Newbie: Money

What kind of build lists - half of the social projects available for building, or half of the social projects you carefully selected to queue up in the governor?

Aside from that, aggressively research trade goods (Diplomatic translators, aphrodisiacs, tri-strontium armor, frictionless clothing, gravitic accelerators in the early game) and sell the aphrodisiacs and frictionless clothing to other empires for 100 BC payments over multiple months, sell everything but the translators to the minor races, and you'll be set for some time. That should keep you going well into the mid-game, by which time you'll have extremely profitable trade routes (you're looking at several hundre BC/turn from trade, if not more) and more trade goods (regenerators, pain whatevers, micro repair bots, etc) which you can again sell mainly to minor civs.

Also, trade techs for cash - the AI races tend to rush up the military tech trees (Defense and Weapons), which means you can usually sell them good medical, manufacturing, diplomatic (trade only), and propulsion techs (be careful about that last).

You want to make sure all the other races have access to trade because they will generally trade with you (especially if you trade with them).

You do need techs to increase your maximum number of trade routes, yes.

~SDC~

#1 by Citizen Phaedyme - 4/19/2003 11:21:59 AM

What kind of build lists - half of the social projects available for building, or half of the social projects you carefully selected to queue up in the governor?

Response:
Halfway thru the available build lists. My production
is not horrible, but not great.

That's probably a big part of your problem. When you next load up your game, select one of your older planets, and click on the "Details" button in the lower left of the screen. You'll get another screen that shows you which projects you've built (among other things). The projects will have numbers in parentheses. Those numbers are the BC/turn you have to spend for maintenance. If you're just building everything you can, you're killing your empire in maintenance costs.

You can see the total maintenance you're paying via the Domestic/Economic screen in the upper right, under "Expenses".

~SDC~

Ok, so then do I destroy/sell outdated buildings when better versions come along? And is there a listing somewhere showing the chain of upgrades from say a bank to a stock exchange?

Well, you shouldn't destroy banks because they boost your economy by 20% on that world and cost no maintenance. Its benefits stack with those from a stock market (25%) for a total of 45% with a total maintenance cost of 1 - in other words, you'll more than break even from them. The Planetary stock exchange (economic exchange) adds another +33% economy, without any maintenance cost.

The problem with the situation you're in is that you likely built several morale enhancements that also cost a lot of maintenance. If you destroy them, your morale will drop, which increases chances of rebellion or defection. You *can* do it, but you should do so carefully. I mention this because it seems like morale enhancers cost more to maintain than other improvements.

What helps from the early game onward, is to look in your planetary social build queues and see what improvements cost maintenance and how much, and then put the stuff with no (and a few with low, if you really need them) maintenance costs, and you can add specific expensive improvements to planets that need them.



~SDC~

Skaella,

Phaedyme gaives excellent advice here. My recommendations (if you want further ideas):

1) I do a simple cost benefit analysis ... For any building above 1gc maintenance, I seek a bonus which, at 50% spending and 33/34/33 sliders, will yield a +1 production point (PP) increase in its respective category, or which adds at least +10% to my overall Imperial abilities on the Domestic Stats screen, per GC I am spending. (IE, for a 3gc per turn building, I want a 3pp or +30%[!] stat increase.) This gives me a good rule of thumb to follow as to whether I should build something on a given planet.

2) Since bonuses stack, even a 5% bonus can yield the benefit I am looking for, mid-game and later. However, early-game PP's are frequently too low for these to be of use. So as a general rule, I hold off on these structures until then. Should they already be built (conquered planets, etc.), I use my cost-analysis to decide whether to keep them or not.

3) Build SB's in your sector, even if there are no resources to harvest. Many SB modules give production bonuses, which apply to all planets in their sector. These modules have no upkeep, and only cost one constructor each to build. They are far-more cost-effective than nearly any social improvement you can build. In fact, you can build multiple SB's per sector and get +200% production, etc. on all your planets in the region, selectively building only those modules on each one. (Consequently, there is a huge volume of postings regarding SB's potential unbalancing nature. Brad is looking at changing this in a future revision.)

4) There is no listing per se of upgrade chains, but there are two database resources on the tech tree, both of which show the progression and effect of buildings: Javascout's DB 1.01.029, and a downloadable .gif image of the tree available from one of the links posted by its creator on this board.

~SDC~