Population management

[Sexy Skaven Rat]

Is it possible to improve quality of life for the pop control? I know we have religious law for just major pop, but what if I want the opposite so my minor can reproduce? Here is what I'd like to see:

1) An option to freeze pop increase the cases when I send a pop from another system onto this system

2) A screen that shows civilian ships travel info & all the population compositions on the systems

3) Ability to choose which pop to conscript or sacrifice as Hisho. Sometimes I have way too much of OG population and when I conscript it may choose the minority and I lose all the bonus and a chance for it to reproduce

As for now I do joggle around pop to achieve whatever goals I have, and it's kinda fun, but when I conquered Horatio I had over 80 of Horatio just sitting on those systems without any diversity. Mind you this Horatio was not even spliced all that much and only had some pathetic food and happiness bonuses.

Then It occurred to me that I could use conscription on those systems to reduce the population but soon I reached the manpower limit...

Then everything took the dark turn and I felt like a real ass for doing it, but I had to get that 50 minority pop bonus for awesome minority laws...

I deleted all the food production buildings and let Horatio's decrease over time. Pretty Soviet if you ask me, but it get's better... I then realized that a faster way would be to send all the Horatios to one low-value system with low food production so I can repopulate his systems with all type of other populations faster.

Sophonic Communism. Obviously I named the exile system Gulag, and it worked pretty well actually. But I don't want to do that when I have extra Sophon pop or literally any race other than Horatio because Horatio is the one race that truly grosses me out. Not even Cravers do that. I know that Riftborn control their main pop, but i'm not a fan of playing them.

Can there please be some mechanic that can help me with pop management? It's a very fun thing to do for me and the pop collection bonuses are very satisfying. Please, I don't want to send people to Gulags, at least not when I roleplay as a humane Empire.

Although I guess I could just imagine I play overreaching Space USSR and those extra pop are political prisoners. But come on, not even Cravers or Hisho starve their citizens to death.

[Freny]

1) There is no need for that. So what if when your preferred pop arrives the system is full, they don't disappear, they remain in orbit. All you have to do at that point is send the undesirable pop that filled the system somewhere else. It's free.

2) Under System Management screen where all your systems information is displayed, if you click on the population icon of a system the planets of that system and their population types show at the bottom of the screen. You can even send population from one system to another using that very same screen.

No, civilian ships information is not shown, but civilian ships are generated automatically, one doesn't have to make sure that there are empty civilian ships available. The one thing to keep in mind though, because of the star lane concept and the impossibility of sending civilian ships straight to destination, send them on short trips if you don't want the civilian ships to get shot down by others while in transit.

3) The game will always chose the minority population over main population for conscription, if you want to preserve a particular type of population stash it in a spaceport slot before the conscription.

NOTE: a) You can influence somewhat which population type is going to grow next by
placing population units of the type that you don't want to grow in the spaceport slots.
b) Under Senate Screen, if you click on Population details (bottom of the screen), you can use luxuries to give a growth boost to a population type.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Playing non-Horatio one doesn't get to benefit from the splicing the AI may have done, in the same manner than playing non-Cravers one doesn't benefit from the Slave Driver ability when placing the assimilated Cravers and other population types on the same planet.

To eliminate a population type without starving them to death, you can do 2 things:

1) Send them all to an already full system, then wait for another to shoot them down, or get privateer ships and shoot them down yourself.

2) Send them to a crappy system and gift that system to an AI.

[Sexy Skaven Rat]

I believe you missed the point. I am suggesting some quality of life improvement, i'm not asking for a game guide. I already manage population the way you're suggesting and I am not fully satisfied with that, that's why I created this discussion, to talk about a better way.

1) Well that's dismissive. I need it. I already do what you are suggesting, it doesn't mean there cannot be added a more convenient way of doing this. When I have over 10-15 systems and half of them are full I can't even send populations to some of them. To do what you say I first have to free space in the system, then send a ship to the system and pray that the ship will arrive before the system is full again. Again, I use spaceport tricks and Gulag system to work around it.

2) Yes, there is such screen and it even shows starport destinations but it does not show who I am sending, so I still have to go inside the system to see. With over 10-15 systems it becomes a micromanagement struggle.

The whole bit about civilian ships is irrelevant to the topic.

3) When the system is full perhaps this is true, I am not sure how reliable that information is, but when the system is growing it chooses whichever population is coming up next. If I have a single minority pop coming next and I hide it in the space port to avoid conversion, it will no longer be coming up next even after I put it back, so I effectively cancel the growing of that population either way.

Also if I have 1 pop of minority population on the system that gives me collection bonus, conversion to manpower is going to take that away. If i have 8 different races 1 pop each, I cannot put them all on the starport. AGAIN, what you're telling me to do is some extra work around a game mechanic that can be improved.

