How do I prevent total economic collapse?

1) Short answer is yes. You can have as many trade ships going to the same planet as long as their home planets are different. You may or may not earn as much from trade though.

2) and 3) Again the short anwser is yes but it is extremely difficult on such a small map. On higher-class (15 and higher give or take) planets, build more farms and get the population to 20b or higher. Then build economic buildings in all other squares. You will not be able to have military production (or very low production). I will often create totally economic planets on ALL planets that are class 20 or higher (40b people, 6 virtural reality centres and the rest stock markets.

3) Higher planets should be focused on economics unless it has production bonuses (then find a balance). Really focus on economy and moral early on but don't totally forget the military.

4) i find it is more profitable to have 1 trade route from 10 colonies as this will prevent a knockout blow early in any war. I once tried to have all my trade routes go from one planet but i found that the AI will just invade that planet and crash your economy.

I hope this helps. Any questions?

1) Yes. All of your trade routes must differ from each other either in terms of the source or destination planet. For example, you may have all your routes go to the same planet as long as each starts out from a different planet.

2) Yes. I only used trade in my first few games before I realized it was not worth it since my domestic economy can bring in much more income and it is not affected by wars. At game start don't waste money on buying colony ships but you might want to buy a few factories. Preserve your game start bankroll to fund your empire while you grow your economy. I set my taxes just low enough to keep morale at 100% so that my population grows at twice the rate plus there are production bonuses for morale > 80%. Research the morale techs to boost your morale, allowing you to raise taxes and keep morale high. Research the economic techs for the economic bonuses and build lots of stock markets. Grab every morale and economic research you can get your hands on and build them up for the maximum bonus.

3) Income is a function of your tax rate, your population level, and your economic bonuses. To increase your population you need to add farms but also entertainment centers to maintain morale but that decreases the number of stock markets you may build. In DL 1.2 I was able to build two farms and bring my population up to 25B per planet with only one virtual reality center (60% morale) and a stock market (30% economic and 10% morale bonus) plus the original colony of 5% for a total of 75% morale because I would control several built up morale resources; economic planets would be loaded with stock markets (late in my current DL v1.2 game I'm netting about 175000BC per turn with a population of 7 Trillion and 474 out of 475 planets). In later versions of DL and all versions of DA, the morale output of the entertainment centers was reduced and stock markers were reduced to 25% economic and 0% morale bonus). I've read that in DA one farm per planet is optimal because 2 stock markets will bring in more income than an addition farm and entertainment center (does not generate income but in needed to maintain morale with the larger population). Never place a farm on a 300% farm bonus title!

4) I don't bother with trade routes but their outputs are a function of the population of the planets and the length of the trade route with the length of the route being the dominant factor.

Ah, thank you both for the great help, I really appreciate it.

I've only had the game a couple weeks and I'm coming up to speed, but economics was one of my stumbling blocks.

A couple sub-questions:

5) How does tourism work and is it work focusing on, or will it just appear on its own as a kind of bonus? One game I played on a medium map, I was raking in all kinds of money from tourism, other games it really hasn't been a factor. I'm guessing it's tied to your influence vs others influence.

6) Do economic starbases stack? Could I have 4 very upgraded economic starbases overlap each other and have a planet get bonuses from all 4?

Thanks again!

As for trade, my experience is that the worth of trade routes depends on map size. A larger galaxy size, of course, increases the distance and therefore the value of the trade route. In my current Super Breeder AAR (gigantic map) my trade income is 1600bc/week due to a special even that doubled trade income, which is very nice. But even at the normal 800bc/turn that is quite a haul for the investment of only 8 or 9 trade routes. Some of that is due to alien’s trade routes with me, but not that much.

Mascrinthus, I’m not sure you’re correct on the trade routes. I routinely build all my freighters at my capital (or another planet with a good industrial potential and location with respect to the target planet) and send them out to different planets, general another races’ capital so it has the highest population and greater value. But I sometimes send multiple freighters from my capital to another capital and I haven’t noticed that the second and later trade route between the two worlds is void. I’ll be sure to check, though, and post here to verify. I sure hope I'm not wrong, otherwise I've been totally wasting resources.

There is also the alien race’s attitude to consider. Trade routes improve relations, and the AI tends to not want to jeopardize trade income for war (it is one of many variables). Trade routes are a way to mollify neighbors, if you are so inclined, and in this instance it ‘pays’ a relationship dividend.

Tourism income is proportional to your influence domination of the galaxy and I think the population (which also increases the influence production at a planet). So the more space you control the bigger your tourism income. I don’t know if it also factors in the magnitude of your influence or just the area you control, though. There probably is a formula out there, but if you’re shooting for tourism ‘freebee’ money then get a high influence rating, take minor race and major race capitals (which have a big influence bonus), build a few planet improvements that increase your influence at a planet, and grab influence resources. And watch the money roll in!

