Managing economy in lategame

When the planets start to fall

from GalCiv2 Forums
I just cleaned the floors with 4 "Bright" level comps and I was wondering. I got pretty neat start getting 3 goodish planets and one lvl 6 (had to use that last colony ship on something). So there's questions some in there but it's also a sort of "Game report". The question is really in the last sentence...

I set up neat economy and everything is running well.

My ships are mostly crap, total crap to be exact, 2-0-0, 0-0-0 small defenders but enough to keep the enemies off my back. I pressure heavily on technology, getting up my economy, research and stuff, while keeping my opponents away by doing heavy trading and occasionally paying some tribute, selling some tech to minor races (well all of it) and pumping up those ships that keep getting better but don't have engines and are practically useless in any "real-time" combat.

So I gain influence and my tech rates are going to heavens. I have a stable income, everything running at 100% UNTIL I start taking over planets. Now I like to hit my opponents where it hurts, so I look up the strongest military might - the Korx. I figure that decapitating them will be the best way to handle the raising beast (who also is the only one feeling hostile at the moment). Korx was keeping other races on their knees. So I amass a few ships, armed with ray weapons, yet no armor, and a few transports. Within few turns of finishing planet invasion tech, I have researched space marines etc and am ready to invade.

Now I move my sloooooow fleet, next to the main planet of the Korx, which happened to be in a very neat place located near me. Now I manage to conquer it, even after losing quite many ships. But then all hell breaks loose! I am now making more production and research and my economy starts to collapse. I still manage to keep it up.

Basically this happens to me very often, the more planets I conquer, the more my eco seems to drop. It might be partly because of the constantly increasing shipcount as well. I had lots of reserves at this point though since there was a tax rate boom that made my income go wild for a while. Basically, I managed to totally cripple the Korx, then bought a piece for 2000 BC. Doing lots of business with the Terran alliance, allowed the Muhwelon race to finally ally them, as well as the Altarians. Ironically enough, there was a war going on between the Altarians and Terran, so while I supplied some stuff to Altarians to keep them happy and stuff. Terrans didn't mind obviously and Altarians finally surrendered their last remaining world to me. Same was soon to follow by the insectoid race that didn't have that nice of a start.

But while doing all this, a quiet race raised from the corner and actually had my fleets outnumbered, my economy was collapsing fast now. So after finishing my new Flag ship, the Phoenix Fire, armed with a bunch of nano rippers and enough shields and armor to fend of black hole gun, I flew with it and took off planetary defences everywhere and sniped off smaller fleets. They also had a problem with the Terran Alliance and soon it was over for them. I gave Korx bunch of good and they agreed to form an alliance - Yay, diplomatic victory.

In short: How do you manage lategame economy when you start getting planets that aren't balanced for your needs?
economics
34,996 views 13 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Try demolishing stuff on them that you don't need. Embassys are the first thing I usually kill. Oh and not every planet needs a starport or defenses.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
My theory would be that after a war you need to do what nations do in real life. Rebuild. Remake their planets to suit YOUR not the needs they were suiting your opponent. It might be tempting to just blitz off opponent after opponent, but its a sure fire way for your Empire to rot from the core.
Ashes of the Singularity II
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
By the way.. I disagree about not every planet not needing a star port. If the planet is higher than a 4 then it gets a starport and a factory. You never know when you could use an extra rushed ship in case the unexpected happens, plus the 1 BC for maitenence is not that much of a killer.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I suffered the same problem. I was leaving the planets I conquered as is. Some had like 9 factories on them. Had to learn to prune and rebuild the planet to balance them.
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The main way to manage your economy is to have several high-PQ economy-dedicated planets. They should have nothing but farms, entertainment centers, and stock markets.
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
One problem is that your killing of taxpayers thus decreasing the amount of money you get per turn and your taking on a planet that has a highish maintanence cost. So if you take it a bit slower and let that planets you conquer recover in the middle of the war then you should be fine. On the other hand you could just blitz all their stuff and start out with a huge deficit but come out in a better position faster.
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I usually station a fighter garrison, and convert the newly conquered world to farm/econ world bringing in cash to support the fleet. Unless the planet is fully developed capital or something then I just use it as my brand new staging area.
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Oh give me a break - you know the solution to this problem. DECOMMISION enough stuff on your conquered planets to make them LOW spending planets. WHen the population rises to the point where they are bringing in the $$$, build more stuff.

