Problem handling Economy. Possible Bug???

kryo

Join Date 05/2003

+458

suddenly my spending goes through the roof

Is it some ridiculously large number, or something that looks like it could be normal?

Do note that since unused manufacturing spending is refunded, you can get a false sense of economic security that will be shattered once you start building ships or improvements on worlds that previously were idle.

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The Negative just keeps building and building and nothing I do makes it go down. Building more Economic Centers on my planets where it should bring it down, keeps pushing it up.

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kryo

Join Date 05/2003

+458

The Negative just keeps building and building and nothing I do makes it go down.

Can you give specific figures and details?

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Its hard to give specific figures.

I was playing the campaign game, Backstabbing, I was building mainly on my colony worlds since they are high PQ. 3 Factories, 2 Labs, 2 Markets and a Starport. Also for each of them I would build 2-3 Medium sized ships for Defense.

Have 4 worlds with the above. My Treasury is dwindling, cannot get it into the green. Have the nearly the full Economy Tech Tree researched and the current income rate is at: -62 avg.

Have at least 1 Economic Base in my home sector upgraded about 3 times.

Treasury is around the 700bc mark and still going down so I implement a plan on building more Stock Markets, Demolish a lab and factory on each world. Put the tax rate right up.

Now I was expecting to go back into green or more into it. But instead its jumped up figures of -80 to -120+bc. Which I am into the red, Tax rate at 100%, worlds filled with Stock Markets, back to having only 1 ship defending each world.

But the rate just keeping increasing more into negative.

I get the same with the Sandbox games.

I am at a loss on what to do, I absolutely love this game but this economic problem is really frustrating me to the point that when I encounter and get into the same situation as above that I just quit and move onto something else.

Please, please Help!!!

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Mystikmind

Join Date 06/2004

+20

The economy in Galciv is kindof like a large ocean liner... you have to turn the steering wheel long before the actual turning response is required.

So in other words, you have to defend against going broke, well before you start going broke... otherwise your economy will soon be sinking like the Titanic!

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Tetrasodium

Join Date 03/2006

+17

Its hard to give specific figures.

I was playing the campaign game, Backstabbing, I was building mainly on my colony worlds since they are high PQ. 3 Factories, 2 Labs, 2 Markets and a Starport. Also for each of them I would build 2-3 Medium sized ships for Defense.

Have 4 worlds with the above. My Treasury is dwindling, cannot get it into the green. Have the nearly the full Economy Tech Tree researched and the current income rate is at: -62 avg.

Have at least 1 Economic Base in my home sector upgraded about 3 times.

Treasury is around the 700bc mark and still going down so I implement a plan on building more Stock Markets, Demolish a lab and factory on each world. Put the tax rate right up.

Now I was expecting to go back into green or more into it. But instead its jumped up figures of -80 to -120+bc. Which I am into the red, Tax rate at 100%, worlds filled with Stock Markets, back to having only 1 ship defending each world.

But the rate just keeping increasing more into negative.

I get the same with the Sandbox games.

I am at a loss on what to do, I absolutely love this game but this economic problem is really frustrating me to the point that when I encounter and get into the same situation as above that I just quit and move onto something else.

Please, please Help!!!

Something you might want to do instead is one of two things.

- Option 1: Don't build anything on the world at first, just let it get a couple billion people there before you plop something down. It's going to suck money to no end until it gets a decent population up, addint to that sucking of cash by adding factories/labs/morale tiles/etc is only going to make things worse.

- Option 2: Set down 2-4 economic buildings and set the planet to social focus, it will redirect military and scientific funding to social and get them built about the time the planet is ready to host some stuff that will cost money. The added advantage is that you are going to have a very strong economy to cover those giant sucking holes of expenses you have on other worlds.

If you start building stuff that costs money each turn just to exist, it's going to truely hurt you in the long run. Also playing the Korx in DA can help since they start with the entire trade tech line so have a good secondary source of income as wel as an easy diplomatic relations booster from the get go.

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Just look at the tax screen, where is your spending going? That should give you a ballpark of what the money sink in your empire is.

And I agree with Mystikmind, you really need to plan your economy well in advance.

And do you have leases?

But actually, there is no point in me trying to guess. You are having the problem, and you have the data. Just look how much money you are spending on what on the rightmost part of the screen.

The numbers you posted are well within the range for what is expected in DA. Doesn't sound like a bug to me, but I have been mistaken before.

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Hi!

