Lol. Yeah, i think that was intentional.
And there are some negative population growth bonuses on buildings that are actually increasing growth directly or indirectly. The intention is to keep population growth undert control, which means to remove the bonuses of some buildings. The negative bonuses work, as long as the sum of all modifieres regarding one aspect is 0 or greater. There are also negative bonuses on farms. It's clear that i cannot allow a population growth of +5% due to +10 farms, so i had to add some negative bonuses. There are some positive growth-point left hwoever. Most growth is caused due to farming, but also hygyienic inftastructures can give growt as well as some temples. The maximum pupulation growth with food imports should be 6 or 6.5 or so. The intention is to reduce the number of decisive battles and to make the pop. size an important resource. You have a few armies and if you lose too much of them, you lost te game. Thats imo a very important aspect of the strategical concept.
cheers