The economics in this game are a little wierd. The devs want to fix things for it, but it might not happen at this rate (version 2.0 is said to be the last major update for this game). Any ways, if you are used to playing civilizations, you might find this game a little difficult to get used to at first.

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Now to try to answer some of your quesitons. If you have any more, feel free to ask them. Try to number them so we know where one question ends and another begins.

1) How economics works: Money is generated by several means, the biggest being taxes. You will find you have to balance morale with lower taxes so your population will reproduce and you win elections, with higher taxes so you can generate more money. With money, you can spend it efficiently (with factories, labs and so forth), pay of maintiance and upkeep, and spend it (by trading it, or quick buying stuff).

A word or warning. Taxes too high will drop morale to the point where you start to lose people.

A tip. Inaddition to your morale dropping for every tax point increase, your morale has an additional drop ever multiple of 10%, a drop that gets stronger the higher you go. As such, you will want to keep your morale at numbers like 39%, 49%, 59%, etc.

2) There are bonuses: There are many bonus types, too many to list here. Some are quite useful such as economics and morale. Suffice to say, there many different scope of effects (such as empire wide bonuses) so don't be surprised to cause some numbers to be different than what they might normally be (such as your question about how a mil production of 24 was producing 31).

3) The case for factories: If you able to earn a large sum of money each turn, you can either spend it by quick buying something, or spend it efficiently by using factories. Quick buying something typically costs about 10x more than what it costs to build something normally using factories.

Factories increase your base industrial production capacity, which in turn is used to determine your social and military output. Applicable bonuses, and current spending rate determing your military and social spendings. Suffice to say, with enough factories, you can build a ship that would take 50 turns to build in only 5.

4) How is IP generated: I don't know how IP is generated. I never felt the need to figure out the exact details.

5) How do you determine the money you earn from taxes: I'm not sure about this either. I haven't felt the need to figure out this one either.

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I don't know if you have any expansions so I don't know if this guide I wrote will be of any help.

TA 101

I am of the opinion that gleaning the nuances of the economy of economic games is the very essence of the game. What you are asking is tantamount to "tell me everything significant I need to know."

Familiarity will reveal hidden dependencies and subtle bonus conditions....and with a good memory and an eye for observation you will not only be able to describe the mechanics in detail yourself, but play in your way the most efficient was as possible.

There are very few hidden factors in GC2, you can easily make predictions as to how long a project will take, and frequent sliding of the research/social/military sliders will display in real time the precise impact of your changes.  There is no mystery, just balance.

That said, here are some tips to help you create an efficent economy...as I have found that credits are the single most important part of the game...as you can rush as many projects as you can afford, creating overwhelming force or impenetrable defense as required.

1) Concentrate on the economy, make it your first priority.

2) Do not expand if you have a negative economy. instead accumulate enough wealth to afford expansion.

3) Build inferior structures even if newer versions are available: they build much much quicker on undeveloped planets and give more bang for the buck and are quick to upgrade....often times you might skip an upgrade level due to rapid research.

4) Each planet is different, do not generalize planets, tailor each planets growth and you will be surprised how much more powerful your empire is.

5) Production Focusing is very useful if by rushing one project, the sebsequent delays in the non focused projects do not actually delay them, if you can subsequently focus the delayed projects..perhaps the focused previous project helps complete the 2nd project. Focusing a factory on a special tile will help build that starship quicker had you focused neither the factory or starship.

6) Factories aren't as useful as you might think: The ability to vary factory output over your empire means your factories are vairable and thusly only a maximum capacity, as you discovered. This requires a more balanced approach and is not disadvantageous since smart research and military production (starbases/miners) augment any potential missing factory structures...also if you like to focus or rush, your factory capacity is deemphasized as a rush job costs the same no matter how many factories you might have.

7) Plan ahead: super projects and racial uniques turn planets into starship powerhouses or research meccas, you have to decide which planet is going to fill which role and accept that your research planet will run deep in the red the whole game, but your financial planet will make enough for both of them, but might not have a starport.

8) React to special tiles and random events, maybe an evil choice gives you a +50% bonus to starships or morale...or you find a +700% tile (yay!) rework your empire around such valuable events.

9) Do not ignore asteroids, starbases or space resources....they are the difference between a stagnant economy and a growing one.

10) Change your style of play, some people have a routine that simply drives them bankrupt, do things differently...choose a different leader, different starting bonuses.

Lastly, CTRL-M... GC2 is so hard at even moderate levels even with diligence I find myself broke and defeated unless I pump funny money into the system....I treat it as a Survey Ship Special. In fact, I can barely beat any Dread Lord scenario without it!

Devote a certain portion of your planets to producing nothing but income.  Build 1 factory, 1 fertilitiy clinic, 1 or 2 farms & morale structures, and then nothing but econ buildings.  I specialize every planet for one purpose...econ, industry, or tech.

Sentient species taste better...

If your most anything planet is your home planet (apart from perhaps population), you're either doing it wrong or it's too early in the game to worry about it.

If you're Team, it can't be broken, and when no one's left but you two, you win.  If you're Ally, it can be broken, and probably will be eventually, but if no one's left but you two -and- diplomatic victory is turned on, you win.  In neither case can he attack your planets.