Tax rate at 100%

You can't have tax rate 100% and at the same time any seizable number of population at your planets. With taxes at 100% your morale would go so far down you'd be LOSING population at 10% per turn. Please check again at your Domestic screen what's your tax rate (don't mix it with your spending rate - taxation slider is the top one, spending slider is the next one below it), and post the amount of population you have on your planets.

BR, Iztok

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If his tax rate REALLY is 100%, that explains everything. Doesn't matter if his worlds are all full of stock markets, he is losing income because all of his people are dying under that tax rate.

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Well, not dying, just leaving. But your point is made.

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I'm no pro, but I've been where you're at. And it's not as though I haven't spent hours here and several other places (GalCiv Wiki, GameFAQs) reading up on the game big time, which makes me feel even more hopeless and stupid. I think I'm right when I say the Altarians can get the biggest Economy bonus in the game, but I'm not 100% sure. Anyway, I always set them up to have 60% Economy, 40% Morale and 40% Tech. With the Technologists political party, I have 60 Economy, 40 Morale and 60 Tech. With this civilization I can eventually make money and have superior tech to the AI in such a way that I had Doom Ray the max defense techs in all the defenses. Almost never lost a ship. Problem was, they build things so slowly... and so I tried the Thalans. Now I no longer have my +60% Economic Bonus, and so you see, I end up losing -700 BC per turn in some of my games. I don't know what happens when you go negative. I assume morale goes so low that you lose all your population and you can't recover. But my point is, unless I play Altarians, my first few worlds have to be devoted to pure economy, otherwise I can't even keep my head above the water. It's kind of sad that it's so hard not to go broke in this game. Unless you play as the Altarians.

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In DL you can go broke as any race if you don't plan things accordingly.

Economy is the driving force of the game - with enough BC you can buy your way to victory ,or conversly ,you can dig your own grave.

I my latest game I came back after the colony rush from -47500 BC and now have a very healthy econ.

I had to make that sacrifice to stay in the game. BTW that is playing as the Altarians

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Geez how many planets did you colonize to get that much in debt?

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Hi!

I my latest game I came back after the colony rush from -47500 BC and now have a very healthy econ.

How the he.. you could go so much in negative so early? A game stops all your spending when your treasury goes 500BC in negative. Please explain!

BR, Iztok

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Get yourself set to make lots of money, but throw yourself in an economic tailspin by over leasing early. Then, you just have to wait weeks (months) of population breeding while you just bleed money and wait for your income to finally overcome your lease deficit. It sounds more dangerous than it is, sometimes, even though this strategy might knock you out for 20 turns, when you finally turn it around you have such an infrastructure built that nothing can ever stop you. (For instance, I have built almost every galactic wonder in the first year, then my entire empire shut down for the beginning of the second year, by the end of the second year, I had won. Long term leases aren't a bad deal if you know you can win fast.)

That is how I have done it anyway. I'm sure Cardassian has his own reasons.

Hope that helps.

Edit - in my last game for instance, I had over 2k of leases per turn, but my planets were set so that when my population finished breeding, I would be making over 30k per turn. Then I just grind through the turn button and hope no one declares war, each turn looking like this: -2k, -1.9k, -1.8k, etc. etc. until finally it turns around, and then it can turn around big. This was on a tiny map.

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Hi!

each turn looking like this: -2k, -1.9k, -1.8k, etc. etc.

I see your point. But you're talking about -2k, he's talking about -45k. I see only one possibility to go at once so far in debt: massive ship upgrading. Also, even if he'd lease-buy those ships, would the already-active leases and initiall buy-cost ate away the existing 5000BC really fast.

But looking at his preferred difficulty level another question arrises: at what difficulty level game cancles all debt but -500BC?

but my planets were set so that when my population finished breeding, I would be making over 30k per turn
...
This was on a tiny map.

AFAIK tiny map can have 50-100 planets max. Since you've shared it with at least two other AIs you could get 25-40 planets. Now you're claiming you can get at the middle of the second year, with no building and research for half a year, from 25-40 planets 30k income.

I get from my money-making class-20 planet (14 trade centers, econ capital, 2 factories, 1 farm, 1 morale) at the middle of the third year and milking two econ resources (econ ability ~95, taxes at 56%) measly 360BC. What am I missing? What game are you playing?

BR, Iztok

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I was playing with an 85% tax rate to test it out, once I overcame my lease deficit. All planets but 3 were filled with markets. And I had the Mind Control Center already built (had a +220% economy bonus total by this point)

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