The problem with the pops mechanics

[HFY]

Manual resettlement is tedious, yeah, and it can be expensive depending when you do it.

Early game, when resettlement timing matters most, the unity costs also matter.

Additionally, note that some empires can't use manual resettlement.


So I don't think it's reasonable to say that unemployment means incompetence -- not in this version of the game.

 

[Abdulijubjub]

Manual resettlement is tedious, yeah, and it can be expensive depending when you do it.

Early game, when resettlement timing matters most, the unity costs also matter.

Additionally, note that some empires can't use manual resettlement.


So I don't think it's reasonable to say that unemployment means incompetence -- not in this version of the game.

The last two sentences were an aside, not the main point.

20 months (or 100 months) >> 10 months. Unless you fail to build jobs for pops to relocate to, you will not have enough unemployment on any given planet to cause net push (and hence, migration).

 

[Ikael]

Getting away from pop caps is the one good that came from the end of the tile system. With the Tiles planets became full too fast (particularly if Xenophile). This meant you could easily end up with situations where you physically couldn't take in refugees, or do events that gave new and interesting pop types (subettarean refugees, galactic nomads,, the undergound vault. Later additions like Nivlaks, Artist pops, caravanneer pops, Azizians would stop working right as well).

I was all for overcoming the former maximum pop cap of tiles, and I am still for it. It feels damn nice to fill Ecus to the brim. But unlimited planet pop cap has absolutely demolished the importance of pop efficiency. Give me special "pop slots" that can only be filled by certain pop types (planet blockers and traits would become much more interesting), or make events add not only pops, but also extra pop cap so those exotic pops can fit in (thus making events even more special!).

It would need tuning to be fun.

For example, if you're boxed in with 6 planets total, maybe you turn one of them into an Industrial colony and grow on the other 4 + capital until the industrial colony is at 75% full (or some benchmark number), then transform one of your 4 rural worlds into a second Industrial World. The 2nd one might fill a bit more slowly, but it wouldn't need to wait for the 3 sources to self-populate -- they should be mature Rural worlds at that point -- and it would have a decent population thanks to its own growth.

And so on, converting rural into city (research or industrial) until you reach equilibrium or get another source of pops which doesn't need natural growth.

Tiles had a number of benefits, but I would want an updated 2025 version with more features if they came back to Stellaris.

Aye, both systems would need a ton of adjustments to work. My idea for pop slots would not imply a return to tiles and adjacency bonuses per se, tho, most mechanics would stay the same (districts, building slots, resource chains and whatnot). But even without touching other systems, the needed economic adjustments would go way over scope.

 

[CantGetNoSleep]

Wow, okay this thread's taken on a life of its own. Seems my idea was an invasive fungus... Or perhaps it rang a bell with people.

To the people that mentioned it: yes of course we can put in pop control but hit on factions and pop growth is harsh. Better to have no refugees and no migration treaties - smaller hits. Or you can just purge (displacement) anyone that's not your main species - bizarrely my egalitarian fanatic pacifist are okay with this. Go figure.

One of the things on my "experiment with this" list is simultaneous per-species empire-wide pop growth. Not exactly sure how some things will interact with it, but there are some aspects of the current pop growth system I'm not happy with.

Thanks for feedback. Honestly you could make it a simple thing: just make the next pop a random one based on a combination of (a) adaptability to that world a primary (log scale - i.e. 10-20% difference >> 80-90%) and (b) the number of pops in empire (arithmetic scale). That would probably fix 99% of the issue without requiring a massive re-engineering.