I would definitely sorely miss the 100% econ bonus version of the MCC, but I'm willing to take that hit to overall score in the interest of game balance. If you look at all my games you'll see that out of the 300 or so games among my characters, I have maybe around 20-25 that werent played as evil. The MCC is the primary reason for this for us zealous MV people, as you mentioned.

Perhaps a better solution though would be to increase or add bonuses to both neutral and good to make them more competitive score-wise, and leave the MCC with the old econ bonus. This would avoid the ill-feelings that would occur if the MCC was simply nerfed, and would not negatively affect the MV as a whole either. People could explore each alignment and still have the same scoring potential regardless. I think that would increase interest in both the game and the Meteverse.

Sentient species taste better...

Yeah, I definitely remember multiple threads about this over the last year. Considering that, I wouldnt expect there to be any such changes soon, or maybe ever.

Sentient species taste better...

Completely agree. I would like to see all alignments be equally viable.

Frankly, it doesn't make much sense to play other than evil most of the time. And, because of that, it gets a bit boring. It would be nice to have a reason to play Good once in a while.

Ahh the good old Neutral, what happened to you?

I've never found trade income to be at all significant when compared to income from taxes, so I'm not sure why it seems to be a game-breaker for you. Only early on in the game is it a useful source of income. I really only use trade for the diplomatic boost, so I can always go to war at a time of my choosing.

Devote some of your early colonies to purely economic structures right from the beginning. Maybe build 1 factory for quicker building, but after that build nothing but econ and perhap 1 farm. Specializing your planets is key. I alwys specialize for either econ, militray production, or tech with every one of my planets.

Sentient species taste better...

So I do a lot of what you say. I start out with 100% production and do an immediate 20/20/60 split. My home planet is usually 75% research driven and I reach out to the "colonies" for financial and production support. That is until I find a planet that gives extra benefit for something. Then I adjust accordingly. All of that works just fine. I think part of my problem is that I keep on thinking this is DL and force/purchase buildings in the beginning.

I also agree that tech needs to be maintained, for sales as well as to keep the arms race even. I am curious about you not selling "Trade" tech. Am I wrong in thinking that, as soon as a race gets trade, they start trading with YOU? This stimulates both economies. I often get the info screen that shows how much I am trading with others, and how much they are trading with me. So this is usually one of the first technologies I trade with others.

I don't sell/trade all technologies. Certainly not weapons, unless they are way behind me in that area. I might sell deflectors when I am equiping my ships with Barriers, for instance. But I never come ahead with as much BC as you indicate. Maybe I am doing something wrong?

Any other ideas/suggestions? Techs that help out? Stuff that is useless? I used to think that the Sensors line of tech was awesome because I could get sector monitors. Now I am not so sure. In the beginning I try to focus on stuff that gives me bumps to research/social/military production as a blanket (Planetary improvements, Unconventional Warfare, etc...) and population boosts. I also shuttle colonists between higher populated planets and lower ones to max out the economy. But this takes a LONG time. Do others do this as well?

The reason you don't sell Trade is because the price they give you for the techs you sell is calculated as a differential between your Trade/Diplomacy skill and theirs. That is, if you are the _vastly_ superior horsetrader, you'll get considerably more money for it. So that means you want to them to be tradecraft inferior for as much and as long as possible.

Also keep in mind that anything you sell to one race very probably will get passed on fairly soon. That is why, when you decide to sell something, you should sell it to **everyone**. Better that you get the money from the sale than someone else getting it.

As for taxes, I set my tax rate to where my collective average Morale value is 52%. With that, the home planet tends to drop like a rock (even with Loyalty and Morale modifiers, so I really like to get the Re-education Center ASAP. (After construction of which, I really don't care how low the home planet's Morale sinks.) If however, if _any_ planet hits a Morale of 30% or lower, it becomes necessary to drop the tax rate until it gets back up to at least 40%.

[As you may have guessed, I have concluded that your return on investment for keeping Morale at 100% = rapid population growth just isn't worth it. What's the point of having LOTS of happy people if it means you don't have the cash to keep production running at 100%?]

Income scales by the square root of population. In the early game (roughly the first 3-12 months, map size depending), the absolute difference between a tax rate of, well, *anything* and 0% is minuscule and irrelevant relative both to your costs, and the economy you'll have later on.

Thanks to the joys of compound growth, by taxing too much to get 100% morale during this period, you are *considerably* delaying the time it takes your new colonies to reach populations which will be self-sustaining when you do decide to put the tax rate up. In the (mid to) long run, your approach makes *a lot* less money, and in the early game, the extra cash it brings in is so tiny it's almost completely irrelevant.

