Having trouble getting enough workforce

[Zyphtan]

I keep running into the problem of not having enough pop too expand. Only gotten my cap to 200k once and cant remember why it happened or how. Is there any tips or anything on how to grow it more. I can usually get it too 4-5k new people a turn but I start to run low on unemployed people soon enough.

[Lovenought]

That's strange, i've never had that problem. What kind of world are you playing? It must be one that's too inhospitable for there to be many Free Folk?

[Culthrasa]

Some tips that might help:
-Make sure you have decent cities to live in, so enough QoL,
-don't over recruit soldiers/colonists,
-keep an eye out for events which drain your pop (disease, slavers etc) some stay in your city till you get rid of them,
-also for events which give you free pop (dojo, hidden village, mercenary outpost) all hex perks,
-don't get free movement decision with another major,
-hope for some artifact sites (cloning centre artifact is very good),
-hover over the pop and worker bars in your zones to see how many people are coming/going/migrating to figure out whats happening.

Hope it helps!

[Ekaton]

This is a common problem on low-population worlds (my favourites), especially if you're facing multiple enemies and need to draft everyone you can spare. Culthrasa's advice pretty much sums it up, I'll add this one though: avoid losses. I'm typically a lot more cautious and defence-oriented on low-pop worlds, and my armies tend to have even more artillery and tanks than usual. Metal is usually much cheaper than manpower.

Still, it won't be easy, but hopefully you'll be able to keep things manageable.

[76mm]

In my last game I had a problem with this on a Siwa, I think because I overbuilt, and the number of required workers vastly exceeded the available workers.

[Jdane]

In my current game a good third if not more of the 100,000 inhabitants of the capital came from nearby Free Folk Settlements. Those can be a boon.

[zgrssd]

ORIGINAL: Zyphtan

I keep running into the problem of not having enough pop too expand. Only gotten my cap to 200k once and cant remember why it happened or how. Is there any tips or anything on how to grow it more. I can usually get it too 4-5k new people a turn but I start to run low on unemployed people soon enough.

You need to give us a Worker percentage of your overall population. 200k could be anywhere between 10 and 80% of your total population.
4-5k new hires is good enough. Stuff like the Hydroponics or open air farms need a lot of workers per tier, 1-2 turns to fill it is not exceptional.

The best way to get more workers, is to have more overall population. However you also should avoid too many workers - they are by far the biggest money and food drain in the game!
And the more ratio of your overall population is workers, the more Priavte Salaries grow, the less happy your workers will be with payment, the harder it will be to recruit more, etc. <50% is generally adviseable. I manage ~20% in a Authoritarian game right now.
Do not build more unless you really need it.
Do not try to increase happiness via QOL - it is a common beginners mistake.

[Zyphtan]

ORIGINAL: zgrssd

ORIGINAL: Zyphtan

I keep running into the problem of not having enough pop too expand. Only gotten my cap to 200k once and cant remember why it happened or how. Is there any tips or anything on how to grow it more. I can usually get it too 4-5k new people a turn but I start to run low on unemployed people soon enough.

You need to give us a Worker percentage of your overall population. 200k could be anywhere between 10 and 80% of your total population.
4-5k new hires is good enough. Stuff like the Hydroponics or open air farms need a lot of workers per tier, 1-2 turns to fill it is not exceptional.

The best way to get more workers, is to have more overall population. However you also should avoid too many workers - they are by far the biggest money and food drain in the game!
And the more ratio of your overall population is workers, the more Priavte Salaries grow, the less happy your workers will be with payment, the harder it will be to recruit more, etc. <50% is generally adviseable. I manage ~20% in a Authoritarian game right now.
Do not build more unless you really need it.
Do not try to increase happiness via QOL

Now that you explain it that way it makes sense. 4-5k is alot. I usually do recruit alot from my cap till I can spread it out. I have been getting lucky and getting alot of merc camps, thus usually removing recruiting from my cities.

I havn't run into problems with worker pay. I try to get extra pop to keep the private pay low. I usually have 1/4 works sometimes 1/3

[lloydster4]

One thing you can do to squeeze out some extra manpower: Upgrade your farming and mining assets and then run them at lower outputs. Definitely make sure you're not producing too much surplus food.

[Kamelpov]

Yea i overbuild too in my last game didn't expected the low pop planet impact. Just hire less than the natural growth and don't lose soldier is a thing in that kind of map.

[Zyphtan]

ORIGINAL: lloydster4

One thing you can do to squeeze out some extra manpower: Upgrade your farming and mining assets and then run them at lower outputs. Definitely make sure you're not producing too much surplus food.

