bad economy

from GalCiv2 Forums
since the last beta update for Twilight, i do nothing but lose money right from the start of the game. and i mean right from the start. i don't even get a chance to play 20 turns without going broke.

i start a new game and i am automatically loosing bc per turn. then it gets stupid from there.

a game i started last night, i was only 10 or so turns in, and was loosing -120 bc per turn. i had 4 planets in my control and only one colony ship was in production. i had no special buildings or such on any of the planets and nothing else was being produced.

i've tried everything to get the budget on track, but to no avail.

game stats are as:

terrans

immense galaxy

habital planets: abundant
# of planets: abundant
# of stars: abundant
star density: random
anomalies: abundant
# of roids: abundant
tech rate: norm
minors: 8

i generally set my sliders to:

45% tax
67% spending

spending production:
military: 10 - 15%
social: 15 - 25%
research: never below 60%

check the images.


9,790 views 26 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I'm not sure what the images are supposed to tell us. They look like start-up images from 2 different games. (The minimap shows me they are different, the races have different starting locations.)

I suspect that if you raised that tax bar to 45%, you wouldn't be losing money anymore.

The economy is harder, and it maybe needs some balancing, although I am personally not being bothered by it, because I am throttling back my expectations of what I can do.

That may be your issue. I'd really have to push the game to generate so much usage that I'm losing 1200bc a turn, I think. Or maybe there is a bug somewhere in the Terran's economic focus. Maybe I will try a Terran game and see if it happens to me to.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Can't say I've ever seen someone loos 1200bc a turn in the early game, you must be doing something very wrong.

Straight of the bat though in that second picture loosing 7 bc a turn with 67% production and 33% taxes (pretty low) seems fairly normal and to be expected.
The Political Machine 2024
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
In my honest opinion, taking any racial ability besides 30% morale bonus and like 40% economy or whatever the max economy bonus is is a waste. The nerfing of economy makes these two picks even more valuable.

Frogboy doesn't like the concept of nerfing with the strength of civiliations, but apparently nerfing the economy is cool. I think there should just be a strong economy in the game period to have an awesome experience with more ships and what not. After all, the AI gets a stronger economy if you do too....
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Did you accidentally buy lots of buildings and ships everything on lease?
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I had this problem too. I had to put points into Economy and began the game researching up to Galactic Stock Exchanges as my first order of business. It sucked, but once my economy was researched and I had several worlds dedicated to only GSE's I had no problems after that. It just seems weird that Terrans have to bootstrap their economy first before beginning the game.
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
In my honest opinion, taking any racial ability besides 30% morale bonus and like 40% economy or whatever the max economy bonus is is a waste. The nerfing of economy makes these two picks even more valuable.
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If this is the case now, then I would say a modification of the balance is needed. If taking morale/economy bonuses is a practical necessity for playing the game, then a serious player does not really have any options in selecting racial bonuses ... which defeats the purpose of allowing players to choose!
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I as well have a problem with the economy. Especially with the Thalans. They have absolutely no econmic buildings in the colony rush. This makes it really hard to win as them, much less get past all the bloodthirsty neighboring races that want to kill me.

My way of trying to counter this is to raise taxes. However, some planets may be heavily populated and things get ugly there quick. I really wish we could set tax rates for those kinds of planets, individually. It would help cope with the low morale on huge planets.
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

If this is the case now, then I would say a modification of the balance is needed. If taking morale/economy bonuses is a practical necessity for playing the game, then a serious player does not really have any options in selecting racial bonuses ... which defeats the purpose of allowing players to choose!
End of quote


if we're fortunate this is a component to the delayed release of ToA. You are, of course, absolutely correct. Either accomplished DA players have pigeon-hole their thinking into one path of victory with small variables, or they're absolutely correct and its possibly too late to change the model. You can't reasonably expect stardock to come out and say 'yeah we can see where we've made an error' if such a thing is true. best to decide whether or not 'having' to take econ is acceptable to you until we learn otherwise.

fortunately for me (i suppose) i'm only on tough so perhaps it doesn't apply to me yet and I can still 'goof around'.



Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
yes, they are both the starts of new games. one large. one immense. not one turn played in either game. look at the bottom left of both images. notice how i lose money right from the start. once again... not one turn played.
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Yeah, you're starting off losing 7 BC in the second game there - as compared to starting a DA game with no economics bonuses with a 16 BC income. Sure, it's not as good, but you're not on the precipice of bankruptcy there. It seems like economic performance over time makes more of a difference than your starting income. What difficulty do you play at?

Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
i generally play normal.

before the last patch, i made about 12 bc at the start of a new game. i patch my game and now i lose 7 bc right from the start. no turns into the game. it just don't seem right to me.

i haven't changed anything in how i play as the terrans. all my settings were from before the patch and nothing was changed after.

and i do give myself an economy bonus of 1 point when i do set up my races by the way. i could try another race, but that would be like buying a dodge or a chev, instead of a ford, wrong.

oh well. enough whining on my part. i'll re-install and see what happens. if it still happens, i'll whine somemore.
Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
To me the troubling part is that the economy problems are pervasive with any difficulty level above beginner even on sub-normal an experienced player can have some difficulty. I think it is fine to make the higher difficulty levels very difficult but easy should be easy for anyone but a complete beginner.

