The 20,000 bc limit officially sucks

So instead of letting it slowly grind down, spend it until you get down to 20k again. Buy some warships or Galactic Achievements, or max out your espionage spending and cripple everyone with spies.

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So instead of letting it slowly grind down, spend it until you get down to 20k again. Buy some warships or Galactic Achievements, or max out your espionage spending and cripple everyone with spies.

Actually, the problem is, most of that 'high tech' stuff is so expensive, even 20kBCs won't cut it.

Why even bother with putting this limit in the game? It just makes it harder to cope with an already struggling economy

"That is a good thing, but all my millions of bc's went down the toillet"

"That is a good thing, but all my millions of bc's went down the toillet"

"That is a good thing, but all my millions of bc's went down the toillet"

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Perhaps there should be some sort of notice saying that you have reached the limit and then give you one turn to find something to do with it before it is taken away.

"Civilian economists have noticed that a large portion of the tax budget is being unused and have accused top government officials of embezzlement and fraud. Via referendum, the people have demanded that these funds be immediately used for social development or they will appropriate the funds for their own needs."

...or something like that.

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Yea, I never liked that over 20k graft and corruption business. I've always thought it should be a much higher number. Also, the game never tells you what's going on so it just looks like a penalty for no reason. They need to either show an actual graft and corruption penalty in the spending or take it out of the game.

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smartie0

Join Date 02/2006

+7

I never liked the limit too I find it stupid. Before TA it was not a big problem cause in the later stages of game I was earning something like 1800bc's per turn and after the 20.000 limit it was not 1800 but something less so I didnt really care.
But now in TA economy really sucks and its really hard to even reach the 20.000 limit and when you do that.. its disaster.
I can see even the other civs are not progressing normally cause their economy is crippling too! And the game becomes slow and boring.

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600bc/turn! That is a good thing, but all my millions of bc's went down the toillet because it wasn't over 20,000bc and that plucks my short hairs, ALOT.

You went from ~600bc per week income to -400bc per week, when you had millions of bc's saved?

You are talking hundreds vs hundreds of thousands.

How long would it take to consume even 2 million bc's at 400bc per week?

Do the math.

Is it something like 400 years, or some such game ending time span?

600bc per week is nothing special. I get more than that from trade from mid-game on.
At that rate it would take you over 270 years to save 2 million bc.

Learn to make more money, simple.
Get stock exchanges and econ resources and population and morale and high taxes.
Then the graft hit at 20,000bc won't mean that much.

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The 20,000 bc limit officially sucks?
Yes it does. It should at least be scaled by the galaxy size or the number of habitable planets just like tech costs are.

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*double post*

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I regularly manage to save millions of BC in spite of the money cutback. Really the only situation when I'm somewhat annoyed at it is when I'm trying to upgrade a class of ships for, say, 100000 bc, and have to save that money beforehand to avoid total economy freeze due to debt afterwards. If the game gave me an option like "upgrade as many ships of this type as i can afford" I'd be perfectly content with the way things are now

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OK aparently he was exagerating about the Millions of BC lost.

His point is that his economy went from green to red. Basically this is something that you have to always keep and eye on when you play later in the game. Just like you do with you approval / morale. AT 600 bc/week you havent really been spending anything to reach even 20,000 bc. Think about what that cap is like for those of use making 5000 bc/week. Just do what rls669 said, spend each turn until you are below 20,000. A stock exchange is 1158 bc. What i do is colonize a PQ1 world that i neglected, and each turn put a stock exchange on it. Or quick buy stuff that is half done so it doesnt cost too much.

I agree that the limit should be scled to the galaxy size though, 20,000 bc means a lot more in a small galaxy than a large one.

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I have been thinking that this should be scaled with the approval rate.

I mean if you have 100% approval your people don't think you can do any wrong.

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My vote would go for just getting rid of the limit.

If you manage to put aside some extra cash for a rainy day, I don't think you should be penalised for it. Being forced to spend it to keep your balance below an arbitrary level seems somewhat forced to me.

Franbo

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I also feel that this limit is bad for us, as players. No reason I should be penalized for having a large treasury.

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Mumblefratz

Join Date 07/2006

+139

This has been complained about for as long as I've been playing the game which is about 20 months now. All in all this isn't that big of a deal and I would rather have this then many other high income penalties that I could think of that could be implemented in it's place.

Think about what that cap is like for those of use making 5000 bc/week.

Hmmm...

Well my normal mid game income is closer to 1,600,000 bc/week. If I have no issue spending this down to below 20K each and every turn then I think you should be able to manage spending 20K on a battleship every 4th turn or so, It's really not all that hard to do.

In any case if you don't want to spend your treasury down it's only a 10~20% penalty to your income. I've known many folks that simply don't bother spending it down ever. There is that awkward area right around 20K per week where your income will oscillate as you go above and below the limit but if you just build yourself a few more stock exchanges this will even out nicely.

