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Helo

Join Date 04/2006

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Want to retire in spite of being #1...just don't have any money. Is there a way out?

What should I do?

I have put my heart and soul in this game and refuse to cave-in, even though a victory seems hopeless. Here is the basic situation..
The game rates my position as number one (in terms of most powerful civilizations). However,
I am in the red (going deeper and deeper into the abyss at 40 % of my GNP and neative 103bc per turn), allied with two civilizations, and at war with the remaining two. I have only 4 planets, and if you look real close at the mini map, you can barely see my little blue patch of "influence." Even though I am being consumed financially, I am holding my own in battle. If only I had some money, or if only I could generate a positive cash flow. I have played ad nauseum with the sliders. I have sold every tech to anyone who will buy it. I can't buy a lousy transport; nothing! How could I be rated as number one out of 5 civs when I am drowning? Am I missing something here? I realize you probably need a lot more information. If I am just asking a ridiculous question (please remember that I am new to forums, and mostly just read your posts) please just say so. BTW, to somewhat change the subject. I am so confused about alliances. It seems that when I make an alliance, if that civ goes to war then I am informed that if I do not fight the aggressor, then they will terminate the alliance. I have always responded in the affirmative (honoring that agreement), however, it seems that when I'm getting blasted by some civ that my ally is NOT allied with, my dear "friend" doesn't lift a finger to help me. Why is there no quid pro quo?

It looks like I'm just sort of rambling here. I can't know if you can answer my questions or suggest some other direction I could take strategically, with the sparse information I have provided, but you are all so bright. I mean that sincerely. It utterly amazes me how many people have those (well deserved) badges by their names. I have only won two victories (one on cakewalk; the other on normal), but they were diplomatic ones (which I understand are the easiest to get, and I didn't even get a badge...lol). I just can't believe these posts about the computer AI being weaker than expectations appear to be. For example, I play chess very well (high 1600s), so I can do strategy, but this is quite a challenge for me. AND, I have followed all of the advice posted thus far about opening and middle game, but the end game is the good problem for me here, and the reason for this post.

I would also appreciate some feedback regarding this post. Is it too long? Did I not give pertinent information or present it appropriately so that you could understand the question. I'm very insecure about all of this, so please....any helpful tips about "appropriate questions to post" would be appreciated.

Thanks...Helo

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An alliance only kicks in if you are being attacked. If you are the one attacking, they are not required to join in. Allies may be slightly more likely to join the war on your side though.

Your cash flow is negative? I take it spending is at 0%? If your worlds are at full, or close to full, population, up your taxes until morale is at about 50% on your worst morale planet. If you are on low population, you might be better off actually getting morale up to 100%, living with dept for a while while your population grows, then bringing up taxes again.

Try to identify what your biggest expense is, and eliminate it. My guess is that it's probably your navy. If you're number 1, then that seems to be mostly determined by military strength. Either sell off a few fleets, or send them on suicide missions into enemy space in order to cause as much damage as possible before they die. If you can wipe out most of your opponents, that could give you a bit of time to rebuild. Obviously, keep enough ships back to defend yourself! Just destroy enough to give yourself positive cashflow.

In the future, concentrate more on economic buildings. It's no good having millions of factories if your spending is at 10% or something because you can't afford them. Make some economic worlds, with two factories and a starport (to build everything else) then one farm, one morale building and tons and tons of stock markets. Then pick your best economic world to build the Economic capital on. If you have about 2 Econ worlds for every 1 Production and 1 Research world, you probably won't even come close to running short of cash again.

Also, avoid rush buying where possible. It's much more expensive, and should only be done if you really need to:

- Grab planets fast in the early colonisation phase (personally, I don't, but a lot of people do)
- Grab resources fast (see above)
- If you really, really, REALLY need a ship right now to prevent someone capturing your planet and have nothing else that can get there in time
- If you're so ridiculously loaded with cash that you just don't know what to do with it all

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Calm down!! alright lets take it from the top you say that your economy is in shamble only suggestion is start over because you will go bankrupt and there is not recovery...Start by going down the diplomacy lines first to get trade and by an economic capital helps if you don't buy eveything from the start... choose some abitilites that have a positivie start effect on your economy such as Econmics on master 30% increase or morale to be able to raise your tax level higer and gain a higer income... A lot is attributed to economy in the start of the game so focus on raising your income and not destabilizing the market with a ton of factories..research the economics branch of the tech tree it has economy bonuses and buildings to help gain income.. So you probably will ask why can't i choose a high research and production abilites it is because of a very fragile income and you will disrupt that market process with a bunch of bonuses you cannot pay for...

The alliances are sometimes gotten by with allying with both warring partys before the war or before it askes you to abide by your contract.. AI's don't have those same rules applied to them...

