Understand more about leveling bonuses (yes you can have FoodIncome (which I assume boost global not just local Food) Leveling Adjacency Bonuses (when I tried Food and GrossIncome they didn't work as Neighboring bonuses). Anyhow I decided that Work Camps can boost PopulationCAP +1 but I decided that the Population and/or food leveling bonuses didn't make any sense even though they existed before Crusade. They should NOT increase population adjacency bonuses - ie Slaves are happy being slaves and you don't have to feed them as much. But they aren't Farms or Hospitals. Switched Slave Pits and Molecular Fabricators to be food percentage bonus buildings as they were before Crusade and they now have Food Leveling bonuses.
How do you get leveling bonuses for a building's stat that the building doesn't already have innately ?? Apparently the program does not check just adds the leveling bonus you ask for. So it just easier and no one seems to care that work camps grow population without a city. Problem solved don't fix it if it ain't broken or at least benefits the race you want to play (makes Drengin pretty dangerous too) Did the population to production curve decrease with 2.14 patch ??? (almost seems so now).
Still I don't really understand how planets are "supposed to" grow beyond the colony capital's base Food. Perhaps instead of the old system, only farms (or food percentage bonus) buildings and population growth buildings like Hospitals should have Food bonuses and leveling or neighbor bonuses. Although I hate to just delete something without a reason or understanding of the underlying logic behind the change. Same with giving Molecular Fabricators to Paranoid Ability Races without explanation as if that somehow balances the rest of the Inconsistency / Imbalance with Racial Ability System. And Paranoid is an original ability that actually gets better late game unlike most.
Current system seems "adrift" with regular Cities now adding +16 PopulationCap (was +8) but your first level morale buildings only give +1 morale at start or is it +2 morale now but you need more that two morale builds max upgraded to +6 morale to have full approval when you add a city. (Drengin / Slaver Hunting Grounds building used to give +12 morale before 2.14 patch). Certainly Cities to grow beyond a set size existed in Civilization or Endless Legend. But it is another Crusade feature added without explanation of the plan.
And currently morale buildings give too low bonus to even attempt to fill a city without tanking your colony's morale for those unwilling to dedicate more than two morale buildings per planet.
