Hans Lemurson's Guide to Pandora's Economic System

[Hans Lemurson]

edit: Here is a slightly more complete and colorful version of the guide
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=651439158
Or you can just read the old guide written on this post...

With the arrival of a number of new players after the latest sale, I feel that it would be helpful to outline how the economic system of Pandora: First Contact actually works.

Pandora's economy is composed of many smaller systems, each of which is very simple, together produce very complex interactions. I will go through each one and give a summary of their interrelations.

Guide Contents:

-Food
-Minerals
-Production
-Science
-Credits
-Morale
-Pollution
-Habitation
-Population
-Buildings
-Terrain Improvements

Food:

This is one of the two resources that are gathered from the land. Each citizen consumes 1 food/turn, and if this cannot be provided then you will have reduced growth and starvation. Food has no inherent value except to keep your people alive. As the game progresses and you get more bonuses to food production, more of your citizens can be freed up from farming to go work in more productive areas.
1 Food: Minimal Yield. Not worth farming unless it is to avoid starvation
2 Food: Standard Yield. Produced by Ocean tiles, Fertile terrain (Grassland/Tropical), and Marginal terrain (Tundra/Plains) with a farm.
3 Food: Improved Yield. Produced by Fertile terrain with a farm, and later by Ocean farms.
4+ Food: Bonus Yield. This terrain has a bonus resource and is a great source of food. One farmer can feed many citizens with such a tile. Always make sure to farm it.

Minerals:

Minerals are also gathered from the land, but land which is good for Minerals is generally bad for food and vice-versa. Minerals are the life-blood of an empire and the limiting factor for your industry. You should always try to maximize the amount of minerals your empire can produce (within the limits of efficiency and pollution). Minerals = Production. When quickly developing a new city, you will need to subsidize it with minerals from the rest of your empire.
1 Mineral: Minimal Yield. Don't bother mining this unless your factories are badly starved for minerals.
2 Minerals: Standard Yield. Produced by Mountains and Hills with mines. These tiles will be your bread and butter for mineral production. Terra Salvum faction can produce this from Forests.
3 Minerals: Improved Yield. Produced by Mountains with mines (and hill-based Mexallon deposits that you haven't mined yet for some reason.) Mountains are the best mineral source you can get in good volume, and 3 Minerals/miner is something to be proud of. Mountain ranges are your friend.
4+ Minerals: Bonus Yield. There's a mineral bonus here, make use of it! Mine it! It will feed your factories.
-Mexallon (+2) has no downside, but its bonus isn't as big as the others.
-Aquatic Mexallon (4) gives you decent minerals from the sea, but can't have a mine until Mechanization Era.
Isogen (+3) is great, and its pollution can be easily managed.
Noxium (+4) is a dilemma. It's a lot of minerals but the morale loss cannot be reversed.

Production:

Production represents the labor of your people as they transform Minerals into Stuff. Unlike most other games, production isn't free. Each point of production consumes 1 mineral. Increasing your production just increases the rate at which you turn minerals into Stuff. This will be frustrating for new players who are aggravated that the only reward for their shiny new factory is a huge Mineral Deficit. I should be getting MORE stuff, but now I have less! What gives?
Production bonuses are Labor Efficiency. +50% Production doesn't mean 50% more stuff, it means that 2 Workers can do the job of 3, and so that 3rd guy can be reassigned. This seems a little disappointing until you realize that the factory-workers are the #1 source of pollution in your city. Being able to get away with using as few of them as possible is great!
2 Production: Normal Worker. Production takes place inside the city, and the base value isn't affected by terrain.
3 Production: Construction Bay. The base value IS however affected by terrain improvements. This tile improvement lets one of your Workers have a production throughput of 3. Very valuable for developing new cities with small population, and raising the efficiency of large ones.

