Population Resets to Zero

[Loren]

Edratman said:
Loren, if you want to make another stab, set up one land nation per available land province and yourself as the sole water nation.

I think that should forestall AI expansion for quite a while.

AI Expansion wasn't the problem. I didn't build many temples because I didn't want to dominion-kill the AI and I simply wasn't paying attention and let it dominion-kill me. I had all the land, there was one water nation that couldn't threaten me.

[Edratman]

That is how I understood it. My thought was that if there are many competing AI's as opposed to only one, there won't be a dominant dominion to kill you off while you try for 400+ turns.

[Loren]

The situation stated in the OP can't happen.

I just reproduced the problem, the reset occurred in the vicinity of 320000 people. I wasn't watching closely as I thought I was a long way from the reset point so I don't have the exact number. I strongly suspect 327670 is the largest possible population. It's year 36.

Note that the gems reset if you go over 32767 gems. They wrap into negative numbers, though--you can't use the gem type until you've collected another 32768 of them.

[MaxWilson]

Thanks for checking that out, Loren. The gems is also good to know about, although it's hard to conceive of hitting that limit in one of my games (doubt I've ever banked even 1000 gems).

-Max

[Loren]

It occurs to me that I ought to mention one other thing I learned in that test: Three Red Seconds can be cast on an enemy province.

The game goes very fast if you have a sufficiently powerful siege force in every enemy province. I couldn't simply take the provinces because that would have reduced his dominion and risked an unwanted dominion kill.

[Mordici]

I'am sorry but I didn't imagine my population resetting at around 500k three times. The situation stated by myself in the OP can and did happen to me on three occasions.

[Endoperez]

How sure are you about that 500 000 value? There is an overflow bug, but if it doesn't always happen at same point there's something weird going on. I doubt the pop cap would be terrain dependent, but I can't think of anything else ATM.