Economic collapse during wartime - why?

* maintenance on ships getting high as my fleet gets big

Easily possible, check your expense sheet.

* loss of taxes as population gets put on invasion transports

Also very possible, and one of the main problems I face (since I play with few planets).

* sudden added cost of colony maintenance when I conquer planets

This combined witht eh loss of tax revenue from those who died to take the planet can quickly add up.

* is there some kind of war weariness a la civ that could be dragging me down?

No there isn't.

Also, check the UP resolutions, is there a penalty for civilizations at war (usually 5 or 10%)?

I don't think theres any "hidden variables" that make you lose income, when at war but a combination of things you mentioned. In addition I would add:

* Loss of trade income, either with cancelling of trade routes through civs I am at war with, or the destruction of my freighters by enemy ships. This is a big factor for me
in most games.
* Loss of economy starbases that boost trade income.

Also keep in mind for the first factor not only trade routes you initiate, but trade routes initated by your opponent count as income.

War is indeed expensive in this game, as it should be.

Keep in mind that you also have more money going into your military spending. When at peace you may only have a few planets building ships but when you go to war every available planet starts producing

I have found in addition to the above, that the need to suddenly churn out expensive warships vs. peacetime constructors can hit your economy pretty hard too, depending on how much production you start dedicating to it.

Also your economy can take a hit when you start producing ships at shipyards. If you have loads of shipyards or a shaky economy don't try to produce ships in massive scale, or not at all.

Funny, whenever i go to war my nation usually prospers. This is the strategy i use, lower the military ship procution a bit(unless you really need that extra ship), keep trade routes open and make new ones(also get the Privateer). Raise both Research and Social, this way you can tech up quick to get better techs to use against your enemy, and you can build up planets you capture. Make sure you dont overtax your citizens you want population growth as high as possible.

when you go to war every available planet starts producing

AFAIK, this doesn't happen automatically, but it does seem a very likley player response to AI attacks. It took me quite a few games before I began to ask myself "do I really need to build ships on this planet right now?"

I like having starports on any PQ10 or better world, but you can save money and/or micromanagement time if you let go of the notion that every starport should always be building ships.

If i need a ship built on a certain planet i rush build the starport and purchase the ship.

Finances is probably the single biggest threat to your empire in this game. You really have to plan ahead.

Look at the game 'chess' where planning ahead is what it's all about, well chess is nothing compared to the planning ahead needed for finances in this game.

By the time you feel the effects of poor financial planning in your game... it's all over, your screwed! The economy will invert itself and spiral down and there aint nothing you can do except sit back and wait to be conquored.

So you think you have a nice fleet? not for long, finances are comming mmmwmwwaaahh

* maintenance on ships getting high as my fleet gets big * loss of taxes as population gets put on invasion transports * sudden added cost of colony maintenance when I conquer planets

These are all certainly true, but in my opinion the last one is most likely the main cause of your troubles. If you conquer a planet with a high maintenance cost, like a planet covered with industrial centers, you inherit the full cost, yet you start out with only a tiny population that can be taxed. This can drain your monetary reserves in a very short amount of time. Your pop will eventually grow to a point where it may be able to support the cost of the improvements, but until this happens, that planet is a money pit. This is something to think about the next time you are deciding whether or not to invade. It is not only; can you conquer it militarily, but can you afford to maintain it once you own it.

My econ suffers also, so I:

1. Don't start a war unless I've built up an ample "war chest" of funds. If most of my planets are at max pop (and they usually are) I'll raise taxes - temporarily - and maximize my treasury as best I can prior to attacking.

of course, so far I've managed to select when I want to go to war.

This has also got me thinking twice about conquering minor planets nearby or within my influence; not only can they trade me tech for a good portion of the game, but in wartime, if I can't trade with any major power, I can still trade with them!

2. Have a fleet of freighters ready and new routes mapped out to avoid battlezones. Not always possible given logistics (not the tech, the galactic powers layout) and if the power(s) you face are aligned.

3. Spy out the enemy's galactic resource mining ops, especially the green ones that cough up cash. Once you're at war, have a constructor ready, destroy them, claim them, and guard them. Even if you make peace later,they remain yours (unless demanded during peace negotiations - unlikely) and you're in even better shape financially.

4. In wartime or peace, use the Civilization manager screen to view stats for all your colonies, and see which ones are not producing the good $$$. Adjust their improvements (such as adding trade buildings) or production focus to try to get better cash flow from them. This screen is handy for viewing approval percentages all at once, too, as well as what each colony is producing.