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Is it possible this limit is intended to simulate inflation caused by having a substantial treasury?

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Wow...just, wow. I hadn't realized that this was an official modifier. It was extreme and at such a low level of money that I had assumed that it was a bug that would be worked out. Yeah, I'm not a fan. It really penalizes "turtlers" when they play.

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Mumblefratz

Join Date 07/2006

+139

Is it possible this limit is intended to simulate inflation caused by having a substantial treasury?

I've been told it's technically "graft".

This used to be specified in the Wiki Tax Article. This is the malus referred to in the following equation. At one time I thought a value of 10% was mentioned but at high levels of income (> 1 million bc/week) this seems closer to 20%.

34.5 * sqrt(population_in_billions) * tax_rate * (1 + (sum from buildings on planet)) * (1 + (sum from racial bonuses/maluses) )

See reply #5 from frogboy for the definitive word on this in the following thread. Also note the date.

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So what is the benefit of having a large amount of money saved up (beyond the obvious -- you have lots of money!), and how does it compare to the advantages of having less than 20k -- higher cash flow, and the use of whatever ships/improvements/projects you've spent the money on instead of saving it?

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Is it possible this limit is intended to simulate inflation caused by having a substantial treasury?

I've been told it's technically "graft".

This used to be specified in the Wiki Tax Article. This is the malus referred to in the following equation. At one time I thought a value of 10% was mentioned but at high levels of income (> 1 million bc/week) this seems closer to 20%.

34.5 * sqrt(population_in_billions) * tax_rate * (1 + (sum from buildings on planet)) * (1 + (sum from racial bonuses/maluses) )

See reply #5 from frogboy for the definitive word on this in the following thread. Also note the date.

Thanks for this explanation as to the rationale behind the use of 'graft.'

Some ideas for future patches/expansion packs:

(1) As has already been stated, I would like to see this scaled to the map size one is playing on, if possible.

(2) Another idea, as may have already been mentioned, is to scale the level of graft to ones moral/ethical and political allignments. The 20% graft penalty, across the board, regardless of one's ethical and/or polical allignment or level of government seems rather arbitrary to me.

(3) Again, as already been mentioned, giving the player the ability to toggle this on/off in the options screen.

My two cents as a newbie, take them for what they are worth

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Mumblefratz

Join Date 07/2006

+139

Unless you're saving up for something specific I think it's always better to spend the money. The great thing you can do with tons of money is to convert all of your fleets of Doom Ray/Zero Point Armor dreadnoughts into Black Hole Gun/Aereon Defense dreadnoughts in a single turn should you suddenly meet an opponent armed with say Black Hole Eruptors and Ultimate Invulnerability.

Otherwise with a high income the issue isn't that you're always trying to save money to spend in a specific way, it's more a matter of finding things to spend all the money on each and every turn. Buying ships which admittedly is very costly is an easy way to accomplish this and you do get rewarded for the ships you have in your military score. You also get rewarded in your score for income not for your treasury so for scoring purposes it's better to spend the money down each turn as well.

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The big annoyance is when you are buying ships at 60K a pop to spend down your extra million in cash and buy one too many ships, accidentally shutting down your entire production for the next turn. Or the times when you are trying to find a ship that needs less than 20K to complete and you can only find ones that need more than that to finish them off.

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600bc/turn! That is a good thing, but all my millions of bc's went down the toillet because it wasn't over 20,000bc and that plucks my short hairs, ALOT.

You went from ~600bc per week income to -400bc per week, when you had millions of bc's saved?

You are talking hundreds vs hundreds of thousands.

How long would it take to consume even 2 million bc's at 400bc per week?

Do the math.

Is it something like 400 years, or some such game ending time span?

600bc per week is nothing special. I get more than that from trade from mid-game on.
At that rate it would take you over 270 years to save 2 million bc.

Learn to make more money, simple.
Get stock exchanges and econ resources and population and morale and high taxes.
Then the graft hit at 20,000bc won't mean that much.

I did say 400bc and growing didn't I? At one point I got to -1000bc/turn.

I may have exaggerated a little about millions, but I think I had about 100,000 stored up.

And FYI, I was playing as the Yor, who have a hard time with the economy and so 600bc is alot. What striked me is that my economy was in the green under 20,000, and above that limit my economy was terrible.

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That does shorten things a bit.

Do you set up trade routes for extra income, or rely mainly on improvements and taxes?

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That does shorten things a bit.

Do you set up trade routes for extra income, or rely mainly on improvements and taxes?

I relied on taxes, tourism(not sure if it was open fully), and the mega improvements on conquered worlds. I even had a mind control center. Even a whopping +100% to the economy couldn't help. I also had a bout 4 economy mining bases, which were docked out with lots of guns and I kept them pumping out as many bonuses as they provided. Oh, and also a Temple of Evil.

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The 20,000 bc limit officially sucks

Flawed