I already know what you said in NOTES, but I will add a crucial piece of information: spaceport trick doesn't work on Empire's majority population.

As for Horatio I'm not sure this is true either because Horatio's analogy to Cravers slave drivers is the act of splicing itself, which is Faction signature ability. Craver population still will deplete planets no matter who they belong to, so Horatio pop should have exact same population bonuses for everyone once spliced, independent of the faction. This is Population traits, different from Major Faction trait. I cannot test it but I know this to be at least partially true because OG Horatio only have happiness bonuses, the Horatio's I got had added food bonus which means they spliced some food based minor population before.

And your population elimination strategies are no better than Gulags. Still either killing off or just dooming a chunk of population so I don't see why you suggest that when I was talking about improving legit in-game mechanic instead of all the shenanigans that are basically immersion-breaking exploits. Some information you shared is also questionable so overall it's not helpful.

Originally posted by Freny:

1) There is no need for that. So what if when your preferred pop arrives the system is full, they don't disappear, they remain in orbit. All you have to do at that point is send the undesirable pop that filled the system somewhere else. It's free.

2) Under System Management screen where all your systems information is displayed, if you click on the population icon of a system the planets of that system and their population types show at the bottom of the screen. You can even send population from one system to another using that very same screen.

No, civilian ships information is not shown, but civilian ships are generated automatically, one doesn't have to make sure that there are empty civilian ships available. The one thing to keep in mind though, because of the star lane concept and the impossibility of sending civilian ships straight to destination, send them on short trips if you don't want the civilian ships to get shot down by others while in transit.

3) The game will always chose the minority population over main population for conscription, if you want to preserve a particular type of population stash it in a spaceport slot before the conscription.

NOTE: a) You can influence somewhat which population type is going to grow next by
placing population units of the type that you don't want to grow in the spaceport slots.
b) Under Senate Screen, if you click on Population details (bottom of the screen), you can use luxuries to give a growth boost to a population type.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Playing non-Horatio one doesn't get to benefit from the splicing the AI may have done, in the same manner than playing non-Cravers one doesn't benefit from the Slave Driver ability when placing the assimilated Cravers and other population types on the same planet.

To eliminate a population type without starving them to death, you can do 2 things:

1) Send them all to an already full system, then wait for another to shoot them down, or get privateer ships and shoot them down yourself.

2) Send them to a crappy system and gift that system to an AI.

[Freny]

Look, I didn't mean to come across as controversial, I was just merely trying to help you because it is clear you don't have a full understanding of the game. Thus, let me just clear out a few points that were made, yours or mine doesn't really matter. Then, you can take it or leave it as you please.

1) You don't have to have free space in another system to send population there. You can send population to a full system just the same. Why don't you try it? That way you are not misinformed, and most importantly, you don't misinform others.

2) You don't have to go system by system to pick and choose which population type to send where. You can do that from the Empire Screen (one screen does it all). When you click on the population icon of any system you have listed there, at the bottom of that very same screen a window opens with a view of the planets of the system you selected, and you can see what population types (and how many) are on each planet by looking at the population icons. For instance; If you pick and drag an amoeba icon unit to another system, then that's what you are sending. The fact that you don't know this shows that you are not taking advantage of the Empire Screen to manage the population more efficiently.

3) Horatio population units come with the following bonuses: +3 food on any planet and +2 happiness when on hot planets (start a game with Horatio). Horatio faction trait is Gene Splicing, you can only benefit from it when playing Horatio so any splices that the AI did are not added to assimilated Horatio populations. Craver faction trait is Slave Drivers, which doubles the FIDS output of other population types when placed on a planet with craver population present, you can only benefit from that when playing cravers. However, craver population unit bonuses are applied (as it should be with any population type), which are: +150% FIDS on undepleted planets at the cost of 1 planet depletion point per craver pop per turn (start a game with cravers). You seem to be confusing the population unit bonuses with faction traits. To further clarify, Vaulters faction trait is Metalfolding, which allows for the system portal building. Assimilating vaulter population does not allow you to build portals on your systems.

4) I also suggested the option of rounding up all undesired population types in one system and gifting that system to an AI. You either overlooked it or don't know how to do that. You can gift systems when you have 100% ownership (of that system) to an AI that you are not on war with through the Diplomatic Screen. I find it more fitting to your humane role-playing theme than your alternative of starving them off on systems with no food production, but I am not going to lose any sleep over it so do as you please.

5) Using luxuries to give a certain population type a growth boost is not a shenanigan, it is a game mechanic. You shuffle population around between your systems and planets, and you influence the growth rate of some of them. That's it, that is the population mechanic. If you have extra food, people grow. If you spread your population types out on all your systems, they have a higher chance of reaching 20 and 50 population bonuses.

