Population Question`

[Foodstamp]

You guys missed my point. Populations tend to stay the same in a natural environment. You throw in the invention of agriculture or other outside changes, and that is when population increases drastically (Or decreases sometimes).

^^the above was only a comment towards the "populations naturally grow" statement. There has been nothing natural about human population growth rates in the past several thousand years.

How this relates to the game... I see the dominion scales as those outside sources, as well as the other technologies, spells and random events in the game.

It makes sense to me considering the fantasy setting where pretender gods exist, that they would exert such great control over population just because of their prescence. So having the scales is not just an arbitrary number, it's your god's influence on that harvest, he/she is making it happen. If your god is not into the harvest thing (No growth scale or even death scale) then guess what, your population does not get to grow! Your producing just enough food/resources to maintain a constant population.

I don't feel it should be set up like "Our pretender god is a tool that didn't even care enough to give us a growth scale, but since we are human, we get to grow anyway".

Ofcourse this is saying that 0 growth/0 death does not even add a minor amount of pop increase.