Science:

Science is a tricky beast. It is a "Free" output, meaning there is no limit to the number of scientists you can run, so long as you have food to feed them. It's also the least polluting activity a citizen can do. Scientific advances are the lifeblood of the game, allowing for greater economic and military power, and unlocking new and powerful abilities. Science is great! Is there any such thing as Too much Science?
...Maybe. In Pandora, technology gives nothing for free:
-Amazing new ability?
Gotta build the Special Project first.
-New type of unit?
Gotta build it.
-New building to help your city?
Sure, but you have to build it.
Having a surplus of technology isn't a problem per se, it just means that you'll have a bunch of shiny new buildings sitting useless and un-built in your build queue. However, surplus technology sure beats the alternative! Being behind in tech means that you'll have a bunch of production capacity sitting around that you can only spend on obsolete military units. Enough of those can probably capture you a city though, so it's not so bad. Figuring out the optimal "Science to Industry" ratio is an important and subtle strategic choice in Pandora.
2 Science: Normal Scientist. This is the proper role for any "surplus population" that can't do anything else of value. There's no such thing as overpopulation, just More Science!
3 Science: Field Laboratory. One of your scientists is now making 3 science instead of 2. Useful in cities with the Observatory which can multiply that bonus even further. Less useful in other places, because boosting the efficiency of terrain is usually used to shift population towards science, not away from it.

Credits:

Credits are an ephemeral resource that comes not from the land but from the people themselves, and can turn into raw hard production. Their production varies with your tax rate which will swing up and down as your morale dictates. Credits are used for paying the ongoing maintenance cost for all of your Units in the field, Buildings in your cities, and special Terrain Improvements on your Land. Any surplus after that will accumulate in your bank account and can be used to Upgrade Units or rush-buy Production in cities.

Your base income at 100% taxes is, 4 credits/citizen per turn. (A Size 13 city at 70% tax rate will earn you 36.4 credits.)

Rush-Buying production, whether it is for a Building, Unit, or Project, costs 8 credits per Production. (This can be figured as 4 credits to buy the minerals, and 4 credits to hurry the factories.) A basic Colonial Trooper (16p) can be rushed for 128 Credits, and Holo-Theater (64p) will cost 512 Credits. (Noxium Corp has 75% rush-buy costs, so pays only 6 Credits/Production.)

Credits are easy to spend, but hard to get more of when you run short, since your tax rate is capped at 100% (and morale should never go negative). Nonetheless, with the massive populations and numerous credit-multiplying facilities available in the late-game, you will find yourself with plenty of surplus to spend...or save.

One important thing to note about credits is that CREDITS ARE A WAY TO WIN THE GAME. If you have enough credits saved up (equal to the 75% of the rush-buy{?} cost of all buildings in all cities)...you win! Go you! You should feel special. It's hard to save up that much instead of spending it.

Morale:

Morale ends up being one of THE most important 'resources' in the game. It's effects seem tiny at first, but they grow with time, because morale is a City-Wide Production Multiplier. The more population you have, the bigger the total impact of morale.

Sources of Morale:
-Base Morale: Most factions start with a base of 7 morale. Divine Ascension has 9, and Togra have 5.
-Tax Rate: Every 10% you tax your citizens costs you 1 point of Morale. The UI combines Base-Morale with Tax-Morale, showing 70% taxes as +0 Morale, and 0% taxes as +7 Morale.
-Overcrowding: Every population in your city beyond its available Habitation costs you 1 Morale.
-Pollution: Every point of pollution beyond what your terrain and buildings can absorb also costs you 1 Morale.

Effects of Morale
Each point of Morale in your city earns you a +4% bonus to Food, Minerals, Production, Science, and even Credits. The effect on credits is funny, since the tax rate affects the credit supply in two ways, making it non-linear. (If you could tax above 100%, tax income would actually peak at 155% and then start dropping due to nasty negative morale.)
Negative morale will also hurt your population growth rate. Population is power. DON'T LET IT GO NEGATIVE!!!

The credits generated by your taxes are usually worth slightly more than the Morale-boosted production, so a good rule of thumb is to keep taxes as high as possible without going negative. My calculations have shown that +1 Morale is usually close to peak performance. Later in the game with the prevalence of many morale-boosting buildings, your tax rate should go up to 100% and stay there.

