Yeah I know the stuff about terraforming, I was just wondering what are the specific requirements for the pop boom to occur. Do you need to fulfill those requirements globally or just locally in a couple of cities where you want the pop boom to happen?

Like in one game I was playing Lal, I had Democratic/Planned for Growth +4, Children's Creches everywhere to pump the growth to +6 and I had surplus nutrients in my cities (somewhere only +1 though) and I did not pop boom which led me to believe that you need to have +2 or more surplus nutrients in ALL of your cities. But then I played another game, again Lal, and I did pop boom (even got the message), but only in a single city which sort of contradicts the +2 nutrients everywhere idea.

Then I played Morgan I went with +2 growth from social engineering +2 from Creches and +2 from Golden Age and I did not pop boom. But later on i googled that Golden Age pop booming doesn't work in SMAC, only in SMAX and I was playing the original game, not expansion. So at least that's settled.

But thanks anyway, I didn't know that what you get from pods changes on reloads, I thought it's predetermined.