Now it's time for GDD n°6 - Population

As usual, a summary of the state of the EA version can be found at the end of the post.

Rationale 

Population should be the heart of Endless Space 2. It should react differently to the player’s play-style and to their decisions. Populations bring life to the game thanks to their reactions.

Definition

A Faction

A population could come from a Minor or a Major Faction.

It owns a Home System (there could be several Home Systems, if the Faction has been generated several times).

It has a Lore: it is the same for all populations from the same Faction.

Example: Empire A and Empire B have Sophons in their Empires. All Sophons are described the same way. 

The Faction will define Special Traits and Personality.

Special Traits 

Traits have Effects on the System’s economy (mediocre Industry, powerful Science, etc.). Those traits could define an extra upkeep or a very low one. Traits could also have Special Effects on Systems…

Personality 

Basic Political Ideology - depending on the faction - the population will have a default favourite political ideology. Of course, the percentage of the population voting for this original ideology will decrease or increase according to the player’s choices. It is just a basic value, allowing the player to keep, thanks to a Sophon minority for example, some leeway to pass Scientific Laws. 

Basic Political Ideologies: Pacifist, Militarist, Scientific, Religious, Ecologist, and Industrialist.

The political Score (sent by the Basic Political Ideology) is calculated at the beginning of each turn, and removed at the end: this score can only increase or decrease according to population growth/decline.



Psychological Traits – Each population has between 1 and 3 Psychological Traits. They define how population reacts to the player’s decisions and to game events. They increase a political score, multiplied by the number of citizens and the value of each “Psychological-Trait”. They allow each population to react differently.

Content example: Xenophobic, Altruist, Curious, Scheming, Builder…



Example: If the player communicates with a foreign Empire, Cravers will react militarily, contrarily to Sophons, who will react pacifically.  

The political score sent by the Psychological Traits depends on events occurring in the System and/or in the Empire: new trade route, new governor, etc. They are added each time to the population’s political score. So, they can completely overwhelm the Basic Political Value and turn your Scientist Sophon population into a frenzied Militarist population.

Population influences deeply the Political Situation of your Empire.

Live Together  

The population of a System could be composed by several people from different Factions. In the planet, you can see one Craver, two Sophons and 5 Haroshems. And of course their specificities are all applied (economic bonuses are added – or removed -, political opinions are computed, they react differently to an event etc.)


Growth 

Growth depends, as usual, on Food produced by the System (but some could maybe use something else…). This first stock is split between populations on the System. Each population “eats” this Food (Population Upkeep), in function of their numbers but also in function of the laws, their Traits, etc.

The rest of those stocks “Net Growth”, increases the Faction growth.

If a population’s Food Upkeep cost is higher than its own share, they start to lose population (the number of turns before population loss depends on the difference between the “Food Share” and the Upkeep cost).

The food share is the total of harvested food on the System per turn and split between all the factions living on the System according to the number of citizens.

So, for example: you have 2 Haroshems and 1 Sophon: Haroshems’ share will be 2/3 of Food and the Sophon’s one is 1/3 of the food.


Approval 

Approval depends on the System and the Empire Status: it is the System “stability”. 

• Buildings
• Laws
• Etc. 

The approval is still impacted by Overpopulation: ¾ of the planet’s slots are filled



Overcolonization (the more the Empire is expanded, the more difficult it is to maintain a good coherence) depends on the selected Galaxy size.

Approval is a way for players to understand the quality of their Empire management.



Furthermore, Approval has 5 Statuses:

• In Rebellion [0;10]
• Unhappy [10;30]
• Content [30;70]
• Happy [70;90]
• Ecstatic [90;100]
  
  

As you can see, the statuses are pretty asymmetrical! Thanks to the VIPs suggestions, we’re thinking about reduce the “Content” values but the edge statuses: In Rebellion and Ecstatic should stay (for now) very special. In consequence, we want keep them rare and important. They could trigger quests or events, abled to handicap/advantage the player’s gameplay and bring life on this system…

Approval affects Growth. If a System is not stable enough, consumption of resources increases; if the population is happy, it multiplies quickly. The other effect is Influence Production: your “cultural influence” progress (as positive reputation) if Approval is high. But if the population is unsatisfied, is logically decreases, losing is importance in the Empire and, in a large scale, in the Galaxy.





New Population 

To see new citizens in your Empire, you can use only the natural growth: the population “eats” and multiplies. But there are also some ways to do it:



Migration

More than just being able to be moved across planets within a system, the population is now also able to move across systems and even across players thanks to two kinds of migration movements.

The first one is a controlled and internal population movement based around building spaceports in your systems: you will be able to move their populations across the system you have built a spaceport in.

The second one is a external population movement with a control that is more indirect, that allow for "pacific wars" to take place: by making your systems more attractive than your neighbors', you can "steal" population from them, thus creating an "attractiveness competition" between empires.

Capture 
If the player captures an Enemy’s System, like in the previous games, the player will obtain the Systems with the Improvement, the planets colonized etc. But, in Endless Space 2, they also receive the population. It is a simple way to add new factions (their bonus, political opinions…) in your Empire. From now on, they are able to migrate thanks to the Propaganda System in your Empire.

 If they have a political ideology which is unknown to their Empire, the player will have to wait for its appearance in his Senate.

Assimilation 
The Minor Factions in the Galaxy can also be assimilated by the player. When their Home Systems become part of the player’s Empire (negotiation/quest or because of war), their bonus and their political opinions will be integrated in your Empire (like in the Capture feature).

HOW'S THE EARLY ACCESS VERSION ON THIS ASPECT?

Migration

• Migration systems are not in the game in the Early Access version

How does the game calculate Vodyani population?

I had a game where at some point my total pop count was 6 but I could understand why?

My homeworld had 3 planets with 3/3 pop each, my 2nd system had a single planet with 2/3 pop, and my 3rd system had also a single planet with 1/3 on it.

So my pop was:

3/3 - 3/3 - 3/3 - 2/3 - 1/3

How is that a total count of 6? What am I missing?