Implications of Morale:
A +4% production bonus doesn't seem like much, but it means that in a Size 25 city, every +1 Morale you have is like +1 Population. When cities get very large, their focus should be on maintaining and maximizing their morale at all times. In a large and crowded city, it even makes sense to pave over Mines with Suburbs and Purifiers, since the morale-loss they protect against can be larger than the total output of the Mine. In fact, a sufficiently large city should be surrounded by nothing BUT morale-boosting improvements, since anything else will cost you more than it would gain. Such a city is probably TOO big since you're now losing terrain efficiency, so you should really think about founding a new city for its extra internal housing capacity.

Pollution:

Pollution is produced by your citizens as a consequence of their work, and if not dealt with will have a negative impact on your morale. Early in the game, the only way to mitigate pollution is with Forests, whether adjacent to your start or planted by an early former. Pollution can also be managed by changing your citizens from heavily polluting jobs like Workers and Miners to minimally polluting ones like Scientists. The pollution limit for a city can serve as a good rule of thumb for balancing your Industry/Science ratio: once you have enough industry to hit your pollution limit, you should probably make everybody else a Scientist.
Sources of Pollution:
0.2: Scientists
0.4: Farmers
0.6: Miners
0.8: Workers
1: Fungus, Isogen Fields
Pollution Mitigation
-1: Forests, Gaia Forests
-2: Purifiers, Planetary Awareness Project
-4: Pollution Recycler
-8: Air Recycler
-16: Atmotron

Habitat:

Every citizen in a city uses up 1 Habitation point, and when the population exceeds the total available habitation, you suffer a morale penalty.

Having places to put all your people is vitally important, since the demand for housing is the one thing you have very little control over. With Food shortages you can just increase the number of farmers. With Pollution you can convert citizens to be Scientists and spare the air. But with Habitat, there is no quick or easy way to adjust the housing Supply or Demand. You have to plan ahead, since a housing shortage will only continue to get worse, since your population never stops growing. Fortunately, a growing population also means more land, and therefore room to place Suburbs to ease your crisis.

Suburbs:
Suburbs are a bit of a conundrum. They are simultaneously essential, and something to be avoided if at all possible. Suburbs are a quick and easy way to earn back a whole 2 points of morale, which is hugely valuable. Plus they only cost the labor of Formers, not your citizen's production and Minerals. They are the main tool for ending a housing crisis.
However they are fundamentally a "non-productive" terrain improvement, and every tile of land covered by Suburbs is one that is lacking a Farm, Mine, Construction Bay or Field Lab. They represent an opportunity cost, since fundamentally all true production comes from the Terrain.
But don't skimp on them, either! Because for all of their costs, if you are suffering from a Habitat shortage, then a Suburb is the best thing you can possibly build, morale is so valuable.

Cities:
Cities are the space-efficient solution to Habitation limits. They immediately provide free space for 8 citizens (+2 for TS, -2 for NC) with the potential for even more Habitat with Buildings and Projects. All this and they only take up 1 tile of terrain...a tile which also gains the benefits of a Farm and a Mine. Not exactly wasted space.

However, the down-side is that whenever you build a new city, not only do the extra Habitat-buildings cost Production and Minerals, but you have to re-build ALL of the efficiency-boosting structures that your old city had, or else suffer a further opportunity cost of having your citizens working without a production bonus. A new city is as expensive as an army, but is an investment in the future, allowing you to use your land productively and efficiently to pay off for a stronger tomorrow.

Sources of Habitat:
-1: Citizens. (they're worth it though)
2: Suburbs, Advanced City Planning (project)
4: Wendo Apartments
6: Noxium Corporation's Cities
8: Normal Cities, Sky Dome
10: Terra Salvum's Cities
16: Neuromatrix

Migration:
Population migrates from cities with little Housing to those with a surplus. A new city will always start with ~7 surplus Habitat points, making it a very attractive place to move to. The size of a city doesn't matter for migration appeal, only the quantity of free housing. (Morale is also a factor, but is not as big as Housing.)

Population

Population is Power.
Population is the source of all Production, Science, and Wealth in the game. Everything that gains you power in the world comes from your people. More people = more power. You should never attempt to curtail your natural growth, and should in fact seek to enhance it wherever possible.

Population Growth:
~Population growth comes from the accumulation of "Baby Points" in your cities. When a city accumulates enough baby-points, it will grow an extra size and the growth cost for all cities will go up. The growth threshold is shared among all cities and is based on your faction's total Population.

