The Pirates of the Burning Sea team implemented population incentives in Milestone 1.12 to give bonus loot and experience to nations on each server designated as underpopulated. The purpose of this, of course, was to entice players to even out the nation's populations.

But how exactly does the team decide which nations are underpopulated? Lum recently explained the process in a developer's blog and said, "while populations are evening out across nations, they’re also steadily growing overall." In response, nations deemed underpopulated in 1.13 will change, and so will the population incentives.

For example, no nations on Antigua will be underpopulated, but all nations on Defiant will be. You can keep reading the blog for information on the rest of the servers. Also, population levels will continue to be monitored on a monthly basis, so the incentives could change once again.