Do I understand the economy?

A simple explanation.

from GalCiv2 Forums
Correct me if I make a mistake here.

It starts off with a tax (or trade routes).

My citzens are taxed a certain amount based on my tax slider, times any planetary economy modifers.

Then I allocate how much goes into production, and how much into reserves to pay for mantainance and whatnot.

That which goes into production I can allocate between millitary production, social production, and research.

Within each category, the funding is equally distributed among all planetary improvements of the proper type; production to factories, research to labs.

Every credit distributed to a building fills up its capacity.

When it is given enough credits, (ie: 5 for a basic factory) it no longer produces any extra benefit and the leftover credits go back to the reserves.

So functionally, the slider distinction between social and military spending dictates the split of factory production going planetside vs the stardock.

Did I get all that right? Miss anything?
12,206 views 20 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I'm still no 100% on all it myself, but there are a couple of things I caught in your post:

Your correct about taxation of citizens. Its basically your number of citizens, multiplied by your tax rate, mutiplied by planetary, racial and empire modifiers.

Production falls into three catergories: Military (ships), Social (planetary improvements), Research (research labs). The three sliders determine the percentage ratio each receives in terms of production capital. The amount of overall production capital "spent" is determined by your production slider.

In 1.X any money not spent in Military production gets used up in social production or research. Thus if you leave a planet focused in social production without actually building anything on it, you money is being thrown down a hole. Beginning in version 1.1 any surplus social production will go to Military and be added to your overall available capital.

There are no reserves technically. Just unspent capital, which you get via taxation and trade routes, or recycled (kinda) via military/social production.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
You collect x dollars in revenue (tax, trade, tourism). The first thing that is paid is maintenance. What's left is spent on military, social and research in the proportions that you have set with the sliders.

If you have grown your population and built econ improvements you will collect more revenue than your factories, starports and research facilities can spend. The excess goes into your treasury.

The more factories you build the more ships and improvements you can build with out regard for population. The more population you have and the more econ facilities you build the more money you will have to build more factories.

Eventually you run out of tiles to build on and if you have planned well you will have the ability to build ships in mass quanity and still have lots of money left over to wheel and deal.
DeskScapes - Bring your desktop background to life.
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Basically what Franco fx said.

The only part I'm not sure of is using the full capacity of military, social, and research.
Spending at 100%.
Sliders at 33/34/33
If you have money to burn, will that use the full capacity of military, social, and research?

It would be better if the sliders are set for 100% for each production and research so we can be sure of spending 100% on them with a very good economy.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
^ That's a great idea. You should post it as a suggestion.
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
There are no reserves technically. Just unspent capital,


Reserves = your treasury, anything unspent by a government goes into reserves/treasury to be used later, for example to rush-buy buildings or spacecraft later, or to allow you to run at a deficit if you need to later in the game.

That's why the U.S. government has its "Federal Reserve", which is a joke, because a government so in debt that every citizen of any age would have to contribute $30k to pay it off has no business "setting aside" money for an emergency, the emergency is here folks!
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top


There are no reserves technically. Just unspent capital,


Reserves = your treasury, anything unspent by a government goes into reserves/treasury to be used later, for example to rush-buy buildings or spacecraft later, or to allow you to run at a deficit if you need to later in the game.

That's why the U.S. government has its "Federal Reserve", which is a joke, because a government so in debt that every citizen of any age would have to contribute $30k to pay it off has no business "setting aside" money for an emergency, the emergency is here folks!

Sad but true, and you all got economy down
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I think you guys are a little off. As far as I can tell tax is the sqaure root of your population X the tax rate X any bonuses you have. In terms of spending the production sliders control what percentage of your total production you are using. So, if military spending is set to 40% then 40% of the total available manufacturing on your planets will be used. Bonuses are then added and you are charge for half of any bonus production that you get. The only way to utilize 100% of any type of production capacity is to completely sacrifice production in the other two catagories.
That's the way I understand it anyway.
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Correct me if I make a mistake here.

I think you have...

It starts off with a tax (or trade routes).

My citzens are taxed a certain amount based on my tax slider, times any planetary economy modifers.

Essentially correct.

Your tax income is a function of your population, tax rate, and economy modifiers.

Then I allocate how much goes into production, and how much into reserves to pay for mantainance and whatnot.

I think this is where you're mistaken.

Tax and spending are not directly related. You don't allocate tax to spending, you simply allocate how much of your industrial capacity you're going to use.

If your total income (from tax, trade, tourism and any tributes) is greater than your total spending, your treasury will grow. If it's lower, you'll take money from your treasury to pay for it.