Great idea.

I usually play on more hospitable worlds. I was just hoping for any way to optimize it some more I guess. I thought about it and I think I might be recruiting to many recruits. It seems like they eat way to much food compared to armies.

I have noticed a difference in natural growth between cities. I do not know if it is random or if city level or total pop changes it but it seems my cap usually has a higher natural growth.

Does anyone know how pop migration works between cities? I can't figure out how it works. They seem to move randomly.

[Lovenought]

More Health points in a city increase fertility, but higher Civilisation rating in general decreases fertility. Culture can affect Fertility too - in my experience "Farmer" minor regimes often has a 33% fertility bonus. I assume that having enough food and not starving also boosts it.

As for migration, I think they just go where the jobs are? And after that, possibly where the quality of life is higher.

[Zyphtan]

I read in the manual that higher private income or available work jobs and pay in pack it

[lloydster4]

Messing around a bit with the tech tree, there are quite a few techs down the line that allow you to replace human work forces with automation. You could push towards those techs if you were so inclined. I'm going to assume you'll need large stockpiles of machines and hi-tech to actually build the improvements though.

[zgrssd]

ORIGINAL: lloydster4

Messing around a bit with the tech tree, there are quite a few techs down the line that allow you to replace human work forces with automation. You could push towards those techs if you were so inclined. I'm going to assume you'll need large stockpiles of machines and hi-tech to actually build the improvements though.

Those techs simply double the output of some buildings. So while technicall you could reduce them to 50% then, chance are you will keep them working at 100%.

The only exception is Robot Armies, wich are actually a thing.

[GodwinW]

You do want QOL to increase unhappiness. It's the only thing that works.

You keep saying this, but I keep disagreeing :p

If you want happiness -> increase QOL. Because why is happiness decreasing? Because QOL is too low compared to Civ Score.
And you want to increase Civ Score and Civ Level to be able to build higher tier buildings, and you want those to progress through the higher tech tiers etc. faster.

In an arms race, the winner has the advantage.

If your private economy builds the QOL buildings all the better of course, but building them yourself is perfectly fine.
Sure, eventually it stops working but the trick is to always be ahead so that you win before happiness becomes a problem (and then you have the profile feats which give QOL bonuses as well so that having QOL equal to Civ Score still raises happiness) and even then there's no issue as being stuck with a happiness > 90 is no issue. Who cares it doesn't improve then?

[zgrssd]

ORIGINAL: GodwinW

You do want QOL to increase unhappiness. It's the only thing that works.

You keep saying this, but I keep disagreeing :p

If you want happiness -> increase QOL. Because why is happiness decreasing? Because QOL is too low compared to Civ Score.
And you want to increase Civ Score and Civ Level to be able to build higher tier buildings, and you want those to progress through the higher tech tiers etc. faster.

In an arms race, the winner has the advantage.

If your private economy builds the QOL buildings all the better of course, but building them yourself is perfectly fine.
Sure, eventually it stops working but the trick is to always be ahead so that you win before happiness becomes a problem (and then you have the profile feats which give QOL bonuses as well so that having QOL equal to Civ Score still raises happiness) and even then there's no issue as being stuck with a happiness > 90 is no issue. Who cares it doesn't improve then?

The 1st and 2nd sentence I can not parse. YOu are saying something totally unrelated.

"Because why is happiness decreasing? Because QOL is too low compared to Civ Score."
How did you mess up the sentence like that?
Because why is happiness decreasing? Because your QOL Building or the Private Economy forced the average Civilisation level so high!

Fist&Enforcement would like to have a word without regarding that "you need high tech" argument. Be carefull, they punch really hard. And all with technology like Automatic Rifles and Padded Environment suits.

I also just keep getting happines from "Luxury Products and Services". No need to waste resources on QOL, if I already got >90 Happiness without it!

[GodwinW]

So, you found something that works for you with those specific profiles, that's fine. But in general, if your happiness is too low the solution is simple: raise QOL.

[zgrssd]

ORIGINAL: GodwinW

So, you found something that works for you with those specific profiles, that's fine. But in general, if your happiness is too low the solution is simple: raise QOL.

Then how do I keep having happy peopulations without high QOL?

+1 for 5 turns does not mater comapred to a +1 every turn.

[lloydster4]

ORIGINAL: zgrssd
Those techs simply double the output of some buildings. So while technicall you could reduce them to 50% then, chance are you will keep them working at 100%.

The only exception is Robot Armies, wich are actually a thing.

You're being ridiculous. Doubling output per worker is a huge deal. It's "actually a thing."