In Anno 117: Pax Romana, your population is the lifeblood of your empire. It directly fuels your workforce, drives your economy, and determines your success. A growing, happy populace is the ultimate sign of a well-managed province. This guide will break down the essential mechanics of population growth, from building your first residences to efficiently managing a multi-tiered workforce.
The Foundation: Residences and Basic Needs
The core of your population is your Residences. Simply building houses increases your potential population, but to fill them and see real growth, you must fulfill your citizens’ needs.
Building Residences: Each residence you construct adds to your population cap. However, without fulfilling needs, these houses will remain largely empty and unproductive.
Fulfilling Needs for Growth: Each residence has a menu showing its required goods and services. Providing these is the primary driver of population growth. For example:
Providing Eels or Sardines (food) will typically grant +1 Population per residence.
Providing a Well (service) fulfills a basic need and contributes to happiness and growth.
A stable supply of these goods leads to significant growth across your entire settlement.
Ascending the Tiers: From Liberti to Plebeians
As you fulfill more needs, your residences can be upgraded to higher tiers, which house more people and provide access to a more specialized workforce.
Tier 1 – Liberti: The basic residential tier. A single Liberti residence can hold a maximum of, for example, 3 population. Fulfilling its food need is the first step.
Tier 2 – Plebeians: After meeting the required needs, you can upgrade Liberti to Plebeians. This tier houses more people (e.g., a base of 5 population) and has new, more complex demands. Fulfilling the food need for Plebeians alone can provide a substantial population boost.
Upgrading residences is the most effective way to rapidly increase your total population and workforce pool.
Boosting Growth: Gods, Buildings, and Buffs
Beyond basic goods, several systems can accelerate your population growth.
The Favor of Ceres: Choosing the goddess Ceres for your settlement provides bonuses related to farming and growth. Reaching devotion milestones with her can grant permanent buffs to your population capacity or growth rate.
Service Buildings with Area of Effect: Structures like the Market provide essential services, but only to residences within a certain radius. Ensuring all your homes are covered by these services is crucial for fulfilling needs and enabling upgrades.
Happiness: Overall citizen happiness, influenced by needs, decorations, and public order, plays a key role in growth speed and efficiency.
Understanding and Managing Your Workforce
Your total population is separate from your available Workforce. This is a dedicated pool of laborers needed to run almost all production and service buildings.
Workforce Distribution: Your workforce is drawn as a percentage from your residential tiers. A common distribution is:
50% from Tier 1 (Liberti)
30% from Tier 2 (Plebeians)
20% from Tier 3 (Citizens)
Example: 40 Liberti population would contribute 20 workers to your total workforce.
The Workforce Shortage: If a building lacks the required workforce, it will be marked with a warning icon and its efficiency will plummet, halting production. This is the most common bottleneck in expansion.
The Solution: The only way to fix a workforce shortage is to increase the population of the required tier. Building more residences or upgrading existing ones is the key.
Strategies for Stable and Efficient Growth
Plan Your Supply Chains First: Before building a new residential district, ensure you can supply it with food and basic services. A Fishing Hut not only provides food for growth but also adds +1 to your workforce and income.
Upgrade Methodically: Focus on fully upgrading one neighborhood at a time rather than spreading your resources thin. A cluster of high-tier homes is more efficient than a sprawling area of low-tier ones.
Monitor the Workforce Panel: Keep a constant eye on your workforce levels. If you see a particular tier is running low, prioritize building or upgrading homes of that tier.
Utilize Research: The Institute can research technologies that provide global bonuses, such as Horse Power (reducing workforce needs) or Albionic Loyalists (increasing workforce output), which help you do more with your existing population.
FAQ: Anno 117 Population Growth
Q: Why are my houses not filling up with people?
A: This is because you are not fulfilling their basic needs. Check each residence’s menu and ensure you are producing and delivering the required food (like Eels) and providing necessary services (like a Well within range).
Q: How do I get more Workforce?
A: Workforce comes from your population. To get more, you need to build more residences or upgrade existing ones to higher tiers, which provide a larger workforce pool.
Q: What does the red icon above my building mean?
A: This is a workforce shortage icon. It means the building does not have enough workers to operate. Increase the population of the required residential tier to solve this.
Q: Is it better to build new houses or upgrade old ones?
A: Upgrading is generally more space-efficient and provides a larger, more concentrated workforce. However, building new houses is necessary to claim new land and provide the base population for future upgrades.
Q: How does the goddess Ceres help?
A: Ceres provides bonuses specifically tied to agriculture and population growth, such as increased yields from farms or direct boosts to your population capacity, making her an excellent choice for rapid expansion.
Conclusion
Mastering population growth in Anno 117: Pax Romana is a rewarding cycle of construction, supply, and optimization. By systematically fulfilling the needs of your residents, strategically upgrading their homes, and carefully monitoring your workforce distribution, you can transform a small settlement into a thriving, efficient Roman city. Remember, a growing population is a happy population, and a happy population is the foundation of a powerful and prosperous empire.