I realise this may have been discussed elsewhere, which is why I didn't mention it till now. But we seem to have gone through several Beta's with it remaining the same so perhaps if there is a change being made then I could have my mind set at rest by someone. Other wise Empires are seriously unbalanced as regards to growing their population compared with kingdoms. I know it was argued that Empires were all about indivual prowess but I'm playing against beginner level AI and there still getting lvl4 cities before I'm halfway through lvl 3 and I'm focusing everything on the imperium tech tree path. I know refugee camps are supposed to solve this somewhat but only on one ocasion have they been anywhere near my starting location, often their not in at all and when they are in they never seem to do anything but generate a trickle of resources. Like I say I'm sure stardock are aware of this as its pretty blazingly obvious but the number of patches that have rolled by with no fix is worrying me now. Maybe you could link population growth to the level of the sovereign in keeping with the idea of the importance of individuality in Empires, add some prestige buildings like the kingdom ones but with more of an empire theme, or just add buildings that increase the population, breeding pits or something? Alternatively you could just fix the refugee camps. But please please do something, I realise its pretty late in the day but currently its much impossible to play Empire to its full potential because of this collosal limitation.

Thanks for the help and sorry if this has been mentioned before and your working on a fix for the problem.