No, the 20k cap has been around since the beginning I believe. It's not a cap, per say, but your income is greatly reduced if you have 20,000bc or more in your treasury. It is even possible to lose money by having a treasury that high. It's mainly a problem because, late game, you start running out of things to buy each turn, especially once warships and wonders start costing over 20,000bc each...

Also, your trade income is reduced (halved, maybe?) if your treasury is 10,000bc or more. This one makes even less sense to me than the 20k limit... and don't get me started on the -500bc when you're making 10k bc a turn thing...

I think the real problem with these limits is they are hard amounts that don't scale with your economy as a whole. Your tax/trade income isn't gradually reduced as your treasury grows, instead, once it hits a certain amount, *BAM*, the full penalty kicks in. It's the same deal with the pop growth bonuses/penalties from Approval; it's an all-or-nothing deal.

You really do need to be able to have a larger treasury without penalties on larger maps, I think.

I mean, the 20k limit is fine if the stuff you're building can be purchased for just a few thousand each, but when you're building large or huge ships, it can become a real burden.

Perhaps a nice compromise would be to have your income scale as it goes up past a certain level (I think, perhaps, that the starting cash level is a great place to start). Once it goes over, a certain percentage of your income is deducted due to "economic stagnation". After all, if the government is holding all the money, there's less to go around in the marketplace. The percentage would scale with the treasury size, based on some kind of formula like 100 / (1 + n*0.0001) where n is the number of BC you are over the treasury limit. Your income would be halfed at 10000BC over the limit, quartered at 40000BC, etc.

Obviously, the numbers could use tweaking, but that sounds more fair than a strict cutoff point. I kinda wish that was done with the approval as well, since it seems kinda arbitrary that the difference between 99% approval and 100% approval is double (our 8 times for the Torians!) the normal reproduction rate! It strains credibility somewhat.

Yeah, but I absolutely hate it when the game 'plays against' you not because you did anything wrong, but just to cover up defects in the design.

to get back on topic, potentialy they could make it to were the game scales back maintenance untile a certain turn. That way it would give everyone a chance to get their economy off the ground.

I don't know if the income hits cover up "defects in the design." I'd be more inclined to see it as a defect itself, but it is the sort of thing that I play GalCiv to avoid.

At the very least, I'd like to see the ships you start out with be maintenance free. It would be nice if the flagship had free maintenance even after upgrading -- that way there'd be something special about it, some reason to defend it, and treat it like a flagship and not just another disposable medium hull.

I've been playing on Tough, and here's how the game's gone so far.

Immense - Common/Common planets, abundant loose stars. Random minor races. Tech trading on, blind exploration on, no surrenders, very slow research.

Playing as Terrans with a few bonuses spread across economics, influence, morale, trade, and creativity.

- I started by immediately going up the diplomatic tech tree and somewhat rushed to Interstellar Republic. At the same time, I slashed social funding to zero, 50/50 mil/tech, and colonized like mad.

After I grabbed a cozy nest of planets, I diverted to Trade tech for a few turns and started trading with the minor race near me. I got to interstellar republics with a stroke of luck on creativity, and then started down the military branch.

After I got Space Militarization, I dumped a recruiting center on every world. I then built up as normal. I've had almost no problem with the economy so far, until a UP vote to force everyone to Imperial came up, and my asshole 'allies' the Torians voted for it. I took a hit briefly, but recovered. I've not been in the red for a while now.

The economy in this game seems okay so far, but I've also been tech trading quite a bit.

I'm still only on a very meager military, however, so I'll see how it plays out once this damned UP resolution expires in a year. (!)

Your calculations assume you're building an economic SB to boost a single trade route. This is folly. An economic SB will apply its bonus to every one of your trade routes while the minifreighters are within your area of effect, will it not?

So, the actual formula should be 20bc/year per freighter. If you centralize your freighter network, you can get-- what is it, eight or so routes? Then you're looking paying back your investment at 160bc/year, aand somewhat higher if you're playing a race with trade bonuses like the Korx. The better trade boosts give a 20% or 30% bonus, so you could be parlaying your 176 credits into 528 /year-- even more if you're playing a race with trading benefits like the Korx.

Of course, the return on investment goes down a lot when you consider the cost of the inital starbase, the prerequisite econ buffs, the maintainence and opportunity costs. I think it (as well as starbases more generally) could use some buffage-- but I think it's theoretically reasonable that one could be operating at a net profit on econ constructors within the timeframe of the game.

Odd on the trade going down when you reach 20k bc +. But then again I usally have at least 7 econ starbases lining the trade routes and my trade goes up over time. Never more than 2000bc per turn it seams oh well but since I play for the long haul every bit helps.

As far as constructors there key to my game play. I have to have them to make the econ starbases that puts me in #1 of industrail might and quick ship builds.

But what works for me might not work for you it seems. Odd.

Duh