Khome,
The population changes could certainly of been implemented better. A more gradual introduction of changes, would of allowed people to build up their countries at a reasonable speed, instead of being blindsided.
While it has been a big challenge, it's far from impossible for a player to adapt to.
My population increased more than x3 over the period of the population boom. Often growing at close to 1,000,000 population per game year. This made it unnecessarily difficult to keep up.
Even so, I've still been able to maintain indexes +140, unemployment below 5%, and my profits have risen to 70-120 Billion $ per month.
If I hadn't been building Corps, Schools, Hospitals, etc. And had left my education index too low, then yes, I'd been in ruins. But keep on top of those, and things go swimmingly, even at 1,000,000 pop growth per game year.
Signed President of DanNation on LU