At the beginning of the game, if I settle to the south, near the natural wonders, I get my population abducted by the black AI at my south border. Every 10 turns or something 1 or 2 population are stolen by some "forced migration" mechanic which I have nothing to do about, I just get a notification - almost as saying "life is hard, get over it". It doesn't even generates grievances against the other culture. And I say abducted because we not even know each other yet and there is a sea between us. People must be flying over there. Are the vodyani in the game?

But seriously: growing population, especially in the beginning, is hard. This mechanic is just too much... and I can't even use it too... or can I? 

Same here! I hadn't even met the civ, and they were stealing pops from me, in the same territory as well as the one adjacent to it, to the East.

I think it's a nice mechanic, but the player is not really told how to prevent it or to make it happen as far as I can tell. I'd like to abduct pops from other civs, too!

You can use this mechanic if you choose an agricultural culture and use its active ability. That's not super clear, but it's true.

I don't like this mechanic, either. There's no defense against it. The grievance isn't working right. Even if it was, your options would essentially be to ignore the issue or just outright kill your neighbor. Not ideal.

Kwami wrote:

You can use this mechanic if you choose an agricultural culture and use its active ability. That's not super clear, but it's true.

I don't like this mechanic, either. There's no defense against it. The grievance isn't working right. Even if it was, your options would essentially be to ignore the issue or just outright kill your neighbor. Not ideal.

Oh, ok! I noticed on my third run the little icon besides the era score, but I thought it was something exclusive for the military cultures. But as you said, you should be able to counter it, because right at the beginning its too damn powerful. Thanks!

SeekTruthFromFacts wrote:

This is really a problem with the notification. It needs to be re-written to see "a pop migrated from X to Y because Vlad is an Agrarian culture." The mechanic would be acceptable if it was properly documented.

Having a counter to the mechanic would be nice, but can wait until the post-release updates.

I think you should be able to prevent your pops from running away by having enough food and stability. The agrarian civ would still get their pop, just not from you.

I also think stability should be reworked a bit, maybe the higher your population, the lower the stability. Stability is too punishing right now, and it really discourages you to build districts.