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How to: Increase the population cap

By PROXIMITY ALERT!

To change the population cap ingame follow these steps below, in this example I am going to change the default Military Tech Level 7 population cap of 200 to 550.

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PROXIMITY ALERT!
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Category: Modding or Configuration, Multiplayer

Languages: English

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Updated

13 Jun, 2014 @ 12:17pm

16 Jan, 2018 @ 9:29am

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Follow these steps:

FAQ:

Comments

Follow these steps:

1.) Locate to your Steam Rise of Nations directory 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Rise of Nations\Data\'
2.) Create a copy of 'rules.xml' file first then edit it with Notepad++

3.) Ctrl +F and find '<POP_CAP entry0'
4.) Change 'entry7="200 pop cap"/>' to 'entry7="450 pop cap"/>' **(This needs to be 100 less than the new popcap you are setting)!**

5.) Ctrl +F or find 'MAX_POP_LIMIT'
6.) Change '<MAX_POP_LIMIT value="300 pop cap"/>' to 'MAX_POP_LIMIT value="550 pop cap"/>'

7.) Ctrl +F or find '<CATEGORIES id="poplimits" title="Population:">'
8.) Change '<CATEGORY name="200"><DATA>200</DATA></CATEGORY>' to '<CATEGORY name="550"><DATA>550</DATA></CATEGORY>'.

9.) Save the file.
10.) Launch the game, upon reaching the Military Tech Level 7 you will now have 550 population cap instead of the default 200.

FAQ:

Q1.) How do I play online with my friends?
A1.) Your friend must have the same rules.xml configuration as yours otherwise you will recieve a sync error.

Q2.) How do I revert everything back to default?
A2.) If you didn't save a copy orginally, go to the Steam Library and right click Rise Of Nations > Properties > Local Files > Verify integrity of game cache...

26 Comments

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Jitlan 30 Sep @ 6:54am

After doing this it has permanently broken my game.
Even Verifying the game has not fixed it.
Whenever I launch the game it opens the little launcher but then if I click "Play" it closes and the game doesn't launch at all.

Jitlan 4 Sep @ 7:07am

Seems not to work anymore?

DankPewPew 17 Aug @ 11:25am

Excellent guide, easy to do. I did this, but when it's 550, with Colossus your population is 600. This was insane, and very resource intensive. You need to have all resources flashing +999 and it's still not enough. Against the base AI it takes longer than normal.

I've since lowered the max to 350, so 400 with Colossus. And have also staggered the other population limits.

I also found a mod online to allow above 4GB of GRAM, I believe it was called something like above 4G decoding mod. Either way it work, and it worked on a few other games too.

John Henry Eden 19 Jul, 2023 @ 2:55pm

go online and find a population limit increase mod and then activate the mod while ingame, dont edit base game files ever

Pink fluffy Unicorn 18 Mar, 2023 @ 2:34pm

i only get mojibake

the Iron Duke 6 Feb, 2021 @ 1:19pm

I've got this game on xbox gamepass, and rules.xml is encrypted thus I can't open/edit it. is there any way to get around that?

highlanderbrazil 15 Jan, 2018 @ 4:14pm

Developers of the game, please, change the game so we don´t have to do that manually.

joeydowns20 5 Jan, 2018 @ 9:09am

Man this is way to freak en hard to do, I still cant do it

HappyPurging 23 Sep, 2016 @ 12:22pm

Doesn't work with the Americas campaign for some reason!

JimboSlick 17 Sep, 2016 @ 5:09pm

Is this a cheat where only my population cap is increased or everyone's is higher?

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