Can you have too many Econmic mines?

from GalCiv2 Forums
I'm playing the 1.3 betaX, gigantic galaxy. My territory includes the most economic resources I've yet seen clustered together: 6 mines all within one to three sectors of my homeworld.

It looked odd, but I thought about what some folks have posted about paying your way through a lack of morale, research, etc., and thought I'd give it a try. Things were fine for many turns after I got all the mines running at +44.

But then something changed, and I'm not sure whether it was me beginning to deploy Extraction Centers to get +56 out of the mines. Whatever the cause, my economy started showing huge dips down to about 20% of what I'd come to think of as "normal."

So far, I've had a few of these downturns followed by a roughly equal stretch of time with revenues at "normal" levels. The AI players have shown no drops, so I don't think it was a Galactic Depression event that didn't get announced. There is an active event (Xenophobia), but I can't see how that would affect my economy (no tourism money to speak of).

Any guesses as to what's going on?
10,579 views 28 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I have had 3-4 econ resources before, never 6 at once.
You must be raking in the money at the high levels.

Your bonuses may have gotten to a level that the game does not calculate correctly for some reason. I would love to find that many just to try and see if I can get the same error.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
... beginning to deploy Extraction Centers to get +56 out of the mines.

I thought +44 was the limit in v1.2; has it changed in v1.3?
Galactic Civilizations III
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Yes.
The values now run:
4
5
6
7
8
9
12
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Can you have too many Econmic mines?


Not in my world.  
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
But then something changed, and I'm not sure whether it was me beginning to deploy Extraction Centers to get +56 out of the mines. Whatever the cause, my economy started showing huge dips down to about 20% of what I'd come to think of as "normal."

So far, I've had a few of these downturns followed by a roughly equal stretch of time with revenues at "normal" levels. The AI players have shown no drops, so I don't think it was a Galactic Depression event that didn't get announced. There is an active event (Xenophobia), but I can't see how that would affect my economy (no tourism money to speak of).

Any guesses as to what's going on?


There is an economic penalty if you have 20,000bc in your bank. Spend the extra bc to bring your bank account below 20K at the end of every turn.

Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
There is an economic penalty if you have 20,000bc in your bank. Spend the extra bc to bring your bank account below 20K at the end of every turn.


That's great to know. And would explain away some freaky econ things that have happened to me in the past.
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
There is an economic penalty if you have 20,000bc in your bank. Spend the extra bc to bring your bank account below 20K at the end of every turn.


That's great to know. And would explain away some freaky econ things that have happened to me in the past.


Real easy to verify too. Just check your tax income on the Domestic Policy screen before and after there is 20K in the bank.

Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
What? What's the economic problem. Citizens love surpluses... What are the drawbacks (in my game I have 100K sitting in the bank. I'm that little guy who sits in that little office building who makes one phone call and deposits 10K somewhere and the whole world goes crazy)
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Galactic Citizen: "Hey, look at our government has this huge surplus but they are still taxing me at 50% of my income! What greedy leaders we have. Well, I'll just start cheating on my taxes and give the government less money! The government does not need the money as much as I do."

I think that would be a pretty typical reaction...hence an economic penalty when you keep running huge surpluses (which can normally only be had through high tax rates).
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I've noticed a lot of wierdness regarding income reported by the economic indicators. Lots of stuff in this game is inconsistent. I like how the colony manager never agrees with build times stated on the planet screens. Or how stated planet class doesn't agree with the number of buildable tiles half the time. And then there's the ship detail screen that provides specifications which don't make sense. I can only hope that stuff has been fixed in the 1.3 update. As far an economic penalty for excess cash, I must be really getting screwed when the cash piles up and it always does. Not much in this game has any bearing in reality, but that one just takes the cake. You should be getting interest on cash in the bank, not penalties for having it.

Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Interesting.

I saw this phenomenon in my last game, Treasury would gain a couple hundred bc a week until it would approach 20K then would drop 1k+. One way past this: get the Economic Increase event; When you are raking in 8 or 9k per week, that meager 1k 'penalty' isn't as noticeable. Ended last game with 250K+ in the treasury.

Cheers,
Reaver
Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Or how stated planet class doesn't agree with the number of buildable tiles half the time.


That has been fixed in 1.3beta3x for conquered planets by neutrally aligned civs -- believe they also fixed it if you built the Orbital Terraformer.

