How are purifiers and other one-species empires now?

[Cellar_Cat]

I've seen a lot of people saying the answer to the empire pop stagnation is to absorb pops from other empires, but what happens in styles where that's not really appropriate? Can you still grow in a realistic game duration? Do you just kinda stop expanding at some point and world crack everything instead?

I don't really like slaving or multi species empires much but I do play in larger galaxies so I'm kinda unsure if I want to keep playing if this has too high of an impact.

[Cellar_Cat]

Can I just release and absorb single planet/habitat vassals lol

[Terminal]

In my opinion, the issue people are having with gradually slowing population growth decline is somewhat overstated. Fanatical Purifiers, Determined Exterminators, and Devouring Hordes should all do fine as long as you keep the endgame in mind and prep for building an endgame populace. Going out of your way to set up methods to boost population - cloning vat and assembler strats, directed tech research, etcetera - you will be fine. At 500 population - which is far and away more population than you should need for most purposes - it will take only four years for a new pop to spawn with a growth factor of 8. While that *sounds* bad, in practice what actually happens is you still have regular, staggered pops emerging across various worlds every year.

It is more of an *evident* problem if you are trying to play tall, because fewer colonies means fewer instances of ongoing growth/assembly going at once, which means longer pauses between pop bursts. As an Exterminator civ that should not be much of a problem.

[Cellar_Cat]

Hm ok, maybe I'll give it a shot then. I also heard the vassal thing works too so I guess I can just cheese it if it feels too limited.

I do normally play fairly tall but that was mainly because I hated moving unemployed pops around so hopefully it won't be an issue now.