Yes, eco starbase bonuses to planets do stack. If you check your planet screen you can see the bonuses due to eco starbases. You can get much more than 4 SBs with a little work since you can place them in adjacent sectors (and up to 4 per sector). If your planet is in the right spot it isn’t hard to see getting 16 SBs (4 in each of 4 sectors) that give bonuses to a given planet. I try to get as many planets as I can under the influence of a given SB, and try to ensure that my manufacturing and research worlds get as many boosts as possible. Economy planets don’t benefit as much, though.

Hydro

Tourism income depends on both galactic population (and hence your own population), and the territorial extension of your influence. For each 1B pop in the galaxy, 1bc is generated for tourism; if your area of influence is say 50% of the galaxy's sectors, you get 50% of that money. Expanding your AoI to unowned sectors will get you access to "wasted" bc.

Hi!

I've never heard of that "rule", and game does not check for that either. When I chose a trading partner (an ally until the end) most my trade routes go from one of my planets to one of his, making as long route as possible, all between the same two planets.


I've also never seen that happen. A bonus was mentioned in some very old articles about game development, but AFAIK never realized in the game.

BR, Iztok

Dear Mascrinthus and HydroAC:

Please forgive the intrusion into your collective arguments about trade, but I even though I lack your experience, I have found great success trading. Earlier I discovered an extremely valuable lesson: I was playing on a gigantic map with rare everthing, at tough with random everything. With trade tech enabled I was deliberately creating a situation to test a SB theory when I serendipitously discovered that establishing a trade route between your economic capital and the economic capital of another civ generated some serious bonuses. My initial route was established with the Scottingas world at 74bc. Later I traded them the Xeno tech that allows you to build an economic capital after I built one on my world. once Scotty boy built his the route on my side jumped to ~150bc and his side jumped to ~300bc per turn. This was without eco SBs or pop growth being a factor. I recommend looking into this yourselfs. I was specifically looking for this so I'm not sure of the "real" causes but I WILL find out.   

Whoopps fat finger the last statement "I wasn't specifically looking for this ..."

Pray to the money gods.

As for trade, it depends on a lot whether it is worthwhile. It depends on map size. It depends on game length. It depends (somewhat) on the population sizes on planets. In a faster game, trade routes will not even earn you back the resources you spend to build the freighter. In a longer game, if you can protect your routes than they can pay off in the long run.

I do trade sometimes, but you need to be careful. I always try to be sure that 100% of the income I get from trade is surplus, so that if the entire universe declares war on me at once I can handle the money hit. The diplomacy effects shouldn't be underestimated though. There are pluses and minuses to trying to use trade, depending on your situation.

I just checked my game, and my trade is as follows:

• Weekly trade income: 1647bc
• Number of trade routes: 7
• Source of my trade routes: all originate at my capital system (capital or side planet)
• Destination of my trade routes: 3 to Altarian capital, 2 to Krynn capital, and 2 to two different Drath worlds
• All my trade routes go through 3 economic starbases, which have trade bonuses that range from 20% to 30% each. Getting these extra bonuses is key, so having one or a few origins for my trade routes so they go through economic starbases is important if you’re going to bother with trade. The only way I’ve been able to do this is to have planets in one system built the freighters, and generally since I build them early if at all this is my capital or capital system secondary planet (other planets have a poor manufacturing base early in the game). This can mean that I don’t build the freighters such that I get the longest route since the trade multipliers of the eco starbases may be much more lucrative than distance. Note that you can make a separate argument on whether eco starbases are a waste of money and time since if you add the cost of building all the constructors and having to defend them you may not come out ahead unless you have a longer game. In short, your eco starbases better cover a bunch of planets or don’t waste your time.
• There are about 5 or 6 Altarian trade routes, all of which go to my planets (or planets I’ve taken from the Yor). I don’t see any other trade routes on the Trade Minimap.

Slabster – let us know what you find out! I’ll keep an eye on it, too. If it is substantiated then it might make sense to pay close attention to when and where eco capitals are built!

Hydro

Totally incorrect. Every game I've ever played all my trade routes start from my capital planet. I never start them from any other planet of mine.
Why do I do this? Capital planet usually has the highest population, especially for at least the first half the game. Build plenty of markets and the economic capital early and you're rolling in money.

Also, I typically have several trade routes that also go to the same destination planet, usually a capital of another Civ. So out of 10 I might have 3 trade routes from my home planet to Toria.

No problems at all.

And it makes it even easier to really boost that trade income with trade modules on starbases since they will all go thru the same sectors.

