[Nick_K]

During a time of global religious war in a pseudo-mediaeval setting with presumably mediaeval concepts of warefare (ie civilians being fair game) and mediaeval levels of food supply and medical knowledge I don't think one can expect populations to tend to increase. As is, during this time of turmoil populations will tend to go down due to pillage, death scale, magic, plagues etc. This seems to me to be perfectly fitting. All it takes is for the death rate to exceed the birth rate and population will shrink. This has happened many times in history for periods of longer than my dom3 games last for, at least for areas stricken with war, famine and plague.