Thinking about Population Growth
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The current population model is very simplistic and quite unrealistic.
The population of Earth starts at 100 (million? billion?) and in the space of one year grows to 374 -- this is clearly impossible.
I like the idea of months rather than years -- it allows for a single leader (me) to lead my civilization through an entire game. However, over the course of a year I would expect that the population could grow at no more than 25% rather than 274%
Even a 25% growth over a year is pushing the bounds of reproductive zeal. Looking for more realism in my civilization I might want to not allow new children to be a part of the reproductive potential (and possibly the economic potential) of a planet for 18 years after birth. While a group of newborn citizens are being raised they would drain the economy rather than add to it. Then a cohort might be considered reproductivly and economically active for 20 years. After that the cohort would be economically but not reproductively active for another 30 years. After that the cohort would be neither economically nor reproductively active until it dies.
Each year (month?) a certain percent of the economy is drained to satisfy the needs of the population. Interestingly, as Taxes go up, pushing the citizens into poverty -- economic production will go down, but reproductive production will go up. A small percent of people die from each cohort from accidents and genetic defects. At a certain age a larger percentage of people die of "natural causes" until eventually everyone in that cohort is dead.
Social projects can reduce the accident and genetic defect deaths and later in the game it can reduce the percentages of "natural causes" deaths. This will create overcrowding which will lower morale. One way of reducing overcrowding is to eliminate the population of a star system, and migrate your citizens there. Overpopulation is a frequent cause of war.
I think this could be modeled behind the scenes in GalCiv so that the leader of a civilization doesn't have to deal with the minutia of it. But to almost quadruple the population of a planet every year seems sufficiently unrealistic to detract from the game.
Thanks!
The population of Earth starts at 100 (million? billion?) and in the space of one year grows to 374 -- this is clearly impossible.
I like the idea of months rather than years -- it allows for a single leader (me) to lead my civilization through an entire game. However, over the course of a year I would expect that the population could grow at no more than 25% rather than 274%
Even a 25% growth over a year is pushing the bounds of reproductive zeal. Looking for more realism in my civilization I might want to not allow new children to be a part of the reproductive potential (and possibly the economic potential) of a planet for 18 years after birth. While a group of newborn citizens are being raised they would drain the economy rather than add to it. Then a cohort might be considered reproductivly and economically active for 20 years. After that the cohort would be economically but not reproductively active for another 30 years. After that the cohort would be neither economically nor reproductively active until it dies.
Each year (month?) a certain percent of the economy is drained to satisfy the needs of the population. Interestingly, as Taxes go up, pushing the citizens into poverty -- economic production will go down, but reproductive production will go up. A small percent of people die from each cohort from accidents and genetic defects. At a certain age a larger percentage of people die of "natural causes" until eventually everyone in that cohort is dead.
Social projects can reduce the accident and genetic defect deaths and later in the game it can reduce the percentages of "natural causes" deaths. This will create overcrowding which will lower morale. One way of reducing overcrowding is to eliminate the population of a star system, and migrate your citizens there. Overpopulation is a frequent cause of war.
I think this could be modeled behind the scenes in GalCiv so that the leader of a civilization doesn't have to deal with the minutia of it. But to almost quadruple the population of a planet every year seems sufficiently unrealistic to detract from the game.
Thanks!