Each citizen produces 1 Baby-point per turn. This can be increased by Buildings and special Projects up to 1.4 growth/turn. These buildings will also provide some innate baby-points for free.

Initially, population growth is Linear and the growth-time is constant:

Pop     Cost    Growth  Time
 1       6       1       6
 2      12       2       6
 3      17       3       6

But the growth cost increases start slowing down.

Pop     Cost
10      48
20      77
30      94
40     105
50     111
60     114

Eventually reaching an asymptote of 120. When the Growth-Cost stops increasing, but the Growth Rate is proportional to population, this means that you have entered a regime of EXPONENTIAL GROWTH.

The Value of Population
How much is a Population unit worth? How much does a citizen give you? This is a complicated question, as it changes over time and varies with terrain. Your ultimate goal is to get the most value possible out of each and every citizen. But let's start with the basics: Each turn, citizens eat 1 food, generate up to 4 credits, and if working an average tile give 2 resources (multiplied by production bonuses). Each resource point is worth about 4 credits, so we can generate a single number.

Yield  Bonus  Qty. $Eqv  Tax   Crdts  Morale  Food$ Total$
 2     +0%    2.0    8    70%   2.8   1.00x   -4    = 6.8 credits in early 1st Era
 2    +25%    2.5   10    50%   2.0   1.00x   -4    = 8.0 credits in mid 1st Era
 2    +25%    2.5   10   100%   4.0   1.04x   -4    = 10.5 credits in late 1st Era
 3    +25%    3.75  15   100%   4.0   1.04x   -4    = 15.7 credits in early 2nd Era
 3    +75%    5.25  21   100%   4.0   1.04x   -4    = 22.0 credits in mid 2nd Era
 3    +75%    5.25  21   100%   4.0   1.36x   -4    = 30.0 credits in late 2nd Era
 3   +175%    8.25  33   100%   4.0   1.36x   -4    = 46.3 credits in early 3rd Era
 3   +175%    8.25  33   100%   4.0   2.00x   -4    = 70.0 credits in mid 3rd Era
 4   +175%   11.0   44   100%   4.0   2.00x   -4    = 94.0 credits in late 3rd Era

As you can see, the value of a citizen increases dramatically as you improve the Terrain and acquire buildings that boost Production and Morale.

Boosting Growth
It is possible to convert Production into Baby-Points at a rate of 2:1, but this is a very steep price indeed. As valuable as Population is, I would not say that paying 240 Production for +1 citizen is a very good deal. Not without solid production multipliers and having nothing better to build.

But in the very beginning? When a population costs 6, 12, or 17 baby-points? What a deal! Spending your first few turns on "Growth" has one of the best returns on investment in the game. Assign your first citizen to be a Worker, build Growth, and you'll get your second Population in 2 turns, rather than 6. You just bought yourself 4 turns on the growth-curve and all it cost was a measly 8 production. Spend all your starting minerals in this way and you're on your way to a strong start. Just be aware that you're also cruising in the fast-lane towards a Housing Crisis.

Buildings

Terrain Improvements

[Foxtrot39]

Why posting it in the discussion section rather than the guide section?

Other thing when city growth its impossible to raise moral as the citizen complain about the lack of habitat but the more you make the more come and the cycle repeat until your territory is only made of suburbs and still have negative moral

As there is no way to stop the birth rate its impossible to maintain moral at positive values

[Ail]

Originally posted by Foxtrot39:

As there is no way to stop the birth rate its impossible to maintain moral at positive values

Just because there is no dedicated button for this doesn't mean there is no way. ;)
The trick is:
You can cut food-production. When you producte about 0.9 times of what is shown as needed the growth is stabilized.
For example: You have 50 pop and don't want it to grow anymore, make sure to have -5 food per turn at no reserve.

If you don't hit the 0.9 times exactly, you'll either have very slow decline or very slow growth, which should be a good enough approximation in most cases.

Oh, and the AI actually makes use of this mechanic when either a war makes expanding too dangerous or when there's no available city-spots left.