Try to stay away from more than one war at a time unless you can efficiently outproduce both of the if this means cancelling an alliance so be it it won' t effect the outcome of the game much beside you not pushed to the limit on industrial compacity...

anything else...

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- If you're so ridiculously loaded with cash that you just don't know what to do with it all

Bask in your gold piles..

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Also, if possible, get a constructor on a green resource node, the economy resource. Even a 5% bonus helps, and when you've upgraded it to max mining bonus... CACHING!

Also, send freighters from your best world to your allies best worlds. This will generate a fair amount of cash.

And if you are lucky, you can get the universal event that makes everyone richer. In the savegame I have where that happened, I have like, 400k bc, since I doubled my taxes to capitalize even more on this event

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And if you are lucky, you can get the universal event that makes everyone richer. In the savegame I have where that happened, I have like, 400k bc, since I doubled my taxes to capitalize even more on this event

Another event to watch for is the U.P vote for a Universal Star Federation this will increase your industrial, research, and economic abilities..

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which I understand are the easiest to get, and I didn't even get a badge

Badges are given out when you have won a certain number of games submitted to the metaverse... level 1 is 5 wins..

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Also, send freighters from your best world to your allies best worlds. This will generate a fair amount of cash

Build economy starbases along the routes most profitable and build them where there is alot of routes crossing each other..

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Build economy starbases along the routes most profitable and build them where there is alot of routes crossing each other.

And also make sure that your planets are within the range of the economic starbases.
If you use Trade upgrades for the bases then first make sure you have your trae routes passing in the range.

-Wade

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hey, the posts fine, dont worry!

these forums are pretty friendly, theres no problem posting pretty much any question if it is done politely

the only way I can think of to get in such a hole would be to buy too many things using the 'pay back over so many months' option - is this the case here? if so, you need to be very careful buying things in this way (i usually avoid entirely if i can, just use the lump sum buys). some of the leases are pretty long lasting and can come back to bite you. the only thing to do in the current game in this case would be to wait until the leases run their course.

if this isnt the case, i have no suggestions other than those above - just put that game down as a learning experience

Mark

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Dude, just change some of your factories into stock exchanges - if you haven't got the tech then get it sharpish, its dirt cheap to research and build this improvement.

Also as a temporary stopgap measure - if you increase your research to 60% and you don't have too many research buildings your spending will drop dramatically.

Also stop building any form of ship on some of your worlds, you should be able to gain your shortfall just by doing this alone.

If you were loosing 300+ a turn then i'd be worried - as it is you are doing okay a hundred a turn is peanuts.

How is your population? if its at 5k or less then you need to address this. Almost all your worlds should have at least one farm with the exception of the specialist tecn/production worlds which should only have research and factories respectively. In your situation, i'd say all your worlds should have one farm.

Tech - only research mil techs to keep up with others but try to get to interstellar republic quickly, then its up to you, but i usually go for habitat improvement fairly early in the game because it gives you the aphrodisiac trade good, which means a massive pop increase.

Trade - yeah its usefull, but i don't usually start trading until after i've set up shop properly - a few economic starbases for my planets, by then I usually have good engines so getting trade up and running doesn't take long.

trading tech - The AI will trade for everything, but it will cost you an arm and a tech unless you have a good diplomacy level, this is where diplomatic translators come into their own. you can build these once you research diplomatic relations ( its one of the yellow techs and it comes up early ). if you don't care whether the AI keeps up with you militarily a weapon tech will net you almost two non military techs off the AI. The drengin love money and engines so you can get those techs off of them. The torians love logistics so be sure to trade with them for those. Altairians seem to favour research buildings. As for the rest I haven't really noticed any research patterns.

Thats it i'm adviced out. good luck and don't give up the game if you're ahead.

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My suggestion for your current game....

You playing on rare planets or something? 4 planets for the whole empire sounds like you're losing the war, not winning it. Figure out which of your planets is producing the most. On every other planet, bulldoze the factories and replace them with stock exchanges. If you're that far ahead, you only need one planet producing ships.

Find your enemy's largest planet (PQ) and invade it. Trash whatever they've built and fill it with stock markets, then defend the hell out of it. Send a bunch of troop ships to get the population up to max as soon as possible.

If you haven't chosen an alignment yet, choose "EVIL", research to "Concepts of Malice" and then build the "Mind Control Center". That doubles your economy. And someone else mentioned this - if you haven't already, research to the end of the interstellar governments tech tree. Your economy increases by converting to republic, democracy and federation.

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Woot Woot!!

I Won a Diplomatic Victory. In the past, when winning a Diplomatic Victory, I never saw the nice ending (after the Victory Screen) with the 3 fighters all landing, and...like...everyone is all warm and fuzzy (lol).

