Population Growth Racial Trait now too strong???

Actually I selected Pop Growth in the abilities tab for my first game just to make the switching from the earlier version a bit more smoothly. Unless you got 100% approval (+100% pop growth) it is barely noticeable - the racial bonus is applied afterwards.
I don't have much experience yet, but I wouldn't say it's too strong now.

I found that the economic bonuses are incredible coupled with the AI's hatred of strategic resources.

Is it too strong? Or was it just too weak before?

It was really weak before. Almost pointless

Well in my current game I gave the Torian the population growth trait pick at 70% and they have taken over half the map!

Sweet, gonna go and customise me a race with that ability!

Torians seemed to be overpowered in 1.1. Every game I've played (and lost--ugh, the AI is brutal now:P), the Torians cover the map in no time.

Yeah same the Torians conquer everything.

I concur with point posted in #4.

You now get something for your points spent. Too strong? I wouldn't say that. I say 1.1 shows us how it was supposed to be.

I was an avid player of galciv one, as well as the new sequel. I always maxed out population growth as a racial trait, because I found that at the harder levels it was nearly impossible to compete without it, my population just got left behind. Increasing the population ability allows for a more effective colony snatch at the beginning, which can be a huge advantage. I was excited to see that it wasn't as much as an issue in the sequal, but apparently that's being fixed.

(@#10) Right! Now if you want factories full of 6-week-old birthing machines, you have to choose it as a racial specialty ("Hereditary Fetus Molester"). 3% is still insanely high, and a "+Growth" pick still makes gestation rates even more insane, but with the "square root of taxpayers" economy I don't think growth is nearly as valuable as economy picks. It would compliment soldiering picks well, though.

Still, the patch has been out 1 day, and I'm sure the murky waters will settle soon.

The pop growth bonus is awesome, if you're the one getting it. Probably a little too awesome. It's the massive initial colonization phase that wins it. If a planet has 3% pop growth, it takes 23 turns to double its population. With 70% bonus, it takes 14 turns. In 23 turns, it actually has 3x its original population. BUT: you're at 100% morale during the initial colonization phase. That means 2x population every 11 turns vs. every 7 turns, and every 11 turns the guy with 70% is gaining 50% more population than the one without.

Your taxes, on the other hand, are the square root of your population. The extra population is no big deal if you're square rooting it, right? Let's do a little calculus. Take the derivative of sqrt(population) to get the rate of increase in your taxes per population: that would be 1/2*pop^(-1/2). For values > 1, sure, your tax growth rate is slowing. That's not the problem. For SMALL values, < 1, the rate of tax increase is actually INCREASING, at a GREATER than linear growth rate. And that is what's happening during the initial colonization phase--you have an exponential population growth rate, multiplied by a GREATER than linear tax growth.

Well much later in the game now the Torians with their Population Growth pick are blowing everyone else away. Next comes the Altarian Republic with the Economic Trait picks of course....

After playing a 1.1B game, I'll have to agree - the current population growth picks are STRONG. I like the current base population growth rate, but with only a +10% growth pick, I got utterly destroyed economically - and could never recover from a planetary invasion, while my enemies seemed to be made from armies of endless clones. The Torians had 4 worlds at 5.00 billion and a capitol above that at the same time I had a capitol at 4.2 billion and a single colony at 1.6 billion.

The +pop growth bonuses should probably be at least halved, at which point they'll still be desirable.

The game is a lot more fun now that population is an important resource!