Guide:Population Management

Overview

Population Management refers to the methods of increasing or decreasing the overall number of sapiens in your tribe. This guide outlines the mechanics in the game that allow some level of control over how large or small your population is.

Increasing Tribe Population

The following describes net positive population mechanics in the game that will increase your tribe population.

Pregnancy and Births

A pregnant female Sapien

Sapiens are able to mate and give birth to children. Within the game there is a random periodic check to see if a pregnancy will occur based on a set of rules.

Rules for the Female

1. The Sapien must be female.
2. The female must not already be pregnant.
3. The female cannot be a nomad at the time of the check.
4. The female must be an adult, but not an elder.
5. The female must be young enough that the pregnancy will not extend until they become an elder.
6. The female's mood must be Mildly Negative or higher (3 Stars).
7. The female must not be hungry.

Rules for the Male

Once a female sapien has passed the above criteria the game then checks to see if a suitable father is available for the identified potential mother using the following rules:

1. The Sapien must be male.
2. The male must not be a child (can be an adult or an elder).
3. Must not have a close family relationship with the female.
4. The male must have a suitable friend relationship score with the female.

If both the female and male rules are met at this point a pregnancy will occur and the father will pass a skin color gene, a hair color gene and an eye color gene to be combined with the females to determine the characteristics of the baby.

Tips for Maximizing Pregnancy Chances

While births will help keep the population up, it is very hard to dramatically increase the population relying on births alone as the number of births doesn't reliably create a sustainable population. The population will decrease over time if no other population increase methods are used. There are however a few things you can do to ensure you are maximizing the number of successful pregnancies in your tribe.

1. Pair young female and male couples together by setting them in adjacent beds. The proximity to each other while they are idle and sitting on their beds will improve the relationship score between them (They won't always sit together when idle but this is about maximizing, not guaranteeing)
2. Reduce workloads for your planned pairs so the sapiens are idle and sitting next to each other more.
3. Make sure the other basic rules are met - ensure they aren't hungry and have musicians playing music to keep the mood levels of the tribe up.

Nomadic Tribe Recruitment

A tribe of 3 nomads approaching a Sapien settlement.

Notification when nomads join the players tribe.

Another method to increase your tribe's numbers is to recruit new sapiens from wandering nomadic tribes. This method will increase your population the fastest and occasionally quite large nomadic tribes will spawn and come through.

Once a tribe is spotted, the tribe can be engaged with by hitting the Enter key while the screen notification that they have appeared is active in the top right corner of the screen. At this point the game can be paused, and one of the nomadic tribespeople can be selected and then "Recruited" in the radial menu. One of your available sapiens with the Diplomacy Skill will then attempt to recruit the nomad to the tribe. Please note it only takes 1 nomad to be recruited - once they are swayed all other members of the nomadic tribe will join as well.

Rules for Nomadic Tribe Spawning

Every 0.5 to 1.5 game days the game will attempt to spawn a new nomadic tribe into the game. During this process, a set of samples are taken to see if a spawn will take place based on an initial distance of 300m from your Sapiens. Should there be water between the nomad proposed starting point and your sapiens or the point is not at least 280m near a sapien, the spawn attempt will fail.

The nomadic tribe once spawned will target different locations based on their intention:

1. Food Raid - The nomadic tribe will target one of your storage areas containing at least 5 food. (Spawn will fail if no valid food storage is found)
2. Friendly Visit - The nomadic tribe will head towards a Campfire or nearby position if none are available.
3. Join - The nomadic tribe will head towards a Campfire or nearby position if none are available. (Spawn will fail if average mood is very negative or no food storage with at least 10 food is found)
4. Cautious Visit - The nomadic tribe will head towards a Campfire or nearby position if none are available.
5. Just Passing Through - The nomadic tribe will walk through your village and continue on.
6. Leave - The nomadic tribe will walk away and despawn soon.

Maximizing Nomad Recruitment

There are some things you can do to maximize success in recruiting new sapiens from a nomadic tribe.

1. Creating a settlement near a river or a coast will dramatically reduce the number of successful spawns as the water will prevent spawning. Settling on a small island may totally disable the spawning of nomadic tribes.
2. Ensure you have adults and not elders assigned with the Diplomacy role. Elders are slower which can sometimes result in the nomads leaving before they can be caught up to by the elder as nomads are always children or adults.
3. Ensure your diplomats are not pregnant or mourning the death of a family member or friend, as this will also reduce their speed to reach the nomadic tribe member being recruited.
4. Once you give the "recruit" order ensure that you have an available sapien with the diplomacy skill that is not queued up with other tasks. If they are too busy and too much time has passed the tribe will leave.
5. Ensure you have the correct targets available in your village. For example not having a food storage with at least 10 food will reduce the amount of successful spawns.
6. Ensure that the average happiness of your tribe is at worst "moderately negative" or it will reduce the amount of successful spawns.
7. Sapiens who leave your tribe because they reached the Loyalty 0 threshhold can be re-recruited to join back. They will still have the same low loyalty when they rejoin and you will need to quickly fix whatever negative effect caused them to leave in the first place.

Decreasing Tribe Population

The following describes net negative population mechanics in the game that will reduce the number of sapiens in your tribe.