why is max pop only 1800?

[left4dan1212]

anyway to make it more?

[joeball123]

Under Options > Gameplay, you can set the nominal population limit to any increment of 1,000 between 2,000 and 10,000. This can be changed 'live,' so you don't need to restart a scenario or even save & reload for the change to take effect.

Note, however, that the actual population cap - the number you can reach before "Tropico is too crowded" - appears to be 90% of the nominal limit you set in the Options menu.

[left4dan1212]

thanks

[Kunovega]

why is max pop only 1800?

Every citizen is its own AI branch of decisions, a higher population can put a strain on a CPU and cause lag if your system is not capable of dealing with it. There's a large volume of the player base here on very low end systems barely capable of running the game at all. So they keep the default low.

Turning up the volume is in options.

Originally posted by joeball123:

Under Options > Gameplay, you can set the nominal population limit to any increment of 1,000 between 2,000 and 10,000. This can be changed 'live,' so you don't need to restart a scenario or even save & reload for the change to take effect.

Note, however, that the actual population cap - the number you can reach before "Tropico is too crowded" - appears to be 90% of the nominal limit you set in the Options menu.

I think the cap includes tourists and recently deceased that haven't been cleared from the system yet, so you end up with a rolling number of population visible below the fixed simulation number.

[joeball123]

Originally posted by Kunovega:

I think the cap includes tourists and recently deceased that haven't been cleared from the system yet, so you end up with a rolling number of population visible below the fixed simulation number.

I am extremely dubious that tourists, the recently-deceased, and guerrillas counting against the population limit is the cause of the behavior that I see in-game.
1. I run into "Tropico is too crowded" at 90% of the nominal population cap regardless of whether I lean heavily into tourism or have no tourist infrastructure whatsoever, whether or not I'm actually in or have set the game up to allow me to reach an era where tourism is possible, and regardless of the death rate or how many people are leaving / have left society to become guerrillas.

2. The "Tropico is too crowded" limit and de facto population cap is an extremely consistent and stable 90% of the nominal population cap. If it were a soft 'rolling limit' that has to do with the number of tourists currently on the map, how many recently-deceased citizens I have, et cetera, then I'd expect to see some degree of random variation around it and occasionally have immigrants arriving when I have for example a population of 1,805 out of a potential 2,000, but I've never yet seen immigrants who I didn't pay for arrive on a freighter while my current population was at or above 90% of the nominal limit.

3. As nearly as I can determine, the "Tropico is too crowded" limit is exactly 90% of the nominal population cap, at least for the caps I've bothered checking, because that's where the population number changes color. Again, if this were a result of tourists, the recently-deceased, and guerrillas being counted against the population cap, I'd expect to see some degree of variation here.

It's plausible that tourism, deaths, and guerrillas have something to do with it, as in it's a hard-coded limit to allow the game some leeway to include them, but it very definitely is not a soft 'rolling limit' resulting from them.

[Kunovega]

Originally posted by joeball123:

Originally posted by Kunovega:

I think the cap includes tourists and recently deceased that haven't been cleared from the system yet, so you end up with a rolling number of population visible below the fixed simulation number.

I am extremely dubious that tourists, the recently-deceased, and guerrillas counting against the population limit is the cause of the behavior that I see in-game.
1. I run into "Tropico is too crowded" at 90% of the nominal population cap regardless of whether I lean heavily into tourism or have no tourist infrastructure whatsoever, whether or not I'm actually in or have set the game up to allow me to reach an era where tourism is possible, and regardless of the death rate or how many people are leaving / have left society to become guerrillas.

2. The "Tropico is too crowded" limit and de facto population cap is an extremely consistent and stable 90% of the nominal population cap. If it were a soft 'rolling limit' that has to do with the number of tourists currently on the map, how many recently-deceased citizens I have, et cetera, then I'd expect to see some degree of random variation around it and occasionally have immigrants arriving when I have for example a population of 1,805 out of a potential 2,000, but I've never yet seen immigrants who I didn't pay for arrive on a freighter while my current population was at or above 90% of the nominal limit.