MG
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Where exactly is your spending going when your economy falls out?
Like one poster said, building transports takes away from your taxable population. Newly conquered planets have an initial maintenance of 12bc, but only have whatever population survived the invasion to provide taxes. You could ferry some population from a planet at it's population cap over to newly conquered planets to help increase population growth.
Using the focus option on new planets can help reduce how much that planet is spending. Focusing on military when no ship is being built will help reduce spending/increase income further.
Instead of decomissioning, upgrading those improvements will reduce the cost/time of the new improvements.
Not every planet should get a starport. It's not the 1 bc that's the problem, but rather it takes up a tile that could be better suited to something else. If you need a starport for some desperate situation, buying one is a measly 150bc. It's more effective for one/few planets to produce ships faster than many planets building ships slowly.
You don't need ships guarding every planet you own. Have a small force scouting for incoming transports, and take care of them before they get a chance to do any damage.
If worst comes to worst, you can destroy the colony entirely. If you are just trying to hurt your enemy, this takes away one of his planets without upsetting your balance. There is no need to spend resources on defending or improving a new weak planet, only to lose it right back to the enemy. You could even leave a small strike force to attack any colony ships that try to recolonize it, and laugh as your enemy's population and resources get blown into tiny pieces of scrap. This isn't always a good option; However, if you use harm invasion techniques that severely damage the planet's quality, then junking a wasted planet could be a choice.
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Instead of decommisioning things, Upgrade them to Banks. The AI is bound to have gone on a heavy focus on that planet - a focus that doesnt fit in your economy - so make it fit!

War should be expensive... it's about the only thing that stops it happening more often. Make sure you have plenty of surplus before starting a conquest oriented war.

What probably happened in your game was that you picked up a second, maybe even a third manufacturing capital..... this will eat into your income very quickly.

Managing late game economy is not an issue for me..... not long after the initial game I have a rock solid income. On a recent gigantic map game, I had nearly 9000bc per turn coming in thanks to a focus on setting up High PQ economy planets. I let my treasury build up, then rush bought everything on every planet (about 15 planets) then turned social spending off and my research went through the roof....... my ships are basically Dreadlords now and all the races have suddenly gone to peace with each other (I wonder if they know what's coming?)
Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I believe in striking the enemy where they are weak, not strong... so under my philosophy another way to prevent economic hemmoraging from massive military production is to sweep up the weak ones instead or to bribe the 1st & 2nd place guys into a war with each other, and then sweep in for the kill.

I did this with the Yor and the Drengin. Both were way more powerful than I was, so I gave the Drengin Terraforming if they'd attack the Yor. By the time they were done fighting, I simply swept through with about 4 16pt (more technologically advanced) fleets. (Gigantic map, 9 opponents, Painful difficulty.)

Also, invest in trade routes with friendlies (ie people on the other side of the map who you won't be hitting until the end). If your trade routes come out of 2-3 main planets, lace those trade routes with trading posts to reel in the cash. Upwards of 600 bc/turn.

I also tend to build hordes and hordes of constructors during peacetime so that I can quickly takeover any open resources (especially the economic ones) or build bases in a pinch. This is instead of building warships beyond the initial 1 or 2-ship garrison that I adhere to. Pop a couple of warp drives on your constructors and they can zip across the map and really boost your economy.
Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
By the way.. I disagree about not every planet not needing a star port. If the planet is higher than a 4 then it gets a starport and a factory. You never know when you could use an extra rushed ship in case the unexpected happens, plus the 1 BC for maitenence is not that much of a killer



Its not just the 1bc weekly maintenance cost of the starport its also the military production which your factory pumps out, whether its 8 or more, costing an additional 8bc a week when constructing a ship that wont be ready for 10's of weeks for the must rubbish of designs. As for rushing ships, unless your vastly unprepared you wont need to rush more than a few ships per turn anyway. And every good empire has atleast 2 major dedicated manufacturing planets (and i mean really pumping out the military production). Therefore a starport is just a wasted tile, times that by 10 planets and your wasting a quality 10 planet all in itself.
Reply #13 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Your economy is going own because you are spending more. You are spending more because you have more factories producing things which is costing you more.

As people have said you can decomission stuff. Especially after you have conquered.

Lets say that before you conquered you had 60 units of construction going on. Then the planet you conquered was a really good one and it had 30 on it. Then you have increased your manufacturing by 50%, which is going to cost you as much more.

If you were to turn your spending down, then you won't be any worse off than before. 60 units at 100% is the same as 90 units at 66%. The only difference now is that your previous planets are producing slower so that your newly conquered planet can produce some. Which you can fix by decomissioning.

A had a game where I started off with a planet that had a 700% manufacturing bonus and 300% manugfacturing bonus on the same planet. I gave that planet heaps of manufacturing buildings, and the manufacturing capital thingy. Unfortunately in the first 20 or so turns it was producing so fast that I couldn't afford it. I had to decomission the factories on the bonus tiles just so I could keep up. I couldn't just turn down the slider because although it would effectively turn off some of the bulidings, it means that my smaller colonies where also running at half speed, which I didn't want.

But once I had colonised some other planets and had enough population to pay the taxes, I rebuilt the factoreis and had a fast production line from the planet.

It's a different type of management to what we are used to (I usually don't demolish buildings on one planet so that I can build quickly on another), but I guess if it wasn't different then it would be the same. And who wants that?