Observations on the latest Beta and a bug report

The Thalans only have 3 buildings they start the game with, all 3 are galactic wonders. To build anything else, they have to do research. Well, 4, counting the starport.

In Beta 4 ship maintenance was increased, so if you had a fairly large military (especially if it was a 'build now' navy lol) then a ton of money was going down the drain there.

I have a Troop ship that holds 3billion population, speed (10 post bonuses, I forget which engines) and no life support and it costs 16bc a turn. I'm currently getting ready to have a large war vs the Yor and have 44 of these things loaded up and ready to go. I have a timer for the war to start, it's my economy bleeding money away as I'm also trying to support a decent offensive and defensive navy.

Loupdinour,

I'm not sure exactly why my economy was bleeding so badly. During the worst of the deficits I had my Survey Vessel, a Thalan scout I trade for, and at most two colony ships.

Most of my Human Empire money problems began to disappear by the time I got to Zeno Trade Center, two forms of government away from the game start, and two advanced trading centers on every planet that could fit them. I also got the Economic expansion event, so that has helped a great deal, but for some reason Economics just feels off. I really need to sit down with the numbers and take some time to articulate what's bugging me about the gameplay.

On the other hand, I found the new experience a bit exhilarating. I seem to recall the deficits got so bad, my popularity was in the twenties for a couple of rounds, that I noticed red flags on every one of my colonies. It was cool coming back from it.

Cheers,

Scanner28

What I do at the very start of my recent games is to disband the miner ship and try to get that population growth technologie, then follows the Trade. I have not many colonies before I start building freighters, most of the time the only starport is idle, just to save every piece of penny.

I am finding this new economy system challangering,but much too tough for AIs. before I start building my own fleets, there are always races already knocked out.(once even when I have 5+ tradering routes with him)

Economy = playstyle.

I have had no trouble on the beta. 30k +.

Creativity bug is not a bug.

Your scientists can still be creative, get a flash of inspiration, even if you aren't funding them.

I have found that the federalists kill your tourism income compared to some other politics. Try pacifist, it makes a huge difference for me. The differnce in starting income is like less tha 100bc with federalists and up to 190bc with pacifists

Well, federalists doesn't give you starting cash. Yes, 0 is less than 100. On the other hand, Federalists will effect how much money you make. You make 20% more from taxes, which will matter more the higher tax rate you support.



The Economy has been tweaked to be less forgiving of sloppy ship management (or put in the reverse, to promote ship micromangement). I also quite like the change. I expect enough people will whine that it will not stay that way, especially because.....



The AI is not adjusting well, so actually if you just wait for AIs to crash and are opportunistic about when/where you pop off your transports in some ways the game has gotten easier. Overall it has led to less ships in the galaxy... which I like for both gameplay and performance based reasons. Less ships and my game runs better when I play on my laptop (which doesn't have the best hardware)... and less ships also makes every victory and defeat feel that much more important. Every fight matters!



While those three wonders look impressive, thats the entire Thalan attack right there, blown in the first three turns. They can do almost nothing else for a long, long time. Send transports to conquer them at your leisure.

~ Wyndstar

I understand that the federalist effect will be greater later in the game but the tourism income has become serious enough to make me wonder if the federalist effect would ever catch up with the tourism generated by the pacifist effect.

It probably depends on the length of the game. I play a lot of tiny/small map games and I think the initial surge of tourist income may be greater than what you might eventually gain from federalist in a short game. Seems to be working out that way in practice.

This doesn't add much, but I like the new economic system. More challenging is a good thing. Quite frankly, ships were far too cheap before and economies probably should not be able to run at 100% all of the time.

I set my economy to 100% spending on turn 1, and see it as my main job in the early game stages to throttle expansion and building and taxes such that I maintain it. As an example, my current game I had 5 planets with minimal buildings, nothing being built and my starports idle, until my population was enough to give me about 30 BC a turn. Then I built 1 colony ship, turned off the starport again, and colonized. Kept this type of pattern up until I started to get econ buildings. I also build about 5 tiny ships with 1 engine and a sensor range of 3 or 4, and set them on auto-explore (sometimes I can't fit the engine though)...build constructors as necessary to capture resources.

The econ buildings are my first tipping point. At that point I start building them, and leave the colony producing starport on, and maybe start another colony producer.

My last tipping point comes when my economy is thriving and I am at least friendly with all my immediate neighbors. Then I turn on every starport to produce colony ships, and rush the rest of the map, until I share a border with an unfriendly race. I usually have a significant lead by that point, but at that point you need a military.

Lord Zarth,

Okay, if it's not a bug, then why does creativity seem to kick in more frequently when no research is happening?

I took a previous autosave for a spin, set all spending to zero, and just clicked away to see what would happen - within about seven turns I got another creativity provided breakthrough.

I'm willing to accept that I have simply gotten lucky on this particular game, but it just feels funny to me.

Maybe I just feel so beat up over the Econ situation that I gaze warily upon any gifts from TofA heaven.

