Population (SEV)

Your empire's people have a strong effect upon how fast you will construct ships and facilities. As such, it becomes important to first make sure they are growing as fast as they can be, and second that they are happy with their ruler. A happy population is more productive than an unhappy one, just as a larger population can produce more than a smaller one.

Population Growth

Population Growth is very easy to manage with Space Empires V. Simply put, larger populations grow (in numbers) faster than smaller populations. Their relative percentage growth is the same, but 5% of 5 million is much bigger than 5% of 1 million, plain speaking. By taking colonists from heavily populated worlds to your lightly populated worlds, you are insuring their growth is as quick as possible on all worlds, hence increasing productivity everywhere. There are a number of ways to augment your natural population growth.

Some facilities will help your population grow. The most common is the Medical Lab which increases population by lowering the death rate of your population. Additionally, when starting your game, you may choose racial traits and government types that will increase population growth. For example, empires with the Organic Manipulation trait will have access to two facilities that can further help the population growth.

Tips

• The Medical Lab, Gestation Vats and ... all provide a System-Wide bonus to Population Growth. This means that you only need one in each system.
• The ... also increases Happiness and if you have access to it, is generally better than the Medical Labs.
• You don't have to move your population through a colony ship. Freighters can transport population as if they were cargo. This means that you can keep your colony ships light and fast to build, while supplementing the new population after the colony is built.

Happiness

Your Population's Happiness level is another factor that determines their productivity. An unhappy population results in lower Production levels, hence reducing Resource Gains, Population Growth, Research Point Generation, and Queue Build Times. If a population gets too unhappy, they may even riot, stopping all production from a colony until the situation is resolved. If the situation gets even worse still, they may revolt and secede from your empire causing you to lose all the benefits that the colony provided to your empire. By keeping your people happy, you can easily avoid these potential happenings.

There are a number of ways to keep your people happy. The primary way to keep them happy is through Research. There are a number of Facilities and Cultural Achievements which will help with this.

Tips

• For a quick boost in happiness, win a battle anywhere. This has a particularly strong effect in the system the battle is in (if its one of your own).