[Foxtrot39]

Well that's something to help, lost last match because I had to take care of food as in nullified all my advantage I had won with a +5 lvl city compared to all the AI

Yet would really appreciate a growth lock option

[Hans Lemurson]

Originally posted by Foxtrot39:

Why posting it in the discussion section rather than the guide section?

Other thing when city growth its impossible to raise moral as the citizen complain about the lack of habitat but the more you make the more come and the cycle repeat until your territory is only made of suburbs and still have negative moral

As there is no way to stop the birth rate its impossible to maintain moral at positive values

That's a really good question. I'll finish this up later today and then put it with the strategy guides.

If your land is covered in Suburbs but you still can't get positive morale, then you need more cities.

[Zak0r]

Very good explanation. Thumbs up!

[jojobe]

good post

[Sgt.Ray]

I noticed that when you expand out your population averages out to accommodate for the new housing. I have 5 cities with 18-20 pop while the computer had 3 with 27-32. Had no real problems with overcrowding and still had the population advantage over the AI (not by much but I didn't have to waste tiles building suburbs 'yet')

[Hans Lemurson]

The more housing available in a colony, the more people will want to migrate to it. It's a combination of Housing and Morale that determines how "appealing" a city is and which way the people will flow.

[Sgt.Ray]

So population growth isn't tied to anything like a number that starts small (only considering your colony) and grows exponentially as long as conditions allow. With new cities causing that ever increasing number to pool over into the new housing allowing the number to rise uninhibited? I guess I thought of growth as a "Global" resource just like minerals in that game and couldn't be sped up just slowed down by lack of food or housing. But having a city with a crap ton of housing wouldn't necessarily increase this number more than what it was doing already. Make sense?

[Hans Lemurson]

Your impression was right. Population is a Global resource. Free housing just affects Migration, which is how quickly the population-units will leave crowded cities to join new ones.

Large crowded cities will have small growth rates because their Birth-Rate is matched by their Emigration rate.
New small cities will grow like weeds because of all the +8 housing they start with, making people in more crowded cities flock to them.
But in all of this, the overall growth rate of your population will be roughly constant.

[Sgt.Ray]

Ah good good. That was my assumption so whenever I started getting around +3 or lower habitation on average I would make a new city as a way of releasing the pressure and to ensure continued mostly uninhibited growth (That and new resources; got to keep moving). I don't think at one time I really hit -1 Habitation.

[Hans Lemurson]

-1 Habitation isn't so bad. It doesn't hurt your pop growth or anything, it just costs you 1 morale the same way 1 pollution would. Can be taken care of by the tax slider, so ultimately it just represents a monetary loss.

Building a new city though does cost you about half a population, since each city has their own separate baby-meter which will be at some level between full and empty. You have more baby-points spread out in meters which haven't yet filled up. Each city's meter will be on average half-full, which represents about half a population's-worth of baby points sitting in limbo rather than being productive members of society. If you gathered the points together from the meters of 10 different cities, and put them all in the same place you'd earn yourself about 4-6 extra people.

This is made up for by the flat +1 baby bonus for Gene-Therapy clinics and Replicant Factories, which overall make building extra cities a slight boost in your total pop growth.

[Zak0r]

Not much to add. Except maybe for better understanding the trivial fact that 1 population unit yields you 1 growth per turn. So that's why spreading your population across several baby-meters (I like that expression :D) causes a small loss in overall growth unless compensated by building growth buildings in the cities.

[Ail]

Yes, don't forget the baby-boosting-buildings. They might seem a bit underwhelming early on but the long-term-benefit adds up to be really huge.
I remember Hans figuring out a formula to determine their ROI (return of investment) so I can use it in the AI to help deciding when these buildings should be built.

[Hans Lemurson]

Oh god, that spreadsheet was a nightmare. The rate of return for baby-boosters grows with time, so although it takes ~50 turns to pay back, in ~70 you've doubled your initial return, and in ~100 quadrupled it.

How do you compare this with a Refining Array which very clearly pays for itself in ~24 turns? Which do you build first? Greater population further boosts the value of the Refining Array, but greater worker productivity increases the value of the extra citizens.

I'll need to actually run a side-by-side comparison where I play out the same start for 100 turns using different development strategies...