Indeed, what good are hundreds of planets without a thriving population to enjoy them? An empire owes its success to its subjects, after all.
Population now joins Networth and Size as a ranking metric, providing a new form of competition for all.
Will players adapt their strategies accordingly? How will this affect the market? 
I suppose time will tell!
I find this very ironic when I had my Population killed today. 
Not thrilled. Seems like just one more move into making the game so easy even a millennium can maintain attention long enough to be successful. 
Can you clarify what’s become easier? This information was already public on empire pages.
Why?
🤦
@Xenon1122 is that for me or @Terror_of_the_Night?
Post in general I guess, fixed. Why do we need pop ranks?
Thanks.
Answered in OP:
We have a lot to gain by giving players additional reasons to play, and this information has always been available but never ranked.
The flipside of your question: why not?
Like the Map nowadays, it makes it easier to obtain information on-demand whereas before it required a lot more work.
I’m just old school in that I appreciated the challenge of those days, and the opportunity such provided to sneaky attackers. No need to listen to me on this topic.
It’s always worth listening. 
Just want to make sure I understand the argument.
We could make pop, including on the empire page, an option to hide for HC gals.
3 posts were split to a new topic: EoR Ranks and Stats
This would also open a new way to troll.
Player only caring about being on top of this new ranking.
As a eor hey this was the pop rankings that could be interesting.
As a goal to win I just don’t see it. Discourages wars. Or fighting only safe wars only.
I really think the incentive to attack needs to be something to look at. Imperial savings and loan is a fun game and all ,but this is imperial conflict. Not a bad idea ,but I think it discourages conflict to much.
FINALLY!
Now we’re just one step away from our ultimate goal; laser rank list.
MAKE IT HAPPEN.
made a rank that 4 people may look at and consider - surely more pressing matters 
POP = BLOAT. How is this improving the game? Bring back top income/resource lists if you want people to compete on a usefull statistic.
You’ll make the game more accessible instead of muddying the goal of the game even further by literally measuring the amount of bloat an empire has.
Yes. Like I said: let’s point out who has the most lasers. Useful statistics.
@hoit indeed there are, and I’m working on those too.
@otteN this was already being measured. if you don’t like it, don’t use it. Others are free to compete however they want to, just as you are.
@Jets I don’t see the trolling angle, if people want to compete for top of pop, they should be free to.
Fwiw, this is one of several ranking stats we’ll eventually be adding. Attack-focused metrics will be added as well.