The Global Population Decline

Day 2,342, 14:34 Published in USA Greece by Jack Lantos


The global population has been in decline for some time, but how fast is the game actually dying? How has the rate varied over the course of the previous 12 months in response to various changes? And which countries were affected the most?

Let's start with the total population of every country combined. The number of active citizens can be estimated by the total number of voters at each monthly CP election. This by itself is not a perfect measurement as some players are expected not to vote, and some (most) voters are not expected to be real citizens. However, the election data is all still available in game so I readily compiled it.



Looking at the graph, there was a steep loss of players in the first half of this date range, from May to October. The rate of decline was suddenly slowed around November, but then the population decline has started to accelerate again in 2014.

Over the last 12 months, across all countries, there was a loss of 33% of active players.

Breakdown for all countries

Next let's check which countries are losing the most players.



From this table, it would seem the "biggest loser" was eUSA, considering that there were 2488 active voters a year ago and only 1065 at present. Having said that the rate of decline has lessened in recent months, and voting activity back then was in the context of a drawn out PTO attempt.

Some countries gained a bit of population in one half of the date range, only to lose them again in the other half. There were not really any countries that 'boomed' across the whole 12 months.

Discussion of game changes

Given that the first half of the data shows more severe population decline than the second half, it may be interesting to see which of Plato's game updates fall within each half.

First half:
- Gorilla* fights [Day 1947]
- Gold mines [Day 1949]
- Tournaments
- Income tax replaced with "Work Tax" [Day 2088]
- Missing tax disappears [Day 2124]

Second half:
- Freedom fighter medal and occupier tax [Day 2185]
- Empires and determination [Day 2191]
- Anniversary challenge [Day 2191]
- Power Spam* [Day 2221]
- Tournaments
- Divisions updated [Day 2281]
- Training contracts stackable [Day 2283]

A notable shake-up was changing the Divisions boundaries, which might have helped some players get medals easier. However the biggest shaker here was the combo of the Determination System + Freedom Fighter medals. The world map had become desperately stale and these changes had the rapid effect of resetting the imperialistic countries to their original regions. It was only temporary, as the FF medals become too much of a hassle and the determination bonuses for liberated countries eventually fades, which is a shame as the player retention seems to fade with them.