1.04-does the AI drive you to bankruptcy?

[concern]

I am trying to clarify one piece of key information from the 'making money in 1.04' thread. If you rely upon the AI to build bases in 1.04, will it drive you to bankruptcy? Did the AI get re-jigged with the 1.04 economy update so that it responds inline with the new economy, or is it still in 1.03 'expand as much as you like' mode?

[taltamir]

the AI isn't helping...
you can survive it and avoid bankruptcy if you are playing well, prioritizing planets with luxury goods, avoiding unneeded wars, etc.

[Sliverine]

and yet, we wonder why the AI we play with always seem to overshadow us by the time we meet them. Strange isnt it?

[jscott991]

In my experience, the automate AI will drive you to bankruptcy.

I tested this twice yesterday by running a fully automated empire (it's an option under Options to just have the AI take over everything). There are screen shots of the results of one test in another thread.

The AI will bury your economy by overbuilding construction ships, over-colonizing, and generally selecting poor priorities for mining.

This is to say nothing of its love of agents and troops.

[Erik Rutins]

You can't generalize this - I think it's fair to say that when playing with your settings, the automation is leading you into money problems. I can start up a game right now with different settings and end up doing perfectly fine on full automation. In any case, we are planning another round of tweaks for the economy while 1.0.4 is still in beta.

[jscott991]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

You can't generalize this - I think it's fair to say that when playing with your settings, the automation is leading you into money problems. I can start up a game right now with different settings and end up doing perfectly fine on full automation. In any case, we are planning another round of tweaks for the economy while 1.0.4 is still in beta.

I didn't generalize it. I said "in my experience."

Plus, the troop/agent/construction ship issue seems to be fairly common in the posts I've seen.

[Gertjan]

Micromanaging colony expansion (instead of automated) is not so bad, I would say it is actually macro management and fun to do. Troop management is something else though.

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: jscott991
I didn't generalize it. I said "in my experience."

I meant that part in response to the original poster, apologies for the confusion.

[madpainter]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

You can't generalize this - I think it's fair to say that when playing with your settings, the automation is leading you into money problems. I can start up a game right now with different settings and end up doing perfectly fine on full automation. In any case, we are planning another round of tweaks for the economy while 1.0.4 is still in beta.

I tend to play on the quick start that randomises everything and I can definately confirm that different setups bring different problems.
Quite frankly I prefer it that way. Part of the challenge is in knowing when to be lazy and when to do it myself. (actually being honest sometimes its me that screws the economy[;)])

edit-------------------

ORIGINAL: jscott991

This is to say nothing of its love of agents and troops.

Yep I noticed that. I just turn them off when things go a bit dodgy and switch them back on when things seem peachy.

[concern]

Thanks for all the response. It's always reassuring to discover that a problem is not just with me.

I enjoy this game for it's macro-management approach. With 1.03 I was able to set the automation on 'suggest everything', leaving me to make the overall top level decisions. The AI suggestions and the associated building of mines would be quite expansionist, and the economy model seemed to support this. With 1.04, my experience has been that the AI suggestions (which I can easily ignore) still think they're running a 1.03 economy; worse the constructors are overbuilding so that my base maintenance grows too fast.

For me the idea of suddenly having to micromanage my constructors to prevent this, is a step backwards. I like the idea that I can micromanage if I want to, but I like the idea that I don't need to. 1.04 seems to remove this choice.

madpainter your comments that a quickstart brings you a nice variety of different challenges is great. I like a game that can throw you a curve ball, so that repeat playings are not just the same old approach. However, I believe the biggest challenge with the economy at the moment is not the model (sure it can do with some more tweaking); rather the challenge is that the game does not provide enough information to the player for them to be able to understand the economy and take appropriate actions, before it's too late, to correct the situation.

At the moment when my economy goes into the red, it's almost game over for me. The game needs to be able to provide me with the information and subsequent action choices, so that I can repair my mistakes.

[Zakhal]

Im doing very well in 1.04. The starting game might be harder but if you play it well you can make lots and lots money. Just before the game crashed money was pouring in and I had like 50 colonies on 250 star galaxy.

[concern]

Sorry Zakhal, the question is not whether you can do well and make money in 1.04, it's more twofold: 1) whether reliance on the AI (under 1.04) is driving the economy to bankruptcy and 2) getting more information to the player about the underlying health of his economy and allowing the player to take pre-emptive or even reactive actions to correct problems.

[taltamir]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

You can't generalize this - I think it's fair to say that when playing with your settings, the automation is leading you into money problems. I can start up a game right now with different settings and end up doing perfectly fine on full automation. In any case, we are planning another round of tweaks for the economy while 1.0.4 is still in beta.

while in certain settings it doesn't lead to bankruptcy, it is still somewhat hampering to the economy. Building mining bases that cause the private sector to lose money, rather to gain them.

