Hi

I am a complete noobie in this game, as I haven't finished my first game yet in GC Gold with Dark Avatar 1.5. I am only about half way through.

Also, this is also my first post to this site.

So, maybe I am really being presumptuous in trying to explain something when it hasn't been addressed elsewhere on the site.  

Here's a bit of background....

I decided to play against 5 opponents on the easiest setting with conquest as the victory condition. Well, a quarter of the way through, my opponents were begging me not to hurt them (including the Yor).

I really wanted to know how the economy worked because if I do not know it worked then I will not be able to fund a war effectively on the more difficult settings.

As it stands now, I do something like 97% of the research. The other factors are much the same except for military ships at which we are all equal at zero and available cash in which my civ stands in second place in large part from the cash inflow to my trading partner as a result of freighters going to it's capital augmented by numerous economy starbases along the way.

I always had a cash-flow problem and I couldn't figure out why. To solve it, I often went to the "cash well" and got cash from the other civ's as a result of trades based on my superior diplomatic skills.

I'm about three or four years into the game and I suddenly realize that star bases cost money!!!! Like about over 4,000 bc for the current one. Should have been paying more attention to the pop-up of the Starbase window.   But even so there is a bug here.

The cost of purchasing a Starbase should appear in the Finance Management screen but it doesn't! Normally my net profit (revenue less expenses) is shown around 4000 bc per year. So buying a 4,000 bc Starbase should result in a small loss or profit the next year but it doesn't. I still get around 4,000 bc profit even though 4,000 was deducted from my cash. This is definitely a bug.

Anyways, I suspect there are a lot out there who, like me, who do not realize the impact starbases have on their finances. It is especially severe if one uses economic starbases to augment their trade income.

So, I decided to look into it.

My initial settings are logistics = 6

This can be augmented by researching logistics which yield an additional 3, 6, 9, 12, and 15 depending upon the level of research.

To test this, I wiped out 34 resource and economy starbases and started afresh.

I wasn't charged for a starbase until the sixth turn.

The cost of a starbase is a function of:
1) What I call the "base cost"
2) The number of starbases built
3) The amount of logistics research done.

In my case, my base cost based on my initial or inherent logistics of 6 was 141 bc

The cost of succeeding starbases goes up in multiples of 141 bc according to the formula

Cost = (base cost)((# of SB's)-5)
Where (# of SB's) = number of starbases already built and has to be greater than 4.

So your tenth starbase would cost 5 times a much as the sixth starbase.

However the base cost can almost be halved through research of logistics.

Base cost at logistics 6 = 141 (inherent or initial)
Base cost at logistics 9 = 137
Base cost at logistics 15 =128
Base cost at logistics 24 =114

Looking at the reduction in costs above, the base cost drops by exactly 1.5 bc for each unit value of logistics researched.

So extrapolating the next two logistics research values of 12 and 15 we should have a new base cost of 114-(1.5)(12) = 96 and 114-(1.5)(12+15) = 73.5 respectively. So, the new base cost as a function of logistics is:

Base cost at logistics 6 = 141
Base cost at logistics 9 = 137
Base cost at logistics 15 =128
Base cost at logistics 24 =114
Base cost at logistics 36 =96 (extrapolated)
Base cost at logistics 51 =73.5 (extrapolated) <==this would be either 73 or 74 depending upon rounding.

As can be seen, completely researching logistics can almost halve the cost of financing a starbase.

So the final formula seems to be:

Cost = ((base cost)-(1.5)(log #'s))((# of SB's)-5)
Where log #'s = number of researched logistics values.

I am not familiar with the game as to whether one can increase or decrease the initial or inherent logistic value of 6 in setting up the game. If it is possible, it is still an easy matter to determine one's base cost by paying attention to the first time a starbase is charged for.

My sense is that the inherent or starting value of logistics 6 in my game, and being charged for my first starbase when it is the 6th was no accident. In other words, if the inherent or starting value of logistics was 4 then it seems likely that the first charge for the starbase would occur when one is about to create the fourth starbase.

If one can adjust the inherent or starting logistic values, then the formula becomes:

Cost = ((base cost)-(1.5)(log #'s - ILogV))((# of SB's)-5)
Where log #'s = actual number of logistics values, that is the sum of initial and researched values and
Where ILogV = initial or inherent Logistic value at game start.

Hope this is of some assistance to those out there, who like me, may not know what was going on.