How do I get more population?

[ValkyrieMoon]

I mean I understand Nomads, and people having babies. But is there a way to make them come any faster? Should I build slow, or build alot of buildings at once. More houses I build makes more people come? Just wondering because I LOVE the game, but always the same problem for me-Shortage of people running the buildings.

[Hunt Daddy]

I am not exactly sure how you can increase your population at will but I think there are some things you can do to increase it over time.

1. make sure you have available housing.
nomads may come even if you don't but I think it is a better chance they will appear if you have beds available.

2. have jobs for the nomads to do.
once again I am not sure how this works out but I did read in a tool tip that available jobs and a good economy attracts nomads. so I propose that having more buildings to employ more workers attracts nomads.

3. the safety of your village may be a factor MAYBE.
If you have sufficient defenses nomads may appear more often. This one I am really not sure about but it at least seems logical.

4. build an infirmary or clinic in your town.
villagers that are pregnant are more likely to give birth to children successfully if you have a clinic or infirmary. it takes long enough to get them pregnant (you'd think they'd want to get down more often since there is nothing else in their lives to do other than eat work and .....) so you don't want to lose the pregnancy by not having a clinic.

4a. give your villagers time off!
this goes kind of with the above tip about having a clinic or infirmary to increase the chances of successful childbirth. well, give your villagers time off so they can get to having lots of Hank Panky with each other cause that is about the only fun they will have in this game. This is easier said than done cause most of the time you need every available hand working on projects to grow and protect your village. ALSO having happy villagers increases the likihood they will get it on so nicer housing and food and water taken care of is a plus!

5. build a marketplace and assign provisioners to it!
I think the more provisioners you have assigned to the marketplace attracts catjeet merchants to come to your market to buy and sell. over time your marketplace will have catjeet workers available for hire. if you have the coin you can hire some sleek catjeet. do it! DO IT NOW! I think this will only happen if you assign villagers to be provisioners though. if you just build the marketplace and do not staff it, nothing will happen.

6. have supplies of food and water in plenty.
once again, I am not sure this plays a role but in my games it seems when i have excess food and water nomads come around to make sure they get a piece of it.

7. use essence to conjure temporary worker golems.
i know it's not really what you want but early game when you are chopping and mining a bunch and have nothing else to spend your essence on you could be conjuring worker golems to help your villagers and then absorbing all that sweet sweet essence from the resources being harvested. this is a way to make sure early essence doesn't go to waste since you cannot store it yet.

8. check your pull from limbo spell to see if you have available villagers or children you can spawn directly into your base.
maybe you already did this but often you start a new game with several villagers available in limbo just waiting to be pulled from the utter neutrality of limbo where nothing is really bad but nothing is really great either, only to be put to work immediately for the rest of their miserable lives collecting resources and buildings towers to stop zombies from eating their brains while they live off of water and raw food, or maybe if they are lucky they get a ration. I hope you feel good about yourself taking them out of limbo, you monster.

[Tiberiumkyle]

Nomad chance is RNG influenced primarily by available housing and jobs, plus how many days you've survived, and you can hire catjeet once laborers show up at the marketplace. Basically, nicer village = higher chance and larger groups of nomads.

[ValkyrieMoon]

OH WOW, thank you so much for all the ifno guys. Really helps me alot, much appreciated.