I haven't gotten far enough into a TA game to make a claim like the OP with near certainty, but I have a similar impression.

I haven't had an economy completely tank, but as far as I can tell, that's been basically due to: 1) not finishing 'cause it's a beta, 2) luck with anomalies, or 3) me giving up on running at 100%, which I've long expereinced as "normal" in DL and DA.

One thing I'm pretty sure I'm not factoring in well on account of being pretty casual about math is the difference that the 3000 vs. 5000 starting BC makes. It might be that the starting cash is what really needs a map-size tweak, not the tourism income math. My guideline for the expansion phase is to try to run at 100% approval and 100% production as much as possible until I deficit-spend down to about 2000 BC, and then I raise taxes and cut spending to keep the deficit around -50 or less. That almost always got me out of economic adolescence and on the curve twoards having to spend to avoid the >20,000 in the bank penalty.

The problem was created after DA combined with TA, in my opinion. Everything costs tons of maintenance, so with %100 production you would need tons of tax planets to keep it all going. Also, you can't expand too fast or you'll just keep losing money.

I think you have it right, rls669 - with an immense galaxy, you have to expand carefully. In my current Immense game (as the Altarians) I struggled greatly to stay in the black at the beginning of the game, but as soon as I began building economic and morale buildings on new planets before all else, and maxing out my trade routes, my economy stabilised - I wasn't earning much, but the economy wasn't in free-fall either. Now, about 6 hours of play later, and with my planets all at high-populations, my income hasn't falled below +500 a turn.

Immense galaxies do seem to require a much more careful (and strategic) approach to economics, which makes sense given the scale we're talking about here.

I play as the terrans, and i'm glad to say my economy has somewhat stablized, setting the slider between 85-95% to stay in the black, but still i control 3 economic resources maxed out, i should be rolling the credits! i control 20 planets none lower than class 9 and unfortunatly none over class 12 my pop is 120bil with 3 trade routes easily going halfway acrossed the map which net me a measly 80bc a week.

My economic experience with the Altarians has been fairly weird. I'm not building and using hundreds of constructors every turn, nor am I constantly losing trade routes. But my economy will go from deeply in the green (1500 or more net income) to deeply in the yellow (1000 or more net loss) from one week to the next. I haven't built lots of high maintenance buildings, I haven't changed my tax rate, my approval hasn't dropped. It's so high I can tax my population at 100% and all my planets will still have 45+% morale (which seems very strange to me). Anyway, it swings back to excess fairly quickly, but it does this every so often.

This is on an immense map.

Oh, damnit. Why didn't anyone tell me about this? So I can safely ignore these wild swings?

I go through binges and purges, too. I'll spend down to a few thousand BC and then build it back up. I'll try spending down to see if that clears this up.

I've had in excess of 10,000 BC treasurires in several beta games and haven't noticed much of a tax hit at 5 and 10k.

I guess it encourages you to start buying stuff, though, which is probably a good thing. What I really need is a larger navy so I have less excess.

I am expanding. I've had 2-3 systems flip to me every turn for awhile.

Count me in this camp as well. I have played several games as different races as well as many custom ones and I simply cant get the econ stable unless I tax the hell out of everyone and keep a very small fleet. The only way I have been able to succeed is if I focus on trade especially with the minors but for some strange reason everyone starts to declare war on me after I start to pull ahead econ wise every time.

I feel like I'm beating my head against the wall anymore. Moreover I like to play an evil race and the trade gets brutalized every game for evils. The only thing that keeps me going is the anomalies and the fact the AI does not actively go after them after the first 50 turns or so.

Also. I just traded some Income techs and My Money doubled. As the yor, you can't change governments. Usually when I get to the point in game where I am now. I ignore trading techs. (Only trade to keep my Budget in the black during colonization) Well I just also got republic government and some others and my income went from about 300 to 800. That helped.

So when you get civs like the yor that don't have a lot of money. Your going to have to trade for it.

So now I just plowed through the Terran's. I did have money troubles still, after taking so many planets. But the last few planets I took, I just did not build anything. Once my economy settles again I will build them up.

One thing for sure, TA sure does add a lot of work for you.

Gosh I hope this isn't what I can expect from TA. The econonomy is already stretched to the limit in DA. There really is no margin there. It's not a fun game when you go bankrupt every single time you play. The game is supposed to be fun, not "let's see how much frustration the players can endure".

I don't want to see the screws cranked down on the game's economy. The difficulty is irrelevant. An impossible economy is going to be impossible at any difficulty level. As it is, I have to spend several months at zero spending early in a DA game. So how's it going to help my enjoyment of the game to prolong that or cause me to give up? But you like you said, the game isn't done yet so hopefully these issues will be resolved before the official release. In any case, that's my opinion FWIW.