[Hoplosternum]

PvK you make some reasonable counter arguments but I suspect there are always a reasonable sized minority who would move to somewhere better for them fairly quickly (within months).

There are few examples of complete depopulation in European history. In fact I can't think of any. But even in medieval times I suspect that there would always be a few, more enterprising peasants, who would move to farm their own lands rather than someone elses.

If you look at the later examples of the colonisation of the US (and other Oz etc.) people flooded in to get their own lands and make their own fortune. I know there were some actual people owning much of that land but that just shows the powerful draw of 'empty' land. People flocked to it even if they needed to fight for it.

Bringing it back to dominions 60 people (the smallest population block?) is just a few families, not many. Plus you have a Pretender God who cares about these things (growth scales) providing 'encouragement'. It doesn't seem that unreasonable to me even in Dominions time scales.

There are three things that could be done to change the current system should the devs wish. Which they may not of course.

The first and best would be to create a spell or ability (like preaching or reanimation) to summon people from other provinces. Perhaps linked to nature paths and/or growth scales. But this would be a big code change for what the devs may consider a very minor issue. So I think it's extremely unlikely.

The second is simply to round up, rather than down, population increases under growth. This should be a simple change. Just a line or two of extra code in the growth formula.

The third is your suggestion of extra re-migration events. I play with luck and growth scales a lot, especially single player. These events are extremely rare IME. Although maybe they require growth 3 which I rarely use? The population leaving appears very common by contrast if you have neutral luck or any misfortune. But there would have to be a lot. Like the magic gem finds, to make this useful. After all it would usually affect provinces with plenty of population.