Hey all,
As some of you may have realized, the current uniform method we use to calculate population is a little flawed. Settlement population currently grows exponentially with the number of buildings, which results in big cities being REALLY BIG. I've spent some time tinkering about with the ol' maths and I've come up with a better solution. Instead of having an exponential growth model, the new model is an S-curve. This means that settlements will grow slowly at first, then grow more quickly towards a soft cap that will greatly slow down growth after that point. Here is a link to a Google Sheet that breaks it down:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing.
For those mathematics aficionados, the formula is based on a logistic function with a couple of tweaks for our purposes. The important items to note are as follows:
- Soft cap (L) = 40,000 (settlements will grow much more slowly after hitting the soft cap)
- Halfway point (Z) = 95 (build value at which the population will be a little over half of the soft cap)
- Build value (X): based on the current build value system (small build = 1, medium = 2, large = 5, extra large = 10)
- Per build amount = 40 (additional population per build value that guarantees settlement population grows with more builds)
- Baseline adjustment = 175 (sets the baseline so settlements don't start off too large)
Here is the condensed formula: S-curve formula results + (build value * 40) - 175
You can check out an example of Casadia's settlement populations using the new calculation, but here is a quick rundown based on settlement sizes:
Build value = 1 (minimum size) -> population of 7
Build value = 6 (standard village) -> 250
Build value = 20 (standard town) -> 1,000
Build value = 45 (large town) -> 3,500
Build value = 80 (standard city) -> 15,000
Build value = 150 (large city) -> 44,000
Let me know what you all think about this new system below. You can make a copy of the linked Google Sheet and play around with the formula if you want.