Starbases by themselves don't grant any particular bonus (outside of extending your range which honestly isn't necessary), but both resource mining starbases and economic starbases are quite useful, although modules are required for economic and beyond the initial structure for mining.  Military starbases can be helpful as well, but they're somewhat more situational-it helps if you have some kind of military first.

You should consider building a starport on at least one other planet and building ships from it, during the colony rush.  Survey ships and constructors are both a good idea-you probably won't have sufficient population on a new colony for a colony ship.

One to watch for is over developing population... I just read a breakdown somewhere the other day... Econ buildings are better than more people. (It's like 4 times the people to get the same as one good econ building...) I will have one farm on a NON bonus tile on most of my planets. (never on the homeworld, enough pop already...) I will add a farm to a green (100%) food tile if the planet also comes with a 100% bonus for morale, as they will balance each other. With full tech for morale and farms 2, I can have 14K on each planet with 94% morale with just 2 virtual centers and a anti spy center. Each planet turns 200BC or more with 3 or four factories and a starport. I can run 70-80% taxes with a 90% morale rate and get re-elected as leader of the republic every election with no worries. I try to maintain 90% morale, but can go to the 80%limit when needed without worries. Having a controlled high morale population is better than alot of people with low morale and a low tax rate...

I always have one or two research specific planets that are nothing but science, along with the farm and the two morale and spy buildings. Always a planet with bonus tiles. It always runs in the red, but every other planet I have doesn't.

I always have 2 or 3 production powerhouses on bonus tile planets. They'll have the farm and such and just enough money buildings to break even.

I always have one or two major financial planets, usually the highest PQ with no production or science bonuses. It will get the same farm setup, preferably the moral/green food bonus. It'll be good for 20K pop and 90% morale and will make upwards of 500BC. I can also send transports/troop ships here if need be. This is with a 15 or 16 PQ planet... when you get one of those spastic 26PQ wonders, you can make more BC on that one planet than the rest of your planets combined!

This isn't the best way to make money, there are those that make this look paltry. But I can pump our research, ships and credits faster than anyone else in game, and am clearing 1500 to 2000 BC a turn, which is enough to rush build whatever I want to do when I need to. It's a balanced approach that lets me be very flexible when I need to be and compete with those big end game empires without getting swallowed whole.

I build up 2 or 3 influence bases all the way. I'd actually like to build more, but I always seem to get side tracked. Against the late game Krynn they're vital for survival...

I do wonder if I build too many starports though. Usually 1/2 my planets have them. Decent production build warships, slower production builds constructors. Keeps me from having to tie up the big guys with non military items...

T

Yes indeed, only one morale bonus will leave you one short if you want true balance. It's around 80-85% morale for the planet I have in my current game compared to the 94% on a non bonus world... It's close enough for baseball in my book.

Thanks for bringing back some of the article for me here. My mind is like a steel sieve... I'm lucky if I can remember my name sometimes without having to check...  The 4 times to double the income is what I was trying to get at. After reading the article you mention, I tried to see what some big pop worlds would do. I had a few 300% bonus tile farms that skyrocketed population to 32, compared to the 14 I normally keep. All of the extra taxes were eaten up by the morale buildings I needed to maintain anything over a morale of 50. It was horrific. I pulled the plug on the farms, taking the pop down to 14, shed the extra morael buildings and converted them to economy buildings. I now have a higher morale I can tax at a higher rate and make more BC per planet take home than with the huge populations. It's also much easier to manage, for my tastes anyways... Had I stayed at farm 1, where those planets were at 20K or so, with virtual centers and stock markets the outcome may have been more manageable, but at the 32 and up mark, 5 virtual centers (at 7BC maint each) was hardly enough to keep the people at 50% moral. With 3 of those planets it was enough to drag my tax % down to where I could only clear 500-700 BC a turn. Once I cleared it all out to pop limits of 14, I was able to pull 1500+ BC a turn. In my mind, the trade off is too much to justify the loss of useable income, along with having to manage the planets pretty tightly during the growing stages.

I did not know about the fall off for the % of improvements. Is it a function of the improvement itself to counter the % on top of % on top of %, ie 25% of 100=125, 25% of 125 (31.25) =156.25, 25% of that (39.06) =195.31... where each successive improvement would add 'extra' money to the bonus? As in a law of diminishing returns to discourage spamming econ buildings all over??? Is the drop per world or at empire level???

Good thing I don't take this too seriously, huh?

Also I don't want to hijack the thread so I'll stop here....

T

Let me clarify.

Each stock market adds 25% of the base value of your economy.  The second one still adds 25%-but it's still of the base value.

Therefore, comparing a planet with one stock market to a planet with two stock markets, all other things being equal, the planet with two stock markets has 20% more income (150% base income to 125% income), not 25% more income.

This only becomes important when you're trying to find the optimal ratio of stock markets to farms, and the final sentence of my previous post sums it up nicely without even having to do the math.

Aka: What Willy said.  (Page loads when replying seem to be orders of magnitude slower for me than anyone else.  The really strange part is that edits don't seem to be affected.)