What you are asking for is mods. There are population management mods; for instance, this one: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1505425416

It involves gene manipulation buildings, so you may not like it. If you are "Horatio-phobic", just don't play with them, choose other races for your AI opponents.

In any event, there are more population mods out there. I suggest you start searching the web, it is pretty straight forward. Best of luck with your search, hopefully you are more thorough searching than you are playing this game.

[Sexy Skaven Rat]

Originally posted by Freny:

Look, I didn't mean to come across as controversial, I was just merely trying to help you because it is clear you don't have a full understanding of the game. Thus, let me just clear out a few points that were made, yours or mine doesn't really matter. Then, you can take it or leave it as you please.

1) You don't have to have free space in another system to send population there. You can send population to a full system just the same. Why don't you try it? That way you are not misinformed, and most importantly, you don't misinform others.

2) You don't have to go system by system to pick and choose which population type to send where. You can do that from the Empire Screen (one screen does it all). When you click on the population icon of any system you have listed there, at the bottom of that very same screen a window opens with a view of the planets of the system you selected, and you can see what population types (and how many) are on each planet by looking at the population icons. For instance; If you pick and drag an amoeba icon unit to another system, then that's what you are sending. The fact that you don't know this shows that you are not taking advantage of the Empire Screen to manage the population more efficiently.

3) Horatio population units come with the following bonuses: +3 food on any planet and +2 happiness when on hot planets (start a game with Horatio). Horatio faction trait is Gene Splicing, you can only benefit from it when playing Horatio so any splices that the AI did are not added to assimilated Horatio populations. Craver faction trait is Slave Drivers, which doubles the FIDS output of other population types when placed on a planet with craver population present, you can only benefit from that when playing cravers. However, craver population unit bonuses are applied (as it should be with any population type), which are: +150% FIDS on undepleted planets at the cost of 1 planet depletion point per craver pop per turn (start a game with cravers). You seem to be confusing the population unit bonuses with faction traits. To further clarify, Vaulters faction trait is Metalfolding, which allows for the system portal building. Assimilating vaulter population does not allow you to build portals on your systems.

4) I also suggested the option of rounding up all undesired population types in one system and gifting that system to an AI. You either overlooked it or don't know how to do that. You can gift systems when you have 100% ownership (of that system) to an AI that you are not on war with through the Diplomatic Screen. I find it more fitting to your humane role-playing theme than your alternative of starving them off on systems with no food production, but I am not going to lose any sleep over it so do as you please.

5) Using luxuries to give a certain population type a growth boost is not a shenanigan, it is a game mechanic. You shuffle population around between your systems and planets, and you influence the growth rate of some of them. That's it, that is the population mechanic. If you have extra food, people grow. If you spread your population types out on all your systems, they have a higher chance of reaching 20 and 50 population bonuses.

What you are asking for is mods. There are population management mods; for instance, this one: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1505425416

It involves gene manipulation buildings, so you may not like it. If you are "Horatio-phobic", just don't play with them, choose other races for your AI opponents.

In any event, there are more population mods out there. I suggest you start searching the web, it is pretty straight forward. Best of luck with your search, hopefully you are more thorough searching than you are playing this game.

1) Thanks, that makes it easier to manage.

2) I know that drag and send option, what I mean is that once you send it you don't know who you sent, just the amount, so if you send multiple ships and want to see which population you have not sent yet, you still have to click on each system, that's what makes it inconvenient. Also, after a few turns unless you find a small ship somewhere on the map you don't even know who is going and arriving and when, that's why I was asking for the civilian ship table or screen or something to have this info.

3) Horatio deceived me with it's population bonuses because it has only the happiness bonus when looking at it in the custom screen. Where does this +3 food coming from? As for other races population vs faction is pretty straightforward.

4) Gifting a system might be an option but it's not if I'm at war with everyone or just don't want to give it away. I just don't consider doing it unless the system is a real burden, but this is an alternative. Just not the one i'd like either.

5) I don't think I called boosting or shuffling people a shenanigan, it was more about hiding people in starports when converting population to manpower and sending excess pop to doom, that's what I called shenanigans.

I'm looking for some mods and trying to make my own for similar thing and thanks for the link, that's the kind of thing I was leaning towards.

Overall thanks, if there is one thing that really helped it's that I can send population to full systems and Horatio splicing bit. I did not know these things, however the discussion went sideways from the main 3 points, and that's why I found your replies not helpful to this particular topic. I'm not convinced that what I am suggesting is invalid.

