[1.4 + Dead DLC] - Don't really think I understand the Dead faction

Except for the one per faction buildings are there any viable way to increase population growth? I for one has not even encountered a hero with life magic for casting the +1 growth. Where do I find the spell for +1 growth from death shards?

Yep...the lack of being able to do much of anything gets old fast.  I like a bit of a handicap against the AI, but I've played the Dead faction for several hours today, and it just does NOT really work.  You'd have to get incredibly lucky (say a map with loads of bandits and ruffians, or a hero with Sovereign's Call) to even be able to keep up with the AI.  It's just too easy for non-dead factions to get growth and SPAM PIONEERS.

There has to be a fix for this.  Maybe at least ONE base building get provide growth +1?  Maybe the Mausoleum can be changed to do that?  Maybe it's time to address pioneer spam in non-Dead factions?  Slowing down the population growth across the board could be cool.

Maybe they could have some technologies that give bonuses to the amount of population harvested from battles and city razing.

Go to war with all factions you meet and let them come after you.

Yea, the growth/population is really dependent on where your spawn at when you first start the game. Personally I was lucky and had humanoid mobs for me to farm pop and get pioneers but after it still get super slow and stun the growth cos I didn't have death shard around.

One thing that annoys me is how dead humanoid enemies will add pop to the NEAREST city. Wish we had a way to choose or transfer pop between cities. Always find myself unable to train pioneers from earlier cities cos the pop is all concentrated at the latest city.

I think a cool solution would be that instead of getting population from kills/razes they get a unique resource called say Souls or Corpses. They then use this resource to build their special improvements like Mausoleums. There could also be another unique improvement for them called a Slaughter House that uses their special resource and just grants straight up growth. That way they would still be unique but wouldn't need none stop aggression.

Of course the problem with making any large change  to how Undead works is that it would require changing the base code. As it is now Undead could have been made by modders. The DLCs all could have. I have experimented with unique faction abilities a lot because of my mods so I can say with some certainty that as is it is pretty much impossible to fix this ability and keep it at a modder level. The game is extremely limited in how you can produce resources.

I believe the Morrigans' Call spell (+1 growth per death shard) is available from the start if you pick Death magic (based on watching a let's play).

Does the outpost upgrade that provides the +1growth to the attached city work for Undead factions?

Also - it occurs to me that a custom race with Undead blood + Death Magic (for Corruption to turn more shards into Death shards) would be a good idea.

Yes but these are things other factions can do as well. The life versions of the Call spell is actually better I believe. As others have said you have to get lucky and get the right start to use them anyway. If you can get lucky and use these you are still at a huge disadvantage against other factions. Imagine trying to boost the population of a dozen cities late game using these methods, it would be pretty terrible.

The Life version of Morrigan's Call is Sovereign's Call, which gives a flat +2 growth in the enchanted city. This is way better in the early game when you don't have many, or any, shards, and can remain better in the late game if you have poor luck finding Death Shards. I personally feel that the Empire of the Dead needs Death Worship, and possibly Adepts, for Morrigan's Call to be particularly useful. Alternatively, Gravetouched or Undead could unlock Corruption, which would pair nicely with Morrigan's Call.

Additionally, I think that the Undead trait is rather overpriced, just like Slave Lords is. It would be much better if razing a city were to evenly distribute that city's population over all cities which have available growth capacity, or if it first filled the capitol and then distributed the rest of the population over the rest of your cities, or gave the capitol 50% of the population and then distributed the other 50% over all the other cities you have, and the population from killing Men or Fallen thing would be much more useful if it were applied to Darklings, Wildings, and Mites in addition to Bandits, Ruffians, and other factions. The aspect of the trait which zeroes out unit wages is great, but I think that that was more than balanced out by the fact that the Undead trait turns off normal population growth.

A hotfix has already been posted with a rebalanced version of the Undead faction. This time, it doesn't even cost 5€!

https://forums.elementalgame.com/443960/page/1/

I've played this DLC long enough to know that the growth model, though interesting, is broken, especially at higher difficulty levels.  The easiest and least intrusive solution I thought of is to restore Produce Growth to the Administration tech.  I see it as a fair trade-off for producing upkeep-free troops being forced to use your entire city production/build queue for a good many turns toward growing up each individual city.  The backstory would be easily explained.  The entire city populace comes together for rituals/rites to create new undead.

Another idea is to also allow very minimal continuous growth, but force you to use city population, not just for pioneers, but for troops, too.  Sacrificing living slaves to the dark gods, anyone?  Another idea is to give the mausoleums growth potential.  Etc., etc.  There are a number of different ways to solve the growth issue.  Nonetheless, there must be some way of creating growth without relying on the vagaries of your particular map, ie., the placement of map resources and enemies to prey upon.  And using some of the growth-inducing spells and abilities feels like cheating, since they were obviously geared toward creating more life, not undeath.  If you can't upgrade your cities, all of them, you lose the tech race.  

would it help if we got pop from wildlings killed?

Or you guys can just build outposts and have them build consulates xD

Sure the consulates require lots of production but adds +1 growth for each one that gets built for a city.

Just make a custom dead faction, and add in the Resoln ability that allows them to cast Corruption (turn a shard in your control to a Death shard).  Then always choose locations that can have at least 1 enchantment.

By late game you will have better growth in all your cities than a non-dead faction.

This would suck badly if it's a low magic map......

The other thing to notice about the dead team is, they pay NO wages.  Which means, always always go to war.  pump out millions of units.  take over cities, and raze them afterward.

Abuse terror in tactical combat! :)  you can take out 1 or 2 REALLY powerful enemies without casualties.

If you get a good production start, design your units to have the sprit trait (expnsive but 50% normal damage reduction).  and also give them the trait that lets them grow to a group of 6 :)  makes for a really powerful early to mid game units

I find this team, slow start, but really powerful mid-late game.