| Tom Willard | Tuesday, January 4, 2011 - 04:56 pm 
1. Loans
To reduce the number of loans and make the loan pages load faster, we have increased the minimum amount of a country loan to 100B. The minimum amount of loans given to corporations is 25B. Existing loans remain unchanged.
2. The "Change Profession" feature
Until now, it was possible to use the feature for up to 50.000 workers each game month. For countries with a population of more than 25M, the number is now increased to 100.000. This will reduce the number of manual interventions that are needed to make workers corrections.
3. Population in Simcountry
The population in countries depends on several parameters and for a long time, we heard complains about population growth or rather decline.
The population depends most of the time on the number of births each month, and the death rate.
There are also other events that can change the numbers of the population, like war with many casualties, and also population purchases on the market and the sale of population. Migration can also change the numbers.
Death rates depend on the age group. Each age group has a different death rate and these rates increase with age and the highest age groups have a high death rate. The death rates also depend on the health index. The higher the health index, the lower death rates will be.
The population birth rates depend on the total number of the population in the country. The higher the population, the lower the birth rate becomes.
In countries with very high population numbers, birth rates can decline below the death rates resulting in a decline of the population.
Some players are buying large numbers of populations to boost their countries and then see the numbers decline slowly in the following game months and years.
We have always advised players not to increase the population beyond 50-60 Millions because the numbers will decline due to the reduced birth rates.
4. The Population Feature is now Changed.
The objective of the change is to stop the decline of population that is caused by the reduced birth rates.
As of today, birth rates will continue to depend on the total number of the population but the number of births, in countries with high levels of population, will not decline below the current levels. The change will block the decline in the number of births in populous countries and will keep the age group of 0-4 years at a fairly constant level.
In countries with a lower numbers of people, growth will continue as before. The growth numbers will decline with the increase of the population but the birth rate will remain at a minimum level that will not allow the number of population in the 0-4 years old, to decline.
5. What will be the effect of this change in the Population?
Initially, nothing will change as fluctuations in the number of the population depend on the current numbers in all age groups and these are unchanged from before. Declines in very populous countries will continue for some time.
As in the previous setup, the natural growth of population will stop at a similar level, but numbers will gradually, stop their decline.
The change is only in the 0-4 year old group and it will take time before it starts to influence numbers in other age groups.
Numbers will continue to decline as a result of bad health care, war, emigration and the sale of population.
Purchasing population will result in an increase of the population and will not be followed by a decline. Following a purchase of population, we do expect some fluctuations and even some declines but at the end, numbers will stabilize and remain at a higher level.
This means, that when this change is in full effect, population purchases will allow countries to grow their population to higher levels without declines. |
