Aye, I am having that problem to. Both when I started original config games and also after when I gave myself 900% population growth. I'm still only growing 200 per turn.

I believe population growth is rather broken currently.  There is a hard limit of 200 million on the amount a colony's population can grow each turn, and that's after taking population growth bonuses and morale bonuses into account.  Therefore, I'd say it's not worth putting any points into population growth when customizing a race to play with.

Well, the AI uses the exact same code the player uses when determining population growth. The AI is probably outgrowing you by out-colonizing you--the AI colonizes like crazy early in the game.

I've spent the last day testing this, and I simply don't see how it could be true. Let me explain:

When the colonization (land rush) stage of the game is done, I always have significantly more planets than any other civilization, but I still have a LOT less population than them. (I am only playing on "normal" AI) How could I have been outcolonized if I have significantly more colonies than any of them when the colonization phase is done?

For example, in my current game when the last colonizable planet was gone, I had 7 planets and the AI civs had about 3-5 planets each. Despite this, EVERY AI civ had about 50% more population than me.

I've noticed the 200M growth cap, as confirmed by CaretFarmer, but the AI is not outgrowing me.

The max population cap is going to be controlled by available food and taxation / happiness. I usually have an early focus in setting up entertainment, keeping taxes reasonable, and making sure there is ample food. This has kept me near the head of the pack for population, even against aliens with more worlds. I'm pretty sure the pop cap is being applied fairly.

That said, I would love to tweak the values controlling population. I've tried setting up some scenarios with different "PopulationGrowth" values, and running thru some turns, but the homeworld population always seems to grow at 200M until morale gets down to 40%, at which point it promptly stops cold.

That still leaves the problem that modifiers for pop. Growth doesnt work

Technically, pop.growth isn't broken. It's working as intended. It's just completely, and utterly useless at pretty much any population above 200m (and I rarely send out colony ships, or conquer planets with that few pop). It'll save you maybe 3 turns before you hit the pop growth cap.

To run a game in cheatmode, select "Start" from desktop, and then select "Run" Once you click "Run" a command line pop up should appear. Once it does type in the following "C:\Program Files\Stardock\TotalGaming\GalCiv2\galciv2.exe" cheat" (everything in quotations is correct, you need the quotations too when you copy and paste this to the command line. Once you have done this, then click ok to run the game in cheat mode. This is the only way you can activate cheat mode that I know of.

All cheat codes are the same as GCI, but there are some differences, but not all that many.

Press control key while in game and press on of the following keys while holding the Ctrl key down.

P- +1 to planet quality (Note: Does not add any extra useable tiles to either colonized worlds, or non-colonized. You must also have a planet selected!)

A- Upgrades ships stats and resets to the movement points so that your ship or fleet has full movement points.

V- Brings up a United Planets Meeting regardless of time from last meeting. (immediate affect)

C- Clone selected ship as long as ctrl+c is depressed (note: when cloning colony ships, it does not clone the population of the colonist on the cloned ships from the orignal parent ship, but you can still colonize with them.)

B- Summons a battleship on the map that is under your control. (Regardless of technology, weapons, etc.. ablities.)

J- Completes current social and military projects. (Depress to complete as many as you like, but all tiles must have a project in quere to do this.)

M- Adds 10,000bc to your treasurary. Depress for as long as you like until you get the amount you desire!

H- Heals selected fleet, ship, or starbase, and replenishes movement points, but does not upgrade ship weapons, defenses, amount of maximum movement points, etc... You must use Ctrl+A if you want to do this!)

U- Unveals the entire map, and researches the Universial Translator, also contacts all existing civilizations, and gives basic stats about them equalvant to a medium Esponiage ability, so I've heard!)

R- Researches current technology. Press Ctrl+R+Shift to research all technologies except for Technological Victory. (Note: You must not be in the technology research screen in order for this too work!)

S- Saves the game

W- Have no clue what it does. First it makes your ships disappear, and if you push it again, the game crashes? (BUG)

There is also a letter that assigns all non-taken worlds to all major civilizations, but I don't remember what key that was I think it was Q or E, but not 100 percent sure.

I hope this helps!
Darkrious