[Bard of Prey]

I like licker's idea (borrowed from MOO3) for the most part. At the least, a system of auto-migration would work very well for this game, IMHO. Residents of high-tax, high-unrest provinces would likely start moving out into neighbouring provinces with lower tax rates, or a nicer living environment (dominion scales could play a part here as well... people in a 3 point Death scale would be migrating in droves. Likewise, sitting next to a province with Order, Growth and Fortune scales all at 3, you would start to seriously consider moving to this 'paradise' province next door).

Overpopulation could be factored in as well (although, if there's an unrest effect for overpopulation, that would take care of it). In this way, the population of larger provinces would gradually spread out to nearby provinces with lots of empty space (thus, no crowding 100,000 people into your capitol). This would also encourage people to settle newly-conquered wastelands, as your dominion gradually improves conditions there... which seems to have been the original goal of this thread.

In particular, I like the idea that as your dominion spreads to enemy provinces you convert people in that province to your faith, who would then consider making a pilgrimage to lands where the 'true god' is worshipped. This adds even more depth the idea of waging war with the strength of your dominion (as it allows you to 'steal' an opponent's tax base).

All of the above effects would be automatic, and therefore require no micromanagement on the part of the player (a design goal I strongly agree with). With that system in place though, you could then add controls to allow players to influence the process, if you wanted. Some of the other ideas in this thread would be good for that (spending gold to 'encourage' people to migrate, using commanders to 'force' migration, and even using magic to teleport people from distant provinces).

Other things that are already in the game could be of use as well... patrolling troops might help prevent migration for example (on top of reducing the unrest that makes the people want to leave)... and players could manipulate their tax rates if they really wanted to 'push' population in a given direction (this is how the North American west was settled after all... with free homesteads and tax breaks offered to people willing to migrate).