But how does all that affect the bottomline amount of research and production? Those are my real objectives. If you can crank out the tech advances, you can make up cash shortfalls by selling off Ancient History techs (in comparison to what you currently have available). Like If I sell off Sensors I and Sensors II when I'm at Sensors IV, I'll make enough to float my Treasury for about 25+ turns. AND I can afford to sink 25% of GDP into Espionage. (By the time you have 20 stockpiled Spies, it will cost over 500 bc's per turn for at least 10 turns just to make one more Spy.) [But once I've got 25 stockpiled, I drop Espionage to just 1% (next Spy in 30 turns) and the Treasury practically explodes.] Along about Turn 100-150, I bump Morale to about 72% (homeworld about 40%) by dropping taxes. The cashflow will be such that I have to "go to market" about every 25 turns or so (until I get that Espionage monkey off my back).

[It's definitely a good idea to minimize just how many techs you sell off. Anything you sell is something the other guys will not have to spend time and money researching themselves, effectively narrowing the tech gap between them and you. So even if this is an easy way to build up your Treasury, it _will_ eventually translate into a tougher opponent to defeat on the battlefield. So, just sell enough to keep out of debt and keep production going full blast.]

I've tried to bump the overall morale to 95+% in the mid- to late-game. The amount of money you dump between 95 and 96% is HUGE -- and between 96 and 97% is even much more than that. And between 97 and 98% even more. Etc. The cost per percent gained starts to become clearly pronounced after 70-75%. If I got a corresponding bump in military and social production, it might be worth it. But I haven't noticed anything like that. So, I'll just settle for solidly Content and pour my resources into what _will_ enable me to stomp everyone and anyone: Research.

I totally agree. Now making war feels real - a drain on your economy. Woe to a huge empire who finds itself battling 3-4 foes at once!

Huh - didn't quote for me for some reason .... I was agreeing with a post that liked the changes and listed the new depth.

Yes, I am aware that tax rate and production rates can be varied to differing effects. Problems are [list]
[*] the higher the tax rate is, the lower the population growth. Which is fine, but if you are a race that does planetary invasions regularly, you need a population that can bounce back fairly quickly.
[*] If I start playing with a lower tax rate/production rate, my tech falls so far behind that I am using bows and arrows against quantum torpedoes, which really doesn't do much for the whole invasion scheme.
[/list]

I am not saying the problems are unsurmountable, just that the changes took me a bit by surprise. And I am looking for good discourse on how others feel about the change, and what tactics they have used to over-come them.

I figured I'd share the basics of my economic strategy since I, also, initially had financial problems in ToA.

One thing you may want to consider first is playing with an economically strong tech tree like the Korx. This will make managing your economy much easier. That's what I did after losing my first 2 ToA games playing with the Yor tech tree.



You might want to consider making your homeworld have more of an economic focus when you're in the early stages of the game. Fill up the empty spaces with economic buildings. Research is really expensive. Just ride the homeworld's colony-module research points until you get a good planet to completely focus on research. By then you can have a couple other planets that are focused on making you money. I usually have a lot of planets that have a bunch of economic buildings and 1 farm (which I add when the population gets close to the 6b limit). This strategy is difficult in ToA with some of the race-specific tech trees such as the Yor and the Thalan. It can be done with the Thalan tech tree, it just takes longer to get the economic buildings, and then on top of that you don't get farms.

Also, I'm not sure about this, but it seems like the higher forms of government boost your economy a good deal. I'm normally fine-tuning and balancing my budget and then I get Interstellar Republic and my profits start soaring. I believe the tooltip descriptions for the governments show bonuses in influence and diplomacy, but I feel like there is an economic boost as well. Maybe I'm wrong and it's just coincidence in that my colonies I filled with economic buildings are getting higher populations and more tax-payers.

As for the sliders, I barely ever come off of 100% production with this strategy, but I absolutely will if I'm losing too much. I'll usually drop the production if I start losing more than 50bc a turn. I think the only times I've done this recently is when I'm playing with the Thalan tech tree.

I haven't been playing this game for long, but I agree that the economy is more difficult in this expansion. Most of my games have been in the ToA beta in the last 2 months. I do, however, have to disagree with you in not liking the economic changes. I think it is more challenging and more fun.

By the way, this is my first post on these forums, and I would like to express my gratitude to the Stardock team for creating this amazing game. I'm a long-time Masters of Orion fan. My interest in those games eventually brought me to your website and the rest is history. This game is so great. I also love your forums and the support you offer here. Thanks Frogboy/Draginol and the rest of the Stardock team.

The big change I noticed is that in the early game the key to your economy is... Survey ships. Most of the games I play I never have to reduce my spending level below 100% even when I have my espionage bar maxed out. Early on the only way this is possible is by building a large fleet of fast survey ships to go out and gobble up all that free money.

Survey ships can easily make the difference between being able to advance far enough down the economy research trees to stabilize your economy at 100% spending vs running out of cash and sitting at like 5% for a few hundred turns while you wait for your population to grow.

Another key early on for me is keeping my approval rating at 100% so my population grows as fast as possible. I don't care about my expenses until my survey ships run out of anomaly ATM machines. Fertility centers and the Aphrodisiac wonder are also an easy way to max your population fast. Fertility centers are especially nice because they're so cheap you can quickly fill nearly every tile on a new planet with them without having to buy any outright.