Also Horatio-phobic might be the most precise "-phobic" term ever used, they really freak me out both in appearance and in actions, but I do have to have some cocky bastard in game to go at war with. Cravers are cursed by their DNA, Horatio is kind of a ♥♥♥♥ so it makes a slight difference in what kind of enemies these factions are.

[Freny]

They hard-coded +3 food on Horatio template because they felt Horatio needed to be rescued from being such a sucky race, starting on a Mediterranean planet and all. My guess is they thought Agriculturalist (+5 food) was too strong, and Agricultural Engineer (+1 food) or Nurturers (+2 food) was not enough (point cap was not an issue as there was room even for Agriculturalist trait - not that point cap ever mattered to them since a few of the default races bypassed the cap). Thus, rather than create yet another +food population bonus trait or upgrading Nurturers to +3 food, they ghosted a +3 food bonus and attached it to the Horatio template.

Hence, now one could edit a Horatio template to change it completely, and as long as the left-most population bonus slot is left empty, the +3 food ghost shows on the population units, which is not that useful because the biggest point spenders are on that left-most population bonus slot (a wasted opportunity introducing so little population bonus possibilities that really matters).

It's just lazy work if you ask me, like with quite a few other aspects of this game; for instance, planet size determination. They (planets) are biased on climate, which means good planets tend to be smaller in size to counter for the higher habitability, and as a result one is better off colonizing huge lava, ice, arctic, or desert planets and terraform them later to huge fertile planets. I guess it is a good thing they recognized balancing is not their forte so "keep things simple, stupid" seems to be their motto. I wished they hired a few good AI-strategists coders instead with the money they spent on the soundtrack, which is quite good, but doesn't make the game better play-wise.

[Sexy Skaven Rat]

Originally posted by Freny:

They hard-coded +3 food on Horatio template because they felt Horatio needed to be rescued from being such a sucky race, starting on a Mediterranean planet and all. My guess is they thought Agriculturalist (+5 food) was too strong, and Agricultural Engineer (+1 food) or Nurturers (+2 food) was not enough (point cap was not an issue as there was room even for Agriculturalist trait - not that point cap ever mattered to them since a few of the default races bypassed the cap). Thus, rather than create yet another +food population bonus trait or upgrading Nurturers to +3 food, they ghosted a +3 food bonus and attached it to the Horatio template.

Hence, now one could edit a Horatio template to change it completely, and as long as the left-most population bonus slot is left empty, the +3 food ghost shows on the population units, which is not that useful because the biggest point spenders are on that left-most population bonus slot (a wasted opportunity introducing so little population bonus possibilities that really matters).

It's just lazy work if you ask me, like with quite a few other aspects of this game; for instance, planet size determination. They (planets) are biased on climate, which means good planets tend to be smaller in size to counter for the higher habitability, and as a result one is better off colonizing huge lava, ice, arctic, or desert planets and terraform them later to huge fertile planets. I guess it is a good thing they recognized balancing is not their forte so "keep things simple, stupid" seems to be their motto. I wished they hired a few good AI-strategists coders instead with the money they spent on the soundtrack, which is quite good, but doesn't make the game better play-wise.

Ooh so that's why the left slot with stronger perks is empty! I found quite a few things devs are hiding in XML files that change some numbers and effects in game but don't tell you complete information about what they're changing.

Terraformation is a gamechanger, otherwise we have a huge population on a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ planet making everyone unhappy. What do you think would be a better planet creation model? To me it seems like they limit your pop on purpose until you are late enough in the game to discover a way of colonizing and terraforming less inhabitable planets to kinda even out the population numbers curve. My complaint would be starting and having a system with Ice, Arctic & Lava planets with Tundra at best in 5 out of 6 systems near my OG one, including the home system. The 6th system does have a nice total of 2 inhabitable planets and is occupied by pirates before I can colonize. That's kinda GG on it's own, but it happens relatively rarely.

[Freny]

I play with https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1233946283 to reduce the galaxy generation nonsense, and with https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1509523340 and https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1301600120 so that the AI is more aggressive and sucks less at battles and building ships.

[Aldernut]

I'd most def like a better population management system as well. Sorting pops to right places is a huge hassle.

A dedicated pop management window would do the trick.

[Sexy Skaven Rat]

Originally posted by Freny:

I play with https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1233946283 to reduce the galaxy generation nonsense, and with https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1509523340 and https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1301600120 so that the AI is more aggressive and sucks less at battles and building ships.

Interesting, I'll try this out, thanks

[Sexy Skaven Rat]

Originally posted by Aldernut:

I'd most def like a better population management system as well. Sorting pops to right places is a huge hassle.

A dedicated pop management window would do the trick.

Yea, i think a good place to start would be information on where everyone is going and when they are arriving