I think this must be a bug, and probably it has slipped your filters/attention, but for a while one particular alliance on the Sotha Sil (eu) server has had a low-pop bonus, even though they are population locked, so this must be a bug. Can you please fix this, as this bug made that faction win the whole campaign last round, and at the moment it is not unlikely it will happen again? Getting a low pop bonus when you evidently has a locked pop is just very very demotivating for the other factions.