How much you spend is determined by your spending slider, the three allocation sliders below it on the domestic screen, the capacity of your factories and labs, and whether you have anything being built. It's unrelated to tax.

Suppose you have a planet with two basic factories. Each has an indsutrial capacity of 5 units. If you set your overall spending to 100% and allocate 100% of it to military (0% to social and research), those factories will produce 10 military 'shields' each turn. Each costs 1 BC, so you'll be spending 10 BC a turn, regardless of what your tax rate is.

If you drop your overall spending to 50% and leave it all allocated to military, you'll produce 5 military shields per turn, at a cost of 5 BC per turn. Again, your tax rate makes no difference.
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Ok I think you're right about that. But there's one thing i don't understand. Why is full research funding mutually exclusive with full military or social production? I can understand military and social having a tradeoff because they're using the same factories, but if I have the funding why can't I run both my factories and my labs to full capacity?
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I'm confused on one point:

If you have production allocated to both military and social, and you have no improvements to build the production is funneled into military (in v 1.1) yes? If you have no military to build, it's dumped into social, yes? If you have neither to build, do you still spend money on useless production that does nothing for you?
Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Ok I think you're right about that. But there's one thing i don't understand. Why is full research funding mutually exclusive with full military or social production? I can understand military and social having a tradeoff because they're using the same factories, but if I have the funding why can't I run both my factories and my labs to full capacity?

Basically, it's a design choice on the behalf of the devs - you have to split your 'workforce' between production and research. The more of them you dedicate to working in labs, the less are available to make stuff.
Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
If you have production allocated to both military and social, and you have no improvements to build the production is funneled into military (in v 1.1) yes? If you have no military to build, it's dumped into social, yes? If you have neither to build, do you still spend money on useless production that does nothing for you?

No, I don't think so.

Unused social production is funelled into military production, and unused military production isn't 'spent', so the end result is you don't pay for production unless your planet is actually building something.
Reply #13 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I am wondering this as well. For example if you have a planet with only research labs but you are at 100% military. what happenes. are you still charged for the labs? is the amount spent in the slider wasted?

Or if you have a mix of everything. and you put 100% military but there are no social or military projects. what happens then.
Reply #14 from Stardock Forums Top
 

 guys forgive me for asking this here cause im sure its the wrong area. But here goes I just downloaded some theme files in the format of .dxtheme could someone please help me out and explain how to install such items. Thanks



 



 And on a side note if any of you know how to Inverse the colors of ITunes on a XP based computer that would be nice as well.

Reply #15 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Slider to 100% military means you are not spending any bc on research or social.
So all planets will produce 0 research.

No bc is spent on labs.
100% on military with nothing being built, it uses no money and it goes into treasury.
Military - not building anything, no bc spent.
Social - nothing being built, it goes to military, and if military has nothing - nothing spent.
Reply #16 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Well I am trying to figure out if it has implications for whether you should specialize or not. for example on a research planet is it better to have a larger mix of factories or just go 99% labs. my gut is specialization over the long run is more effective since your total maximum output should be larger.
But boy it's pretty convoluted.
Reply #17 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Specialized planets lets you spend more money and thus get maximum output, IF you are focusing spending on that planet's specialization.

Diversifying your planets lets you maintain some level of production no matter what you have focused spending on, except for the case of putting one category to 100%, which I never do. But if you do decide to focus spending completely you have a lower maximum capacity than if a planet had specialized on something.

I guess it comes down to the way you play. I tend to balance everything out throughout the whole game, and if you look at the timeline I never have any "flat" periods for research, social or military production.
Reply #18 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Geeze, it seems simple to me. When you have your spending slider at 100% you are operating at full capacity. If you have money left over it is because you do not have enough factories and labs to use the funds.

Think of it like this, if you have 100 factories and 100 labs that are working 24 hours a day you may run out of production capacity before you run out of money. The solution: Build more factories and labs. When your per turn income is zero or less you then have true full capacity.
Reply #19 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Well, its more true that your capacity has hit the ceiling of your revenue.
You may have more capacity that you do not have money to spend on....

The way its setup, you really can not tell except to increase your taxes and look at the spending in military, social, and research.
If the spending in them continues to go up, then you have more capacity versus revenue.

Its just the percentage sliders on military, social, and research that can confuse the issue...
100% on the slider, about 33.34.33 on mil.soc.res

The slider determines the percentage of the spending going to one or the other...
Really not sure of this part but...

Your using 33% of your mil capacity, 34, 33 ...
If you put one at 100%, its using 100% of that capacity.
So, you are using a percentage of each even though you may have money for it.

Really need to check the numbers here.
Reply #20 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
With any sort of luck, the devs will update the datalinks with a detailed explanation of where the money goes.