The non-adjacent movement was intended but needs refinement. It was introduced to create more central base locations where forces would expand out from their initial squares until economic production could create additional core based to create more local troop production.

As for population, this is a bug! Thank you for reporting it! I likely introduced this bug when I addressed the combat issues the first day. I will near guarantee I didn't limit the change I made to fix the NPC area attacks. I'll confirm first chance I can get to a terminal. It will definitely be addressed by next wipe.