Ship maintenance is killing me, where is all the new money again?

I wonder if it would imbalance things too much to have a tourism slider in initial settings. Assuming that wouldn't be too difficult for the AI to adjust to of course.

I noticed this change right off as well. Some of my large hulled ships were costing me 100 bc per turn in maintenance. There were some good points with all this extra cost;

1) it made fleet management crucial, I had to insure that I destroyed obsolete designs
2) it made economic management an on going adventure as my Altarian war machine got going
3) it made the game much more difficult. I typically play on painful and I found it very challenging. The beta has had a roller coaster ride in terms of economics, first we had too much money, then just right and now, perhaps not enough.

I think the maintenance on unarmed ships needs to be reduced or eliminated. On a big map you could have dozens of them enroute to distant destinations and the maintenance is crippling.

I agree, I thought econ and money available was just about perfect in the beta 3 series.

I'm with you guys. The maintenance is ridiculous. Just the initial flagship and miner is 14bc/turn. Start building colony ships, and you're really screwed. I've played well into several games and never gotten my economy running above 55%.

Could this be intentional? Could the developers perhaps be working under the assumption that running an economy at 100% should be the exception rather than the rule, and almost always result in deficits? It could encourage people to try to remain at peace and collect the "peace dividend", so to speak, while allowing economies to run hot for short periods (if you have money in the bank) to deal with short-term threats.

Swell question. Kryo, got any shop-talk you can share on this point?

I like being at peace, and if that's the intent, I don't mind, but with upkeep now... I can't afford any warships at all, much less one defender for each world. I'd have to cut back to 15% to fight a war, at which point I'd never finish any ships anyway.

I've been hearing about the problems with the economy, but haven't experienced it personally. I've played pretty far into several games on this version now, all on Gigantic at Challenging. All of them as the Krynn. Generally I cruise along at 200 bc to 1000bc a turn without any of the tourism or tax mega events.

I do keep up with my trading, I have the max trade routes possible as a neutral Civ, again without any mega events or special votes.

I put as many of my ability points into economics as possible at the start, and I pretty much run through the whole game at 100% with research set to 45% without ever having to alter those except early on as I build my economy.

I also put a number of stock markets on my planets, and layer my trade routes with economic star bases.

In my most recent game, I've generally stuck at around 500bc per turn, but I do have two economic resources with max modules going. My Navy consists currently of about 10 medium very well armed ships, 3 large very well armed ships, and about 20 small very well armed planetary defenders. Essentially I have about the strongest military.

The Small ships are about 9bc/ea. The Mediums are about 20bc/ea. The Large are exactly 48bc/ea. I also have a number of miners and constructers roaming around/building/etc, but couldn't even guess how many without looking. So I'm spending a lot on my ships, personally I agree, I think we are paying far too much, especially when constructors are costing 8bc or so each. That's ridiculous.

My point is, I think it is possible to survive as things are, even without economic resources, but it would be nice to see some of the ship costs go down to help balance things out a bit more. I think I read some suggestions regarding tourism too, that definitely needs to be tweaked. In many real economics, tourism is a major source of income, but here even with nearly a sixth of a gigantic galaxy under control your lucky to pull in even 100bc.

One thing I haven't looked into was, do freighters cost ship maintenance? I'm just wondering if the mini-freighters are pouring more money down the drain then what they can bring in. If so, then the Trade Routes just got a smack across the face.

I've only had problem with the weak economic races like Iconians.

Personally, I'd rather have tight then loose money anyways.

I haven't had any economical problems but i think the 20000bc limit is back in the game.

That may be but you need a top military on the chart or else you'll get swamped on by the AI's by mid game. At least on tough or higher.

That's not good to hear. Ship maintenance is already brutal in DA. I'm usually running in the red at the end of my games because of that. Unless TA provides a better economy than DA, cranking it even higher would not be good.

This may be an effect on the lower difficulty level. A navy that size would be quite small in just about any game I've been playing at Tough or higher. The Drengin and Terrans especially would swamp me if I had one that small. In my current game I've got about 20 medium ships and 15 large hulled ships along with 2-3 defenders per planet on the borders, 1 on every other planet (about 15 planets). I'm currently 4th out of 7 military wise and some of these ships have Psionic Beams on them! Terrans just declared war and rushed me with twice as many ships as I have. I've held my own because my ships are stronger but in the meantime I'm cranking out ships on every world and having to lower my spending every 5 turns. And this is being the Korx with 11 fulling decked out trade routes with super trade starbases everywhere and economic treaties with every minor. If not for those treaties I'd be dead in terms of money.

Anyway....

I have noticed that costs seem higher and/or income lower, but afer the early game I'm able to do just fine economically. Of course, I'm planning as the Terrans with a substantial economic bonus. Still, I've had to change the way I run my economy, including building a lot more economic buildings and a lot fewer research facilities. Unfortunately, from my point of view, even with fewer research facilities and the game set to the slowest research setting, research is just blazing along FAR too fast, which results in lower echelon techs not even being used.

