City Growth

[Snownova]

Is there any way to stimulate city growth? I know pollution reduces it, so I have it at 0 in my cities, but how can I speed up the growth? The AI cities are at 14 while my capitol is only 7

[SephiRok]

The only way to increase your global growth rate, which is based on your empire's population (natural growth), is to use a cloning center.

Individual city growth is additionally modified by migration between your cities, which is influenced by city habitat and morale. So if you want one city to grow in particular, make them happy and give them space. Conversely, pollution only reduces local city growth which is compensated in your other cities.

The AI most likely simply took over another empire, he has no other tools to have double your empire size otherwise, unless you were often at negative food.

Cheers,

[Snownova]

Thanks for the info. I was never at negative food. Well at negative food production, but there was always a more than sufficient stockpile. Also I was playing Togra, so their negative morale must have played a bigger role than I thought.

[Emmeric]

I've seen the same thing. Playing Imperium my capital is a 6 in January 2121. I have something like 9 cities. AI has cities 12 or better, except the newest.

I have always had a very sizable stock of food. Playing on medium... maybe the AI gets a fertility bonus.

[Jagon]

It could be that we have more cities than the AI, so our population is more spread out between them. That's the case in the first game I'm playing, even though I'm doing cloning.

[chieftain]

If I read the documentation correctly, the population growth is heavily influenced by morale of the city (and by a polution). Because AI has a bonus advantage on medium+ difficulty settings, it should have a bigger population growth by default.
Later in the game, when you research buildings that increases morale (and lowers polution), you can easily match or surpas the population growth of AI.

[robc04_1]

If I read the documentation correctly, the population growth is heavily influenced by morale of the city (and by a polution). Because AI has a bonus advantage on medium+ difficulty settings, it should have a bigger population growth by default.
Later in the game, when you research buildings that increases morale (and lowers polution), you can easily match or surpas the population growth of AI.

Morale doesn't give a growth bonus, but it causes population to migrate from 1 city to another.

As a side note, my capitol and my neighbor AI capitol both have the same population at 19.