I think each base should have its own "income vs expense"... and bases that lose money 2 years in a row automatically go "bankrupt" (aka, retire). ideally this will apply to every civilian ship... but they will be too power consuming... perhaps abstractions are in order. It should be possible to calculate a rough estimated profit rate and compare it to the maintainence cost. as maintenence is a constant.

So yea... the AI will only drive you to bankrupcy on very harsh settings... BUT it will still HARM your economy in any settings...

speaking of, a huge giant massive empire being as poor as a tiny one planet one might be good balance... but it doesn't make sense
1. a 500 planet empire should have ~500 times the GDP and budget of a 1 planet empire... give or take a percentage for efficiency. (and the whole point of democracy and capitalism is that you don't have too give up too much... centralized planning like communism will have more trouble... but STILL will manage to produce massively more than a single planet)
2. it is a great sense of achievement, especially in later game.

[astote]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
... In any case, we are planning another round of tweaks for the economy while 1.0.4 is still in beta.

which is good, but it seems to me that the AI itself needs some tweaks. Because if what you are saying is that different user settings result in different optimal strategies for the AI, however it seems the AI only has 1 strategy (give or take some race based influences). since there is such a variety of user settings, it might be difficult to nail down a single economy for every game type that the AI works equally well with.... (I'd say impossible).

That leaves the developers having to make econ tweaks for each game type.

A much better strategy to tackle the issue would be making the AI smarter, and more flexible varying immediate and long term goals of the empire. then the AI could adapt to more difficult economics by being more frugal, cautious of war and expansion and spending in general.

[taltamir]

if I may suggest... harsher home system should reduce the quality your non homeworld planets... A desert home planet with MSP and low pop means you start the game losing 12k a year in state and the private sector is also losing 12k a year...
Yet often there are very rich planets in the same system... I thought harsher system means that my home system has ONE good planet, my own... the rest are things like gas giant and dead planets... aka... like our own solar system. Starting with 1 or 2 continent planets in the same system but capital is on a desert planet is not what I had in mind (especially hillarious was one time where the other planet in the same system was a continental planet with an independent colony of my race of about 500M... i colonized it right away and BAM... I got a new "homeworld")

Also, if you do start with a desert on harshest conditions, then the starting assortment of construction ships AND private ships needs to be SCRAPPED! No passenger ships, no constructors or only 1 constructor, a few SMALL freighters... the starting compliment of 1 passenger, dozen of freighters, 2 contructors, several mining bases, etc... all result in private economy that is losing 12k a year at the second the game start... you need to immediately scrap your constructors and hope pirates blow up some mining bases to avoid going bankrupt... and you need to get lucky with your use of your initial 50k to snag enough GOOD colonies (preferably with ruins and indepedent populations and rare trade goods) in order to jump start your economy and eventually come out of the red... otherwise you end up losing money year after year after year with ever growing debt and inability to tackle it...
Oh, and most of the time they are just standing there doing nothing because there is no economy for them to deal with... except the constructors... they go around building mining bases even though state and private are both in the red.

speaking of... I think that happens to the AI... I can see they are in the negative due to having 0 money to trade in negotiation... and they are stuck with 1 planet only for, well, forever.
An algorithm that auto scraps private sector ships and bases that lose money is desperately needed... especially for the AI empires. If its a problem to run it for a long period of time... have it constantly on only for empires under 20 or 30 stars... then cycling on and off between empires over 30 starts (representing corrupt and inefficiency in a way )

[concern]

Do colonies actually cost you money, before you get a tax return on them?

[taltamir]

Yes and no... no they don't cost money directly...
but they result in development... space ports, mines, more freighters, etc... and they get more then they can pay for.
So your economy needs to be overall sound, and you need to focus on luxury goods to ensure that they CAN pay for it.

[concern]

Right. That makes sense.

It all comes down to something I suggested in one of my first posts to this forum. A game like DW, needs to be top notch on its presentation of information to the player. There is no other way for a game to work effectively on the scale that DW presents. At the moment, the economy all seems to be abstracted behind the empire summary screen. I think more information needs to be presented to the player, and some of the suggestions already presented here seem interesting, such as stations and private ships discontinuing their existance if they don't make money.

Are there any workable approaches to healing a red economy at the moment? Where do you make cuts to get yourself back to profitability?

[taltamir]

well, personally I don't think I need more information.. just for the AI to do a better job of managing it.

[jscott991]

ORIGINAL: concern

Right. That makes sense.

It all comes down to something I suggested in one of my first posts to this forum. A game like DW, needs to be top notch on its presentation of information to the player. There is no other way for a game to work effectively on the scale that DW presents. At the moment, the economy all seems to be abstracted behind the empire summary screen. I think more information needs to be presented to the player, and some of the suggestions already presented here seem interesting, such as stations and private ships discontinuing their existance if they don't make money.

Are there any workable approaches to healing a red economy at the moment? Where do you make cuts to get yourself back to profitability?

I definitely want more information presented better.