Starting Population Amount

[Meglobob]

I like the slight random fluctuation and view it as added flavour.

[Gandalf Parker]

It would tend to irritate strict strategists in multiplayer games. But since the more serious ones will create and play on balanced maps, and there is a map command to do population, I would figure that its already taken care of.

[Agema]

The difference between 29k and 31k is about 7%. Assuming about 1 gold per 100 population (I don't know precisely) that would be up to 20 gold per turn difference, from 290-310gp. To put that in perspective, if you start with lots of mountains around, the first provinces you would conquer would have under 30gp per province, but a neighbour in plains would get about 100gp per province. It's also considerably less than the admin bonuses of start cities (about 30%-60%).

Changing capital start populations (and thus income) to any particular degree dependent on terrain is in my view a *really* bad move. You would virtually write off every nation who started on mountains/wasteland the minute the game started. On the other hand, a random fluctuation of 7% is little more than flavour.

[zlefin]

hmmm; changing starting cap populations could make for some interesting specialty games when combined with modded nations. like having nations with strong starting troops, but a poor starting province (kinda like barbarians looking for better land)

or a team game format wherein some teams are larger but get worse starting provinces/position.

but in normal games it feels like the variance shouldn't be more than 100 or so.