Cheers,

Scanner28

Hi, Scanner28!

I'm only saying that it still makes sense to have breakthroughs during no spending periods... I don't know if there is a bug about more often breakthroughs during 0-spending periods....


Although I'd guess that there isn't.

I think that you got lucky. I played a 0-spending game for 30-40 turns, and I got no breakthroughs, even though I put points into creativity.

Lord Zarth

To be fair, if I was fired from a lab job, and then later discovered a cure for cancer in my basement lab, I'd definitely demand some serious 9-figure sums of money before I spilled the beans on that.

It isn't so much being fired, more along the lines of "job relocation". Instead of playing with beakers this week, you are welding up a starship, or perhaps making widgets. Monotony leads to less creativity perhaps. When we keep our populous on their toes on what they are doing, we train more open-minded folks.

Whereas with the Dregin/Korath they just promise to not whip someone if they come up with some time/money saving ideas. You got to have an incentive plan

The first few go rounds with the new economy were eye opening and painful... I spent many a turn learning to curse all over again. As much as I disliked it at first, it's really the way the game should have been from the beginning. All ships have crews and need food and fuel and parts and septic service and whatever else... that all this should magically happen for free just because the ship doesn't fight is silly at best.

I will say Freighters need a break. Either the maintenance has to go down or the trade route worth has to go up...

The only way you could counter the expense of maintenance is if you required ships to go to a space station or planet to resupply, even though it should still cost you something. That would make for a fairly constant amount credit wise, and would also introduce the supply limit for ships. Supply modules and techs would effectively control range, and when your supplies were low you'd have to head for the nearest friendly... Would make a whole bunch of new treaty options too...

I can say that some of the maintenance costs seem a little on the steep side. Once the editors are online I plan on making a starbase/ship module that lowers the maintenance a little for each level. It'll never be completely free, but as an empire progresses you have to assume they'd get better at resupplying themselves.

It's taken alot of getting used to, but my strategies have changed, and I can generate some decent coin once everything gets rolling. It just needs to be tweaked a little.

As to the creative scientists, it changes every game. Some games my science guys are tripping over new discoveries and sometimes I hired a bunch of accountants who never discover a thing. Reloading does not seem to effect this, and it falls under the same randomization as getting good tiles on the homeworld or that magic p20 planet in the system right next to your start location... I like that it's not the same every game and that some games my guys are just really smart.

Once freighters reach their destination, they no longer have a maintenance cost.

Why nobody seems to understand this is beyond me - I suspect they're all just speculating that mini-freighters still have a cost. I know it's not because they checked themselves.

That is a good point, although I don't think that the scientists are government scientists, per se. (I certainly hope not) I seem to understand that the government (us) is subsidizing, or hopefully just giving tax breaks, or perhaps funding these scientists. They are still working even when you ain't a-funding them, just on different work.

You would need the 9 figure sums to pay the fines for a) having the kind of materials you would need to do 'research cancer cure' in a private residence, and for doing the human clinical trials necessary without a license. And you probably wouldn't avoid jail time.

On to a different observation - Has anyone else noticed influence drop to zero on a UP council vote or afterwards?

I'm thinking this might be a bug. It only happened to me once early in this game. After wining a vote against the Thalans, I went to trade with the minor races and the Thalans and realized that the Thalans had no influence to spare. I didn't think much of it until I realized my influence was also reduced to zero when engaging the minor races in trade during that same round. The effect lasted only a couple of rounds and so far everything has been normal.

Cheers,

Scanner28

I think that was intentional Scanner28. I haven't taken notice of that myself since IPs are just too darn pricey to get from an AI and too low cost to sell to an AI.

I think they make you spend all of them in the vote, so that the votes are only based on what the empire accumulated since the last vote was taken. It wouldn't seem right that a race that once held 70% of the galaxy and is now in near rubble into 2 planets still have the UP weight they once held.

It would be akin to Italy having huge say in any matter of the modern world only due to the fact that the Roman Empire was so large in the past.

IPs are indeed your UP votes. They're spent each time a vote comes up, and accumulate each turn in between based on your current influence levels. Trading them is like buying and selling votes.

Oh, so that's what the influence on the trade screen is for.

Would it be possible to rename it into UP votes?

Cool. I never realized I was spending them at each vote of the UP Council.
I used to be a much more observant player. Maybe those few extra turns did hurt me.

Cheers,

Scanner28

The Minors - Is anyone else a little annoyed that by the time you get the ecomony in gear and send out constructors that the minors have nearly bagged all resources?

It appears that since they have nothing better to do, they just go out and gobble resources. Their advantage seems very out of balance. I've encountered some minors happily sitting on resources, at the extreme edges of huge maps, but with barely any propulsion tech beyond hyperdrive.

How are the minors considered reasonably balanced when they are able to beat out other major races on acquiring resources?

If this question is being rabidly discussed on another thread, please tell me the thread name.

Cheers,

Scanner28