Of course, if you're the type that likes "theme" planets, like a planet full of just Factories, you'll either have to devote a planet to trade, or at least distribute the financial load amongst other colonies so they'll make up for your producer one.

--------------
One question I'll pose is: which, if any, planetary "special" squares benefit from placing a trade building on them? Is it the Cultural one?

Another thing to keep in mind during times of war that you may not notice nearly as much in peace is that if you discover a new planetary improvement technology (research, economic, manufacturing, or farming upgrade) then any planet with those tiles that is not currently producing a social or military project goes from being a boon to your cash resources to being a drain on your cash resources.

Fortunately this is easily managed by avoiding such upgrades during time of war. Focus instead on things that will help you more directly in the war, like weapon, armor, engine, diplomacy, and soldiering improvements. Leave the tile upgrades for the post-war recovery period, or make sure you get them completed right before going to war.

Another suggestion is to always set military spending at 1% and then put the remainder of your usual "military" spending into social spending instead. Then put starports on only your original colony and a (very) few planets spread throughout your empire. All these military production planets (PQ10-14 planets with hopefully a couple bonus tiles) should have 1 or 2 farms (depending on PQ size), 1 morale for each farm, a starport, and then 7+ factories. (The farms and entertainment provide the population if transports are needed).

I have to catch a bus now, so I will explain why this method works later.

Hi folks, I'm new to the game (just finished my fourth or fifth time through). I've noticed that my economy tends to go into a tailspin during wartime, usually crashing me to zero spending at exactly the worst time. Any suggestions on how to avoid this? I'm not entirely sure what the problem is. Some possibilities that have occured to me: * maintenance on ships getting high as my fleet gets big * loss of taxes as population gets put on invasion transports * sudden added cost of colony maintenance when I conquer planets * is there some kind of war weariness a la civ that could be dragging me down? Thanks for any advice.

The only 'costs' that doesn't show up in the Domestic Tab is the population losses, population moved to transports, and the cost of absorbing the AI's colonies. I find the last two run your income into the ground, mainly because I end up moving 10-20% of my population onto transports just before a war and I don't run a race with /any/ Econ bonuses so every colony I take is negative until I rebuild the buildings. Take 20 planets in a week and suddenly, I've got 1000 BC or more added to my maintenance with less than half of that in income. After a month, I'll be going from positive 1500 BC or so to -3000. And that's not even counting population losses, just colony maintence =0

Sometimes, Asharlin, removing population from a planet can be a good thing. Sending a load of unhappy campers to a new world will lower the hit on your morale/approval, which will both boost the rate of your population growth (more campers), and allow you to inch up your rate of taxation.

Wartime expences can be devastating, no doubt about that. There are things you can do to counter each of your concerns.

1>* maintenance on ships getting high as my fleet gets big 2>* loss of taxes as population gets put on invasion transports 3>* sudden added cost of colony maintenance when I conquer planets

1> Watch out for excessive defenders. During peace time, of course you want some ships orbiting, as the bump you get in attack value can avert a war (until your ready). IMO a good design for this purpose is your fodder ships. These are weapon only stat boosters that have the same speed as the capital ships. I like the tiny hull for this purpose. Enough room for 2 engines and enough weapons to keep it on the front line when you fleet them. Added bonus is they are easily replaced by the planet your pulling them off of. If you can, make them slightly more expensive than your primary constructor design (war time switch-overs made easy effective).

2> Plan you wars. I make two transport designs. One is a tiny hull hopper (1 adv trp, rest engines) and one 3-4k carrier. Use these together when invading. Prior to starting a war, make sure you have at least half of the ships you will need already built, filled, and NOT in orbit (OWP: off world population). This is so your initial thrust does not decimate your empire population.
2b> Of course this tactic assumes you have paid attention to your approval rating. (I dissent, 2 VRCs per farm is a minimum, 3 if the farm is on a bonus.) Any continued problems with morale can be dealt with using carriers. The extra VRC allows much better growth and taxes.

3> In conjunction with 2b, this will have minimal impact, as you re-plan the lay of the land on your new planets.

If your economy is still suffering after your initial military production switches, as the minor producers complete their constructor/fodder, shut down military and switch to tech. Even if your going from 80MP to 5RP. Spread that drop out amongst a number of planets and the savings add up. With the industrial capacity slider being your guide, manage the increases back to 100% capacity as your able to shut down the minors. Shutting down a major MP producer can provide additional cusion while you deal with the minors. The other reason for MP shut down is ANYTHING on the SP build list.

Sometimes, Asharlin, removing population from a planet can be a good thing. Sending a load of unhappy campers to a new world will lower the hit on your morale/approval, which will both boost the rate of your population growth (more campers), and allow you to inch up your rate of taxation.

