The boom and busts of the population is out of control...it is annoyingly so...

[Wise Joe]

The population mechanic in the game seems to be broken. If it is working as intended, then it is just annoying, and I am about to shelve the game for good because of it.

I have major population crashes that are outside of my control. At least as far as I can tell they are outside of my control. Maybe there is something I am missing. Any tips would be appreciated.

Regardless of my population size it is not unusual for me to lose half of my adult population in one day to old age. This means the micromanagement of the workforce is a constant annoyance. Plus, my expansion becomes a very slow and frustrating grind.

Additionally, I am not in favor of the new injury system as it only compounds the issue. I had 6 industries going at one time. (It was the first time I had enough surplus population to run 6 industries at a time because of the waves of old age deaths.) Within a day I had SEVEN injuries occur putting my haulers’ and my builders’ posts out of commission. (And that wave of injuries happened right after I had just recovered from a major death wave.)

Other than that, I do really like the game and would like to keep playing it. But, not with the population working the way it currently does. I know I am just one person, but that is my opinion and how I am feeling.

[jaquig]

Set your pop growth to be slower from the get-go. You are pushing to have the pop grow right at the start and getting a big jump in pop, that means later on a big drop and jump again.

[jonnin]

its simply tied to how you built. If you make 10 buildings that make babies in 2 days, you will have a big baby boom and then it hits capacity and stops, but then those all die of old age within 5 days of each other, and you have a big gap, and this is cyclic due to age being only slightly randomized, if at all, and baby production & growth is all 100% on a timer, ... the whole process isnt randomized.
so spread it out. make a home/vat, wait 10 days, make another...

[mikeydsc]

The tip above is followed for most games of this genre.

Its called the death spiral.

Most games like this, the population grows to an age and then pixelates onto the next e-screen. As mentioned above, build your housing in small batches, 1 or 2 a year, or w/e the time frames are in the game you are in. Some games have "Accidents" in them to massage this abit but its not enough to offset it completely without the players complaining :).

[jonnin]

Originally posted by mikeydsc:

The tip above is followed for most games of this genre.

Its called the death spiral.

Most games like this, the population grows to an age and then pixelates onto the next e-screen. As mentioned above, build your housing in small batches, 1 or 2 a year, or w/e the time frames are in the game you are in. Some games have "Accidents" in them to massage this abit but its not enough to offset it completely without the players complaining :).

come to think of it, a bit of intentional carelessness with dynamite could even it out.

a less violent way, if you have a problematic game, turn off (pause button) a good number of houses and wait for the big die off. After your population resettles to its lower capacity, turn them on one by one, let it resettle to the new population, repeat until they are all back on. You should never have more than 1 house worth of deaths/births at any one moment this way. **

** I said houses but vats for IT of course, same idea. Better, Paused vats resume where they left off so you can let them get to a few moments of maturity and pause, until you get the cycles adjusted.

[ALDC]

The only wish is to have a age chart of the population so you can predict when an old age "death wave" will arrive and get the population prep beforehand.

[jonnin]

I would like to see a +- random (uniform) age per beaver, of about 5 cycles (10 total with the +-).

[Teguki]

Originally posted by ALDC:

The only wish is to have a age chart of the population so you can predict when an old age "death wave" will arrive and get the population prep beforehand.

More population stats would definitely be cool.

Perhaps also a way to sort the beaver list by age, well-being, etc.?

[IIBuxy]

this be why i prefer IT, them beaver microwaves are top notch. add water and some berries, run for 5 minutes on max heat and bam, beaver baby

[Wise Joe]

Thanks for the tips. In most city building games I have played I have been able to control the population growth and sustainability better. I didn't think I was building big batches of housing at a time (except for the triple lodge which was always later), but I suppose I was. I will give the tips a try as I really enjoy this game otherwise.

Thanks again.

[Momaw Nadon]

I try to have about 25% of my total pop as unemployed, as even if you control your growth, you still end up with death waves.

[Seleck]

You could implement some automatic population control and only increase your population as you need it https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2872526623

[Wise Joe]

Originally posted by Seleck:

You could implement some automatic population control and only increase your population as you need it https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2872526623

That is what I was trying to do. But, I could never use my increase in population because of the constant population crashes due to old age.

I would figure I could use two or three more beavers. So, I would build one lodge. But, within a day or two of those beavers maturing I would lose three to four beavers to an old age death wave. I would only very slowly recover till I had maybe one unemployed beaver (having been able to finally use two of the three that came out of the new lodge). But, that still would not consistently remain that way as a future death wave would again set me back quite a bit.

That was the frustration I was dealing with.

[Exxilon]

There is another thing you could in addition to the above tips about building housing more steadily. You can limit the effect these waves have on your core industries by using Hauling Posts/Builder Lodge as buffers. Build some extra Hauling Posts and/or Builder Lodges and set their workplace priority level to -1, this will allow them to fill when there are unemployed beavers, but they will empty out when there are vacancies in higher priority industries.
Limit your new industry construction to the typical minimum population during the wave, and make sure you have enough hauling posts to accommodate the extra beavers during the "crest" of the wave.

Edit: You will still see vacancies on the UI during the "trough" of the wave, but a lot of these vacancies will actually be empty spots in the buffer buildings.

[EleventhStar]

just having beavers have a bit of randomness in their lifespan would help a lot with smoothing this out over time.

not really sure why they chose for no randomness in it at all.

[jonnin]

I wonder if you can control +lifespan buffs so they are only available to a % of the population?