¶ Settling & Population
Every empire grows by settling unowned planets, growing their population, and putting that population to work. This page covers the full settlement-to-mature-planet lifecycle.
¶ Settling a planet
To settle a planet you need:
- An uncolonized planet (no owner). Destroyed planets can't be settled.
- A ship with a Colonization Pod (regular or Advanced) — see Ship Designs.
- A Settle command issued to the ship. It will fly to the planet and convert it on arrival.
Common reasons a settle fails:
- Your design has no Colonization Pod. The Settle command is greyed out.
- The "planet" you targeted was already settled — fog-of-war data is stale. Send a scout first.
- You scanned the star but not the planets around it. Without a scanner on the settler (or a prior scout pass), you may never see what's there. See Fog of War.
For details on the multi-settle trick (queueing several settle commands at once routes each ship to a different target), see Ship Commands → Settle.
¶ Starting population
| How you settled | Starting population | Extras |
|---|---|---|
| Regular Colonization Pod | 1 population | — |
| Regular Pod with the Settlers Start With Population minister | 5 population | See Cabinet. |
| Advanced Colonization Pod | 10 population | Plus free Production Hubs and Hydroponic Farms buildings already in place. |
Advanced pods start at 100% farmer allocation — they're set up to feed themselves immediately and grow. Regular pods start with the default 34 / 33 / 33 split (food / production / science).
¶ Population growth
Each week, every planet calculates a population growth number — essentially "food surplus after feeding everyone". That number accumulates in a hidden growth pool. Once the pool exceeds a threshold scaling with current population (roughly pop² × 0.5 + 1), one population point is added and the surplus rolls over.
This means:
- Early growth is fast. Going from 2 → 3 pop takes far fewer weeks than 25 → 26.
- The hard cap is 30 population on any normal planet. Once a planet hits 30, growth stops — surplus food is just wasted from a growth standpoint.
- Ringworlds have no cap. They can grow indefinitely. (See Megastructures.)
- Negative growth shrinks the population. If food production after maintenance is negative, the planet loses 1 pop per week.
Growth is fed by food and modified by tax, building bonuses, and the planet-match bonuses:
| Modifier | Effect on growth, production, science |
|---|---|
| Planet type matches your homeworld | +50% |
| Planet type opposite your homeworld | −50% |
| Planet size matches your homeworld | +50% |
| Planet size opposite your homeworld | −50% |
| Ferion world | ×2 |
| Ringworld | ×6 |
| Tax above 10% | proportional reduction (see Finances) |
The four match bonuses stack — a planet matching your homeworld in both size and type runs about +125% on every yield.
¶ Food
Food does two things:
- Feeds everyone. Every pop unit costs roughly 0.2 food/week to keep alive.
- Anything left over fuels growth. Surplus food is what fills the population growth pool above.
If you under-feed a planet for long enough, it shrinks. Hydroponic Farms and Cultured Protein Facilities are the main food buildings (see Buildings).
¶ Workforce sliders
Each planet has three workforce sliders that decide how its population spends its time:
Farmers → produce food (drives growth).
Workers → produce production for the build queue.
Scientists → produce science for research.
The numbers are normalised — set them however you like and the planet allocates its population proportionally. The default for new colonies is 34 / 33 / 33.
A fourth setting, tax, is independent of these sliders — see Finances. It runs 0–100% in 10% steps, defaults to 33%, and shaves yields once it goes over 10%.
¶ Planet size
There are three planet sizes: Small / Medium / Large. Size doesn't change the population cap (30 for everyone) — what it affects is which size your homeworld is, which then determines the +50% / −50% size-match bonus on every other planet you settle.
You can't change a planet's size (terraforming doesn't touch size — see Terraforming).
¶ Loyalty & authority
Every settled planet has a loyalty score (0–100) and a status:
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Stable | Newly settled or just captured. Loyalty hasn't been ticked yet. |
| Loyal | Loyalty = 100. The planet is sovereign — no authority needed. |
| Rising | Dependent, getting authority allocated to it. Loyalty climbing toward 100. |
| Dropping | Dependent, not getting authority. Loyalty falling. |
When you settle (or conquer) a new world, it comes in status Stable at a starting loyalty that depends on how well its environment matches your species:
| Planet | Starting loyalty |
|---|---|
| A Ferion planet (any owner) | 100 — already Loyal |
| A planet whose type matches your homeworld type | 75 |
| A planet whose type is the opposite of your homeworld type | 25 |
| Any other planet | 50 (default) |
AI rebels skip this entirely — every planet they hold is pinned to 100 (Loyal), since rebels aren't part of the Imperial Authority system.
Each week your empire allocates its 
authority pool across dependent planets (anything not yet at 100 loyalty). Planets you skip will drop in loyalty, and a low-loyalty planet is a candidate for rebellion.
Authority capacity comes from your empire's base value plus tech bonuses — research that grants authority is worth picking up if you're settling fast. See Research → What a tech gives you for the "authority" reward type.
¶ Abandoning a planet
Abandoning (via the Planets view) takes the world out of your empire entirely:
- Owner is cleared — the planet returns to "uncolonized".
- Population resets to 1.
- All buildings are destroyed.
- The production queue is cleared.
- Any Portal gates / connections are removed.
Abandoning is a clean break — no occupation phase, no salvage credits.
¶ Capture
When an enemy successfully invades and takes your planet:
- Ownership flips instantly — there is no "occupied" intermediate state.
- Population is retained — the new owner gets the existing pop, not a reset.
- Defensive buildings are destroyed (with a partial save if the attacker doesn't have the matching Defense minister — see Cabinet).
- The production queue is cleared.
- Tax and workforce sliders are reset to the new owner's defaults.
- Loyalty resets to Stable, with the starting value chosen by the same rule as settling: 100 for Ferion planets and AI captures, 75 if the planet matches the new owner's homeworld type, 25 if it's the opposite type, otherwise 50. See Loyalty & authority above for the full table.
For the combat that decides capture, see Battles.
¶ Tips
- Drop new colonies to ~10% tax. Default 33% shaves growth from week one. Let them grow, raise tax later.
- Use the Settlers Start With Population minister early. Going from 1 → 5 starting pop turns "useless slow-growth backwater" into "productive colony within weeks" — see Cabinet.
- Match the planet to the role. Mismatched planets pay −50% on every yield — sometimes worse to settle than to skip. If a planet's both opposite size and opposite type, plan to terraform it fast.
- Conquer matched worlds first. A captured planet that matches your homeworld type starts at 75 loyalty, so it draws far less from your authority pool than a 25-loyalty toxic capture. Conquering empires whose homeworlds match yours is cheap; conquering your opposite is expensive on every axis (yields, gravity, loyalty).
- Don't settle past your authority budget. Every new dependent planet pulls from the same authority pool. Settling ten low-priority worlds in one wave can spread your authority so thin that older colonies start dropping loyalty.
- The 30-pop cap matters. Late-game empires need to find growth somewhere — Ringworlds are the only way past the cap.
¶ Related
- Ship designs — the Colonization Pod and Advanced Colonization Pod.
- Ship Commands → Settle — the Settle command itself, multi-settle, and common pitfalls.
- Production — what your workers produce; the planet-match bonuses.
- Research — what your scientists produce.
- Finances — the tax slider and its 10% threshold.
- Cabinet — settlement-related ministers (extra starting pop, auto-queue on settle, faster settlers).
- Buildings — food buildings and the planetary infrastructure your colonies will need.
- Terraforming — fixing the planet-type mismatch on captured/settled worlds.