How To Increase Population In Millennia

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How To Increase Population In Millennia

Best Needs To Focus On In Millennia

Millennia is sometimes a fairly traditional strategy game. For every new, original implementation it finds, like the age system, there are plenty of familiar elements that work pretty much like in any other game in the genre. Population and needs are somewhere in between those two extremes, between innovative and derivative.

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Increasing population in Millennia is how a region “levels up,” gaining more power in the form of workers that can be used to make more and better improvements. This isn’t the only way to improve the productivity of a nation (creating new regions is just as important), but it is a bit more tricky than it initially appears. It’s not just about keeping the population well-fed, after all.

How To Increase Population In Millennia

meeting the needs of a regoin in Millennia

Population in Millennia increases over time automatically, but only when a region’s needs are met. Regional needs are expressed in percentage points and are divided into different needs. The higher the population of a region, the more its needs grow. Larger regions will unlock more needs that must be satisfied in order for them to keep growing. Some national spirits can help meet needs, too.

Food, for example, is the first need of any region. It is unlocked right at the start of the game and always grows with the population. A region needs two foods for every population, meaning that a region with a population of four will need eight foods to keep its food needs at 100%, leading to slow but stable growth. Exceeding 100% on any need will result in growth becoming faster. Going below 100% will lead to a shrinking population.

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Once a region has more than one need, the population growth rate is calculated based on the average percentage of all available needs. This means that if a region’s food need is at 200% while housing is at 100%, the average needs of that region are exceeded by 50%. The minimum population growth is 2.5% and is only active when needs are met but not exceeded, although population growth can become negative. The maximum growth bonus is an impressive 25%, which only applies when every need is exceeded by 100% or more.

Best Needs To Focus On In Millennia

the in-game ecnyclopedia page about needs from Millennia

Needs are unlocked one after another, but not every nation is going to use all of them. At the same time, some nations are better suited to exceeding certain needs. The first need, which is always in play, is food. Other needs are usually unlocked in the following order.

Housing
Sanitation
Education
Luxury (can’t be negative)
Faith (optional)
Information
Power (defined by power use)
Ideology (optional)

Most needs are straightforward enough. Regions must have one housing per population over five, one sanitation per population over 10, and so on. Meanwhile, other needs work differently. Luxury, for example, can never be negative. It can still slow down the growth of a region, but it can never be what makes it shrink.

Other needs, like power (as in electrical power), are only needed to power machinery. Without factories or other improvements that cause power drains, there is no need for power production, as demand isn’t based on population number. That said, going above 100% still gives the usual bonus, and the same goes for going below. Additionally, not having enough power to satisfy demand will cause blackouts that massively reduce a region’s production.