Sry that this is probably not directly linked to the most recent discussion here, but a crazy wild idea came to my mind: what if Population size would actually decrease the Need modifiers slightly? (and let's say Tech penalty increased for compensation)
This would encourage growing and food in general, and would prevent using 'locking growth' ever again (which is just silly imo), would prevent mandatory choosing of Policies, among other things. Since science is so important that no one would really slow it down, I don't think it could create too much imbalance. It'd be an easy change compared to 'reforming' a lot of aspects of the game, both balance- and code-wise (I think, G knows this better).
Some things however that must be taken into account:
- since a new pop works extra tiles, and those yields result in reducing unhappiness, the counter to it similiarly should be something 'smooth', aka no big jumps
- finding a solution to newly founded cities, that their low population wouldn't hurt them (can be issue for cities settled in mid- late game)
- finding a good curve that slower late game growing wouldn't create too much unhappiness (but by then at least there are methods to solve it: public works, importing luxuries, etc.)
- finding a good balance overall, which might be rough (like growth is not too strong, cities with low growth aren't hurt too much, etc.)
(and a bunch of other things that I missed)
Just a wild brainstorming idea, it might be a complete nonsense
Any thoughts?