New DW: Legends Public Beta v1.7.0.2 Available!

[ASHBERY76]

The game has many variables.I will be testing the beta patch more this weekend.

[BigWolfChris]

Well I'm at 2766, and my 2nd planet now has 3425M population with a 23.3% pop growth, I've yet to build a port on it as well (or any form of base), this is purely with 0% tax, and abit of luck with my leader and colony governor increasing happiness by 19% between them
Of course, I use Securan who has a natural 50% happiness boost... though I'm using a republic gov, so lack the growth bonus of a utopian one
Personally, I think the AI needs to be scripted to run tax as low as their economy allows as well, I've got over 40000M on my homeworld (10% tax until it hit max), despite only starting with a 8000M pop there at start.
Manually playing around with tax can give you a massive advantage if done right. If I were to leave it too auto, then, yes, I do see my colonies barely increasing in pop size

Edit: corrected numbers

[WoodMan]

Hey Ash, just loaded up some of my old save games and population growth isn't as fast as I thought, it must be a case of time flies when your having fun [:D]

However, its still fast enough that it feels just right for me.  Below is screenshot of my current game 20 years in.  At this point I've only advanced one or maximum two steps in each tech tree, I have met only 2 other empires.

Murillea Major is Homeworld
Ignore Boskar, this had max population when I colonized it.
Slukis Penal Colony had 300M population when I colonized it, it now has 2.9 billion population approx 20 years later.
Usrean was my first colony with no independent population, I got it within first few years game time, it now has 1.1 Billion. 
Akueeni is my 2nd newest aquisition, it has 500 million pop, I must have had it only an hour or so game time as I picked it up in my last session.

Let me know how your populations grow in 1st 20 years of game, I'm interested to see the difference game settings make, I have everything set to lowest/slowest possible (Harsh homeworld too).

Edit: Bah file too large, nevermind you got the information in writing, picture wouldnt do much more [:D]

[BigWolfChris]

Could be that growth rate should be tied in with research rate, as I have a feeling, 90% of those feeling it's too slow have faster research, so hitting end-game relatively fast (ie. 10/15 game years)
I have 900K research level, I barely hit level 2/3 before having half-dozen max population worlds

[WoodMan]

Homeworld quality could play a role in people perceptions too.  Harsh world hits max pop at around 9 to 11 billion, so having another colony with 5 billion is huge in those games, its on its way to what would be the max for your homeworld.

[adamsolo]

ORIGINAL: WoodMan

Ash something is definately wrong buddy.  It doesn't take that long for populations to get past 400 mill in my games, 1 to 2 hours to get to 2 billion here, I haven't timed it though, but thats how it seems.  (Basically one or two sittings because I pretty much play in 1 or 2 hours sessions).

Can you please give me an amount of years estimate for your planets to get past 400 million? Not play hours, game years. Do you play fully auto or fully manual or a mix? Hard or Easy? Small or Large? Thanks.

[WoodMan]

Can you please give me an amount of years estimate for your planets to get past 400 million?

Starting new game will keep an eye for how many it takes my first few to get passed 400.  If you look above you will see it took about 18 years for my first planet to get to 1.1B (1100M).

[feelotraveller]

I'm happy with the changes made to migration in 1702, it needed speeding up.

I'm not happy with the increase in population growth in Legends. The upped growth of 50% is way more than that realistically as it growth is compounded. The differences between races are attenuated and they were always large. 9% compound interest for Dhayut just does not crack it with with middle of the road Human 21% - forget about Gizzies, 'Tuuks and Securans.

The increase in pop growth is not to my flavour. But the disparity between the change in races is grossly unbalanced.

A slider or tying it to research rate would be nice but only after the races are properly rebalanced against one another.

My two cents.

Edit: just an example of this - start of year 2761 I find an independent colony of over 10 billion Zenox. And I've started with a harsh home world. Makes a mockery of it. Nor was it unique there were 3 other Zenox independents in the region at that time which were between 5 and 8 billion. I guess I should be thankful they weren't Gizurean colonies!

[feelotraveller]

Having investigated a bit with the editor I can confirm this.

The main problem is that independents are growing at their maximum rates. Zenox, for example, with a 20% compound growth rate will be something over 3.5 times their starting size in 7 years. For the Dhayut with 9% it is more like 1.8. Zenox and many of the other less warmonger races start with biggish populations, anywhere from 1.5 to 2.5 billion.

