human population

[BoltHarrier]

Is this still a massive pain in the ass? Its the reason I quit playing last time. Nothing I like more than "Here is an RNG ran timer, you cant stop it or reverse it. you spent a few hours training your soldiers? This entire campaign is ♥♥♥♥♥♥ ^_^"

[Vaigl]

You can stop it by protecting havens and slightly reverse it by liberating infested havens (Festering Skies only).

You can also completely disable human population counter via Custom Campaign mod: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2835034814&requirelogin=true

[Muton]

dude don't cry over it

[Yoinkyz]

its really not that bad

[Old Ben]

You can also use this Workshop mod to adjust it to slow it down or speed it up.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2840976354

[Hand's Hermit Permit]

I'll admit I'm still on my first playthrough (long campaign) and it's only on "normal" difficulty, but I'm pretty sure I could speedrun through some research projects and get myself to the endgame at this point and the world population is literally still at 87%. So I don't think it's extremely unforgiving.

Just save havens to slow down population loss. You can push mist off some havens to slow starvation too. I really don't think it's a huge problem. You can't just let havens die for no reason and expect the population to be great.

[Old Ben]

Originally posted by Hand's Hermit Permit:

I'll admit I'm still on my first playthrough (long campaign) and it's only on "normal" difficulty, but I'm pretty sure I could speedrun through some research projects and get myself to the endgame at this point and the world population is literally still at 87%. So I don't think it's extremely unforgiving.

Just save havens to slow down population loss. You can push mist off some havens to slow starvation too. I really don't think it's a huge problem. You can't just let havens die for no reason and expect the population to be great.

I agree with what you said. My preference is to play long campaigns like (LWOTC/LW2 for XCOM as an example), So I use the mod and slow it down by 50% so I don't feel I need to rush through the game and enjoy playing it and end it on my terms.

[Artek [General]]

1) It's not that bad on any difficulty besides Legendary.
Even on Hero you can easily unlock ALL research projects, have like 5 well-developed teams keeping the entire planet on lockdown and beat all the special / sidequest missions and STILL have like 20-30% of population to spare.

2) As devs themselves mentioned in the first response - there's now a mod that can help you finetune that particular mechanic in something that doesn't bother you.

[Muton]

On legendary I ended the game at 57% I believe. So there is no reason to be concerned at all with it

[BoltHarrier]

Strange, on my first playthrough I was about 20-30 missions in and my pop went down to 25%.

[Artek [General]]

Originally posted by Thunderhawk:

Strange, on my first playthrough I was about 20-30 missions in and my pop went down to 25%.

That... Sounds almost impossible.
Either your first playthrough was in very early version of the game (i believe they did calmed down the timer with later patches), or you made some mistake in strategic layer that was causing such insane casualties, but even then i can't imagine it being that bad.

Either way, it should be much better now.

[BoltHarrier]

Originally posted by Artek General:

Originally posted by Thunderhawk:

Strange, on my first playthrough I was about 20-30 missions in and my pop went down to 25%.

That... Sounds almost impossible.
Either your first playthrough was in very early version of the game (i believe they did calmed down the timer with later patches), or you made some mistake in strategic layer that was causing such insane casualties, but even then i can't imagine it being that bad.

Either way, it should be much better now.

Oh it was a very long time ago, before any expansions. SO I am gonna assume that I just played the "pre toned down" version.

[Blech]

Don't worry about the timer, it is very lenient. Instead, worry that enemy lairs will bug out, thus making a constant drain on your allies reputation towards you. Or even better, that vital research won't unlock and destroy your campaign.

That's the real RNG, nobody decided to fix the gamebreaking bugs, and if you get one you are basically done.