Methods for increasing population rate

geoschmo · #1 July 21st, 2005, 09:56 AM

Are there any methods to increase the population rate for a non-organic race. Other than increasing the conditions on the planet I mean. It's possible to nerf your empire setup enough so that even on an optimal planet you get a base 0% birth rate. For an organic race I know there is a way around this by building one of those facilities. Is there anything a non-organic race with such a setup can do, or are they basically screwed?

RCCCL · #2 July 21st, 2005, 10:04 AM

Even when it says 0% growth, your population still grows. It just grows at some tenth of a percent. I know, because I had a game where my population growth was 0%, and after a few years I saw my population go up 1.

The only thing you might do is transport people to that planet. The more people you have on a planet, the more will be born. It won't raise the % at all, but if you keep transporting people off planets that are full, your populaytion will grow a bit.

Wolfman77 · #3 July 21st, 2005, 10:07 AM

If you took over for someone else in toe middle of the game I think you are stuck, at least I have found no way to do it without organic in a stock game. And I havent tried "optimal" but I have seen "mild" at 0% before. I don't think it can go below that though, I don't think(could in SEIII, I wonder if that was changed intentionally). Increasing their happiness will raise growth, of course. The only *possible* way is to convince an organic race to build a colony in your system build the pop modifiers then give you the planet. If you can do that, you should consider a career in politics. Thats all I can think of, maybe someone else has an idea.

Alneyan · #4 July 21st, 2005, 10:13 AM

Odd; 0% is supposed to be exactly that, and there is no automatic 1 million people growth per turn on such planets (or growth via reproduction).

The only way to increase growth on a planet is to build Climate Control Facilities, which will *slowly* increase conditions... and that will only work if you haven't scrapped your ER too much. Oh, you could also try to make friends with an organic race... or start capturing planets belonging to said organic race.

Otherwise, you will have to be very careful with population management, only putting 1 million settlers on planets not used for Colony Ship building, and ferrying settlers around for those SY building Colony Ships. Fun!

Alneyan · #5 July 21st, 2005, 10:14 AM

Quote:

Wolfman77 said: Increasing their happiness will raise growth, of course.

Very good point. Jubilant and Optimal and maximum penalties to Reproduction and ER still result in 1% reproduction; I had forgotten that happiness raised growth.

geoschmo · #6 July 21st, 2005, 10:39 AM

Quote:

Alneyan said:
Very good point. Jubilant and Optimal and maximum penalties to Reproduction and ER still result in 1% reproduction; I had forgotten that happiness raised growth.

Ah, cool. I thought that even with Optimal and jubilant this guy wouldn't be producing any pop and he might be out of luck. It's not going to be easy cause it takes time for those improvment facilities to work, but at least there is a way. Thanks for the info guys.

Xrati · #7 July 21st, 2005, 10:42 AM

There is a post (I don't recall where) that gets into strategy for population management, not growth. Basically you build a 'population warehouse' with cargo spaces and have a transport make the rounds of all your larger populated planets picking up and dropping them off at the storage facility for later use on your colony ships and planets. The greater the population, the greater the growth, no matter how small the percentage. It sounds like a good strategy to me. I've used it in some recent games and while my reproduction rate was not a problem, it really helped to maximize my colonies.
Another option is to up you reproduction rate in the racial setup window. Of course if you've taken over a game then the above strategy is a good starting point.

Wolfman77 · #8 July 21st, 2005, 10:43 AM

I wonder if that is why the reproduction setting bottoms out at 91%. Makes sure you always have a chance to grow, 90% (not possible in stock) might cut growth entirely. Something else for me to try out.

Wolfman77 · #9 July 21st, 2005, 10:58 AM

Quote:

Xrati said:
There is a post (I don't recall where) that gets into strategy for population management, not growth. Basically you build a 'population warehouse' with cargo spaces and have a transport make the rounds of all your larger populated planets picking up and dropping them off at the storage facility for later use on your colony ships and planets.

Was this it? (towards the end)
http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...=359320&Forum=

Parasite · #10 July 21st, 2005, 12:35 PM

This will not work for a 0% growth rate, but if you get at least one person a turn, try this....

Put different races from captures or trades on each planet. Each race will independently round up to add one person. An example being, put one each of 4 different O2 breathing races in a colony ship. The turn after the ship created the colony, you will have 8 people there. a 100% increase. 11 turns later you will have close to 50 people and after 24 turns you will get the first production bonus for breaking 100. If you have many planets, this can be used to accelerate pop growth almost more than the Organic buildings. If you have an example of 20 different species on one planet, you will increase the population of it by 20 a turn until the max of 100 is reached on a tiny planet. Breathing does not matter in this case. Note that rebellions (possibly Intel caused) will create new races which also will grow when spread around. This rounding effect is reduced as the population gets higher and the percentages of growth cause it to expand by one each anyway.