What is the go with bouncing ENERGY CREDS?

[annaliseh]

What Really Tees me off about this game is the energy credits!!!!

Everytime I start a new game I can build up my energy credits income to +121 per month. After I reach this point, the game just goes downhill.

Do what I may, I just can't seem to get the level to stay in the positive!!! One moment I'm got +65 coming in then in no time I have a deficit of -100. No apparent reason!!!

very very

[The_Dead_Artist]

Your fleets cost ALOT to maintain. Everytime your fleet leaves a spaceport your energy credits will plummet. Couple that with lower energy income during war because of happiness penalties and you can go bankrupt real quick. Before later game wars make sure you prepare by stockpiling energy, and offset the loss by getting energy per month trade deals with friendly AI and activating edicts that increase energy production.

[Tempest Fox3]

Do you have a big military fleet? The moment your fleet leaves your fleet upkeep goes up and drains your energy credits.

[Yow!]

Spaceport with fleet logistics + engineering makes the credit bounce even funnier.

I actually like the system, i just think it needs some tweaks, specially in the mineral department, but then i usually play very diplomatically, at most as a democratic crusader style, which generally provides me with good trade partners, to exchange my surplus minerals with energy credits when im at war.

[Helican]

I have that problem sometime too.
I'm at peace, every fleet is in an orbit, no uprisings, no new colonies, everything is fine.
Then suddenly I get a huge deficit in energy, but every pop still has the same energy output. (checked that via a savegame)
After a few years everything goes back to normal.

[tiberiansun371alexw]

Originally posted by thiagovdandrade:

Spaceport with fleet logistics + engineering makes the credit bounce even funnier.

I actually like the system, i just think it needs some tweaks, specially in the mineral department, but then i usually play very diplomatically, at most as a democratic crusader style, which generally provides me with good trade partners, to exchange my surplus minerals with energy credits when im at war.

Uggghhh, so the devs deliberatly made a democratic crusaderstype easier to play than other combat styles? Dev favrotitism

Anyways, the REAL problem is th eenery cap. You can't bank enough for the deficit years...

[Helican]

Originally posted by tiberiansun371alexw:

Originally posted by thiagovdandrade:

Spaceport with fleet logistics + engineering makes the credit bounce even funnier.

I actually like the system, i just think it needs some tweaks, specially in the mineral department, but then i usually play very diplomatically, at most as a democratic crusader style, which generally provides me with good trade partners, to exchange my surplus minerals with energy credits when im at war.

Uggghhh, so the devs deliberatly made a democratic crusaderstype easier to play than other combat styles? Dev favrotitism

Anyways, the REAL problem is th eenery cap. You can't bank enough for the deficit years...

There is no easiest way to play.

[Anelyn]

You need to specialize all core planets in energy producers, and a decent sector assigned to energy as well.

In my current game, I have 4 core planets (3/5 since capital world does not matter towards cap) all producing just enough food to be even at max population, rest energy and empire boosting facilities. 1 sector with 7 planets producing energy, 1 sector 3 planets for minerals, and 1 sector with 12 planets for research (keep in mind that no matter how you setup a sector, the governors will still build some energy and mineral facilities on the planets).
With a 544/544 fleet (actually 3 fleets protecting core world and the sectors, 35kx2 and 1 20k) no spacestation modules for ship maintenance redux, 3 star admirals (no -upkeep traits), I am producing 185 credits / month with fleets docked and happiness policy enabled (which is -20% minerals / credits) - no planetary edicts for extra credits (capacitors overload). The moment one of the 35k fleets leaves, I'm going to 23 credits / month.

So you need a ton of credits to stay positive if you move late game fleets. Focus on it from early game.

[tiberiansun371alexw]

Originally posted by Anelyn:

You need to specialize all core planets in energy producers, and a decent sector assigned to energy as well.

