is putting to refresh and improve the game.

This is my first new game in 4.0. After 20 in-game years I have negative pop growth despite super high stability and lots of housing available. What????

Pop rework was supposed to streamline the game and improve performance. The above is the most convoluted thing I ever saw in a game. It does not make sense, and I'm sure it causes performance issues when you segment pops like this.

I fully support the goals for 4.0 and pre-purchased the season pass this year the same like every year. Some thing missed that goal and need to be reworked, this is one of them. I am sure the team will succeed in correcting course like they did in the past, and am looking forward to the coming improvements.

Thanks

Edit: realizing that I only stated a problem and haven't provided a solution, here is a fix:

- instead of breaking the population of 1 species into segments, put all pops with identical traits into 1 pool regardless of happiness, profession, ethic, or whatever.

- species growth should only depend on the number of pops pro-creating. De-couple it from job availability and housing because that's very illogical

- planets should have a "new colony" modifier for the first 50 years, coupled with "colony age" counter

- planets with "new colony" modifier should start with a growth rate of 3 x normal species growth rate, decreasing each year until the colony is 50 years old

- new growth rate formula should be:

"new pop growth" = "number of population" * "standard growth rate" * (1+"pop growth modifers") * (3-0.04 * "colony age" )

 

[fusei]

At a glance, I see you have no free jobs on this planet, so they're probably migrating somewhere else.

 

[Summoner]

Did you ever mess with the pop growth settings in 3.x? IF so you should start a new game and reset them. 4.0 defaults to significantly higher values than before.

 

[Akkadian]

Did you ever mess with the pop growth settings in 3.x? IF so you should start a new game and reset them. 4.0 defaults to significantly higher values than before.

I'm aware of that and reset everything to default before starting the game.

 

[Akkadian]

At a glance, I see you have no free jobs on this planet, so they're probably migrating somewhere else.

No matter the reason, the current system is a convoluted mess that isn't logical, intuitive, explained, clear, or fun.

 

[Red Death]

No matter the reason, the current system is a convoluted mess that isn't logical, intuitive, explained, clear, or fun.

The UI indeed is a mess, and indeed isn't any of those other things.

The growth system itself works fine, the UI just doesn't explain it well at all.

You've already been told what's actually going on, your pop growth is fine, they're just moving to another planet where you did build jobs. The system is literally helping you by sending pops to where they're needed.

 

[Summoner]

At least this lack of clarity should be easy to fix. Add immigration/emigration lines to the tooltips if not top level UI.

 

[RingworldUtopia]

if you scroll over the top negative growth number, the overall number, a tooltip should pop up and tell you they are migrating, and what the growth is before migration. try it.

also, 1000 housing is not a lot of free housing, by the way. that's like 10 free housing under the old system. everything involving pops is x100 compared to before, keep that in mind.

 

[Akkadian]

The UI indeed is a mess, and indeed isn't any of those other things.

The growth system itself works fine, the UI just doesn't explain it well at all.

You've already been told what's actually going on, your pop growth is fine, they're just moving to another planet where you did build jobs. The system is literally helping you by sending pops to where they're needed.

When a fresh colony is having negative migration, that is NOT "working fine", that is working the opposite of "fine"!

 

[TSBasilisk]

When a fresh colony is having negative migration, that is NOT "working fine", that is working the opposite of "fine"!

A new colony with no jobs for them to work. If there's another colony with open jobs, they will leave. The solution is to build more jobs.

 

[Akkadian]

A new colony with no jobs for them to work. If there's another colony with open jobs, they will leave. The solution is to build more jobs.

Why are you defending a poorly designed system?

Why should growth even be tied to available jobs and housing? if a species colonizes a new planet they'll be multiplying like crazy in the beginning so they can populate that colony. If it were humans, they'd be having 10 kids per woman instead of the average 2-3, and they're not going to check if there is a job available for the baby before they pro-create!

The current system is confusing, illogical, unnecessary, and creates more performance issues.

I'll edit the OP to suggest the solution.

 

[TSBasilisk]

You're not losing pops to that negative. Existing unemployed pops, like those 10 Specialists in your screenshot, chose to auto-migrate to another colony which offset the positive growth of new pops being created. More pops are still being created, it's just fewer pops than are leaving.

 

[Akkadian]

You're not losing pops to that negative. Existing unemployed pops, like those 10 Specialists in your screenshot, chose to auto-migrate to another colony which offset the positive growth of new pops being created. More pops are still being created, it's just fewer pops than are leaving.

Irrelevant and illogical.

The logical thing would be that pops migrate to new colonies out of excitement and opportunity. Look at how many peopled signed up to go live on Mars! Are there jobs on Mars now?

Again, you should question your mentality. Why are you defending a poorly designed system instead of working towards improving it?

 

[Carl_Bar]

Irrelevant and illogical.

The logical thing would be that pops migrate to new colonies out of excitement and opportunity. Look at how many peopled signed up to go live on Mars! Are there jobs on Mars now?

Again, you should question your mentality. Why are you defending a poorly designed system instead of working towards improving it?

Stellaris migration has never had much similarity to IRL. What your seeing is how it has worked for many IRL years. The exact same thing your seeing here would happen in 3.X.

This isn't about defending a system. it's about you making a problem out of a game mechanic that everyone has been aware of and playing with for in many cases literal years.

 

[Red Death]

When a fresh colony is having negative migration, that is NOT "working fine", that is working the opposite of "fine"!