3. As nearly as I can determine, the "Tropico is too crowded" limit is exactly 90% of the nominal population cap, at least for the caps I've bothered checking, because that's where the population number changes color. Again, if this were a result of tourists, the recently-deceased, and guerrillas being counted against the population cap, I'd expect to see some degree of variation here.

It's plausible that tourism, deaths, and guerrillas have something to do with it, as in it's a hard-coded limit to allow the game some leeway to include them, but it very definitely is not a soft 'rolling limit' resulting from them.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3142348335

If it were hard coded to 90% then I would never see over 9000 population, but I do when it's set to 10,000. That's 9015 population and 264 current tourists and I don't have the message that "Tropico is too crowded"

I've never seen it stop at exactly 9000 as you claim, I've only ever seen "Tropico is too crowded" with over 9000 current population, the exact number of population changes and the only flux that would account for it are tourists, hidden rebels and recently dead that haven't cycled out yet.

[joeball123]

Okay, so you've demonstrated that the effective population cap is not 90% of the nominal limit when the nominal limit is 10,000. Did you bother trying to determine when you hit "Tropico is too crowded" or determining if tourists have any effect on that number? Because I can tell you right now that tourists do not appear to have any effect on the population number at which "Tropico is too crowded" at a nominal population cap of 2,000, 3,000, or 4,000, and that at those numbers "Tropico is too crowded" at exactly 1,800, 2,700, and 3,600 population, respectively, while behaving far more like a hardcoded limit than like something that's oscillating around a point where birth rate + immigration are approximately equal to death rate + emigration.

[lluis85]

you can set it at max 10.000 but having 6.000 people is alredy quite difficult. U need an expanding economy with high labour demand.
This is one of the problems of tropico, a state with only 10.000 citizens is not normal. It should be at least 50.000.

[Kunovega]

Originally posted by joeball123:

Okay, so you've demonstrated that the effective population cap is not 90% of the nominal limit when the nominal limit is 10,000. Did you bother trying to determine when you hit "Tropico is too crowded" or determining if tourists have any effect on that number? Because I can tell you right now that tourists do not appear to have any effect on the population number at which "Tropico is too crowded" at a nominal population cap of 2,000, 3,000, or 4,000, and that at those numbers "Tropico is too crowded" at exactly 1,800, 2,700, and 3,600 population, respectively, while behaving far more like a hardcoded limit than like something that's oscillating around a point where birth rate + immigration are approximately equal to death rate + emigration.

My only point was it is absolutely not a hard coded 90% as you claimed; I don't need to know the exact details of how it works to prove that was wrong.

If you want to spend the hours testing it feel free, I don't care that much.

Originally posted by lluis85:

you can set it at max 10.000 but having 6.000 people is alredy quite difficult. U need an expanding economy with high labour demand.
This is one of the problems of tropico, a state with only 10.000 citizens is not normal. It should be at least 50.000.

There are micronations with less than 1,000 citizens.

[Oddible]

Originally posted by Kunovega:

There are micronations with less than 1,000 citizens.

Sir this is a Wendy's. Er a game.

[Oddible]

Is there any disadvantage or reason to not increase the limit?

[Kunovega]

Originally posted by Oddible:

Originally posted by Kunovega:

There are micronations with less than 1,000 citizens.

Sir this is a Wendy's. Er a game.

Yes and? Both his question and my answer were relevant. A 1000 to 10,000 population is not out of line for a micronation, which is what this game is making a parody of.

Originally posted by Oddible:

Is there any disadvantage or reason to not increase the limit?

CPU limitations. Low end systems can't handle that many individual AI decision chains simultaneously without severe slow down and lag.

Game play wise, a higher population may be more difficult to keep happy and is not really required to complete any of the missions; however, if you're decent at managing happiness a higher population can make the game easier by increasing potential income over shorter periods of time.

So there's your two things to consider, either your system can handle it or you'll have performance issues. And either you can handle the increased population and leverage it to your advantage, or you're not skilled enough and you'll just strangle your popularity with poor happiness.