In my current game, I have 4 core planets (3/5 since capital world does not matter towards cap) all producing just enough food to be even at max population, rest energy and empire boosting facilities. 1 sector with 7 planets producing energy, 1 sector 3 planets for minerals, and 1 sector with 12 planets for research (keep in mind that no matter how you setup a sector, the governors will still build some energy and mineral facilities on the planets).
With a 544/544 fleet (actually 3 fleets protecting core world and the sectors, 35kx2 and 1 20k) no spacestation modules for ship maintenance redux, 3 star admirals (no -upkeep traits), I am producing 185 credits / month with fleets docked and happiness policy enabled (which is -20% minerals / credits) - no planetary edicts for extra credits (capacitors overload). The moment one of the 35k fleets leaves, I'm going to 23 credits / month.

So you need a ton of credits to stay positive if you move late game fleets. Focus on it from early game.

I understand I need all of that to stay in the positive.

What pisses me off is that I cna't bank a lot of credits for the red years.

[Anelyn]

That's an intended mechanic - both for minerals and credits. So that you can't bank during peace time and have no worries how you specialize your sectors / planets, and go to war with no worries about economy state :)

It's same for AI players too. During peace you can get large amounts of credits or minerals per turn in exchange for w/e you're offering and they want it, once they are at war, even 1 credit or mineral / month will get a -1000 acceptance.

[annaliseh]

So...in what I seem to gather from this is, that the game mechanics and logic is skew to a democratic type government while the Alien governments are skewed to domination of all else.

The Human player is forced to struggle to maintain fleets, the economy, and the "democratic empire" trying to gain energy creds (which are capped), minerals (which are capped), and influence (which is also capped) - and add in fleet caps - in the face of miraids of conquering Alien fleets. I have seen alien hostile fleets in excess of 20k within the first 50 years of the game.

All the while the AI takes control of your sectors - (because of yet another cap) - chewing up your hard earned creds by shifting POPs around, doing massive upgrades - effectively destroying your empire from within.

There needs to be reality check here. I have seen fleets and fleets (16k - 54K) of AI ships being pumped out at a unrealistic rate. It cannot be supported by the economy of the AI empires. The AI cheats while the human player is held under caps.

[Azunai]

i don't think the AI cheats on the normal difficulty. on hard/insane they get bonus yields, higher fleet caps etc. to make them more challanging, but on "normal" they play by the same rules as the player (for the most part).

maybe those pretty large fleets you've seen were from a fallen empire. they have pretty powerful stuff right from the start (but don't actually participate in the game except for occasional war declarations if you piss them off)

[Centisteed]

Originally posted by annaliseh:

So...in what I seem to gather from this is, that the game mechanics and logic is skew to a democratic type government while the Alien governments are skewed to domination of all else.

The Human player is forced to struggle to maintain fleets, the economy, and the "democratic empire" trying to gain energy creds (which are capped), minerals (which are capped), and influence (which is also capped) - and add in fleet caps - in the face of miraids of conquering Alien fleets. I have seen alien hostile fleets in excess of 20k within the first 50 years of the game.

All the while the AI takes control of your sectors - (because of yet another cap) - chewing up your hard earned creds by shifting POPs around, doing massive upgrades - effectively destroying your empire from within.

There needs to be reality check here. I have seen fleets and fleets (16k - 54K) of AI ships being pumped out at a unrealistic rate. It cannot be supported by the economy of the AI empires. The AI cheats while the human player is held under caps.

I haven't seen that. If you look at the Empires and they are marked as "Superior" then that means you don't bother with them. If you keep attacking & conquering "Equivalent" or less empires, these "Superior" empires will drop down to "Equivalent" or less.

If you can create an alliance with the alien empire with 20k ships, you can use them to liberate your neighbors creating a bunch of vassals. You'll grow your empire while shrinking theirs & using their fleet ships to do it. They don't get mad or leave the alliance either...sort of like frogs sitting in water that is set to boil.

When your fleets or any ships are not doing anything, be sure to set them in orbit around a space station. Depending on the space station module, you might be able to save on upkeep costs & so on if that module is on the space station. There are many cost savings options that show up in research as well. You need to keep an eye on these if you want to increase energy by reducing energy costs while also increasing your energy power plants.

Where I've noticed a lot of issues is that my sectors don't seem to do anything. I dump a 1000 minerals and 500 energy on them & the AI doesn't build anything. I'm going to start setting up my planets before I move them to sectors in my next game.

