Is there a cure for the Population Blues?

[Slick]

One aspect of this great game that I do not enjoy is the management of population.

In the beginning of a game it is "only" a little boring to move your own population around to your expansion colonies. In this phase, the Population Minister can be of some use. Sure, he doesn't do a good job, but he does it. I limit his ability to do significant damage, at the cost of even more efficiency, by making Population Transports with only the minimum number of Cargo Bays, and only use Cargo Bay I's.

In the mid-to-late game, the problems get worse. As you get other races incorporated, you have to worry about putting them on the right planets. The Population Minister will totally mess this up and you can't really use him for this task so it is back to manual control. Even if you do some manual intervention, he is likely to mix populations on a planet which will "dome" the world and halt facility production if greater than the domed maximum. Also add in the need to exert more control to ensure happiness stays in check, using UPC's, troops, etc.

Another headache is if you have alien population on a planet with a spaceyard. You build a colonizer, but the green/red star planets still refer to your original population, not to the population on that planet. So that greenie may really be a red for the alien population on the particular planet. You have to make sure your colonizer picks up the right population for the right planet. Add in the frustration in simultaneous games of not being able to fine-tune the loading of population automatically using "Load" or "Colonize" i.e all or nothing. You have to waste another turn by having the colonizer stop at the planet you want to load from so that you can Transfer the right number of population to the Colonizer.

I know that I can change the "Natural Decrease for Other Races := 20" to a negative number to ease up on the happiness aspect, but I really don't want to do that because I want to play the game the way it was intended.

Can some of you share your population management techniques to help me with my Population Blues? How many Pop. Transports do you use? What is the configuration? How do you keep track of who-is-going-where? Etc. Any help would be appreciated.

Slick.

[Arkcon]

The next patch is reported to fix the population miinister.

In a very old, pre-gold patch, the population minister worked just fine -- at least late game. I had various breathing types and the pop minister moved them around well. No planets were depleted seriously, and the transports only got stuck occasionaly.

Maybe the new patch will return the fuctionality the game lost for a little while.

Colonizer is still brain dead, that's for sure.

[BBegemott]

Originally by Slick:
Add in the frustration in simultaneous games of not being able to fine-tune the loading of population automatically using "Load" or "Colonize" i.e all or nothing. You have to waste another turn by having the colonizer stop at the planet you want to load from so that you can Transfer the right number of population to the Colonizer.

Why not to use Cargo Transfer button with two opposite arrows?

[Slick]

Originally posted by BBegemott:

quote:

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Originally by Slick:
Add in the frustration in simultaneous games of not being able to fine-tune the loading of population automatically using "Load" or "Colonize" i.e all or nothing. You have to waste another turn by having the colonizer stop at the planet you want to load from so that you can Transfer the right number of population to the Colonizer.

Why not to use Cargo Transfer button with two opposite arrows?

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That is exactly what I am talking about. In Simulaneous games, you lose an extra turn if you do that. I am sure you are thinking about Sequential turn games.

[Rojero]

Well..if they werent feline...i would assimilate my people...then jettison the population
Me i usually just do it manually...of course i am very new to this game...so as yet do not know enough

[Greybeard]

I like to use a number of small population transports to move citizens around. Usually try to have one for each planet with more than 1500 population. I even use mine layers, satellite layers, troop transports, and fighter carriers for moving population when they are available.

In the planet screen, there is a races window that shows which races are on each planet. I use this to keep track of where they are. In the general window, you can sort by population to see which planets have the most citizens.

I have never used the population minister....Greybeard

[Fyron]

Here's a solution: don't build so many pop transports. Limit the amount of them to micromanage.

Another solution: take Organic race trait. Build Replicant Centers in all systems. Then, planets will grow rather rapidly on their own.

[Arkcon]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
Here's a solution: don't build so many pop transports. Limit the amount of them to micromanage.

This is a very worthwhile point. Does every tiny or small world have to be optimized immediately?

Patient says: "Doctor, it hurts when I micromanage"

Doctor says: "So don't micromanage"

Here's a tip. Build tiny population transports, frigate or destroyer hull. Max engines, half cargo and half supply. Call them population transports and put them under minister control.

The supply storage will help prevent the ship from running out of supply. The small cargo capacity will help prevent the minister from empting a planet. Every so often shut off the minister and fix what he's done wrong. Use the colonies view window on the system bar to see what planet still needs some attention.

You take care of large and huge, optimal, high resource planets personally. Use a large transport, so you can undo what the minister does easily. By doing that, you'll give the minister a planet to start from in each system. Build resupply depots on lots of planets to help out the population minister.

[ December 29, 2002, 13:58: Message edited by: Arkcon ]

[capnq]

Build tiny population transports, frigate or destroyer hull. Max engines, half cargo and half supply.

You can knock the cargo capacity down further by using Satellite Bays instead of Cargo Bays, or even more if you have Fighter Bays or Mine Layers

[Ed Kolis]

Originally posted by capnq:

quote:

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Build tiny population transports, frigate or destroyer hull. Max engines, half cargo and half supply.

You can knock the cargo capacity down further by using Satellite Bays instead of Cargo Bays, or even more if you have Fighter Bays or Mine Layers

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Or just don't fill up the hull - you don't have to use every Last kT, and cargo pods are cheaper than mine layers!