Seriously, though, I was able to incorporate something from all of your posts to figure my way out. It was all helpful. I learned so much from this game. I think it's the longest one I ever played and now because of your help, I understand the game mechanics and strategy so much better. Now, I just have to try for some other type of victory (other than Diplomatic), although I think it is an honorable victory, regardless of challenge. For me, it was a major challenge on the normal setting.

Well, I guess you can see I am rather excited, but most of all I am very appreciative to all of you for your help. I know I say that a lot, but it is always sincere. What a great online community!

Cheers,

Helo

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To me, the money thing was one of the most puzzling aspects to the game. There are several remedies, do all of them and cash flow will be fine. Taxes are proportional to population. High approval means more population growth. Best solution is to have 100% approval very early to have a much bigger tax base later. Also shuttle colonists around on transports or colony ships so each colony has at least 1 billion people. Planets below that in pop don't get full growth. Selecting the Federalist party at game start helps. Selecting those with production bonuses actually hurts the money flow because expenses are that much higher.

Next easy fix if available is building a star base on a green economic resource. If none are available, too bad. Morale tech and morale buildings allow a higher tax rate. The first morale tech is a must have, if it is not enough get the next one in line so you can raise taxes without taking a fatal approval hit. A player can build freighters and send them out to trade. Need trade tech for this and it can help a great deal, but it doesn't work too well in combination with some conquest strategies. Changing governments also helps cash flow, Republic on up.

Like I said, this was harder than figuring out the other aspects of the game, and usually a combination of all the above is necessary.

Let me add one more, lower the production slider AND the tax slider for a few turns to let the population grow. A few turns at high approval to boost the population, then raise both sliders again. This is most frustrating, but often a necessary step mid-game for players who overexpand via conquest or colonization.

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For example, I play chess very well (high 1600s), so I can do strategy, but this is quite a challenge for me. A

1600s isn't that good, to achieve 1600 tactics calculation is probably your strongest suite anyway. I used to be FIDE rated... 2060ish.

As Tiger says the game isn't hard, once you figure out the economy aspect.

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1600s isn't that good, to achieve 1600 tactics calculation is probably your strongest suite anyway. I used to be FIDE rated... 2060ish.

Not sure what you mean by "1600 tactics calc is probably your strongest suite." Perhaps you could clarify that for me. Regarding your FIDE rating, that is, indeed quite impressive to someone (like moi) who has taken chess lessons from a Grand Master. I used to go to Ann Arbor, MI every week for my lessons, and just got stuck at high 16's. My teacher told me that people hit plateaus, then suddenly they are on to the next level. I have (very occasionally) drawn over 2000, but it is rare. I truly admire anyone who can play chess that well. It totally amazes me. I just don't imagine getting any better considering my age now. Nonetheless, I know I am "off-topic," but I wanted to congratulate you. It really, really, really is an accomplishment for anyone to play at that level!

Sincerely,

Helo

PS,

I have, also, gotten so much better at the game now (even from days ago thanks to all of your help).

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couple of things that lead to more revenue:
morale -> tolerate higher taxes
population -> bigger base to tax
bonuses -> resource mining morale or economy makes a big difference empire wide.
government-> star federations really turn out the cash.

couple of things that kill revenue:
bad morale -> no tax money and you need to lose squares to happy buildings.
no farms -> no population base. I aim for 20 billion people per planet.
military -> super ships cost upkeep
building upkeep -> those 40 factories cost you maintanence.
starbase upkeep -> economy starbases aren't. They boost your production which takes revenue to use, and they cost upkeep. granted, their trade route bonuses can pay their upkeep if you have trade routes.

In my current game, If I max my research I go into the hole at -500bc per turn with 75% taxation rate because I have a ton of econ starbases (one planet has 10 affecting it). Of course I cleared half the missle defense tech tree in one turn at that rate. The tech win will be mine shortly.

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By that comment I mean you can achieve 1600 or even 1800 by studying tactics only. From my observation of players at that level ( I used to mentor some of them), they are stronger than say the 1200s almost 100% due to tactics not positional play(= strategy). They make less blunders, miss fewer 2 move tactics etc.

. I just don't imagine getting any better considering my age now. Nonetheless, I know I am "off-topic," but I wanted to congratulate you. It really, really, really is an accomplishment for anyone to play at that level!

Thank you, but it's not much of an accomplishment, any intelligent person determined to study chess seriously can easily reach that level after a few years. Besides I started playing chess fairly early at 6 so that helped a lot. I no longer play seriously any more though.

A lot of chess players are TBS gamers, I'm sure there are way stronger players at chess here. I came across one guy claiming to be an IM once in the Heroes of might and magic forum for example.

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