[Erikkustrife]

Originally posted by annaliseh:

So...in what I seem to gather from this is, that the game mechanics and logic is skew to a democratic type government while the Alien governments are skewed to domination of all else.

The Human player is forced to struggle to maintain fleets, the economy, and the "democratic empire" trying to gain energy creds (which are capped), minerals (which are capped), and influence (which is also capped) - and add in fleet caps - in the face of miraids of conquering Alien fleets. I have seen alien hostile fleets in excess of 20k within the first 50 years of the game.

All the while the AI takes control of your sectors - (because of yet another cap) - chewing up your hard earned creds by shifting POPs around, doing massive upgrades - effectively destroying your empire from within.

There needs to be reality check here. I have seen fleets and fleets (16k - 54K) of AI ships being pumped out at a unrealistic rate. It cannot be supported by the economy of the AI empires. The AI cheats while the human player is held under caps.

This is the exact oppsite of true. The game actually banks towards a slave empire type of play really really hard lol. Infact if your not using slaves youll be doing a hell of a lot worse then you could be.

[King_Admin]

Originally posted by Erikkustrife:

Originally posted by annaliseh:

So...in what I seem to gather from this is, that the game mechanics and logic is skew to a democratic type government while the Alien governments are skewed to domination of all else.

The Human player is forced to struggle to maintain fleets, the economy, and the "democratic empire" trying to gain energy creds (which are capped), minerals (which are capped), and influence (which is also capped) - and add in fleet caps - in the face of miraids of conquering Alien fleets. I have seen alien hostile fleets in excess of 20k within the first 50 years of the game.

All the while the AI takes control of your sectors - (because of yet another cap) - chewing up your hard earned creds by shifting POPs around, doing massive upgrades - effectively destroying your empire from within.

There needs to be reality check here. I have seen fleets and fleets (16k - 54K) of AI ships being pumped out at a unrealistic rate. It cannot be supported by the economy of the AI empires. The AI cheats while the human player is held under caps.

This is the exact oppsite of true. The game actually banks towards a slave empire type of play really really hard lol. Infact if your not using slaves youll be doing a hell of a lot worse then you could be.

^This works really well.

It's a little more work though, managing slaves and stuff since revolt risks are a real thing now you have to watch out for. I usually just go for a really happy build so I don't have to worry about managing conquered races. It really helps out in teh late game when you can be talking tens of planets at a time in war demands.

But that's just me, there really is no "Best way". Only preferences. A happy build generally means you're going to have a longer ramp up time and be able to agress less then a more war orientated race. But it means less work overall since happy people don't require as much management and are less likely to create factions.

Seriously though, once you hit late/mid game, you should be swiming in credits. If you're not then you're doing something wrong because you should be trading and optimizing. Ex. Once you're out of early game minerals are no where near as important so you can just replace mines with more credit generating buildings, and making sure there's a power hub on ever major planet at least.

If you're not getting 20 Credits on every 10+ size planets at least, then you need to start replacing non essential buildings. Research gets the low priority if you can't sustain the technology.

[Anelyn]

I'm doing a spiritual / peace lover divine mandate atm. Got no problem at all. 320 years into the game, I am the strongest empire in gallaxy (fallen empires are only superior in tech), I have 4 protectorates (could integrate one but choose not to), uplifted a species to gain access to two tomb worlds to further enlarge my research sector output, ethics divergences are -20% on furthest planet on the uplifted species, all population is 85-100% happinnes, doing insane on credits / minerals - I even have to trade per month and/or instant to not feel like am wasting too much.

But I went all credits on my core planets plus a sector specialized for credits too (since early game). I did 2 genetic modifications, one for uplifted for -20% ethics divergence, and one for my main species so that they can have more habitability on tropical worlds (desert being my main preference).

I only have 1 single uplifted pop that is 65% happines with -12% ethic div because he's pissed cause of a policy related to selected lineages (2nd upgrade, increase leader recruit cost by 50%, 50+ years lifespan and +3 skill levels I believe) but I can live with that ;)

While slavery & robots can give you edges here and there, is not that big of a thing compared to other policies / governs / ethics. Everything can be planned - you need to think on a larger scale and see the big picture over dozens of years and even hundreds and not get caught in here and now - IMHO.