Yes, but with my play style that is never true. It's always a serious economic hit. =0 I assumed that anyone who needed to remove population from a planet would as nesc. or build morale buildings.

I also second the suggestions here. Everyone takes an econ hit during wartime, but it is possible to minimize it. I usually try to plan my wars right down to the new influence borders I expect to use. Extensive spying on the planets you intend to take not only reveals planetary defenders, but also planetary spending. New planetary spendings should never come as a surprise to your economy.

The Aphrodesiac Trade Good also helps immensely, allowing you to regrow your tax base quickly after decimation from war.

If you're spending too much, it's absoutely not a problem to simply cut back the spending. Demolish or retool buildings and planets that are giving you problems. Keep production planets near the front, econ centers in the back. You can always buy ships from low manufacturing planets. Losing your economic base during war can be devastating.

Another way to avoid the wartime econ hit is to have long ago replaced your population.

I typically have two phases to my empire, one where I buy people buy "spending" money on a lower tax rating to keep my approval at 100%, and one where I max out my income by taxing and leaving approval at 50%.

Transport ships can really help you out in the "buying people" phase, because certain worlds that breed quickly will start to drop off the 100% morale mark. But if you build transports on those worlds and launch them as the planet breeds, you keep all of your colonies churning at 100%.

Also, now you have loads of space based people. When you do go to war, typically many turns later, the planets you took the transport people from have already filled back up to their pop maxes. This means that when you invade, the people who land are like a potential energy economic bonus.

Also, when invading, park some of your extra transports at newly conquered worlds. This helps ease the income hit, and increases the number of people born on the planets, so that when you re-launch those transports a few turns later the underlying planet now has more people (than it would if just the surviving soldiers had started breeding).

Im playing a game now which realy shows the economic stress in wartime.

I went from making over +5000bc a turn to -1000bc a turn after war was declared before anything had even happened yet!

I lost all my trade due to a big AI alliance (five races). but trade was only accounting for 3000bc before the war anyway, so i still don't know where the other 3000bc dissapeared to?

Anyway, i had saved up a huge number of full transports and my fleets were superior on all fronts except the Alterians. So i decimated the alliance in about 3 or 4 turns and concentrated on building nothing but stock markets in all my new planets. Meanwhile i gave the former torian world i was trading with to the arceans and commenced trading again.

I ran into trouble with the alterians tho because my ships were not equipped for their particular weapons and defences. And since i was about -6000bc by the fourth turn of the war, i could not upgrade any of my ships. Luckily for me, my only ally, the Arcaens managed to contain the alterians. If that hadn't happened, i would have lost everything for sure, because of this damb massive economic problem.

It took me about 20 turns to begin to recover economically, i had about 30 planets full of stock markets that i did not have before, as well as a fully operational trade line with the Arceans. Even with all that, i am still only making about 200bc a turn... i cannot explain what happened to my 5000bc a turn, where did it go and why it won't return?

I've found that the single bigest hit to economy during wartime is change in spending. If the Social and Military Production is idle on a planet, little of the revenue being produced is being spent and maintenance is static. When you change that planet to build something, some portion of the revenue is spent wich lowers how much is going into the coffers.

Galen

Great thread. I'm also having a wicked awful time balacing my economy.

I don't usually take a big hit during war. I've gone all game being at war and didn't really care. What will wreck your economy, though, is if you're making massive invasions and you haven't researched all the soldiering techs. That'll burn population like mad.

Here's another little tip: Launch Transports with one population and send them from a ship production world to a non-ship building world and scoop up your troops from there.

Remember, population can be a lot more efficient at paying taxes and at reproduction if it is spread out. Aside from the morale boost, only the first 2.5 billion people on any planet can reproduce, and the taxes paid are proportional to the square root of the population (so the first billion people on a planet pay a lot more taxes than the last billion people.)

You may also want to reserve a few Troop Transports to use as population shuttles to help give newly conquered worlds a kick start - especially on worlds with credit generators on them. A good rule of thumb is that you'd want to put at least a billion people on a high quality world to get it started. (You might even want to rename the unfilled Transports as "Shuttles" to remind you to check their occupancy before you send them anywhere.)

True, so when most of my newly conquored planets finished building stock markets, why did my income still not bounce back?? Those new stock market planets weren't even building ships, and had between 14 and 20 billion citizens!



good advice, i usually send transports to all my planets just as a matter of course. then as soon as any planet reaches 20 billion, i launch it and send it to a rally point where it then sits and waits for a future war.