I've been playing war clans lately...and almost never putting anything into child magic I usually stay around 1000 people. This is raiding once or twice a year and having more than once feud. Of course, you need orlanth's woad blessing for this to work right or you'll run out of farmers instead of keeping them at a stable level.
By the way, 1200-1300 seems to be the critical level where they start leaving.
But all in all this is a luxury problem. When you have 2000+ food stockpiled and say 6 or more trading routes (trade is for wimps :), you've already won.
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free _at_... address at
http://mail.yahoo.com