As for economic collapse, here is what can happen when you are invading the AI:
1) Taxes and thus the money you make totally depend on your population. So what happens when you invade a fully developed world and you take it you might only have 1 billion or less pop but expenses over 100 per month. Multiply that by a few planets and your economy is trashed real quick.
So what can you do? Decommision anything on the conquered planet you don't need. That will lower maintenance. Bring in some transports or colony ships from your core with more people to place on the planet to boost the population.
One thing I will do when I have to pause in my invastions is not to leave fully loaded transports in space where they do no good. Take them to the newly aquired planets. This will boost the population right away and the pop will grow a lot quicker. Then when I'm ready to invade again, launch transport and now the pop will be double or triple what it would have been if I hadn't done that.

2) Industrial Sector can really cripple your income. The planets you invade may have industrial sector already, I'll slowly replace them with the next step down from that. I also avoid researching industrial sector if I can help it.

Couple things to look out for anyway.

Listen, I Red Raven Leader Of the Pharohs have a trick for you to use.

I use no trade routes and earn a fair amount, keep your taxs just above 50% approval that way your public become happy and start to... well you get the picture. your population will grow and will it does build market tile improvments to increace your income. hope this helps, keep in mind that i make trade with the minor races (they dont complain), it really helps if you have an alliance with a buyer.

One way to buy some time is to finish researching Xeno Ethics right as your treasury drops well below -500bc. Your treasury will reset to 0, regardless of which alignment you choose. Of course, if you choose Neutral, you will get even more immediate benefit in your morale.

A follow up on trading ... I find trade is a valuable weapon. In my current game I'm Alatrian, gigantic map, tight clusters, abundant planets, random everything else -random players, random intelligence, level set to beginner - I'm still a newbie and haven't actually played a full game, just sandbox senarios. I got Iconians, Terrans, Arceans, and someone to far away to ID who disappeared really quick. Had great difficultly developing because of the range between clusters. Started out and colonized 11 worlds and ran into Iconians everywhere ... they wiped everybody but the the Arceans and me. I've managed to stay alive because I got my civ bonus for diplomacy to 200%. Then when pirates appeared, the Iconians went into economic shortfall fighting them ... and I got 6 SB resources they lost when they scrapped them. I set my civ capital as my economy capital and established trade with the Iconians and the Arceans. I tried the Terrans, but they were too far to reach. Even with max life support I couldn't get near them. Seems there is a range cap that ships can't exceed no matter how much life support you have. My strategy at this point is SB influence because the Iconian military is astronomical in size and tech. Military is my only minus in relations(so they don't sqash me like a bug). I found their capital, it had an Omega Defense System and manufactering capital on it, so I built influence SBs and flipped it, only to find the Omega DS was a wasted tile - can't scrap it and it don't work since I have one already. I discovered that 19B pop worlds take forever to culturally dominate. I had the ratio on one up to ~88 before it flipped. Discovered that the Iconians were deliberately growing pop until morale caused their worlds to defect to the I-League for influence. Anyway, I found out that trade will cause the very large pop worlds tp flip way faster than normal. I build 4 influence SBs (with max influence) next to the worlds I want and establish all my trade routes to my chosen target and 10 to 20 turns becomes around 6. After pecking and scratching I finally got my military large enough to ally with the Iconians (got aroung 30 precursor rangers and didn't know what to do with them because my maintenance is taking too much budget. I didn't want to sell them for fear of having them used against me. I didn't want to scrap them, too valuable to waste. I finally decided to upgrade them with advanced troop modules for invasion and population redistribution. Today I munched the Ardvaridiands buy offering them all my tradable goods plus 250bc to declare war on the Iconians - my ally. I had 7 ranger transports fully loaded waiting at their planet. After they declared war I received the message to declare war on the Ardvaridiands and did it. Then I invaded and got their PQ26 world.  

On the subject of trades, a few thoughts.

Is the Trade ability worth it, when compared to the Economics ability? specially now, with trade being weaker.
Is the Trade Routes ability really useful, when compared to both Trade and Economics?
This all relates to the (excessive?) number of abilities, some of which are pretty much dispensable, and others are just occasionally useful. The bonuses don't seem too well balanced either, so some of them are never really a bad choice. Some of them are even hardly *racial* abilities, more related to hardware.

Wouldn't it be about time to make trade routes act logically? The longer the route the higher the income?! Where do they get this logic thinking? And since it isn't documented in the manual... A shorter route makes for more trips, hence more trading, hence more money. It's a simple concept. Also, the freighter's speed not mattering after the route is established... (sigh). The faster the freighter, the more trips in a given time frame, etc... Adding more engines should count for something.
With the smaller modules cheese, I think it'd be interesting to have hull size matter in the subject. The larger the hull, the more space for engines AND trade modules (each contributing for the amout of trading), increasing trade revenue.

Are Embassies and CECs really useful for anything? Except for massive building when you're trying to flip a close-by planet, and then being decomissioned for something really useful. How about making them a pre-requisite in the planets you're setting up a trade route from? Kinda makes sense.

