What does population do?

Hi!

Provides money from taxes and troops for invasion or defense. It also increases influence on a given planet. That's all.

BR, Iztok

[Edit] Answered above.

Income and troops, thats it. Manufacturing and research is independant.

Don't let your population grow too much. The more overcrowded your planet is the harder it is to keep most of them happy. I try not to allow a planet's population to grow beyond 20 billion. At a certain point it take a ridiculus number of Virtual Entertainment Centers to keep the citizens happy. That's on top of having 3 starbases mining for morale bonuses.

So, this whole time I've been trying to keep at least 12B people on my tech and manufacturing worlds. I could stay at 6B and use farm/happy tiles for factories/labs and be much better off?

I only keep my very small worlds at 6B people. Any planet with a PQ of at least 10 will have 12B people, on PQ17+ worlds I may allow up to 20B people.

People are a good source of tax income which you'll need when you start building a fleet of ships. However, have too many people (20B+) can become a pain in the ass because at that piont they are harder to keep happy.

Does PQ influence the maximium population? Cause I have PQ 16 planet which could support 40B if I wanted it to...but population growth goes stagnant at about 22.5B.

I even tried transplanting people using colony ships.

So I'm guessing that must be the case.

I only on my 2nd GalCiv 2 game so far, so I don't if there is a maximum limit. The limit may simply depend on how many advanced farms you build. But it doesn't matter anyway since more than 20B people in my game means that I need to build too many entermainment structures to keep the population happy.

The reproduction rate depends on the approval rate of the planet. If the approval rate is low enough then the citizens may simply decide not go past a certain population level otherwise they will become too unhappy. The highest population count I had on a single planet was 27B, that was on a planet with 3 of the most advance farms you can build which would give a max population of 27B if they were built on a regular tile.

Hi!

Pop limit is 100B, hardcoded.


No, each PQ has it's own pop limit, to which the pop will GROW by itself, but above PQ-17 it is 100. Check Wiki under Rough numbers.

BR, Iztok

Hi!

Tax-wise likely yes, because if you'd build 2 Stock Markets, they would give you 50% increase in tax revenue, while doubling your pop with one farm and one supporting morale building (growing pop from 6B to 12 would give you only sqrt(2)=1.41 more taxes. Howerver I still haven't checked the DA validity of money-producing formula posted on Wiki, so this could be wrong.
But the moment you'd lift pop for invasion from a 6B planet you'd get big dent in your income, much bigger than if you'd lift pop from 12B planet.

BR, Iztok

That's the heart of the matter.

So by "no", do you actually mean "yes"? Because that's what it looks like. PQ does determine max population (well for Growth - you can transport extra people over it looks like).

Hi!

With no I mean NO. Populatin limit is defined by available food. You can have on a class-3 planet with 2 best farms 20B people forever, if you bring them there with transports. The only thing that will decrease their amount there is a approval below 21%. If that happens, 10% of them will move away, until approval will be again more than 20%.

Well, if you want to nitpick, then you're right: since one needs free tiles to build farms, and PQ defines the amount of tiles, then yes, the amount of pop is infuenced by PQ.

BR, Iztok

Ok, I was just confused. Because you said it doesn't, and then immediately said "each pq has it's own pop limit, to which is will grow", which means that PQ does influence max pop limit. Then you even posted a link which explains how PQ effects max population.

So you kind of contradicted yourself in the exact same sentence.

No, what Iztoc is saying is correct. Maximum population & population growth are 2 different things.

Even the 100 billion cap is not absolute for max population - if there is food in excess of that you can ferry in more pop, but no planet regardless of PQ will naturally grow beyond 100 billion.

Not that any of this is particularly relevant since v1.2, as all the changes in morale & approval since then mean it is virtually impossible to keep those sort of population numbers happy anymore.

I always build one farm and don't even bother researching Stock Exchange. If it's a specialized planet that really needs the extra tile (like my tech capital or my manufacturing capital that builds all the galactic wonders), I don't even build the one farm. I only build morale structures on bonus squares.

That's an interesting point about the +50% income for 6B pop w/ 2 Stock Markets vs. only sqrt(2)=+41% for 12B pop w/ farm and morale building. I would say the payoff for the 12B pop starts to kick in with the THIRD building. Stock Markets only stack additively, but the stock markets and population multiply with each other.

In other words:
3 Stock markets would give +75% income.
1 farm, 1 morale, 1 stock market would give 1.41*1.25= +76% income

Plus you've got the influence & tourism, which would go decidedly in favor of the farm. I think that first farm is a good idea, but a second farm isn't.