Consider that general research field marked as important.

Among the general facts that Civilization knows is that there is a LOT you can do with sufficiently finely applied forces.

If there were some way to make people ten times larger, wizards ten times smaller, and then look inside of people's bodies, for example, you could probably use just a Mage Hand to apply permanent reversible male contraception, eg via tying a little bow-tie knot in the channel that conducts sperm to semen.

Oh, uh, in case nobody's mentioned it to the new candidates, very cheap contraception that can be used even by complete idiots is one of the standing requests from Chelish Governance.  Without that, increasing agricultural yields relative to reference farmland, or improving anti-plague measures relative to a reference urban density, seems like it would obviously just get you larger or denser populations until they get hungry again or sick again.

Consider that general research field marked as important.

Among the general facts that Civilization knows is that there is a LOT you can do with sufficiently finely applied forces.

If there were some way to make people ten times larger, wizards ten times smaller, and then look inside of people's bodies, for example, you could probably use just a Mage Hand to apply permanent reversible male contraception, eg via tying a little bow-tie knot in the channel that conducts sperm to semen.

Oh, uh, in case nobody's mentioned it to the new candidates, very cheap contraception that can be afforded and used even by very stupid people is one of the standing requests from Chelish Governance.  Without that, increasing agricultural yields relative to reference farmland, or improving anti-plague measures relative to a reference urban density, seems like it would obviously just get you larger or denser populations until they get hungry again or sick again.

Consider that general research field marked as important.

Among the general facts that Civilization knows is that there is a LOT you can do with sufficiently finely applied forces.

If there were some way to make people ten times larger, wizards ten times smaller, and then look inside of people's bodies, for example, you could probably use just a Mage Hand to apply permanent reversible male contraception, eg via tying a little bow-tie knot in the channel that conducts sperm to semen.

Oh, uh, in case nobody's mentioned it to the new candidates, very cheap contraception that can be afforded and used even by very stupid people is one of the standing requests from Chelish Governance.  Without that, increasing agricultural yields relative to reference farmland, or improving anti-plague measures relative to a reference urban density, might only get you larger or denser populations until they get hungry again or sick again.