The trouble with credits -- running huge deficit.

[JWW]

I am finally well into a game, that is 36 turns in. Playing on beginner, had an excellent starting position between two minors with no major in proximity and only minor appearances by non-aligned forces. An abundance of resources. Lots of rain. I easily conquered the two neighboring minors. In the process I had a lot of disaffection from the population and paused for a while to build my popularity back up. My next goal is to strike at the minor to my east and then evaluate the situation from there. I'm sure I've screwed lots of things up, I am probably moving too slowly, but I have muddled along and avoided major logistics problems and kept everything going.

Rather than discuss any other problems, I want to focus on one thing I haven't found discussed much. Credits. I've been running a deficit for most of the game. My expenses far exceed revenues. In my current turn my expenses are 807 credits and revenue 357. Now I'm easily able to cover that and have built up a large surplus in fact by selling my immense stocks of surplus of stocks, mainly metals and rare metals. So though my checkbook says I am running a deficit, with my huge balance of trade surplus, I am in reality running a surplus. But am I headed down a road that will end badly.

I will add that in dealing with decisions I've chosen to raise salaries whenever it appears to head off a problem.

So my basic question is this -- How does one run an economy that doesn't run at a deficit. What can I do better at this point or in the future from the start to make that happen.

Here is my current situation. Will try to post a couple more pics of the economic situation.

[JWW]

here is my current economic situation

[JWW]

Overall status

[JWW]

And one more that may be helpful. Critique and advise away. You will not hurt my feelings.



As for resources, large surpluses of everything, no deficits. No trouble constructing things. Have not constructed any large mech or armored formation yet.

[RogalDorn]

Well most of your spending is on worker salaries. Try firing workers.

[Laiders]

No no no do not fire workers. Repeat do not fire workers. More substantial advice incoming.

Okay so first of all rare metals are pretty much always in demand. It's really difficult to flood the market with them so they can probably keep you in effective surplus the entire game. If they lose value, machinery won't and you can convert rares directly into machinery along with metal and IP. BTW, you're not still buying your machinery are you? You probably don't need to at this stage.

Secondly, how do you make money from your zones? Well a key factor is getting your interior council up and well-run. The interior council allows you to manipulate taxes and tariffs with much greater effectiveness than the basic income tax available from SCC. Some people swear by taxing zones to the hilt. Personally I use trade to keep things moving and am laissez-faire or even supportive of my private economy. Strong private econ so you have something to tax. Safe, happy, productive zones with good, straight governors so that people pay taxes and the governor doesn't pocket them to fund his rebellion.

Hiring and firing workers is still something I leave the AI to figure out. Firing workers may be useful in a pinch but it will hurt all your public asset productivity for that zone. Recklessly firing workers could lead to an unrecoverable resource cascade, albeit this is an extreme scenario. By this I mean you fire workers so your productivity drops so you struggle to feed your workers so you cannot hire your workers back because they are pissed and the cycle perpetuates. This is unlikely for a variety of reasons but it is a valid game state. The game will allow it to occur and it will not stop you from creating the conditions that allow it to occur.

Note I'm not saying never micro your workers or that it is not more optimal to micro them if you can stomach it. I'm merely saying that newer players should not try to micro workers except as an absolute last resort.

[GodwinW]

Ok, well, here are mine:



I'd suggest raising taxes. I have very high happiness with my tax rates.
Also giving money to private economy really helps. You see I give 20 credits per zone.

Building QOL building to ensure you get a good distribution of QOL categories so it all works out for the best.

Tbh it's hard to say not knowing the state of your private economy.

Did you know that selling resources drops the prices for the Private economy, thus hampering yourself partly? I do not sell anymore myself, not that I need to anyway.

Also high salaries result in the workers spending the money into the private economy. And once that's a well-functioning machine you get to reap the benefits from that.

[Falke]

a) Income tax - Increase this to 30 %
b) Worker salaries - I start with ,003 (first turn of new game , call Governor and reduce). Then only increase to keep it ahead of private income
c) Leader salaries I do not increase these- Use Strategems/Descions for relation or just get rid of them
d) Play Strategems to improve the private investment and any QOL

[Grotius]

I've also relied on the private market, subsidizing it with Stratagems, rather than raising taxes. At least so far.

I've been leaving worker AI on its default -- hire when needed, fire when no longer needed. Should I change that?

[Vhalor]

Early game, trade is powerful, especially on higher difficulties where you start with 0% tax. Later on, you can switch over to taxes. Advisable once you need a ton of rare metals yourself. But by then you should either be dominating already or be real close!

Also you really should try to avoid hoarding, like GodwinW did there. [;)] After all what's best in life? To use your ample credits and resources to crush your enemies, of course!

[GodwinW]

Heh I am definitely not hoarding. Why would I? As you say there's no point.
There's even a minor I pay 400 creds/turn to keep them from attacking purely because it gives some leaders a bit of extra relation :p

This is just a healthy treasury

[zgrssd]

ORIGINAL: jwarrenw13

here is my current economic situation

The biggest persistent drain factors are workers. Just look at your numbers wiht 10 mCredits Sallary:
92 Cr
429 Cr
103 Cr
That is 624 Credits per turn!

I guess you did that to keep par with the Prviate income? This income will actually increase as the number of unemployed Population decreases.
So hiring more workers indirectly buffs the Private Pay, reducing effective worker pay and thus happiness effect.

