padcrusher

Join Date 09/2009

Population Explosion problem, please help!

I'm new to GalCiv, and am playing my first real run-through on Dread Lords (sandbox mode). I've got 12 planets, and I'm noticing that as the population on one exceeds 15b, the people seem to get more and more unhappy. I initially thought this might be through lack of food resources, so made the fatal error of delivering more and better farms. Now, I have a few planets each with 20b+ unhappy residents (popularity below 50%). I tried building more entertainment, but that had a little short term effect. It sites 'population' and 'taxes' as the reasons for their depression, but I got the distinct impression from the tutorial that more people was a good thing, and my tax rate has always been a steady 30%. So, is there a way to reverse this situation? Perhaps by reducing a planet's population?

Any help would be much appreciated.

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There are lots of older threads that discuss the relationship between population and happiness. A quick way to brush up on the situation is to look through the wiki.

https://www.galciv.wikia.com/wiki/Population

Basically, as population goes up, tax revenue goes up - assuming tax rate constant.

Also, as population goes up, morale goes down.

Also, as taxes go up, morale goes down.

And, as morale goes up, population growth rate goes up. Similarly, if morale is low enough, population decreases.

Farms raise the maximum population level. Planets with higher quality have morale bonuses - I think Quality 11 is the first to get such a bonus.

In any case, it is a trade off or balancing act, empire-wide but on a planet-by-planet basis. Additionally, a planet's Influence grows with population.

One last note, the Governor will automatically upgrade structures once new tech is gained unless you turn it off on any planet you want that not to occur. Hence, if you gain new farm tech (even if inadvertently by conquering or espionage), you will suddenly find all your farms (and population caps) increased. Thus, the balance you may have taken pains to engineer can be undone!

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OK, I'm starting to get to grips with it now. Thanks for your help.

Incidentally, I've found that dumping people into colony ships, even though there's nowhere for them to go, seems to alleviate the situation, is this likely to cause me any problems later on?

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Well, those citizens will return to the surface the moment those colony ships goes into planet orbit..which will only move the probelm alter or somewhere else; a thing you could do is upgrade those colony ships to constructors or whatever; you'll loose the citizens inside thought...maybe upgrade them to transports; at least you'll ahve 250 troops already in them rather than 1000...I'm not sure if the soldiers inside slowly get to 1000 thought. Just don't invade plaents with those just yet; I upgraded 3 Constructors to transports for some quick invasion of a planet..little did I know, the damn transports, all 3 of them, had a total of 10-30 soldiers...landing on the planet I picked information warfare and managed to boost my troops to 346!...I lost obviously.

Then the peacekeepers arrived, started destroying everything I had (booo!) and everything the other empires had (hourray) and to say I was .2 pc distance from my borders, I could have easely dodged that bullet. (I still managed to win by Alliance victory)

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"Well, those citizens will return to the surface the moment those colony ships goes into planet orbit"

So, I just stick them all in a corner of the map and forget about them. Up to now it seems to work, people on the planets are happier and so, more productive, which easily pays for the cost of the colony ships. I'll keep a closer eye on population from now on, and hopefully I shouldn't fall into the same trap again, so as a temporary solution it seems to work. Or am I missing something? Like I say, I am new to this, and wouldn't be a bit surprised if it all went pair-shaped.

Nice idea about upgrading/converting the ships though, I'll give that a try. Thanks.

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padcrusher -

Later in the game, when I am readying for war, I generally do things to raise population growth and siphon off population as the caps are reached by "enlisting" them onto invasion transports. The typical capacity I use for those vessels is 2500 or 3000 legions. As each transport fills, I send it to some rally point, starbase, or convenient nexus within my borders. (I generally have a warship or escort fleet waiting there, just in case some AI declares war with a sneak attack, as has happened a few times.)

When you get ready to crush an enemy, you want to take lots of their planets quickly ... "and to hear the lamentations of their women" --- uh, no, sorry! That's Conan, not GalCiv.

Still, many's the time I have been merrily annexing another empire's planets when they cut short my fun by surrendering to another AI who hated me and with whom I had no desire to attack at that moment.

One time I was running short of money and just such a surrender happened as I was about to take their Economic Capital planet which also had some juicy trade goods on it and a shrinker. <sigh>

In any case, having a couple dozen invasion transports standing by already loaded is a good thing when you get ready to go to war, so population growth and siphoning is good, but onto transports, not colony ships.

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Thanks LTjim, that sounds like a great idea, although on this first run-through I've not really gone down the military route, just finding my way around a bit first. I think I should manage an influence victory this time, then maybe something more aggressive next.

My MRS. bought this for me 2 years ago, I tried it once briefly, got a bit frustrated, and put it down with a promise to myself to give it proper go some time. Well, better late than never, what a cracking game! Thoroughly addictive, I can see a few late nights on the horizon.

So again, thanks for your advice, it will be heeded.

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YAQW!

By the way -- and I mention this only because you said you've ben away from the game -- you need to koin Impulse to get the last patch (to 2.01 for DA, I believe). Othrewise, the last patch is 1.80 or something like that.

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I have to second what LtJim said, He covered it very nicely.

I tend to try and stick my planets to only 1 farm (besides home capitols which are at 16 billion. That 1 farm will never be on a farm tile and keep pop between 10-12 billion being 12 billion max. Course you can tweak bit by bit if a planet has a couple moral tiles you could get away with a tad more but 14 billion seems to me where it heads downhill.

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OK, I have to ask, what does YAQW mean? My Mrs thinks maybe it's 'you're a quick worker', but I havn't a clue, I even googled it, but no joy.

Feel free to call me grandad.

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YAQW = You Are Quite Welcome

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Cries of "of course!" here .

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Hello padcrusher,

I concur with LTjim. Get your transport and miniturization tech trees filled out a bit and dump the excess population onto transports instead of colony ships. Enhanced miniturization and advaced troop modules can get 3 billion ornery folk off your unhappy rock with each custom built Transport. Once the excess are offworld, downgrade the farm to something more sustainable from a happiness perspective. I find 13b with just 1 Virtual Reaity structure and a few upgrades to a morale resource base to be a nice fit. A final word on transports is FLEXIBILITY. Transports can be used to drop people onto your newly colonized worlds for a leg up on pop growth OR as invasion forces.

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