Can you save a red economy?

[Astorax]

Heh. Keep us posted, mate.

[Fishman]

This tactic singlehandedly justifies the need to be able to scrap (and thus reconstruct) mining bases. Giving the AI mining bases that mine nothing of worth but cost buttloads to maintain, and making him thank you for it, is just sadistic and wrong.

[Astorax]

lol Fishman, I thought you would have appreciated that aspect.  [:D]

I agree though, I've always felt we should be able to scrap/upgrade existing bases. We have to pay to build them in the first place, why not?

[Erik Rutins]

Yep, some good info for needed changes here, thanks.

[JosEPhII]

Thank you taltamir! I too want to see more of your eXperiments.

I would also like to see one with all settings on Normal. So we can get a glimpse of how the Standard game at operation.

I started a New game last night where I manage all production. I let the AI Adviser suggest, but I only build when I have to. After 14 years of game time I now have 11 colonies with a Cash balance of 115K and a budget that fluctuates from 3k to 21K.

NOTE: This is a 1.0.4.beta2 game.

My fleet consists of 6 ships, 2 of which I found, for pirate control. I have 2 constructors.

I was stymied at 5 colonies for some time till I colonized a Securian Independent and have since colonized 6 desert planets. I'm currently building 4 colony ships for 2 continental planets and 2 desert.

I have 2 Large space ports, 3 small, and 3 mediums under construction. I will be adding several more to the youngest planets as my budget allows.

Game specs:
Spiral Galaxy 700 stars
Indie Alien Life: scattered
Expansion: Starting
Aggression: Normal
Research: Normal
Space creatures: Normal
Pirates: Few
Empire race: Humans
Galaxy Starting Position: Deep Core
Home system: Normal
Size: Starting
Tech Level: Basic
Gov't: Monarchy

Other Empires
1 Despot, starting, Basic, Normal, Distant
1 Monarchy, starting, Basic, Normal, Distant
1 Feudal, starting, Basic, Normal, Distant
1 Democracy, starting, Basic, Normal, Average
1 Republic, starting, Basic, Normal, Average
Allow Indep to start new empires: No

Victory Conditions:
Economy: 33%
Victory Condition apply after: 25 years (2779.01.01)

This is a Micromanaged game. Current year date is 2768.01.21

JosEPh

[Tomcat]

ORIGINAL: taltamir

it might be easy to pull out of it in 1.03, but that is just due to massive income from colonies compensating for poor AI decision in mine building. Private ships and structures simply do not have their own cash flow, instead they draw on a communal cash flow of colony income, and provide its products and services for free. This isn't very "private" at all, it is just enforced AI managed communism... It also causes problems because unprofitably is rampant.
With v1.03 your highly unprofitable private mines and ships are being subsidized by an overly generous income of colonies, but it is still unprofitable and unretirable private economy.

I also agree that the economic model does not make sense. I haven't done nearly as much research as taltamir (or some others), but my sense is that:
a) any resources from my colonized planets should be available to me for free, but if I sell surplus to the private sector then I should be compensated at the going market rate;
b) if I build a mining station then the resources (gas, metals, etc.) should be available to me for free but if I sell surplus to the private sector then I should be compensated at the going market rate.

Note that this would potentially give me the ability to develop monopolies. An alternative suggestion is that I receive tax income from the private sector that utilizes my resources or sells in my empire.

I don't understand the interaction between the private sector's economy and the government's economy in this game. I think the entire economic model needs, at the very least, some better explanation.

[Fishers of Men]

taltamir,

I did not fully understand how the private sector manged its finances until you explained it in your post. I assumed each constructed item had a individual profit or loss and only profitable construction occurred. I hope you continue with your experiments because they show a lot about the economic design of DW. I believe the private sector should remain private and not allow the player to destroyer their units. But there should also be no automated construction that would drive the private sector into continual financial losses. I manually control my construction ships and my colony placement. I believe this allows the private sector to remain in the black. I am still using patch 1.03 at this time and find things are a little financialy tight at the beginning of a game, but after fifteen years or so, I am rolling in the dough. I believe it is not good to build everything everywhere as fast as you can. This might be a little counter to our nation's cultural thinking, though. We live in a land of MUCH, MANY, and MORE!

I like your concepts of economic design but implimenting this into DW would require a major rewrite of the code. Would this be your estimate, too? Would that disrupt much of Elliot's other design features?

FoM

[Tomcat]

While we're at it, let me say that if the game wants to "model" an economy then it needs to provide some of the basic tools. Each planet and mining station that the player owns should have a profit and loss reading. For planets - what is the cost of the troops, bases, etc., maintaining the planet vs what am I getting from the planet in terms of taxes and the value of resources I am consuming from it. Mining bases I build should be mine and should not become private, and I should also know the profit and loss from each station in terms of what it costs to maintain the bases vs. what I am getting for the resources it provides. THe cost of maintaining the empire's fleet is overhead that perhaps can not be amortized across the planets and mining stations I own, but if I know the cost to maintain the fleet, and I know my profit from what I am protecting, then I have some ideas on how to better manage my empire.

[taltamir]

something interesting I noticed... you can build a gas mining station on ANY planet type...
so i started building my "Wasteful GMS" (that is the name I chose ) on rocky planets and give it to them... lets see them mine gas now

so... probably a good idea to limit GMS to actual gas planets and regular mining stations to regular planets