I find that you have to balance your spending decisions a bit more. The ships you build and the improvements you set up really matter, especially when you're playing with the races that have expensive ships or high maintainence improvements. The Iconians and their organic armour come to mind, as do the Thalans and their cripplingly high maintainence labs and factories.

It does lead to some new strategies, though. Playing the arms dealer works a bit better now... you get a decent amount of cash (good for keeping the economy running) and you get rid of outdated ships that were sucking up your reserves. If you wanted to be really devious, you could try to artificially inflate your opponents maintainence costs...

Haven't pulled this yet in TA, but in DA I would often do something similar to an AI I was about to invade. Sell them a juicy research or production upgrade, or maybe stock markets or terraforming, then attack while all their planets are auto-upgrading. The AI will almost always upgrade, and it wrecks their production while they do it   

The Iconians were suicidal to play before this maintenance change, and now they are impossible to use. I can't run spending more than 10%-20% anymore, contrast to the usual 50% before this change. It doesn't matter if i run taxes at 80%, have fully decked out trade routes with as many economic starbases crammed along them as can be, and have all my worlds FILLED with economic buildings + a few dream complexes to keep the taxes up, and i do have many economic treaties with majors, and minors alike. And i can't maintain a military beyond a few bloody cruisers thus the other races ALWAYS hate me for my small military, and when they do declare war i cannot replace the ships i loose..without getting insane leases! And this is with tech trading off..

And it doesn't help when they get shafted in the colony rush due to high maintenances, and weak manufacturing!

The high maintenance and the econ nerf, whatever they did, has ground TA to a halt. For me anyway, and i ahve been good at getting high BC's per turn in DA and now...not a chance, whatever the devs did in beta 4 is not good.

I do hope they are aware and on top of this as one cannot enjoy the other aspects of the game whist always fighting just to pay the bills. I have found no matter what race you play as you have the same issue, the lower starting capital does not help either but even with 5000bc to start with it would be no better...just prolonging the inevitable.

Yes, at least in DA freighters cost more than they brought in for the first 1-3 years depending on the map setting. This was something I initially complained about in DA, then I gave up and just stopped using freighters. Remember in addition to upkeep you have to figure in the initial cost of the freighter to figure out if you are making money. If the cost of freighters has increased at all (I haven't tested freighters in TA, I had just about forgotten they are a player option because they are so rarely cost effective). Plus any upkeep costs for economic starbases if you use trade modules, plus cost and upkeep costs of any military ships you use to defend your trade routes. If you can get any kind of reasonable return on a trade route vs. all of the costs in less than a year and a half you are a much better player than I.

As for the change in upkeep cost, I like it a lot. It does tend to require more micromanagement of your fleet. However - I think its pretty well known - I don't play on the larger map sizes. Could be the number of ships needed on a larger map size makes this undoable. It is definitely tougher on a medium sized map, but still very doable. And it requires more strategy and planning in your fleet now, which I enjoy in a strategy game.

- Wyndstar

Well, the new maintenace rules work for me... it simply requires some change in thinking. Before, all unarmed ships were basically freebies, and you could amass dozens of transports without paying a bc after the construction. Now, once you don't need a ship anymore, get rid of it. I'm actually more concerned that the higher maintenance levels hurts the AI's, since they build tons of "defenders" that get more expensive now, leaving them fewer fleets to attack.

Hi!

From quite some posts it seems AIs are immune to those changes (e.g. reply #15). I wonder if AI still plays by the same rules as human player does?

BR, Iztok

I doubt their immune, but on the higher difficulty levels they get a substantial economic boost which will help them maintain more ships than you could.

I do think the costs may need a little rebalancing but before there was just too much money in the game generally and the conomy presented few challanges to a semi-competent player.

Another issue is that some races just need rebalancing, the Iconians for instance are way weaker than other races in many respects and the Humans far too powerful.

Also remember that the Beta is when the balancing is done so I suspect we can expect lots more balance changes before release.

I've gotten pretty far into a game as the Yor, and even with full economic research and an efficiency center on every planet, I cannot get above 85%, and this is with NO military. I have 34 worlds out of 570, so I'm one of the smaller empires. I have a few trade routes running, and they help some (probably keep me from having to run at 70%). With tech trading off, I cannot buy an economic treaty from a minor, even when some survey ship luck got me above 4,000bc. I was able to get a few of them for cheap very early on, but now they want way too much.

People who think the solution is to spend all your ability points on economy just don't get it. The ability points should provide flavor, and you should be able to pick from any of them. Economic bonuses should provide a boost, not be the only means of survival. I don't want all my races the same. I spend quite a while deciding what abilities make sense for each one.