Hi All,
I've just picked up the Ultimate Edition of this game and really looking forward to playing it a lot as an old-time fan of Masters of Orion 2 and the Civilisation series. So far its looking great, but I'm getting a bit confused with the economy - production system. One question about spies too!
ECONOMY & PRODUCTION
Now I've read the Wiki and read several posts on this forum. I think I'm getting the broad idea, but if someone could answer these questions / confirm I'm on the right track that would be great!
I've seen the flow chart here:
https://www.galciv.wikia.com/wiki/Image:Galciv2_economy.gif
So basically (is this right?):
Income = tax level (linked to population size) + tourism (from influence area) + trade routes + tribute income. And you might find some free money from anomalies early game too, plus there's all the various bonuses to each of these.
Then you subtract the cost of building maintenance, ship & starbase maintenance and production costs (set from the industry percent slider) to get your net income.
So if that's right, my questions are:
1) With tax revenue, is it just = population * tax percent * bank/market/other economonic bonuses, or are there other factors affecting it, like how much percentage approval I have or each planet has?
2) The production sliders and how it interacts with factories still has me a bit confused, so is the following correct.
Lets say I've got just one planet with 4 factories at 6 manufacturing points each, 3 research centres at say 6 research production each (these are probably the wrong numbers for these buildings, just some numbers to work with).
So my total potential manufacturing capacity is 24 IPs, total potential research production is 18 RPs.
OK, now say my total income is 100 BCs, and I have 40 BCs of fleet and starbase and building maintenance costs. That leaves 60BCs spare.
Now say I had my Industry slider at 50% I'd have 30 BC going into military-social-research production with 30BC net income, right?
And then if my M-S-R sliders are 33-33-34%, that would mean I've got 10 - 10 - 10 BC going into each. I have 24 potential IPs from my 4 factories, so I have enough capacity to turn the 20BCs into 10 Military shields, 10 social shields, with 4 manufacturing IPs being "unfunded/unused". And I've got 18 potential research pts from my buildings, so my 10BC gets turned into 10 Research pts, with 8 potential research capacity being unused/unfunded.
Or if everything is the same as above, so slider at 50% = 30 BCs going into Industry and I have the M - S - R distribution at 0 - 0 - 100, so 100% Research, then that's 30 BC going into research. But my research capacity is only 18 pts, so I'd only get 18 shields of research and an extra 12 BC goes back to net income?
Is that right as the basic mechanism? I've tried watching it in game, but with bonuses and spies on planets etc its no that obvious what's going on.
I do think I'm building too many factories and research centres when I don't have the money to fund them doing anything, if I've understood the game mechanism correctly.
ESPIONAGE
I've been doing the Dread Lords Campaign, and often find that the computer opponent fills up my planets with spies mid to late game. I just don't seem to be able to generate enough money to build enough spies to nullify them all and sometimes they can shut down a planet.
So in one game I researched and built Counter Espionage centres, thinking from its description that it stops all spy activity and clear the planet out. But I built one on a planet with lots of spies and it didn't get rid of any of them? Does it just stop them from adding new spies to this planet?
Is there any other way to get rid of spies besides building my own them to nullify them? Well besides wiping out their entire civilisation, which is what I ended up doing, far cheaper than buying my own spies, lol.
One other question, when a building is effected by a spy, its bonuses are shown in red. Does this mean that the building isn't giving any bonuses now, or that its actually giving the bonus as a negative number (a penalty to production or whatever it may be)?
That will do for now, thanks for any help!
Paul
PS) I wrote this post in black writing and it showed up as a black screen. So I cdhanged it to white font in the box, and now I can't see it as I type because the edtior has a white background?!