POPULATION & MILITARY
Two kinds of people, one of which has opinions — and an army made of neither.
TWO SPECIES
Population is not one pool. Humans and automatons are genuinely different assets, and choosing between them is one of the deepest strategic commitments in the game.
| HUMANS | AUTOMATONS | |
|---|---|---|
| Manpower each | 1.0, improvable past 1.33 with research | 0.25, improvable past human levels |
| Food | Eats 1 per turn | None |
| Sentiment | Yes — can revolt | None. Cannot revolt, ever |
| Taxes | Pays them | Pays nothing |
| Growth | Free, over time | Manufactured: 1 material + 1 technological |
| Upkeep | Food only | 0.1 materials per turn |
| Casualties | Cut sentiment sharply | Expendable |
Populist empires run on humans: rich tax base, real revolt risk. Automated empires are immune to unrest and permanently cash-starved. Hybrid empires try to hold both, and pay for the privilege in complexity. Research has a soft-opposed doctrine axis that pushes you to pick.
MANPOWER
Population does not produce anything by existing — it produces manpower, which staffs hubs. A hub's staff level is its health: casualties reduce staffing, staffing reduces output. Attacking a hub and attacking its workforce are the same act.
Redeploy moves population between rural land and hubs. It is how you bring a fresh hub up to full staffing, and how you evacuate one you expect to lose.
THE ABSTRACT MILITARY
Military power is a single number, not a stack of units. It represents drone fleets and autonomous weapons: no population, no sentiment, no civilian labour drawn away. Raising an army never costs you a workforce.
- Raising it costs any pair of capital, industrial and food — roughly 2+2 per point of power. Any economy can field an army; the poor ones just field it out of whatever they have.
- Maintaining it costs 0.5 food + 0.5 industrial per power per turn. Research reshapes that blend.
- Hosting it is capped per tile: 5 on ordinary ground, 10+ at a Data Center, 50 at a Military Base.
That hosting cap is the reason Military Bases exist. Without one, you physically cannot concentrate enough force in a region to hold it against a serious push.