Some Thoughts
from 
Stardock Forums
Stardock Forums
I've got about 10 games under my belt at this point, and I wanted to share some thoughts and see what other people were experiencing. Generally, I'm enjoying the game, but there are some aspects that, IMHO at least, could use some work.
Specifically:
1) Late game economy. If you let the game run long enough and don't tech whore, it becomes literally impossible to pay for your own planetary improvements, at *any* tax rate. Max pop, max improvements planets can't pay for their own improvment maintenance at the very end of the game in my experience. It seems to me there needs to be about a 50% across the board increase in planetary revenue. Note that the problem is *especially* pronounced in a late game with only one other empire with which to trade.
2) Tech whoring pays off *way*, *way*, too well. If I don't tech whore, I run a deficit with 0% spending by the late game. With an aggressive "sell every tech all the time" strategy, I'm consistently running at 0% tax, 100% spending and making a profit. The AI, which evidently has a money cheat, will happily pay me hundreds of BC/turn for 50 turns for a batch of tech. Postage stamp sized AI civs somehow manage to pay me more in tribute, per turn, than my entire, far larger, empire makes *total*. Tech whoring makes the game trivially easy, so I'm inclined to want to avoid it out of a house rule, but w/o tech whoring or some other form of AI money abuse you simply can't fund your empire (see above).
3) Starbase Stacking -- Yes, they stack. Net result is if I find a nice sector with 3 or so inhabitable worlds, I'll put up a half dozen or so starbases, thereby about quadrulpling their production. This is problematic on the one hand because of the balance issue. Can you say one turn everything including monuments? On the other hand though, its utterly no fun. The tedium factor involved in vectoring hundreds of constructors around is high, although the gameplay payoff is almost irresistable.
The net result, from where I sit, is of an excellent game crippled by a late game economy problem. The economy problem is manageable through two obvious abuses (tech whoring or base stacking), both of which, unfortunately, take a lot of the fun out of the game.
I just want a game where I can actually make a profit off my economy and not *have* to tech whore or base stack.
Specifically:
1) Late game economy. If you let the game run long enough and don't tech whore, it becomes literally impossible to pay for your own planetary improvements, at *any* tax rate. Max pop, max improvements planets can't pay for their own improvment maintenance at the very end of the game in my experience. It seems to me there needs to be about a 50% across the board increase in planetary revenue. Note that the problem is *especially* pronounced in a late game with only one other empire with which to trade.
2) Tech whoring pays off *way*, *way*, too well. If I don't tech whore, I run a deficit with 0% spending by the late game. With an aggressive "sell every tech all the time" strategy, I'm consistently running at 0% tax, 100% spending and making a profit. The AI, which evidently has a money cheat, will happily pay me hundreds of BC/turn for 50 turns for a batch of tech. Postage stamp sized AI civs somehow manage to pay me more in tribute, per turn, than my entire, far larger, empire makes *total*. Tech whoring makes the game trivially easy, so I'm inclined to want to avoid it out of a house rule, but w/o tech whoring or some other form of AI money abuse you simply can't fund your empire (see above).
3) Starbase Stacking -- Yes, they stack. Net result is if I find a nice sector with 3 or so inhabitable worlds, I'll put up a half dozen or so starbases, thereby about quadrulpling their production. This is problematic on the one hand because of the balance issue. Can you say one turn everything including monuments? On the other hand though, its utterly no fun. The tedium factor involved in vectoring hundreds of constructors around is high, although the gameplay payoff is almost irresistable.
The net result, from where I sit, is of an excellent game crippled by a late game economy problem. The economy problem is manageable through two obvious abuses (tech whoring or base stacking), both of which, unfortunately, take a lot of the fun out of the game.
I just want a game where I can actually make a profit off my economy and not *have* to tech whore or base stack.
It also allowed me to pay the Yor and Dreggin protection money (a big mistake in the long run) without going bankrupt. At my high point I had 30k sitting in my trearury.