Economy Profile also means you increased the Private Eco growth even further. Wich means lots of private jobs. So it is really a bad situation. You should propably incrase the income tax. 50% is easily supportable. And that +30% should easily pay for your workers. It also limits the Private Economy from growing even further.

A strong PE also gives you plenty of QOL buildings. Wich is a problem, as that creeps out your Civilisation score. And Rgime Civ score vs local QOL is negative thing for the workers.

You also seem to have increase teh payment for Reserve Pool and Directors and by quite a but. Neverind putting soldiers on a whopping 5 mCredits.

There is also a 90% chance the Investment Budget does not actually work. And if you want serious investment, just unincoporate them for a while (wich removes all taxes). Asuming you can not jus use the Private investment card.

[JWW]

Thanks for all the advice and keep it coming. I really started out with no economic strategy at all. I was busy trying to get a handle on logistics and think I have handled that moderately well. And I just wanted to get well into a game to start experiencing all the different things that can happen. I'm still looking for that brothel, though, for my loyal troops of course, but I haven't found it.

I think most of the raising of salaries was due to advice to keep workers happy or decisions regarding workers and leaders though I wasn't really thinking too much on it. It was a series of kneejerk reactions. I had a point where happiness was collapsing, and I just followed all opportunities to raise happiness. Like a politician. Money here. Money there. Don't you love me now? That has also included cash payments to the people to keep them happy. I did that without really thinking about it. Then I looked closer and started seeing that I was running a huge deficit. Now I'm stopping to take a look at the economics and realize that there are facets that I don't understand at all, like how the private economy works and affects the overall economic picture.

I'm actually happy to see the complexities. It makes me admire the game even more. Now part of me wants to go back and start a new game and manage the economics better from the start, but the other part, the part that wins out, is the part that will continue this game while trying to repair my budget.

[DTurtle]

You are barely taxing anything and raised salaries for everyone - of course you are running a deficit!

As others said: raise income taxes (50% is just fine), maybe raise sales taxes to 50% or 75%. Lower worker wages to 0.005 or so. Raise the public investment into a zone to something like 20 - 30 credits a turn.

Afterwards just check every now and then what the population and worker happiness is, and raise wages or investment if it is dropping too quickly and too far.

You can ignore sudden happiness drops because of events as long as the happiness trend is going in the right direction.

I'm actually fine with the soldier and leader salaries - it is not that expensive (especially in comparison to the worker wages). Check the morale of your units and the relation with your leaders - if it is already at the highest levels you can think of lowering it. Otherwise high soldier morale is very useful.

[Malevolence]

Good advice here.

I will add, I keep a stack of colonists ready to surge in to zones as workers during peek construction periods.

Make sure AI is set to fire workers that are not needed, but firing workers should only be done in extreme circumstances (I guess--never executed). I would prefer to lower worker pay in more prosperous zones, than to fire them directly when needed.

Watch Governor relation and loyalty scores as well.

Check leader embezzlement.

[JWW]

What exactly does public investment do? Is it similar to government subsidies for private industry? I've been wary of messing with that because I didn't know all the implications and had not taken the time to learn.

Thanks again for continued comments.

[zgrssd]

ORIGINAL: jwarrenw13

What exactly does public investment do? Is it similar to government subsidies for private industry? I've been wary of messing with that because I didn't know all the implications and had not taken the time to learn.

Thanks again for continued comments.

Pretty sure that is what it is suppsoed to do.
But also pretty sure it is not working like that right now.

The game is still very fresh after release, so a lot of buggy mechanics. And even more where we do not know what the intention even is.

[Malevolence]

ORIGINAL: zgrssd

ORIGINAL: jwarrenw13

What exactly does public investment do? Is it similar to government subsidies for private industry? I've been wary of messing with that because I didn't know all the implications and had not taken the time to learn.

Thanks again for continued comments.

Pretty sure that is what it is suppsoed to do.
But also pretty sure it is not working like that right now.

The game is still very fresh after release, so a lot of buggy mechanics. And even more where we do not know what the intention even is.

Per the manual, increases Private Credits. Private Credits are held by the Population. Once it reaches a certain level, it is used to expand the Private Economy. That part is not buggy.

The intention to is support the private economy, which has more ways to increase population happiness and civilization than the public buildings the player constructs. As such, the consequence is that more people move to the zone and become available as workers, troops, and colonists. It also increases tax revenue.

[Kamelpov]

Clearly you pay too much salaries my army work for free and no sign up bonus then ministry I don't increase their salary I even try to lower them if they got 100 % loyalty.

[Naselus]

Raise income tax to at least 30%. 40% is not overly problematic either, but beyond that you'll need to put your private economy on life support.
Sales tax can be a big earner too; crank it up to 100% and then play lots of private investment cards. The cards will pump 1000s into the private sector, which will then buy new assets with it and you'll get half the money the spend building them. This can also be carefully targeted to zones which would benefit most from some private investment rather than letting the idiot population decide where they want it.
ALWAYS get to at least 40% commerce for Free Market perk and do not allow yourself to lose it. This alone is a huge increase in taxation values.
Don't pay workers 10 mCreds across the board, that's just crazy talk. They'll work for half that unless the private sector is paying exceptionally well. Soldiers also probably don't need 5 mcreds either unless you're having morale issues.


Oh, and you very, very definitely can flood the market with rare metals, I have driven the price down to 0.1 creds each with my huge production output.