I just can't get the economy going

[Charlemagne]

I know everything you are supposed to do and I'm doing it. Economy bases. Economy buildings. trade routes. Entrepreneurs. I'm in the second era and my economy is still around -50. I keep it going by fishing anomalies (but they are about to run out) and by sending out countless treasure hunts, but I would really like to see it flourish by itself.
What could I be doing wrong? Building too many buildings on planets? Expanding too fast? But if I don't the enemy will grab the planets and resources. I don't make many ships, in fact I only have some 'tiny' ship squadrons (0 maintenance) and a few 'small'. I do have some mercs but those are also supposed to be 0 maintenance. Fortunately I have no war, for now. I don't see how I could sustain one if it happens.
BTW how do trade routes work? Before having any, it said I had 3/3. I built 3 freighters and sent them to trade. Later on, with still those 3 routes it says I have 7/10? Does this count AI routes sent to my planets? Will the AI freighters take up a "line" from my limit?
Also if I build too many freighters eventually it says, you have reached your limit. But how is it that the AI has dozens and dozens of freighters flying all over, almost from the start of the game?

[Jack_Spade]

I've never worried about the economy. Anomalies are sufficient to maintain the treasury and there aren't a lot of consequences for being in the red.

[i.mopman]

Other races will establish trade routes with you raising the total but you get much more income from the trade routes you set up. The trade routes you can establish are tallied to the total but their cap is separate.

Hard to be certain about why you are having issues without seeing your setup but I can ask some questions.
What is your tax rate settings usually and do you build structures to improve moral so you can raise taxes or make sure you are not over the colony limit cap for the same reason ?
Do you have markets on each of your colonies ?
Are you grouping financial buildings together so they get neighbor bonuses and building them on or next to wealth bonus tiles/resources.
Have you thought of choosing to use a customized race and selecting the bonuses for wealth?
Are your trade routes optimized ( your more productive colonies and farther away ( distance = profit )
Are you selling extra resources you will never need at the market?

Just some things off the top of my head.

[Charlemagne]

I never have touched the taxes, this could be something as my approval in most planets is 100% I think I could afford it.
Also have never really tried to sell stuff, thought I might need it and also I mostly only trade when they ask. I will experiment here.

[i.mopman]

Originally posted by Charlemagne:

I never have touched the taxes, this could be something as my approval in most planets is 100% I think I could afford it.
Also have never really tried to sell stuff, thought I might need it and also I mostly only trade when they ask. I will experiment here.

Raising your tax rate will certainly help .

When I say sell to the market I mean the market button on the top of the screen ( only available with certain Government types ) selling to other players will usually not be worth it unless you get very lucky.

[Charlemagne]

Originally posted by i.mopman:

Originally posted by Charlemagne:

I never have touched the taxes, this could be something as my approval in most planets is 100% I think I could afford it.
Also have never really tried to sell stuff, thought I might need it and also I mostly only trade when they ask. I will experiment here.

Raising your tax rate will certainly help .

When I say sell to the market I mean the market button on the top of the screen ( only available with certain Government types ) selling to other players will usually not be worth it unless you get very lucky.

Well thanks, didn't even know about this market button. Yeah just tried selling them some surplus thulium, promethion and antimatter and they only offer about 50 cents for a good quantity of each.

[i.mopman]

Glad I could be of some assistance.

[private1028]

You need a strategy to build an economy. I use economic star bases and cultural star bases for income. It depends on what kind of tiles your world has. If you have a tile with a tourism bonus, for example, it could be beneficial to combine economy with culture star bases. Until you research Pragmatic free maintenance for star bases, it's a diminishing return on investment. Mostly economy is about counting your debits and credits. It takes research to sit down and figure out how to get the most money for the least population. Trade routes don't gain in real value until towards the end of your game, because the income generated depends on how developed the other economy is. Most of your money ends up coming from your population. You can train citizens to increase that.

[Overloadedcasu]

Tourism is the way.

[jonnin]

one other thing is to watch costs. buildings on planets cost money, so spamming buildings puts you in debt quickly. Instead of building more on top when you are not making much per turn, try running the economic task and wait to build more. You have to have some stuff but a lot of it can wait until you have tourist income or something.
robot race can run 100% tax if you want to experiment with an easier faction.

[private1028]

Originally posted by Overloadedcasu:

Tourism is the way.

Tourism works really well when I have planetary tiles with tourism bonuses. If I build a galactic wonder like Restaurant of Eternity on one of those then I put my best tourism improvements around it and place economic and cultural star bases around it. The nice attribute that comes with Restaurant of Eternity is that I get tourism income for every tile I have influence over so then I load the world with mercenary ships that increase influence. It also helps to research the benevolent ideology tree since it adds high approval and high influence to all your worlds. The pragmatic ideology tree is more useful in mature games but really I think all 3 are eventually required in my very long games. 2 teams of 2 civs with a lot of 2 AI random civ teams in an insane map with tight clusters makes a very interesting play through (about 1000 turns on godlike) until the next update wipes out my save. That's the only thing that kills my fun ... a necessary evil, but an evil all the same. This selection forces everyone in the game to always build navigational star bases so they can send scouts to nearby clusters. Some AI civs will just sit there and do nothing because expansion isn't one of their high priorities and some are very active. Then minor civs become valuable trade partners. For a real Star Trek experience I need about 16 fully developed AI civs to play with. Using this strategy I eventually developed a huge hull constructor with 10 build points to support my mid-game colony rush.

I suppose someone should mention to Charlemagne that selecting your map build will also impact the income you can generate. Selecting abundant attributes for resources, anomalies, asteroids or habitable worlds makes a difference.

As a side note I think the game needs a little more realism - like solar flare mega events that can wipe out nearby planets as the red dwarf expands and swallows them, or supernovas that clear out entire sections of the map (maybe 1 to 3 hundred hexes). Pulsar discovery should be required to allow long range navigation - limiting colony rush. Magnetar stars that generate massive magnetic energy for industries on nearby planets (increasing raw production by an exponent from 2 min to 3 max). A star system with a magnetar In the real world is an incredible amount of power emitting energy equal to 2 to 3 solar masses. Our actual GPS systems relies on quasars to perform hyperbolic navigation - (star bases should be an essential requirement for navigation). Since quasars and Blazars only exist outside the galaxy at very long distances they are really not suitable for game play but pulsars exist in the Milky Way so they should be part of every game. Quasars (and/or Blazars) could be a mega event that allows all civs to navigate without pulsars. Supernovas are very destructive but they would expand slowly in game turns because the matter they eject travels below light speed. The way the game treats resources is not very balanced either. All uninhabitable planets are really minable resources and should support mines - not just asteroids - as well as produce 2 - 6 more game resources. Unihabitable planets would then produce raw resources as well as durantium, antimatter, thulium, promethion, etc. making them more valuable than asteroids. There should also be planetary and star base improvements that increase energy collected from stars. economic and culture star bases should each be a population 1 city in space and some of the improvements civs build for them should be food. Military star bases should hold legions.

GalCiv3 has lots of room for improvement.