How does the AI make balanced planets work?

A question about economy

I got this game basically around when it came out, played it a few times, and was distracted by a bee and left for a long while. I came back to 1.4 and was surprised with a few things. Mainly how much less self sufficient planets seem to be! I seem to remember that a generic planet build was able to make some money on it's own but now it's seemingly mandatory to build a bunch of Econ planets.

But the AI doesn't seem to?

My first game back I won versus 3 other AI's on a medium map, Drengin, Altaran, Human. The Drengin I rushed and killed fairly quickly but the Altarans had half of the Galaxy. In order to keep afloat I had to sell tech to the Humans like mad and later bully them for chunks of cash, to keep a smallish fleet with no defenders on any world lootin and scootin.
I even spent a large chunk of the game at 55% spending... The Altarans on the other hand had tons to play around with building defenders, constructors, and freighters with a fat treasury all of which I had to ignore.

However, every time I invaded one of their planets it was always factories and labs, a starport, and maybe one farm, one low entertainment, and sometimes an econ building.

Where is their money coming from? When I try making a "balanced" planet it operates at a loss. The only hint to what they might be doing came from the fact that they stayed at stinger IV missle level and seemed to get "pooped" after sending a few battle groups. At first I thought I was going to get creamed since they were strongest econ and military, especially after rushing several worlds and they were still at the top of the list. However, they failed to counterattack my fragile belligerent empire with decent force. This leads me to believe that they severly cut research and/or their spending slider with rampant lease buying, or is there some way to make money without specializing? I know there is trade but they still seemed to be doing well after I destroyed every trade route; they never spammed starbases (the humans did but they were completely enveloped).

This is a medium galaxy with only 43 planets and very few anomalies on normal level DL 1.4 BTW

On a personal note I'd rather have more balanced type autonomous worlds be viable since a planet full of stock markets seems...kinda goofy and (I hate to use the "I" word) breaks the immersion of galactic leader a bit.

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Hi!
You failed to mention some important things, that direcly affect the econ: game's difficulty level, and how you handled your pop and morale.

For AIs to have lots of money, they usually have some bonuses to make it: either high initiall econ ability, or high morale ability, and they also tax their pop very high. IIRC Altarians have both starting econ and morale bonuses.

And just to let you know: compard to Dark Avatar are Dreadlors a walk in the park regarding money production.

BR, Iztok

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In the next the last sentence I mention it as Normal difficulty level.

My morale stayed around 70% (average) default taxrate 33% or so. As high I got along entertainment was the Multimedia Center(I read in the wiki somewhere it doesn't pay to go higher than a few levels?)
And banks for econ buildings.

My Custom has +20 Econ, +30 Pop, +15 Loyalty, +6 Logistics (probably should clip that...) Industrialist Party

Most of by industrial Planets had 6 billion critters.

Econ/Reasearch worlds had 10 billion with one Xeno Farm

My Largest is 14 with a Xeno on a bonus square and also has the lowest morale 56% it makes 94 BC in profit per turn the size 10's can be 60-80 per turn.

The Altarians were able to maintain Manufacturing Centers before they surrendered somehow. Gaining that tech via invasion almost killed me since I had to turn off upgrades and there is no "old" button in DL.

Aren't all the building adjustments the same in Dark Avatar? Just different planet environs and asteroids, no?

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Hi!

My morale stayed around 70% (average) default taxrate 33% or so.

You should aim at 49% tax in the after-colonizing era, 59%-69% in the mid game, and 79% in the late game. That means you build/buy all the morale "wonders" you can get (those give ~50% bonus), and research the whole morale tree, while mainatinig 6B (planets below class 9, maybe even class 11) and 9-13B pop on other planets with avarage approval ~55% to not lose elections (or even "cheat" and decrease taxes just before elections happen).

My Custom has +20 Econ, +30 Pop, +15 Loyalty,

You should get rid of loyality. Nigh on useless. Get +30% econ and +10 morale.

My Largest is 14 with a Xeno on a bonus square and also has the lowest morale 56% it makes 94 BC in profit per turn

Very low revenue. Increase morale ability to increase taxes. Research whole econ branch and build Stock markets. In DL they really make difference.

Aren't all the building adjustments the same in Dark Avatar?

Nope. In DA they nerfed factories, morale buildings, tax revenue, stock markets...

BR, Iztok

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!

Had no idea you had to go that high. I must've thought loyalty was morale and made an error and will adjust that later.

Anyway, thanks.

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A couple notes. First off, never let your population get above 12b unless you've got many "happiness" bonuses (mining morale resources, race bonuses, tech that gives overall happiness boost, etc). The reason is that your tax only goes up by the square root of the population on a planet, but unhappiness goes up geometrically as the population gets bigger. Ten 12b planets can support a significantly higher tax level than 10 24b planets, often more than the 40% tax boost 24b yields over 12b. But more importantly, big population planets limit how high you can set your taxes to. Notice how they always have low happiness, while your new colony with 1b has a happiness in the 70-80% range? Keep your planets capped at 12b, and the happiness spread stays small, meaning you can set taxes as high as possible.

Another facet of the square root law is that the same population spread amongst more planets yields more taxes. 10 6billion planets yield approximately the same tax revenue as 6 15billion planets for the same tax rate, yet supports a higher tax rate. This is countered somewhat by the initial colony cost, the break-even point for a colony is around 1.5b with no economy bonuses.

This small, but vital detail is key to the economy in the game. You maximize your tax income by a) distributing your population evenly amongst your planets,

keeping your population per planet low (below 12b unless you've got lots of happiness bonuses), and c) having as many planets as possible.

The AI is probably doing so well because it's not building farms, thus its planets aren't overflowing with unhappy people who pay less per citizen than the smaller planets do.

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