Why is the AI population growing faster than mine?

I have had this happen in almost all games I've played.

The AI usually likes to keep their planets' morale at 100, thus benefiting from the much higher (double?) pop growth rate. Are you doing that yourself?

Thanks for the tip RayChua. I didn't realize morale contributed that much to pop growth. I will adjust accordingly.

By the way, you aren't by any chance the same Ray Chua that used to work at a company called Datability in NJ about 7 years ago? Probably not, but just in case ...

No problem, Drizzt. IIRC, the pop growth for morale in the 50s (54?) to 99 is exactly the same, so it makes a lot of sense to keep your morale at 100 for much of the early game to get the pop boost.

Nope, not the same Ray Chua.

I think it's also effect by tax rate directly (instead of just via morale). Keep you tax rate under 40%.

Bruce

And another point well worth mentioning is that the aliens do not have to have the same growth rate as humans. The base human growth rate at low pop levels is 6%. Who knows what the base alien growth rate is by race and whether they bought +pop growth with their racial points. But, in general, I agree that the aliens are much better at keeping a 100% morale and the double growth rate.