Fwurg

[Brend]

As concluded on Panic! Planet is full!, we need rules to handle overpopulation (and we need to change the Mass Migration technologies, but that's a different story).

I discussed my idea about overpopulation rules with Elmer, and together we came up with the following (see Population for the context of the proposal):

Housing

Population is generally self-sufficient. The existing zones provide jobs and existing infrastructure produces enough food and necessities - these can be safely ignored for tax purposes and the likes.

Each world can support a population of up to 1 billion for every worked zone on the planet. Thus, a Small Moon can support up to 1 billion people, while a Large Planet can support up to 37 without a worry. A world needs at least a single developed zone before any population can be housed there.


It is possible to have an overpopulated world. Your world can be overpopulated either because there is more population than the world can support even with all zones developed, or because your world isn't fully developed yet and there is more population than can be supported right now.

Overpopulated worlds can get economic benefits only for the population supported by developed zones. Every zone can support 1.0 , and these support 'slots' are filled first come, first serve. Whenever your population grows to cross the barrier of 1 , they start taking up another support slot. If, for any reason, there are multiple unsupported 1.0 blocks while there is still a support slot available, you get to chose which species to get benefits for. Think carefully, as you can't change this later on.

For example, on fully developed small planet wich is inhabited by two species, Twi'lek for 3.6 and Humans for 3.8 , the last 1.0 slot will be taken by whichever group grows beyond 4.0 first. If both groups get there in the same growth turn, you get to choose.

It works to other way around as well. let's say the previous example world still has an undeveloped zone after both Twi'lek and Human grew beyond 4.0 . The world would be overpopulated, as only 6.0 of can be supported. Once you finish the development of the final zone, you get to choose which species is supported by the support slot of that zone.

Population Growth

Population growth is affected by overpopulation. For every full multiple of population support your planet is populated with after the second, you get a -1% growth on all population growth of that world. Population Growth can never become negative. But it can reach 0%, at which time the population stops growing.

For example, a fully developed small planet provides population support slots for 7.0 . The planet continues to have full population growth until it goes above 14.0 , at which time it will have a -1%. If it goes above 21.0 it will have -2% growth, and so forth.

Regardless of overpopulation, you still need to pay Population Growth Cost for every group that crosses the 1 barrier. It doesn't matter whether you get economic benefits from that population or not.

We wanted to address two points:

• How to go about the edge-case of filling the last 1.0 support from a zone?
  We did that by taking the 'first come, first serve' approach and allowing the player to pick if multiple options become available at the same time.
• How does overpopulation influence growth?
  We wanted to allow everyone to "enjoy" overpopulation (and the potentionally benefit from Overpopulation-related technologies) while still slowing down population growth. We did this by allowing the first 'class' of overpopulation to continue growing unhindered. This is especially impactful for smaller worlds such as moons or worlds where the population has only a 1% population growth.

I tried to be clear, and have provided inline examples as well. Clarification requests are most welcome, as are comments on the proposed rules as a whole.

[Gerben]

Given the fact that these rules will probably see a limited use for a very long time... ( sorry Brend but your pop growth is ginormous ), I have no objections as this proposal is reasonable and seems to handle the issue well.

[Chriz]

I think this proposal is reasonable as well. It does not change the normal situation and allows population users a foundation to base future technologies on.

[Mercury]

This proposal seems very reasonable to me. I am also open to technologies that reduce (but do not remove) the Population Growth Cost for overpopulation (as it does not provide economic benefits)

[Brend]

If there are no objections, I will update the rules in the coming weekend (the weekend of 2013-12-7). Though this is a bit faster than I usually leave such topics open, I feel that the current mood of the topic warrants a speedy resolution.

[Brend]

I have updated the Population page. If someone can check it that would be great.


On a side note: I'll discuss the possibility of adding an 'example' styling to the wiki with Elmer. I think the rules would benefit from a clearer separation of rules and examples.