Economic Balance needed for Immense galaxies

also my tax slider is @59%

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.

I played immense...

I ended with like 40,000 bc.

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'm playing Immense with abundant stars and uncommon habitable planets. I'm finding that scouting and only colonizing the highest quality planets during the initial rush helps a lot. Once those high class planets are running in the green and I've got a few techs or improvements to increase morale, I can raise taxes a bit have enough cash flow to start colonizing second tier planets.

I guess what I'm saying is: on immense, it's very easy to overextend and screw yourself.

One other thing that makes a big difference now is maintenance on constructors and colony ships. It can be very worthwhile to build a faster ship so you're not paying maintenance on it for 20 turns while it's en route to some distant destination.

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.

What race were you playing? I had a complete economic breakdown when I was the Arceans on a small or medium map because they dont start with any market-type buildings and I didnt go for economic research until it was pretty clear I was going to need it.

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.

I'm pretty sure this question yields *the* variable for econ strategy talks. Most of my pre-beta 4 time, I played as Iconians. But I'm fixated on the Thalans, and the differences between the tech trees plus the new Thalan population growth penalty leave me knowing little more than that I have a lot to learn

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.

most likely reason for this is because you have hit the magic 20000 BC tax collection nerf. (ie your people are saying you have 20000 billion credits so why do you need more?)

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.

yep. Well as long as it was at the 20000BC point and no finacial event happening.

Someone has hinted that there is also a slight tax hit at 5000BC and 10000BC marks as well but I've not done any testing to prove or disprove this.

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.

You can expand! I have found that playing as the Yor right now that I can expand as fast as I want. I just can't build on every planet that I take right away. The first 4 or 5 planets I build up. When done I continue on. I also use the All Factories, with 99, 1 sliders.

It is hard though, Most the early game is kept keeping your empire up. And preying that your Flag Ship gets nice 1000 Credit Anomalies.

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

Hi!

In DL and DA there's a nerf to income from trade routes: when your treasury goes over 10,000 BC your trade income halves.

BR, Iztok

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.

Really?! I can understand people not wanting to pay as much taxes at extreme amounts of money in the treasury, but why would people from an entirely different government care about how much you have in your treasury?

I wish both of these income nerfs would just disappear. I hate having to micromanage how much money I have in my treasury so I don't get hit with income penalties... you only need so many expensive uber-battleships, after all...

As a side note, I managed to side step economic problems in a Immense game as the Thalans by gunning straight for Galactic Stock Exchanges and the first two Governments before researching anything else or even expanding my empire. You'd be surprised how easy it is to avoid economic downfall when the first economy building you build is a Stock Exchange, heh...

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.

I think maybe ship maintinance costs should scale with Galaxy size as the number of ships you need in an immense Galaxy rises exponentially because your covering so much more area.

Also I think maybe the new costs are a little too high at the moment but the problem is worse the large the Galaxy.

I do think keeping a stable economy should require some thought, effort and balancing with other activities.

The main trouble is that some races have more and better sources of income than others, while some are very economicly challanged but because the economic giants where becoming to powerful they've nerfed the whole economic system but that also has the effect of destroying the economy of the races weaker in that area totally.

So basicly yes I think it needs some careful rebalancing of the ecomonics and the relative strength of the races, so some races still have an economic advantage but others don't always go bankrupt.

No doubt they will continue to play with the balance for the next few betas.

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 think you need to worry that much. 1) The devs are clearly committed to significant balancing work before RTM and probably after. 2) Your diff meter shows you are what I still sometimes call a scoremonger. I'm betting that if you ratchet back down to Tough for a few games, you'll get back in your groove soon enough.

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.

Actually, the economy is very easy to manage below normal difficulty. As long as I have tech trading on, even the most awkward races (Yor, Iconian) will have booming economies. Game difficulty does make a big difference to your economy because the AI simply gives you more breathing room.