, that meager 1k 'penalty'


It is quite a bit more than 1K for me usually, you are giving up quite a bit over the long haul not to keep the bank under 20K. Although it certainly can be nice to have a large amount of cash when you need it. Pretty nice game element which makes the player make a choice.


Reply #13 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Hmm.. how come I didn't feel the penalty at all? I had one game where my revenue were at 20k per week, and i have hit a near surplus of 800k in my bank.
Reply #14 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Thanks for the tip on the 20k penalty.

Re the "real world," if you're getting taxed at 50% you don't need to cheat, you just need to do a better job with the paperwork
Reply #15 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Can anyone be more specific about this economic penalty? I currently have about 1.5 million in my treasury and never noticed a penalty for having too much money. My popularity is still around 93% running at an 80% tax with an imperial government. Now I will say that during all of this most of my planets are busy cranking out ships so I don't know if that has anything to do with the economic penalty or not.
Reply #16 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Umm if you have 1.5 million in the bank, you obviously don't have a really GOOD place to spend it, so why do you care if theres an economic penalty? Same with the guy with the 800k.

Its not like you can invest it in ships or something, those become obsolete and they cost money every turn in upkeep. I'd think you'd be better off having 1.5million in the bank and then just rush buying when and what you need when the time comes.
Reply #17 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Can anyone be more specific about this economic penalty?


I've pretty much explained when it occurs and how to verify it.

If I remember correctly in my last game, around 4-1-2228 with pops of around 10B-17B on my 44 planets; I had an income of around 22K with 10K expenses -- the income would get reduced to around 14K if my bank account went over 20K. so my 10K/turn surplus would get reduced to around a 4K surplus. I had 2 economic resources with +56% bonus each.

Can you build up a HUGE bank account despite the penalty -- absolutely!!

Are you giving up a lot of stuff you could have bought with even more cash by keeping the treasury ( guess its really a treasury and not a bank ) under 20K -- absolutely!!

Of course all of this is only IMHO.

Forgot -- you are probably also giving up a lot of ptoential game points -- From what I've read the points you get for your economy are based on how much income you pull in -- of course you'ld have to care about points for this to matter. And no one really seems to absolutely know this.

Reply #18 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Yes.
The values now run:
4
5
6
7
8
9
12


I just downloaded again and started a new game.

I'm only getting 39 MAX! It was 56 in a previous game??

Reply #19 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
i had a moral resource and the values numbers ran from +5, +4, +4, +4, +4, +4 etc till the end...not +5, +6, +8 etc.
Reply #20 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Different type starbases have a different number of possible upgrades. The resource bases have 39, and the military is over 50. Influence is 41 or 42. Not sure about econ.

And the resource mining values were changed in the final 1.3 to 4,5,5,5,5,5,5.
Reply #21 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I agree. I just checked another and it 5 to start then +4 +5 +5 +5 +5 +5 +5 for a total of 39.
Reply #22 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I'm only getting 39 MAX! It was 56 in a previous game??


As far as I know the Mining modules have been/are:

Pre 1.3beta3X : 2-3-4-5-6-7-12 = 39 +5 ( for start ) = +44% for fully loaded Mining Starbase
For 1.3beta3X : 4-5-6-7-8-9-12 = 51 +5 ( for start ) = +56% for fully loaded Mining Starbase
For update1.3 : 4-5-5-5-5-5-5 = 34 + 5 ( for start ) = +39% for fully loaded Mining Starbase

Reply #23 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Can you have too many Econmic mines?


Can you have too much money? No.
Reply #24 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Well, I've finished the game I was on when I started this thread and almost finished another and I have two things to say about GCII income and spending:

1) For big-map games, working to avoid the over-20k penalty definitely yields massive cash flow differentials that are difficult to resist, and

2) Doing all that spending *every* turn is still somewhat awkward b/c you can't see build progress bars on the big Colonies page (nor can you spend on social items there) and the colonies side of the small list still takes work to hold a position (click the system and *then* click what you want to buy) and does not segregate "nothing" to the top or bottom of the list.
Reply #25 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I had seen this pattern as well where I had major economic changes that i didn't know where it came from. I have also had games where I controlled as many as 8 econ resources.
Try sorting buy social turns on the small list(or military). I find this an easier way to spend surpluses. I use this all the time as my games near the end are often running 50,000bc a week surpluses. The only time that I don't spend down my surpluses is when I am saving up to upgrade my fleets ( which sometimes run 200,000bc plus) Also remember that a hefty bank account also encourages enemy worlds to defect to your side, so I usually leave about 5,000bc in the account between turns for this purpose