final question of the day

You probably should have more dedicated economic planets. You need at least 1 economy planet for each non economy planet, more if you want to have an effective military and build many ships at once.

Have you done much researching in techs that provide either economic or morale bonuses? I often play without adding either bonus, and for a time, my economy was my biggest problem. What you should be researching is the government techs, morale techs, economic structure techs. You should be placing an usually high focus in this area because you lack the common, and make life easier, bonuses.

Another thing you could do either seek out galactic resources, or try to increase your population, using both morale buildings and farms. Also, don't forget about the economic capital, its an economic structure with a +100% bonus, best used on an capital planet. Research "Trade" to get it.

________________
By the way, you might want to tell us how you set up your economic worlds here. It seems to be an issue for you.

Also, could you get a comparison between your small ships vs the AI's. Try to include what techs are being used if possible.

i would say cut down on the amount of ships but increase the firepower of the remaining ships

That won't generally help, as maintenance is based on ship cost, not the number of hulls. Better ships generally cost more   

What may help is to stop building warships and start spamming cheap constructors. Pick a centrally located sector corner and build a group of 16 military starbases there. Park your warships in the area affected by these bases, and start upgrading the bases as much as possible. Your military rating will skyrocket with little additional maintenance. Just make sure to build a few higher tech ships in case someone isn't impressed with your artificially-enhanced navy.

to answer the research question I'm up to stock exchange and multimedia center. I control one morale resource that's maxed. I don't remember any anomoly bonuses.

thanks for the replies. I can live with not being good at the game, but lack of understanding bugs me.

Hi!

In DA that's equal BIG econ problem, even with Super breeder. Since you don't control any econ resource, your whole empire operates with about 20% econ bonus, and not the usual 60%+. Your maintenance is also very high - you've probably built lots of expensive buildings, but not enough econ ones (markets, one farm, with maybe one morale building). In DA and with "normal" 50%-100% econ bonus one econ planet for one production planet is barely enough, but with your econ ability you should have 2 or even 3. That's simply the price you have to pay for bad race design. What's the use of all the insane growth bonuses, when your pop produces so little money?

How to recover?
- Buy Mind Control Center yesterday.
- Replace about a half or expensive/production buildings with markets on most planets, but on capitals and those planets that are supported with lots of econ starbases.
- Sell a half of your fleet to get money to replace buildings.
- Use some of that money to incite wars among AIs, so they'll not bother you with attacks.
- Try to grab every econ resource in the galaxy that will be "freeed" with those wars.
- Use Super breeder properly: let them breed for 3-5 turns at 100% approval to 9 or 11 B pop on every class-7+ planet you have, then increase taxes to 41%+ approval until next elections.
- Get better government than imperial: each of them gives 10% econ bonus over the previous one.

HTH and BR, Iztok

I'm not familiar enough with the game to know if its bad race design or not. I wasn't going for maximum effect, just a theme. I think its fun to incorporate my imagination into it.

If the consensus is that you "need" econ bonuses to make an empire work, then that means (to me) they didn't do as good a job with the game as they could of. I should be able to pick any area of focus and make it work.

I still think its fun. i'll continue to go with themes. I don't mind losing if i'm playing bad, its the lack of knowledge that bugs me.


thanks for the help.

Hi!

But is it fun to be so broke as your race is? The DA is significantly nerfed. Default tax revenue is 40% lower than in DL. You simply must adapt to that fact by using at least one of starting econ bonuses: either Federalists, or 30% econ ability, and by building significantly more than 1/3 econ buildings on your planets.
If you don't, then you'll need to become a masochist to enjoy losing to AI races that do adapt. It's your game anyway.  :NOTSURE: 

BR, Iztok

Economic Capital on Howeworld is a great asset since the maxed out population in the early turns will spoon-fed the entire pool of planets with fresh income, clear & tax-free!

If you can, try not to glue yourself with (LEASES)... these drain a whole pane of "active BCs" for too long to be considered any efficient even short/term.

It is always better to have a core region where highly populated planets gives a steady output of money (even if only with markets or influence/tourism stuff!) while having a grid of well located Eco-Starbases to supplement these numbers gradually... than it is, to have wide spread tiny outposts without reasonably useful assets which actually takes big chunks of negative BCs right out the global values.

Manufacturing top-of-tech-edge attack forces needs a steadily profitable framework. Otherwise, the maintenance costs outweighs the turn-base pattern of taxation sliders even if increased to compensate.

Then there is also the "dedicated" worlds tactic which puts a focused improving path to any type of planets; namely, the many-factories type, the laboratory/researchs style, etc.

One important thing to me is influence since it provides some welcome extra cash for almost peanuts. And, Trade -- fully developped, active, maxed out.

Oh, and never ever fall behind in the tech-race. Getting "Planetary improvements" first, for example, can drop (for awhile!) the enemies' ratio at more than 35/to/50% lower than yours for the colony-rush phase alone.

That's the essential, for me. Still plenty more to handle in the long run, but the basics, i guess, are above.

- Zyxpsilon.

You can also select the economy bonus when you tweak your race abilites at the start of a game. This feature allows you to balance the gameplay to your particular game style.

understanding econ base placement has helped me a bunch in my current game. That has made me a better player for sure.

i mean seriously do you really *have* to have an econ bonus? what about morale bonuses that allow you to handle higher populations or let you put in one less morale building for one more econ building.

Or what about insane soldiering bonuses? You can't handle a large amount of planets but you could reduce them to rubble and wipe out the AI...couldn't you? (maybe that wouldn't work as well on a huge or bigger map).

Its really a shame if that's so. Money was a hefty advantage in civ4 but it wasn't the end-all, must-have trait. The way Iztok is going on about it it sounds like its the *only* viable approach for a race in this game. That's pretty sad if its true.

Is it the same in ToA? I own it but am waiting to play it until they've finished it.

It's not really necessary for lower difficulties, but by the time you get to painful or so spending racial points on econ is pretty much mandatory. You don't really need it late-game, as you usually have enough planets to float huge amounts of cash, but getting through early and mid game is nearly impossible. Surviving the colony rush without econ bonus is not at all easy.

I used to play with a PQ bonus and had to give it up for econ. It doesn't seem like much, but getting used to one more tile per planet really sucks when you have to go back  

The good thing is, you have more points. Yes, you need to spend 4(?) on econ, but you have several more you can spend on other things. Always put one of your points into luck. It is just as necessary as econ.