Yeah no. Regardless of whether a colony is new, if I have no jobs there and I do have jobs elsewhere, I want them to move to the place that does have free jobs. That's optimal.

The system isn't wrong here, you are.

Why are you defending a poorly designed system?

Why should growth even be tied to available jobs and housing? if a species colonizes a new planet they'll be multiplying like crazy in the beginning so they can populate that colony. If it were humans, they'd be having 10 kids per woman instead of the average 2-3, and they're not going to check if there is a job available for the baby before they pro-create!

I'm sorry, but you're still flailing around blindly because you still don't know how the system even works.

While yes, the amount of free housing does to a large degree affect pop growth. The number of free jobs has no effect on pop growth. Zero. NONE! Stop talking like it does!

What you're seeing happen is that new pops are growing (so adults), seeing there are no jobs available, and then eventually moving to a place that does have jobs.

For what it's worth, I do agree with you that basing growth on free + potential housing (the "planetary capacity") is bad. More on that later.

- instead of breaking the population of 1 species into segments, put all pops with identical traits into 1 pool regardless of happiness, profession, ethic, or whatever.

Out of these, currently only ethics is used to divide pop groups into smaller pop groups. The other factor is strata.

- species growth should only depend on the number of pops pro-creating. De-couple it from job availability and housing because that's very illogical

Again, I agree with decoupling it from housing, but job availability already has no effect. Try to understand how the system works before you make suggestions to change it.

- planets should have a "new colony" modifier for the first 50 years, coupled with "colony age" counter

- planets with "new colony" modifier should start with a growth rate of 3 x normal species growth rate, decreasing each year until the colony is 50 years old

I don't think this is a good idea. This goes back to encouraging you to colonise every single planet available just for the bonus growth, even if they're terrible habitability. This also makes stupid stuff happen, like abandoning colonies and re-colonising for the bonus growth.

It also doesn't necessarily make sense. People moving to a new place don't necessarily reproduce more, it makes sense for migration to be the primary cause of population growth for new colonies. This is especially the case when we're talking about entire planets. Because a new district on an old colony might be just as "empty" as the first colony on a new planet.

- new growth rate formula should be:

"new pop growth" = "number of population" * "standard growth rate" * (1+"pop growth modifers") * (3-0.04 * "colony age" )

This is essentially what I currently have in my pop growth mod that will be published in the coming week. (Trying to find a good number for the growth rate).

This is essentially what happens when you mod the game to set the imaginary "planetary capacity" to an infinitely high number. And it seems to work fine in practise.

 

[Adahn42069]

No matter the reason, the current system is a convoluted mess that isn't logical, intuitive, explained, clear, or fun.

It needs a lot of work I think, I don't see how new players make any sense of it and the game needs new players to stick around to stay healthy long term. I have well over 1k hours, I've worked it out (helped by understanding the old system and reading the changes in dev diaries / patch notes), but it really isn't intuitive even to the extent it used to be.

 

[Trigaea]

Why should growth even be tied to available jobs and housing?

Why shouldn't it?

That's extremely intuitive and one of the things Paradox has done right with this patch.

Pop growth is concentrated where you have open jobs and housing, as people are moving to and starting families where there's work and living space for them.

If it were humans, they'd be having 10 kids per woman instead of the average 2-3, and they're not going to check if there is a job available for the baby before they pro-create!

Real world humans aren't the best example considering total fertility rate is is plummeting worldwide:

 

[Red Death]

Why shouldn't it?

That's extremely intuitive and one of the things Paradox has done right with this patch.

Pop growth is concentrated where you have open jobs and housing, as people are moving to and starting families where there's work and living space for them.

Don't make the same mistake as Akkadian: Pop growth is pop growth. Migration is migration, not pop growth.

Right now housing (and imaginary potential housing) affects pop growth. Free housing had little to no effect on migration in most cases.

Free jobs have no effect on pop growth at all. Free jobs do affect migration, they're the most important factor.

Real world humans aren't the best example considering total fertility rate is is plummeting worldwide:

To be fair, Akkadian was talking about hypothetical human behaviour when colonising a new planet. So a current day earth graph is not all that relevant.

However that graph should clue you in that "available and potential housing" is not really a sensible thing to determine growth. Earth has plenty of space for more houses!

Of course the reality here is that the drop in fertility is likely caused by changes in lifestyle and/or culture. But that kind of population trend obviously does not work for a game where you're trying to colonise the galaxy.

 

[Trigaea]

Don't make the same mistake as Akkadian: Pop growth is pop growth. Migration is migration, not pop growth.

Right. As established earlier in the thread, this is mostly a UI thing whereas this Akkadian guy seems to disagree with the entire idea.

To be fair, Akkadian was talking about hypothetical human behaviour when colonising a new planet. So a current day earth graph is not all that relevant.

However that graph should clue you in that "available and potential housing" is not really a sensible thing to determine growth. Earth has plenty of space for more houses!

Of course the reality here is that the drop in fertility is likely caused by changes in lifestyle and/or culture. But that kind of population trend obviously does not work for a game where you're trying to colonise the galaxy.

The general point was that real world modern humans are not a good example of how aliens (or even future humans) in a hyper-advanced science fantasy space civilization might behave.

 

[RingworldUtopia]

opportunity

what opportunity? jobs? they're on other worlds bro. make more jobs if you want them to be excited about opportunity. opportunity is concrete.