Personally I think that this situation is ridiculous as a game mechanic. It means in my harsh starting system game where I might reach 5 billion in 15 years, or 6 if I really push the growth rate (remember its my home world so I have to tax it some at least, and its the start so I need the money) I will be dwarfed by a large independent Zenox (to use a middle of the road example) which will probably be maxed out at over 30 billion, assuming it can get that big.

In the game I was playing my Zenox opponent gained 30 billion in population by 8 years time from colonising 4 independents. And actually if they had waited another 5 or 10 years to colonise they could have doubled or tripled this population gain.

Just to make it clear - I could have been the one to gain population (depending on RNG) - its that it has such a disproportionate effect on gameplay.

I had a look at turning the independents down to 'rare' (you can't turn them off) but as far as I could tell, and contrary to the information giving when selecting the slider, this did not reduce the starting populations, if merely reduced the number of independent worlds (and biased against the warmonger races I think).

Please look at this - it is a massive gamebalance issue.

[WoodMan]

Yes the population of independent worlds does grow very, very fast indeed!  This has been reported a long time ago too.  It is a good strategy to not colonise them and wait a bit for the population to grow.  I think they should be slowed down.

However, this might be a mechanic aimed at helping them turn into empires, I'm not sure.  But anyway, I've been playing since original DW and I have still never had an independent colony turn into an Empire in any of my games.  In my last game my homeworld had a population of 6 billion, while nearby there was a Atuuk independent world with a population of 15 Billion and still not turned into an Empire [:D]

[Erik Rutins]

We did not change population growth, as far as I know. However, we did fix some issues which had the side effect of slowing down migration and new colony development.

Regards,

- Erik

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: WoodMan
However, this might be a mechanic aimed at helping them turn into empires, I'm not sure.  But anyway, I've been playing since original DW and I have still never had an independent colony turn into an Empire in any of my games.  In my last game my homeworld had a population of 6 billion, while nearby there was a Atuuk independent world with a population of 15 Billion and still not turned into an Empire [:D]

Do you have that option turned on?

Regards,

- Erik

[WoodMan]

Hi Erik, yes I always play with that option turned on.  I was thinking perhaps because I already have the maximum number of Empires in my game they are not turning to Empires [&:]

By the way the population growth of independent planets moves at the growth rate of that race (I *think*, not confirmed).  For example, say my Human planet is growing at 5%, an independent planet of Humans would be growing at the growth rate stated in the galactopedia of 24%.  At least I think this is whats happening, I will keep my eyes open and check the exact growth rate in my next game and report back.  If I recall correctly the Attuk colony was growing at something 40%+. It was growing so fast I could sit and watch the population ticking upward every couple of seconds.

[Fideach]

I've had independent colonies turn into empires, as long as they were left independent long enough. But those are games I have the option turned on and am playing with only 12 or so empires.

I'm also seeing my colonies grow decently for once! Migration does seem to be working. Especially with the redesigned ships with lots of passenger space. Paid attention to that in my last game, and saw lots of humans leaving other empires to come to my human empire by the millions on each ship.

So nice to know, that my own species rather slave away under my military rule, then put up with some aliens controlling them.

[feelotraveller]

I don't have problems with the growth rate of player colonies, at least not in the early game.

Woodman I can confirm that the growth rate of independents is the maximum rate - 20% for Zenox, 41% for Gizureans. THIS is the problem I see.

Had a start I did not play last night where there was a Zenox independent that started with 3.5 billion. One early invasion/colonisation and I would have more than doubled my population. If I wait 15 years I can get 30+ billion from this one world.

Edit: Erik, I'm not suggesting that you changed the population growth in 1702 - this discussion has come from a comment about improvements to migration. Population growth has been changed in Legends (+50% to base growth rate) and I'm fairly sure that the starting populations of independent worlds (in general) has markedly been increased. I also think that in RotS independent populations did not continue to grow at their max rate for decades, although I could be wrong about this last. It may well be working as designed in Legends - I'm suggesting that maybe that design could do with a little tweaking. [:)]

[feelotraveller]

Just to add a note in case anyone is thinking about it-

Gizureans @ 41% growth rate will be 11 times their initial population in 7 years. Not too bad? After 14 years they will be 121 times their initial population, assuming their world can handle that population, which it almost certainly can't.

[WoodMan]

feelo,

Please start a thread in the tech forum regarding the independent worlds issues.  I will add my 2 cents tomorrow (regarding the fact I've never seen them turn into an Empire in 2 years or so of playing DW), but too tired now, time for bed [:D]

Its time to let this thread die now, we've gone way off topic from the patch which is now two versions old [;)]