Having a large positive cash flow

[panpiper]

I know all most of us can do right now is watch streams or YouTube videos of other people playing, but has anyone yet got a firm handle on a strategy for maintaining a decently large positive cash flow in the game? I have yet to divine a pattern other than floundering in the hope things work out. The biggest early hurdle is pirates. Is it actually feasible to fight them off when they first show up? Are we forced to pay extortion to a half dozen pirate clans right from the get-go?

[jorgen_cab]

It should not be too difficult to keep a positive cash flow if you take care of your expenses.

The important expenses are ship, troop and base maintenance. Then of course there is pirate tribute.

What is left over is what you can invest into colony growth and research.

Bonus income can not be used to cover colony growth and research. So you can have a total positive income and still not able to fund your colony growth and research.

If you don't pay the pirates they will mainly interfere with your civilian economy and you spare your own taxes... this I believe that you can get away with ignoring the pirates for loosing potentially more money but able to fund colony growth and research instead. In the end that should help you long term with building a better fleet to get rid of the pirates.

There also is some tricks with mining station of beefing up their crew size so they are harder to board... should help to fight off early pirates more often than not.

You also could pay the pirates and gift them technologies so they become friendly, thereby signing a non aggression pact with them. You have access to your diplomacy techs that will give you a fair amount of positive relations, technology that is not that dangerous to give away.

I have not seen any streamer really trying any of these strategies but I'm sure they will work. I also think people in general build way more military ships than what they actually need, this will strain your economy. Also... don't send out fleets larger than you need as fuel is not free, you have to pay for it. Sending out too many ships also means you can't react to a developing situation. You also can scrap ships in between conflicts.
Use your money to fund colony growth and research and make sure you can crash research as much as possible instead of paying for expensive military ships in peace time.

At the end of the day it is your economy that win you wars. not military ships in and of themselves.

[ERutins]

I'll add some suggestions for when you have the game.

1. Don't over-expand as new colonies require a lot of support. Very large colonies will also start to require support and past about 50% of maximum population, diminishing returns start to kick in on the revenue for that colony.

2. Sustainable expansion with a good transport network and tech to build up the new colonies quickly is important so that they aren't a drain on your economy for as long a time. Measured expansion allows your populations to migrate to new colonies limiting the diminishing returns on your most developed worlds without overloading you with support costs.

3. Don't ignore the planetary administration facilities, which are your best way to extend government control (and thus reduce corruption) on all your worlds.

4. Do get as many trade treaties as you can.

5. Do take the other advancements to logistics for troops, command centers and command facilities for your military which will help reduce maintenance in both cases.

6. Do look down the tech tree at some economic facilities as well and don't ignore tech like more energy-efficient weapons, engines, reactors or hyperdrives, or increases in mining rate or docking rate.

7. Do not overlook the colonization and terraforming techs. Colonization techs that increase suitability on your existing planets can provide a very nice economic boost as well as making new colonies more viable. Terraforming facilities are extremely expensive but can permanently increase the quality of any planet. You can build them, improve the planet, then dismantle them when you are done (or keep them if you can afford it to potentially upgrade to a better terraforming facility in the future).

All of these will help you build a strong baseline economy without having to rely on bonus income. Having a positive cashflow in your baseline economy in DW2 is quite important for funding Research and Colony Growth fully and thus maximizing the progression of your empire.

Regards,

- Erik