Dear (Citizen)ToS Iceman:

Are Embassies and CECs really useful for anything?

I only use them on my political capital world, which also has 4 influence SBs. It only is worth it if your not the largest empire in the galaxy. Otherwise you get creamed by the UP proposals the AI crams down your throat. Trade is only marginally useful for income, whereas its often crucial for flipping worlds, and good diplomatic relations with stronger AI empires. I've noticed that trade favors the recipient monetarily in an equal setting, but gives the initiator more influence.

Well, the political capital's influence bonus is the same as a CEC's - it's the morale bonus that's very interesting. Unless you go overboard on building these things (and they do have maintenance, though low), the effects will not be really noticeable I think. Changing your odds at the UP, hmmm.
Looking at the capitals and their costs, I wonder how balanced they are. The PolCap at 150bc gives you 50%Mor 25%Inf; the EcoCap at 200 and 50%Eco; the ManCap at 350 and 33%Ind (bonus decreased but cost remained the same?!) 10%Eco; TecCap at 400 and 100%Res.

Back to tourism, isn't it odd that you get tourism income when you haven't contacted any other race in the game yet?    It shouldn't really be called tourism, but something to the effect of structural funds from the UP to the various civs that are part of it. Actually this is part of a major conceptual flaw in the game - the UP. Does it exist when you start a game? It is part of the UI, and you have a "leave UP" button. But there's no one there but you. And you don't know where the homeworlds of the other civs are - you can know the general location though. And where is the seat of the UP? Once you get into contact with another civ, it automatically enters the UP. But not the others, including those that are in contact with that other civ. The background story says the UP already exists, but that's not really relevant to gameplay. But if it does exist, why do you have to research Universal Translator? How can you have joined the UP without it?
The UT is another source of inconsistencies in the game. You should need it for diplomacy, trade, espionage, a bunch of things. But it's not like you cannot do them if you go an entire game without researching UT. If there are unnecessary techs in the game, this one is surely one of them. In the sense that it shold be a given, and creates more confusion and inconsistent behaviour than any real flavor.

I'm certainly not the expert on trade since I only played games with trade in late 2005 and early 2006 as a beta tester. I quickly came to the conclusion it was better to build up my domestic economy instead so my income was not significantly affected by wars (I still lose the trade routes setup by the AI), as I pick off the AIs one by one.

One way to buy some time is to finish researching Xeno Ethics right as your treasury drops well below -500bc. Your treasury will reset to 0, regardless of which alignment you choose. Of course, if you choose Neutral, you will get even more immediate benefit in your morale.

Suppose, via saving and reloading a metaverse game, you're able to identify a +25% tech anomaly and reserve it for later. Then, when you're 75% done researching Xeno Ethics, you can send your treasury below -10k rushbuying something huge (Orbital Terraformer... as if Evil wasn't strong enough already? Some dominating ship?) and harvest the anomaly to immediately get your treasury reset to zero?

(Yeah, saving and reloading is cheese in almost any context, but at least it's mostly "balanced" by the time requirement. The exploit described above doesn't take much time to set up, though... if necessary, you can prevent an AI from harvesting the anomaly by surrounding it with tiny ships you want to be building anyway for military rating, right?...)

Bottom line is, I don't see any reason for the treasury reset to occur. Taking it out seems like a good idea.

Yes, you can do that, and I mentioned this before, but I consider it an exploit. I have no shame in exploiting it on Suicidal, though--the AI is cheating already, exploiting is just part of what evens the odds.

You DON'T necessarily have to save and reload, though. The 25% anomalies have a distinctive look to them, and they're called "Civilization graveyards" when you hover your mouse over them. What could happen is you could explore it and you get an "it's a total waste of time anomaly", and then you're screwed. Then you might want to save and reload.

Here's a trade update to those interested. In my current game I have just discovered an interesting phenomenon with trade. I have 23 worlds and my average trade income is almost 2k bc per week. I have numerous economy starbases in my ally's territories that are placed on intersecting trade routes (my total sb number is slightly above 115). I experienced a random event called a "bull" market while I was slowly being dragged into oblivion by the Iconians who mandated everyone go to the default no economic bonus wtf imperial government. Suddendly my trade income shot over 7k per week until the market ended (about 5 or 6 weeks)! I checked my trade routes and some doubled but some were barely affected. Anyway the increase didn't account for the huge income - It was reported in taxes and tourism. Tourism doubled to ~500 bc per week - not significant. Taxes shot up astronomically! However, looking at my worlds on the civ manager their income only went up less than half !!!??? So where did the extra income come from? I suspect starbase taxes, although I am not certain. How is starbase trade income reported? Especially those I have in foreign sectors to reap free trade?