What is population surplus and how to use it in A Total War Saga: Troy

As the many battles and wars rage throughout the world in A Total War Saga: Troy, life in a province has to continue. The people there have to keep on living their lives, and as time goes on, their population levels increase. Eventually, a province will receive a population surplus point, allowing them to build upgrades to benefit your empire.

What is a population surplus?

A province has a population surplus after a certain amount of growth throughout several turns. You can see this information when clicking on a province you own and looking over the detailed pop-up on your UI to the lower-left portion of your screen. It should say ‘administration’ where it displays the province’s growth and current population surplus points. There’s also the amount of growth a province has per turn. The higher amount of growth in the province, the faster it receives a population surplus.

You use population surplus to make building upgrades in a region. Higher-level buildings require multiple points of population surplus, so you don’t want to use it all at once. It helps to save it to build better, improved buildings in a province to receive the best benefits. The population surplus comes from all of the provinces in a region. When you click on a province, you can see all of the cities that benefit each other, which should encourage you to conquer all of them to receive the best output of resources and growth.

How do you increase growth to earn a population surplus?

The buildings in your province, commandants of the region, and events happening throughout your campaign determine the amount of growth. You can highlight a building before you build it to see how much growth it provides you, along with additional benefits. Several buildings do not provide any amount of growth, such as military or certain resource buildings. 

The primary province town buildings in a province and province capital are the main sources to increase a region’s growth. The more growth a province has, the more population surplus points you can to construct to expand your empire’s power.