Population problems...

from Stardock Forums
Don't know if this has been covered before, but I have a question about slow population growth. In the games I've played so far, the alien civs' populations are increasing at an extremely high rate when compared to mine. Generally my economic strategy at the beginning of the game is a 40-20-40 ration (Military-Social-Research). Once I've colonized all available 15+ planets, I change the ratio so that military spending decreases, while the colonies concentrate on building infrastructure (something along the lines of 20-35-45).

As for my tax rate, I generally try to keep my overall approval rate (ignoring individual planet's opinions :) ) somewhere between 53-57. I neither increase , nor decrease the tax settings outside those parameters.

My thought is, maybe I should aim for a 60+ approval rating, as I know it has been mentioned that the lower the tax rate the increase in displayed population (# taxpayers).

Interestingly, even though the alien civs usually out-citizen me 4-1 or 5-1, I've had significant tech leads. My strategy seems to be, whether the early military onslaught from enemy civs, by providing proxy friendly forces with tech discoveries. This seems to ensure their loyalty and they shelter me from significant attacks. Mid-late game, my tech advantage starts to overwhelm the enemy civs and slowly, but surely I begin to dominate.

Anyway, just curious about any suggestions to boost population increase.

Thanks

~SDC~
320 views 10 replies
Star Control: Origins
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
This is fairly standard for most of my games as well.

Nothing to worry about, your population will catch up and surpass theirs. For the most part population doesn't matter once it is past a certain threshold on a planet.
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
Thanks mindlar... kinda what I thought, but is nice to have it confirmed...

What a contrast between this board (civil, friendly and helpful) versus the Moo3 board (angry, insulting and arrogant)
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
Can you blame them...waiting for years for MoO3 and instead they Cow Flop. With GalCiv we get the most kick ass space 4x game since the original Reach for the Stars and Spaceward Ho right from the gate...of course folks here are in a better mood ;-)
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
It's irrelevant when your planets get big. All you'll be concerned with is killing off people to keep the morale up.
Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top
try maxing out propaganda if you want your planets to grow faster. i think the AI does this, as their morale generally seems to be much higher, even on high pop planets.

cheers

h
Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top
I'm not sure how the AI grows so fast in the early game either, but every game I've played so far I've always surpassed them in the end, so I don't really worry about it that much.

- Ash

~SDC~
Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top
Morale makes a HUGE difference in population growth. Keep your morale at 53 and your growth will be slow (a low % on low starting populations). Pump your morale to 86% and you'll think your people are rabbits.

Also Aphrodisiac and certain early techs increase pop growth directly.

Reply #10 from Stardock Forums Top
"Pump your morale to 86% and you'll think your people are rabbits."

I thought that. Then I spent the first twenty turns of my last game with morale at >90% (I wasn't spending, so I didn't need a tax rate), and still the AI outpaced my pop. growth. And at that point in the game, Aphrodisiac hasn't been built yet, and Environmental Control has only been researched by about 2 civs.

I eventually chalked it down to the fact that the AI gets better planets. They know where the best systems are, so while I have to take 15-16 quality planets because I can't take the chance that I *won't* find anything better, the AI gets to go directly to the 19-20 quality worlds.

- Ash

~SDC~