How to get colonies to grow?

[mordachai]

Played like 30hrs this weekend. Two different games. Both small maps, both mostly at 4x speed but when I needed to slow down for a war or whatever...

My current experience is that colony worlds are nigh impossible to grow. They do grow - but like I have my HW with 8bn on it, but all my colonies are around 150M unless they were an independent, and those might be around 1bn by the time I'm in late mid / early late game tech (mega carriers, battleships, adv cruisers, weapons, armor, etc. to match, plus tons of support tech).

Issues / Questions:

• Why isn't population being shuttled around by Ai?
• I've seen multiple cases where the colonization logic sends a totally mismatched race to a world (so they end up at like -9 because they HATE that world - but it would have been +30 with the correct race from my empire)
• besides setting the controls for "target happiness" - is there really much a player can do to control any of this?

[zgrssd]

First of all, verify the gamefiles. DW2 files break. A LOT.
Most of this sounds like unusual behavior, which usually indicates a few broken files

1. Do you have passengers ships? And I mean both the People cargo unit and the hull? How many do you have? Does the Private Economy have money?
2. You need to find specific examples to report them. Keep in mind that only largest - primary - population si used for any suitability calculations.
A minority of the wrong species is not a problem
3. Make sure you have positive cashflow, so as much funding can go into colonygrowth as possible. Do not colonize more worlds, unless the existing ones are profitable.

Overall, it sounds like a clear issue with your Passenger Ships.

[AKicebear]

Keep in mind that only largest - primary - population si used for any suitability calculations.
A minority of the wrong species is not a problem

I thought this was determined on a per race basis, not the majority. So a minority would be a problem for that specific species revenue and costs.

Perhaps that recent post on planet calculations can settle this?

[zgrssd]

Keep in mind that only largest - primary - population si used for any suitability calculations.
A minority of the wrong species is not a problem

I thought this was determined on a per race basis, not the majority. So a minority would be a problem for that specific species revenue and costs.

Perhaps that recent post on planet calculations can settle this?

I absolutely tought it would be per Species as well.
But find any planet that just has 1000 support cost. Check the Species Population and their Habitability.

Taking one of my planets:
Deep Ocean, Quality 58
2045 M Ackdarians, +43
195 M Mortalan, +8
82M Securans, +8
Still 1000 Support cost. Despite a solid 10% of the population being way below 20.

[shockk]

Issues / Questions:

• Why isn't population being shuttled around by Ai?
• I've seen multiple cases where the colonization logic sends a totally mismatched race to a world (so they end up at like -9 because they HATE that world - but it would have been +30 with the correct race from my empire)
• besides setting the controls for "target happiness" - is there really much a player can do to control any of this?

Yes these are all issues with the game. population barely moves around, and the colony ship automation is broken. Besides keeping a extremely close eye on your colony ships there isn't really anything you can do till they fix it

[SamuraiProgrmmr]

If you want population to voluntarily move to another planet, set the taxes on the desired destination very very low.

If you lower it, they will come.

[SirHoraceHarkness]

The same method used in DWU works here. Get a station up asap with recreation and health and lower taxes to zero. Boom the population is very happy and will grow at the max rate allowed for that particular planet provided its the same race and it has access to the basic racial resources. Other races have other modifiers you have to deal with like their natural hostility or friendliness.

[arvcran2]

My current experience is that colony worlds are nigh impossible to grow. They do grow - but like I have my HW with 8bn on it, but all my colonies are around 150M unless they were an independent, and those might be around 1bn by the time I'm in late mid / early late game tech (mega carriers, battleships, adv cruisers, weapons, armor, etc. to match, plus tons of support tech).

Issues / Questions:

• Why isn't population being shuttled around by Ai?
• I've seen multiple cases where the colonization logic sends a totally mismatched race to a world (so they end up at like -9 because they HATE that world - but it would have been +30 with the correct race from my empire)
• besides setting the controls for "target happiness" - is there really much a player can do to control any of this?

1. Colony growth

For population growth by reproduction:

Development and happiness are your targets for high population growth economy revenue. Gravillex remains help development, and so does building administration facilities, which also add happiness. I build them immediately if I don't lose any research funding needed. Stimulating civilian freighters can be achieved by researching larger hulls for freighters and mining ships which will indirectly help to freight luxuries and construction resources needed for development.

For Migration:

As already mentioned make sure, you have the tech and designs for passenger ships; the happiness at your colonies that need to grow need to be higher than the colonies you want population from. Generally this is not a problem when the AI is managing your home world taxes as the happiness is kept quite low.

2. Colonization and proper races.

The Automation for colonization is quite good when there is only 1 colony ship in play. But alas Colonization fixes are somewhere on the wish list priority .

3. Happiness (which affects growth as well)

Many sources are available to increment happiness of which many need luck, or time to research then fund. But we've mentioned a few that you have control over such as reducing taxes, if there are any.

[mordachai]

Thanks for all the feedback!!!

I'm pretty sure these are bugs in the current game - because:

• I have a booming private economy (always do in the games I've played so far - govt is in the red by about 100yrs into the game always, but more than offset by the private economy which keeps me growing and in a positive balance)
• I prioritize research of the passenger techs early - so I have not just the base, but upgraded / larger passenger cargo ships for my private enterprises to build
• I tend to force my HW to have very low taxes to maximize my growth there early, before I have the colonization techs -- but when the colonization techs roll out, they've grown to the point where I revert to automated control of taxes and drops their happiness to ~5 (while colonies are set to "try for" +40 and usually are in the +20s)

I could try intentionally making life worse on my HW to force more to move, but seems like +5 vs. +30 happiness would still attract folks to the +30 colony, no? Seems very much like a bug in the private econ that - if they're moving people - it's a fraction of a trickle. And my current belief (albeit I could be wrong) is that the reason all of my games have massive negative govt. cash flow (despite being buoyed up by private purchases) is due to this dynamic - just no people on those colonies which keeps the automation holding their tax rates at zero (0%) trying to keep their happiness up - so all of my colonies are neg. cash flow seemingly forever (some of the larger independents that I conquer or convince to join me have positive incomes - the ones that amass 5bn pop or more).

I'll reread all of the responses and see if I missed anything. Thanks!!!

EDIT: I did the validate files thing (steam) - and (*surprisingly to me*) 3 files were "reacquired" - so maybe I just did have some borked files? I'll be eager to see how it plays tonight or whenever I can next find some time!

[Litjan]

I read all the squirmy explanations to try to explain this issue away as "normal"

but

the automation should be perfectly able to quickly raise population levels to something sustainable. If there is some profound problem (suitability) that will severely limit colony growth in the future there needs to be clear information (and a warning!) for the player before colonization is started.

My suspicion is that the slow growth is intentional to introduce a dampening effect to slow the "colony rush" - kinda like we see on all 4x games in one way or the other.