Population makes no sense in this game

its even dumber how you can colonize a new world and in 3 months it can already have 6 billion people on it? isn't the average pregnancy supposed to last atleast 9 months?

Well, population is only taxpayers in GC2. It seems that lots are hiding or a way to use robots as taxpayers had been found

I find it odd that there were non-taxpayers on the colonies. If I bring 1B taxpayers on a colony ship, do 10B non-taxpayers smuggle aboard?

I like the idea of "more people rich = more people", but if there is more rich people on my planet, why are they less happy? I mean, the moral of the planet would have to be based on the whole population, not on how many taxpayers I have.

Why not draft the poors into the Invasion ships? I mean, poor people go in the military, that's why they exist in U.S.A.

Don't think of population as the actuall number of people. Think of it as the size of the tax-base.

We are cloning, we are cloning- dudadada dadadu... (now everybody)

It's a game and population is just a game element and works pretty well as implemented in what is one really good game.

However , in game terms, morale goes down as population goes up but one of the 'explanations' for population ( tax base ) going up is more people joining the tax ranks -- so shouldn't morale really being going up if more people are willing/able to pay taxes?

And if you think population raises 'reality' questions -- think about having to choose between production-research. Why should we have too? We have production capacity and we have resesrch capacity. Then for no reason at all we have to choose between them. Personally for game play I sort of lean towards like having to choose between them but have certainly been fluctuating on how I feel about it.

But once again it's just a game and I'm just a paying customer that really likes the game.

But the original question was about population in 2222, nope I don't think it's dumb to think Earth's population might only be 5 billion then -- it'll probally be much more than that imho but could easily be less ( wars, famine, enviormental disasters both man made and natural, plagues, etc.... ).

Yes, but I've also noticed that when you research the top level of farming, the text says that better food makes for better morale. However, you don't get a morale bonus. That's something that needs to be changed. Either the text or the fact of what farming does. I would prefer that enhanced farming would give some sort of enhanced morale.

and omg the game isnt realistic... oh wait thats cause its a game.

RL is out side game is on your computor.

I bet your one of the people who think CS is realistic.

Well if you compare it to the Civilization series, the turns take up much more time (at the beginning each turn is many years). That makes sense for population growth, but it doesn't make much sense for unit movement (it takes five years to move a unit from one side of the city to the other?). The fact is, it's just a game. If they made it realistic, either the population would take the whole game to go up, or the units would zip around like flies. Gameplay trumps realism in my opinion...

Charlie

Maybe the future of civilization just loves to get jiggy with it. A lot.

LOL. I tend to think they just didn't revisit the code from GC1, and it generally works out as far as game play.

However I also think it would be neat to clean/clear it up. Almost everything else in GC2 became more transparent. It would hopefully only take some rebalancing to get the gameplay right with a more realistic population model.

It might also be cool if the different races had very different models, especially the Yor and Thalians. Since the Yor are robots, they should live very very long, but are perhaps expensive (slow) to build new ones.

Meanwhile the Thalians could be like ants, breed up fast but have short lifespans.

And of course the kids and grannys wouldn't fight or transport very well...

In 2222 the population of the world in humans will be nill to none. Environmental things will happend to destroy mandkind. Nuclear fallout will destroy 2/3rds of it before that because someone IS GOING TO PRESS THE BUTTON before then. So really 5 billion is farfectched and not realistic. Roaches and Ants will evolve rapidly from the radiation fallout and become the new supreme species on earth. They will also hunt what is left of mankind for SPORT. Ants will pour gasoline on them for payback of all the times little kids poured gasoline on them. Roaches will use RAID rifles.

At least it's nice to have something to look forward too...

That's not how it's gonna happen, all the bugs will evolve into humanoids, and the humans will devolve into canaballistic mutants, that will hide in desert hills and ambush bugs and eat them.      

I was actually hoping that we will try to build caves in the moon using thermonuclear engines, but break it and make it fall on our head. We will have to take shelter in the underdark.. ehh, I mean, underground. Then, our society will develop by cast. Some will be the arms, other will be the eyes. Other the brains, and other, the food. (Strangely, the food-kind will be exactly like our actual specie, and they will have plenty of food to eat themselves)

I think one of two things will happen. Either man suffer some kind of cataclysm and get reduced to living like he did 10,000 years ago or, will not and continue to develop culturally and technologically. In that case, the game could be true to reality in that man will have discovered a "hyperdrive" of sorts and go to the stars. Don't know that the galactic pioneers would meet Drengins and Thalans and the like, but they'd probably find lots of interesting things to say the least.

Trying to put the game in some sort of realistic framework is a stretch at best, but what if they were using some technological method of reproduction that did not rely on good old fashion biological reproduction. In that case, it might be possible to make 5 billion humans over the course of several months. In any case, imagine the game's pace using a natural human reproduction cycle. Don't think I'd want to play a 10,000 turn game. 520 is long enough for me thanks.

A normal reproduction rate wouldn't necessarilly slow the game down. It would make it much easier to over build, but as long as they rebalanced things it should be able to work out. (after all it would affect all the civs.)

A normal reproduction rate

How do you know the average gestation period of a Thalan?

after all it would affect all the civs.

Would it? For all we know, Torians emerge fully grown from pods after a two-week gestation.

I've read that the birth rate of most of the Western world is actually rather below replacement levels. Most births in the world are in developing nations now. So if we finally manage to bring everyone on Earth up to developed status, it's possible it might drop back down to 5bil in a few hundred years.

i believe that the only place population is dropping is china and that is becouse the government has put a birth rate of 1 to every couple

all other countries with a few exceptions are still growing

I like to think of the population size as the number of taxpayers who pay enough taxes to make a difference in a galactic economy. Right now, in 2001, I think Earth would be hard-pressed to find even a hundred million such taxpayers, and almost all of those would be corporations, not individuals. So by 2225, 5 bil doesn't seem too unrealistic.

There are still going to be all kinds of service economy jobs by then, because it would be ridiculously expensive to replace a minimum-wage earner with a robot. New colonies will need unskilled and low-skilled workers as much as the home planet - just not as many of them.

People working at a discount baby-clothes outlet aren't going to be paying galactic-scale taxes. But, if they pass the tests and volunteer for the week-long hypnotraining course in Orbital Induction Welding, suddenly they will be earning enough that their taxes matter in the galactic economy.

Yeah, that's a hell of alot of rationalization, but it works for me.

Birth RATES are dropping in most of western world. Why do you think the door is wide open for mexicans to come in ? We need them to keep our economic pyramid scheme going.

The basic reasons are culturally influenced, equal rights for women, birth control, pursuit of wealth, and everyone wanting a "sophisticated" life style. Having more than 2 kids is just not in vogue anymore.

Would it? For all we know, Torians emerge fully grown from pods after a two-week gestation.

BAH! Everyone knows it's 3 weeks, come on!

So the mexicans are Torians?