Colonies Populations Self-Sustainable?

[Borealis4x (OP)]

Were I to just make a bunch of colonizers and set them to automatically bring colonists to existing colonies will the civilian infrastructure more or less keep up? I'm having problems now where colonies are loosing political stability, but I feel that is more a matter of not being garrisoned than being overpopulated.

[ChildServices]

The game usually gives you a reason why they're losing political stability. If it says "the central government isn't providing enough protection" it means you need to either stick some troops on the colony (which doesn't actually fix the issue, just suppresses it) or you need to build a fleet or PDC in the same system as the planet with a high enough PPV rating to satisfy their "requested protection level"

[Bughunter]

I constantly have messages about loss of stability due to overcrowding in my game - then another set of messages it was suppressed by military. No way around it except shipping huge loads of infrastructure I guess?

[Ostia]

I constantly have messages about loss of stability due to overcrowding in my game - then another set of messages it was suppressed by military. No way around it except shipping huge loads of infrastructure I guess?

Either that or Terra-Forming it to Colony Cost 0.

[AL]

No way around it except shipping huge loads of infrastructure I guess?

Whenever I do that in my games, the civil sector immediately decides to bring in their colonising fleet and drop off another ~2mil surplus colonists - a self perpetuating cycle sadly. I usually just put some garrison battalions on the colony or ignore it altogether.

[iceball3]

I find it significantly easier for long term growth to instead ship some factories and a load of 1000 duranium to the colony, and have the colonists slowly process the entire batch into infrastructure. Makes it so the colony at least steadily grows without having to pay attention to it for a decade.

[Bughunter]

Why does everyone want to live on non-optimal worlds where they are oppressed by military police? Is the grass really greener where the colony cost is higher? I feel there is a deeper philosophical question here somewhere..

I might try your idea iceball, if nothing else to get rid of all the message spam.

[GodEmperor]

Whenever I do that in my games, the civil sector immediately decides to bring in their colonising fleet and drop off another ~2mil surplus colonists - a self perpetuating cycle sadly. I usually just put some garrison battalions on the colony or ignore it altogether.

That is why you never bring anyone before col cost isn't 0.0, just terraform it.

IIRC Civies will never drop colonists first, you will always have to put the first batch yourself.

[sloanjh]

IIRC Civies will never drop colonists first, you will always have to put the first batch yourself.

IIRC dropping a load of infrastructure on an empty planet will also open it to colonization.

John

[Garfunkel]

If the colony cost is low enough, the civilian production of infrastructure will usually keep up with the migration. That's what always happens with Mars in my games. I drop 1k infra there, let shipping lines take it from there. Some crowding issues every now and then, nothing too bad.

[Kytuzian]

Whenever I do that in my games, the civil sector immediately decides to bring in their colonising fleet and drop off another ~2mil surplus colonists - a self perpetuating cycle sadly. I usually just put some garrison battalions on the colony or ignore it altogether.

You could set the colony to "Stable", that should stop the civilian companies from bringing colonists.

[DaMachinator]

For me at least, you must have at least 25 million colonists to do this.

[Kytuzian]

For me at least, you must have at least 25 million colonists to do this.

Oh right, whoops. Well if the colony has 25 million people, you can do that, I suppose. It'd be nice if this was an option for smaller colonies too.

[Sheb]

Yeah, does anyone know why this 25 million limit is in place? We might ask Steve to remove it, it's just a check.

[sloanjh]

Yeah, does anyone know why this 25 million limit is in place? We might ask Steve to remove it, it's just a check.

IIRC it's to simulate civies having minds of their owns, i.e. to prevent players from micromanaging population levels using civie transport.  It was definitely a conscious decision on Steve's part.

John