i am not sure i would callnit an exploit. the cost of chain gang is very clearly -300 food. not -1 pop. In most cases that would indeed remove a pop on an empire, but not all cases. especially if food is high enough. the reason choir can do this better than anyone else is because all the food for all theri sanctuary gets stacked into a single pile. it may have been an oversight, but it could also be intentional. 

May be that the pop unit is removed and replaced same turn, giving a neat result of 0 pop lost if you produce 600+ food. I'll have to test.

That should not be the case for the super pop given that they don't grow with food but are made through abduction.

Well, of course was thinking of normal pop. I see same trouble as you mention with superpops. but as they doesn't grow, and if IRRC chaingang picks the next pop to growth I supposed it will take a normal pop.

It's something I have to test.Normally my play with UC doesn't involve using much MP. The things I invade I stack A2S slugs.

I tested this in camera last nightnat the end if this livestream. You can see whatbI am talking about. I still need to try with a system full of sleeper abducted pop, but for now if you get to a similar state you can clearly chain gang with no loss of population. The only cost is slowing your inssnse groeth rate on your home system and sanctuaries. 

Look at 2:05:00 for the chain gang test. 

Tested during weekend with HS full of Umbral Shadoes. Used chaingang and not lost any US. As chaingang tooltip tells that it will kill one pop, I'm not sure whats happening, but if you ask to me I think it kills a pop, but as UC can grow various pop units per turn, the neat result is positive growth.

About the US question, IMO it is because the pop killed is the one that will grow next turn, and UC cna only grow UC pop, while US are obtained by another way.

Tomorrow if I have time I'll test a little more and if possible record into a video. If everything goes normally, tomorrow or in wednesday I should be able to provide a video with the test ans the save with full US in HS if you want to test by yourselves.

Chaingang actually removes 300 Food (150 on Fast, 600 on Endless), it doesn't kill a pop, the tooltip is erronous.

Kuma wrote:

Chaingang actually removes 300 Food (150 on Fast, 600 on Endless), it doesn't kill a pop, the tooltip is erronous.

In my test producing less than 300 food I lost 1 pop unit

Chainganging is crude. Probably the last option, I'd ever use.

I find the diplomacy option for manpower the most superior at the moment. For one, Umbral Choir are pacifists, so they better have some good relations/alliance going on. If that's the case, getting some manpower through diplomacy shouldn't be a problem at all. Just trade in something and you're good to go.

I leave here two saves, one with full UC pop on HS and other with full US pop on HS, just in case you want to test:

UC TUTORIAL - Grow 2 pop next turn.sav

UC TUTORIAL - Full Shadows on HS.sav

lo_fabre wrote:

Kuma wrote:

Chaingang actually removes 300 Food (150 on Fast, 600 on Endless), it doesn't kill a pop, the tooltip is erronous.

In my test producing less than 300 food I lost 1 pop unit

Yes, for all intent and purposes, 95% of the time, using chaingang will kill a pop from starvation, but the tooltip is still erronous.

What it does is remove the equivalent of one pop worth of food from the system, which results in the termination of one pop if you produce less than 300 (times speed multiplier) minus the current food stock allocated for the creation of the next pop.

For example, let's say you produce 180 Food per turn, playing on Normal speed, you currently have 130/300 Food on the food counter for the next population, you will not lose a population from chain gang, your food counter will go 180 + 130 - 300 = 10, so at the beginning of the next turn, your food counter will be at 10/300.

^^ this makes lots of sense. thx for explaining. I'll link with my previous test.

Chain Gang works great early due to it cheap accessability but later you can't just skip a turn for it. So you basically need to either go for Elite Shadows law which is deep into the eco potency or you need to roll a manpower trait. Other, more clunky options are either trading for manpower via diplomacy or buying ships from the market. Diplomacy seems truly superior when it comes to AI games. Relying on food is impossible even with Exotic Rations and PP Plants.