Tips for getting a high population?

[Zork]

Hi everyone, just got back into the game after a really long break since alpha 13.
Aside from recruiting prisoners (which I find a bit hard, could use some tips) what is the best method for getting more colonists?

[Third_Of_Five]

I guess buying slaves. Or sometimes there's a random event where someone just joins you.

Other than that I'd say just wait until Tynan adds kids into the game.

[Limdood]

early on, when your population is low, buying slaves, wanderer joins, escape pods, and chased refugees are semi-common.  Additionally, prisoner recruit difficulty is much lower.

In mid-game, where you already have 7-12 pawns, escape pods and chased refugees happen, but rarely.  Prisoner recruiting is significantly harder, but still doable.

In late game, with well over a dozen pawns, all forms of recruitment except capturing and recruiting prisoners is nearly nonexistent.

As a tip, prisoners with debilitating injuries...namely missing limbs or addictions...are generally easier to recruit (keep em in prison until their addiction is gone, or only try to recruit prisoners whose limbs you can replace).  Outlanders are easiest for normal colonies to recruit, then pirates, and tribals will almost always be much harder to recruit.  Similarly, for a tribe, tribals are the easiest to recruit, and the other two are significantly harder.

Finally, i highly recommend the hospitality mod:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=753498552

It gives your social pawns the ability to chat with visitors, which has small effects on overall faction relationship.  Visitors that are treated well can leave gifts.  Lastly, and most relevant to this thread, is that, for a small (-20 to -40) faction penalty, you can attempt to recruit visitors from another faction...It means if you have a colony with a few good talkers, you can butter up and talk over the best visitors.  The requirements to recruit are X number of people in your colony that the visitor likes, and X goes up the more overall pawns you have.

[Mehni]

The best tip I have is to don't let your colonists get killed.

The second best tip is to not be picky with potential recruits. Every prisoner will eventually join, even the 99%.

[Limdood]

The second best tip is to not be picky with potential recruits. Every prisoner will eventually join, even the 99%.

Not quite...

More 99%s means a fuller prison, bigger raids (prisoners are still wealth), and more mouths to feed...

Also, the main point is that a fuller prison means prison breaks happen more often, are more dangerous, and harder to nonlethally put down.

In short, the more 99%s you have, the more dead prisoners you'll have.

[Boston]

1) Play as Tribals. When you play as Tribals, they are in turn easier to recruit.

2) Download the mod "Children and Pregnancy". A17 only for now.

https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=28747.0

[ArguedPiano]

Personally, I like the huge colonies.
I tweak the population settings to emulate Randys model with still keeping a hard curve.

That aside, have a pawn with good social skill dedicated to recruiting. Keep your prisoners as happy as possible, nice, personal rooms help.
I tend to recruit most pawn 95% or lower, and will keep only the best pawns above that.

[Canute]

- Rescue down caravan/visitor members, then you got a chance that they ask to join your colony.

- Mod Hospitality, give you the ability to recruit Visitors (not caravans) at the cost of relation to that faction.

- Mod Android race, let your print your own pawn.

- Mod Misc. MAI, similar to Androids but MAI's are stronger at the beginning but not you can't modify them like androids with Bionics.

[blightmoon]

Play as Randy. Settle multiple bases.

[saulysw]

I don't think I've seen it mentioned so far - the cryopods in the ancient dangers contain a lot of potential pawns. Make sure you are prepared once you open it though as the room may well have nasties in it, and people coming out of the pods may also be armed and pissed. Usually though they are weak, slow and easy to rescue or better yet, capture. If you don't like their stats (non-violent, no-work, abrasive, depressive, chemical fascination, addict) just let them leave the map or die. Check their gear before they die though, might be worth stripping them too. You need a few spare beds ready in the prison too. A few batteries and turrets might help with all this.

[gipothegip]

I think persistance and taking in everyone is your best bet. But I'm pretty sure that much should be obvious.

As Limdood said, how frequent you can get pawns, how easy they are to convince to join, etc. is determined by how many pawns you have. I think the different storytellers have different ideas of how many pawns you should have.

There are different thresholds. At low numbers it's easy to recruit and escape pods and wanderers are frequent. Then it tails off once you have a handful, and it gets infrequent when you have a lot. There's a point where it's "critical" as well, and from what I've read the storyteller tries to get rid of pawns (though I can't confirm this).

[kubolek01]

Once I almost got on minus from a refugee chase. 25 Nod soldiers vs 10 Random colonists. Barely got it without losses. Having much worse weapons.

[grrizo]

Tip 1: Don't eat your pawns.
Tip 2: Don't let other things eat your pawns.

[shentino]

Pray to the random number god not to insta-kill your enemies before you get a chance to capture them.


Also, if anyone is downed, collect them PRONTO.  Rescue if they're already part of your colony otherwise capture.

Tend to wounds promptly, especially bleeding ones.  When the random number gods are looking for an excuse to nail you with an infection you can't afford the time to screw around.

[Snafu_RW]

Also, if anyone is downed, collect them PRONTO.  Rescue if they're already part of your colony otherwise capture.

Ideally with another colonist they hate, if you have time - leads to less infractions within the colony