1.5 Population, Growth

As far as I know, there are two decimal places or more kept track of, but only one being shown.  The rounding happens at the second decimal place or deeper.  The display is shown rounded to 1 decimal place, but that is different than the actual under-the-hood arithmetic to reduce the perception of rounding errors.

Also, I understand the base growth rate to .3 not .25.  And the corresponding 10% would be .03.  A 5% increment seems to be the smallest they typically use and it would be .015, which leads me to suspect they track down to three places and just don't add clutter to the display about it.

There might be a confusion about the %growth bonus term used in the game.  The percentage is not applied to the population, but is applied to the base growth rate instead.  Therefore. 100% bonus is .3 base rate plus .3 bonus, giving .6 population points per turn.  10% bonus is .33 population points per turn total.

What I don't understand is why they felt growth needed to be increased in the first place???  If you used growth bonuses and e.g. colonial hospital buildings line it seemed reasonably fast already to me, you don't need to now.  I haven't decided if I like the change or not yet, but it seems like there's a lot less decision making when it comes to population, it's not important anymore as it takes care of itself. 

After testing and reviewing the data, it appears I was mistaken. The game does appear to be tracking the actual population and growth to several decimal places, but is only displaying the numbers rounded to 1 decimal place.

 The base growth rate is in fact 0.25 and +10% Growth increases growth rate by 0.025. At the very least, I think growth rate needs to be displayed to 3 or 4 decimal places, as you can't really tell how much growth you have when it is rounded to 1 decimal place.

I immediately suspected that they did this in an insufficient attempt to keep Approval Improvements and techs relevant in the wake of removing the LEP.

With the low pre-1.5 growth rate, I found it difficult to sustain invasion wars on large maps. Now it's easier. I never need hospitals. Maybe a middle ground is appropriate.

This. The high growth rate offers a nice opportunity to make invasions more grindingly brutal. Now they just need to make it so invasions actually fail from time to time.

I actually think this is really good. Massively improves the pace of the game without changing much else.

Also given population is a direct path to raw production, the most important stat in the game... I think hospitals are still worth it? I usually build one on every world! 

ie reaching 40 pop at turn 80 instead of 100 is much better than another crappy factory or lab!

I must admit I am leaning towards liking the change.

I would often try to prevent nearly all planets from hitting there pop cap previously by sending transports to them to skim off the top, helping to sustain invasions in the process.  Caused a lot of micromanagement though, so I won't miss it.  Shouldn't be anywhere near as necessary/useful now with growth so high.

Definitely but not like before, much more situational.  I think the tactical/strategic decisions in regards to population have been reduced which is a downside also the invasion system needs work like naselus mentions, but it could be a good change.

People felt the growth was high enough? Even with the best setup, the best you can get is around .3 growth per turn before. I for one am glad they increased the growth rate. It made population growth improvements and tech relevant again.

This is a good point. A 25% increase on 0.1 (or whatever it was) is much less beneficial than the same percentage increase on 0.3, making such buildings more worthwhile for the higher base rate.

True, but it many cases you'll hit the colonies pop cap before having the industry to even think of building hospitals.  Before even planets with very few tiles significantly benefited from the hospital line now they don't need it as the growth rate is high enough to hit the pop cap much earlier.

More benefit on the high end less useful on the low end.

At least now it actually has a use. I stopped bothering with hospitals because the growth rate barely budged with or without it, regardless of whether early or late game. It was better to just save that tile for your Biomass Resequencer or some other more useful improvement. Birthing Subsidies also became pointless because a 100% bonus is literally nothing.

And to follow up on the last point, with a higher pop growth, you now do not have to worry about building pop growth on a planet with already limited resources.

To me, the improved growth rate has clearly improved the game. Now it is also possible to put a decent number of people onto your colony ships when making many during the colony rush.

Great improvement. TYVM Stardock.