ShamenCave is confused on a few points
here.<br><br>&lt;&lt;<br>If you set it it to exactly<br> fifty then do a big
overbuild there you will see that the pop<br> drops to
48/49 (not exactly sure why this happens,<br>
anybody?)<br>&gt;&gt;<br><br>Because you built some colonies in your
fleet.<br>Leave
the colonies out and this won't happen.<br>And if you
must build colonies, build them
last.<br><br>&lt;&lt;<br> I agree that setting the homeworld pop to 150/200
is not a<br> hugely usefull tactic but it can have
its benefits,<br> perticularly against newbies who
often forget to include a<br> sweeper in there
fleets<br>&gt;&gt;<br><br>What a crock! If your population is 200 on
your<br>homeworld then there is 100 ag going down the<br>toilet,
100 units of minerals and/or fuel which<br>you are
not utilizing.<br><br>Moreover, if you really want to
play minefield<br>games, you don't need 200 pop to do
it! Learn<br>how to do the minefield/ag
trick.<br><br>Here's how it works:<br>Set your HW population to be
100, of course (DUH).<br>On the turn that you expect
the minefield to<br>go off, crank the population of
your homeworld<br>to 999. At the same time, slightly
lower the<br>population of other planets you have (but
keep<br>important tactical builders).<br><br>When the mine goes
off, your population will<br>not be 100/2 = 50 like
normal, but it will<br>be 100*Agratio/2, or perhaps
60-70. Now your<br>ag ratio is pretty darn good because
you<br>temporarily lowered the pop of your other<br>planets, so it
will be back up to 100 next<br>round.<br><br>You can
use this same trick with a planet with<br>50
population (a nuked homeworld.) When the<br>mine is going to
blow, set its pop to 99, and<br>lower other
populations. You'll be building<br>again on the very next
turn.<br><br>There are some times to put populations higher<br>than
"normal" -- let me list a few.<br><br>(1) To make a planet
a builder. DUH! You have<br> a planet with only 30
minerals and 10 fuel,<br> but for tactical reasons you
need to build<br> there so you set the pop to be
50/51.<br><br>(2) The ag cusion. A planet with 50 pop can<br> turn
into 49 pop if something happens to your<br>
agriculture ratio. I have made the mistake<br> before of
breaking alliance with somebody<br> only to see it hit my
ag ratio and convert<br> builders into vulnerable 49
pop planets.<br> Yuck! Keeping 51 or 52 pop at a
planet is<br> a safe idea when you anticipate ag
problems.<br><br>(3) Temporary building - suppose you have a lush<br>
planet with 87 ag, and only 5 minerals and<br> no fuel.
Your opponent has seen it and you<br> know he has
cloakers, so you are worried.<br> The cheapest defense is
to pop-trick and set<br> that planet to 50 pop, then
build one BR 1<br> minefield, then lower the pop back
to 5.<br> Now you have a supply of ag which is not
so<br> easy for him to nuke, and you don't need to<br>
spend an attack ship to go on permanent<br> cloaker
patrol.<br><br>(4) Minefield reasons - as discussed
above<br><br>Other than that, let me say that it is
generally<br>asinine to set pops higher than normal, and<br>if you do
this on your homeworld you might as<br>well broadcast
"I AM A MORONIC NEWBIE" for<br>everybody to
hear.<br><br>I disagree with the statement that "even
good<br>players do this." I have never seen any good<br>player or
even moderately good player<br>with even 101 people on
his HW.<br><br>HONK HONK<br>Gooseberry