Money is the scarce resource in this game!

[John_Apollo]

Ok, having played a number of games now and starting to get the hang of it, I have to say money is the biggest bottle neck that I have found in this game. Money is really the scarcest resource! No way to make a enough, no way to bank it for the future (yes, I have dry docked ships and spread out the cost....)

I have found no way to ever have enough without building an ENORMOUS galaxy wide empire. This leads me to "colony rush" the whole game, just to stay ahead of the bills. Extract a resource, pay 80K, build a building, pay a maintenance fee. Build a fleet of ships, you might as well forget it with the maintenance cost. I don't buy any buildings except on my production world and let the AI create stuff so I don't have to maintain it.

I am currently playing a game with 3 separate galaxies and I control one ENTIRE galaxy and half of another and still have money issues. I have tried all the suggestions, focusing on money resources, researching all the economic bonuses, leveling up everything to the extent I am down to terraforming and asteroids for more resources....it just never ends.

Sort of feels like the story of my life....but I digress.

[Lucas]

Yup, money is the main limiting factor to your empire in the game. You will always want to be short, because you always want to spend everything that you have to build things - regardless of how much you have. This is unlike other games where you can pile up more and more giant stockpiles of resources, which is a fairly unrealistic representation of how macroeconomics actually works.

Similarly, there's no such thing as "colony rushing". You colonize at the rate that you can in order to obtain more resources, it's the driving factor behind the game's competition. Unlike games like civilization where more cities gives you unhappiness, we decided to instead make large amounts of planets a core part of the game, and ease up on the amount of management needed per planet.

[KaidenOZ]

define "money issues" on a 60 planet galaxy after maintanance of my defences i can usually muster over 10million surplus every cash turn on a decent match. i would look at your routing of resorces. make sure you are not over pressuing planets. and dont take planets you dont need to support.

[kasnavada]

build a building, pay a maintenance fee

I think I found your problem. Try a game without buildings. The current AI does not require them to beat them. I routinely go over 1-2 million money when I get to a dozen systems.

[KaidenOZ]

good spot there Kasnavada. scanned past that. if he is mission the point of useing civilian pressure to generate labor und useing lots of imperial constructions. yeah moneys going to be a major issue.

[John_Apollo]

Im at 4m budget but once I put a fleet of 8 battleships into war, that will dry up fast.

Why would I want to play a game without buildings? That is essentially what I am doing, I have like 3 on my home world, a factory, warehouse, and forge, just to make ship building faster. 3 buildings out of 45 worlds or so, I don't think buildings is the issue.

My point is, because of money limitations, I never build anything. So all I end up doing is what I describe as 'colony rush' - going out and colonizing ever resource I can find so I can level up stuff and build a budget.

The point I am trying to make is it makes the game very one dimensional. If you like leveling up, you will enjoy it. If you want to see some building and scale on your worlds, you don't have the money.

[KaidenOZ]

well the idea is to guide your civill population into building FREE buildings with pressure, thats what hw whole import export gameis about. useing some imperial constructions is somthing we al do but i thinkg you maybe tring to micromanage your planets to your own detrement.

[Saxon]

I find that research helps a lot even in the short run. Several technologies are available form the start of the game that boost your income. I tend to prioritize those.

[kasnavada]

Originally posted by John_Apollo:

Im at 4m budget but once I put a fleet of 8 battleships into war, that will dry up fast.

Why would I want to play a game without buildings? That is essentially what I am doing, I have like 3 on my home world, a factory, warehouse, and forge, just to make ship building faster. 3 buildings out of 45 worlds or so, I don't think buildings is the issue.

My point is, because of money limitations, I never build anything. So all I end up doing is what I describe as 'colony rush' - going out and colonizing ever resource I can find so I can level up stuff and build a budget.

The point I am trying to make is it makes the game very one dimensional. If you like leveling up, you will enjoy it. If you want to see some building and scale on your worlds, you don't have the money.

Extract a resource, pay 80K, build a building, pay a maintenance fee.

I suggested a game without buildings because that's basically what you implied in here... that you tried to build once every planet. Nevermind then.

Something is definitely wrong with what you're doing / stating but I don't feel like there is enough information in what you give us. What exactly is "not enough money" ? There IS a limitation due to money but honestly it's currently fine. After the first 45 minutes of gameplay I can usually get out one size 200+ battlehips / money cycle until I get some decent fleet, then around 2 hours of gameplay that I tend to move to size 500 or 1k ships depending on how well I'm doing. As the AI is currently weak that's the part where I don't actually need more and use money to build whatever fancies me.

If you're managing to dry-up 4 million of budget with "only" 8 battleship then it's fine. Ships need a limitation in size.

[John_Apollo]

nope, no orbitals, naming everything I can buy a card for, only leveled a planet to 4 one time. I ALWAYS get the research money.

I think you are still missing my point. I can figure out a way to get just enough money and ships to maybe defeat an enemy (but have not been able to yet because they are too powerful by the time I get all the $$ figured out by growing to 1 1/2 galaxies!) but the gameplay is so one dimensional, I am not sure I want to continue playing. All I ever do is level up to get money and do research then build a few ships and try to defend myself.


I have never had a "weak" opponent so to speak but I only play with 2 other AI's so as not to complicate things. Usually the one AI makes vassals of the other by the time I am big enough to fight.

I love strategy games but maybe this one is not for me long term.

[kasnavada]

I'm just trying to figure out out you can't make money.

only leveled a planet to 4 one time ?

Can you explain this one ? Population give a load of money and level 5 planets give huge amount of money even without the pressure...

I only play with 2 other AI's

Woah woah woah, I think we're on to something here. Did you just state that you're using only 2 AI with a 180+ system galaxies ? Then maybe you're getting loads of barren planets or something ?

That could explain why you're getting difficulties with money.

[John_Apollo]

someone implied I should not be leveling up too high in the post above which I don't usually do. A few level 3's lots of twos. I leveled to a 4 one time.

I limit the amount of worlds in each galaxy because I am scared of the warnings so only about 90-100 systems. No, barren plants not the issue. I only came across one.

I have gotten up to about 4.5 million budget so its not like I have no money but it is barely enough to defend against the AI. I need battleships because he comes at me with 13k ships and my ships are only about 8-11k so I need two to compete for each one of his.

[Thy Reaper]

Originally posted by John_Apollo:

I have gotten up to about 4.5 million budget so its not like I have no money but it is barely enough to defend against the AI. I need battleships because he comes at me with 13k ships and my ships are only about 8-11k so I need two to compete for each one of his.

How large are the flagships you're building? Larger ships get progressively more cost-efficient to maintain for the same strength.

[John_Apollo]

battleships 8-13k depending on how far up the research tree I am. I just use the delivered ship set at this point and don't really understand how it all works in relation to research.

[Darloth]

Each planet level is worth progressively more money than the one before it... so you should level everything up as HIGH as possible, ideally to level 5. I see the strategy/decisions as follows:

Which planets should I level high? Do they have a benefit from being levelled high, or are they particularly large, or with unexportable resources I can benefit from?

Then, you need to make a decision between optimizing for a big set of high level planets, and you just fulfill each requisite one after the other, or lots of low level planets "for now", and you'll stitch them up into a higher level planet later - but you always want to be aiming to make a level 4 or a level 5, and making new sets of these is basically how and why you should expand.

[John_Apollo]

so in answer to my original point, this is a game about leveling up planets, not much more.