The only level that is completely easy relative to economy is cakewalk and at that level the AI is completely brain dead in every aspect
Reply #13 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Hi!
before the last patch, i made about 12 bc at the start of a new game. i patch my game and now i lose 7 bc right from the start.
End of quote

If you haven't noticed, it's the ships' maintenance that's dragging your economy down. Seems StarDock again over-nerfed something: re-introduced maintenance for unarmed ships AND increased overall ship maintenance about three-fold. :(

BR, Iztok
Reply #14 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
AND increased overall ship maintenance about three-fold.
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But just think how much this will help when you play the Drengin and suddenly you get 40 super dominator corvettes outta nowhere ;)

~ Wyndstar
Reply #15 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
If you haven't noticed, it's the ships' maintenance that's dragging your economy down. Seems StarDock again over-nerfed something: re-introduced maintenance for unarmed ships AND increased overall ship maintenance about three-fold.
End of quote


You should also note that some planetary structures have been tweaked. The Yor industry structures have been untouched, but the default industry has had their maintiance costs increased since beta 3C (Drengin too). For instance, an "Industrial Sector" used have a maintaince cost of 6, but now it has a maintaince cost of 10.

The upside is, it does addresses some of the issues I have with the Yor (#2 and #3).

Anyhow, I'll do some more number crunching latter...
Reply #16 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
If you haven't noticed, it's the ships' maintenance that's dragging your economy down. Seems StarDock again over-nerfed something: re-introduced maintenance for unarmed ships AND increased overall ship maintenance about three-fold.

BR, Iztok
End of quote


Yeah, building maintenance, especially for research facilities, has been increased as well if I recall the old fees correctly. Building a lot of research on your home world early in the game or any other planet for that matter will almost certainly sink your economy in a rapid fashion. I regularly play the Terrans and usually do fall into a deficit in the beginning of the game unless my trusty survey ship gets lucky enough to find hidden money. That being said, I've never lost the kind of cash the OP is reporting that early in the game and with that few planets and ships. The new economy model has simply required that I change my strategy a bit. It also beneficially reduces some of the out of memory errors some players have experienced by forcing the number of ships etc down. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, but understand that opinions on that can vary.
Reply #17 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Have played terrans and altarians. The later much more difficult on economy. I went bankrupt few times.
I never push taxation bejond 39%. Research trade and increase economy. Money is really a problem now and you have to carefully balance it with expansion. Never buy with lease and hope for some lucky shot with the flagship.
I can agree that now is a little too much about economics.
Reply #18 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Hi!

before the last patch, i made about 12 bc at the start of a new game. i patch my game and now i lose 7 bc right from the start.

If you haven't noticed, it's the ships' maintenance that's dragging your economy down. Seems StarDock again over-nerfed something: re-introduced maintenance for unarmed ships AND increased overall ship maintenance about three-fold.

BR, Iztok
End of quote

yes, that is why i posted that image. does anyone else get this or is it just my game?

i personally think that starting a any new game loosing money, is a game killer. and like i said in a earlier post, there is nothing i can do to get away from this cash crunch. i sell every tech i have to minors just so i can play a few turns and see if things get turned around, but it never happens. and i like to think that i'm far from a beginer player. just because i play an easier level, dosen't mean i don't know the game.

oh, and the 1200bc i said i was loosing, is spose to be 120bc, over active fingers and poor proofreading skills. my bad.

i'm just wondering if it was something i have set in my terran race settings that didn't quite match the new patch, because i shouldn't be losing a game before i start it. or should i?

well.. i hope SDs pipes are clean, cause i'm gonna be downloading.

to be continued...
Reply #19 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
You're not losing. You're not even on the edge of bankruptcy.

Yes, agreed, that TA's current maintenance is a pain. It severely limits fleet sizes.
Reply #20 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
not to start a fight, but i do believe that i am loosing. i shouldn't have to adjust any of the sliders at the start of a new game just to make money. but i'm re-instlling right now.

only getting 1500kb/sec from sd :(
Reply #21 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
If you change none of your sliders and buy nothing, it'd take you over 200 turns to run out of money completely. You have a lot of time build economic buildings, morale buildings, grow your population, colonize new worlds, etc, and solidify your economy so you're making a positive income. Never mind the chance for 500 and 1000 BC anomalies.

Now, I agree that it's demoralizing for the treasury number to turn yellow, but since the treasury is the fuel that runs your everything, just turning yellow isn't a bad thing by itself. You still have a lot of fuel to keep you going. Even in DA, I often adjust sliders so I'm losing money at the start of the game. 100% approval + 100% spending is just too good to pass up. I get the impression a lot of players do this.

Anyway, I do agree that the maintenance costs are currently too high.
Reply #22 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
well, a re-install fixed things. chose everything as i have in the past, and now i'm in the green at the start of a new game. so something must not have liked my settings or something like that.

If you change none of your sliders and buy nothing, it'd take you over 200 turns to run out of money completely. You have a lot of time build economic buildings, morale buildings, grow your population, colonize new worlds, etc, and solidify your economy so you're making a positive income. Never mind the chance for 500 and 1000 BC anomalies.
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yes, i realize that. but i wasn't used to losing money just by starting a new game. i aways try to keep money coming in. i like to have a few thousand bc just in case there is an unsuspecting race the needs to die.
Reply #23 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Ok, i normaly dont pipe up on anything but i agree with this...The economy is HELL now, they need to switch it back to Beta 3 standards NOW. :)
Reply #24 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
They need to make tourism more powerful, like it was before they nerfed it. It would help the larger empires sustain themselves without relying on trade or heavy taxation. The increased maintainence they put in the beta4 is crap, it just makes building big fleets even harder.
Reply #25 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
um.. yeah.. i spoke too soon. i forgot to make one settings change, from economists to universalists. and once again, i lose money from the start.

oh well... back to DA till it's fixed.