Population

Your people pay your taxes, so how many you hold is one of the things worth managing directly. Each turn some move in or move out, until the realm settles at the number it can support.

Three things set that number:

• What your land is. Urban regions house far more people than any other type — more than ten times what a Coastal or Mountain region holds. Rivers and Industrial zones come next; Desert holds the fewest. Raw land does nothing on its own; it is the kind of region that counts.
• Popular Support. The higher it stands, the more people your land holds.
• Your tax rate. A low rate lets your realm hold many more people. A high one drives the number down sharply, and past 50% people keep leaving on top of that.

Support and taxes multiply together, so a realm with poor support and heavy taxes holds a small fraction of what its land could otherwise carry.

Movement each turn is a share of the gap, not of your population, so a realm far below its limit fills quickly while one already near it barely changes. A realm can grow by at most half its size in one turn. When people are leaving, they leave faster the harder you tax.

Selling Urban land lowers what your realm can hold, and the people then drain away over the following turns rather than all at once.

Tip: population growth outruns food if you buy Urban regions and no farms. Your civilian advisor warns you before that wall arrives.