1.0.4.4 I like the new economy

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: Fishman
Income SHOULD always be in the black. Any time you find yourself in negative income, you are DOOMED. The ability to actually increase your income by any immediate action in DW is basically nonexistent: Anything you do that will increase your income will not actually have an effect for a very long time. If you go into red income, and your cash reserves run out, the game is over: Without income, you can't build anything to fix this in the future, so the situation will just continue to go downhill and you will continue to be unable to do anything. Black income isn't just a luxury item, it's MANDATORY: Red income = DEATH.

That's way too general a statement. You can absolutely recover from negative cash flow and negative cash, it depends entirely on why your cash or cash flow has gone into the negative.

[DarkWraith]

ORIGINAL: Fishman

Income SHOULD always be in the black. Any time you find yourself in negative income, you are DOOMED. The ability to actually increase your income by any immediate action in DW is basically nonexistent: Anything you do that will increase your income will not actually have an effect for a very long time. If you go into red income, and your cash reserves run out, the game is over: Without income, you can't build anything to fix this in the future, so the situation will just continue to go downhill and you will continue to be unable to do anything. Black income isn't just a luxury item, it's MANDATORY: Red income = DEATH.

It really doesn't. In B2, it was my general strategy that'd I'd let myself go 10k into the red in income and worry about it later. I didn't even start scrapping ships to push back into the black, just lived with it for a year or so. Dealing with red incomes isn't difficult at all, and it needs to be at least possible to push your economy hard enough for it to give out - we had that in B2, and perhaps it was a bit too easy to do so, but you have to try hard to have economic problems now.

[EisenHammer]

I was able to get out of the red a few times, it's far from being DOOMED or DEATH.
But I have yet to see red with 1.04.4 

[JosEPhII]

You know we've had ppl post screen shots of their economy. One of the most outlandish was one that had an 11Million balance. The poster went on to say how easy it was to make this "ridiculous" amount. But upon further questioning it came out that he was playing on the easiest of all levels!

If you all are so proficient at money making why don't you post How you do it? And at what levels of difficulty. Since game setup has many variables, maybe a closer look at what you set up and then your procedures is called for?  To educate the dumb masses of which I am one. The 1 game that I made it to the 1 million mark for budget balance was the one game were I felt I had really accomplished something. And that I had the Resources to actually make my victory goals.

Now if I can keep the budget out of the red and maintain a 20k-50k balance I feel I'm doing good. But when War comes that 20k-50K budget gets used up very quickly and then it's scramble time again and Most of the time it Does lead to defeat especially if you go red on both levels Erik. Try being at War with a Major AI, one who has twice the colonies you do, and then have your economy tank (red, red). If you can pull that one out then I'm in over my head on this game!

JosEPh

[taltamir]

ORIGINAL: JosEPh_II

I still don't understand this rationale that if I have a peacetime economy that I have to run in the RED to feel challenged!?? Maybe so on the Highest Difficulty levels but definitely NOT on normal and below.

I still can't build everything I want or even need on Normal settings without watching my bottomline. And this is how it should be!

When I go to War I DO NOT want to be hamstrung because I don't have the capital to build a Modern fleet and/or Defense Bases. But several of you seem to think this is How The Game Should Be. More Normal players will be discouraged By Not having a decent economy than the few of You Uber players who make good money on the highest levels.

Sorry if this is abrupt and abrasive to some of you but Gee Whiz back off a bit! Let the rest of us have a chance to form an opinion and not be railroaded into making the economy Too Hard Again! [:@]

JosEPh [:-]

I agree with you... I have no idea why people want that, but apparently they do.
A difficulty slider should take care of that...
I agree with erik, we have a good default setting right now...

Erik, if you see that, I did notice that in a sandbox game where I was the only empire left I had 1 gas mining stations only resulting in ridiculous prices (50 for hydrogen). I manually built 30 gas mining stations... a little later they all disappeared. I am not sure if the econ AI scrapped them or if the pirates aggressively hunted them down, but i was at 27 sources of hydrogen at one point and now I am down to zero... also all my construction ships disappeared (I had 12, I retrofitted all of them to latest design, and they all disappeared a little later).

[lancer]

Goodaye Eric,

I think that the economic difficulty badly needs a slider to cater for everybodies individual preferences.

I've tallied up the posts in this thread and there are six people (taltamir, jscott, spacecadet, joseph, titanwarrior, fishman) who like things as they are (beta 4).

There are eight people (eisenhammer, darkwraith, ashberry, munchies, das123, interesting, lancer, alexaexuk) who think it's too easy.

Another two expressed a need for a difficulty slider without coming down on either side.

So even in this small sample you've got a 6 to 8 difference of opinion with the balance saying it's too easy.

I don't think that you can afford to let this issue simmer and stew.

Most people interested in 4X space games would have experience with at least one other example of the genre. I can't think of any that don't have difficulty settings. People are used to having that option.

Aiming for a default middle ground is like chasing mirages. The problem is that you are going to have a significant percentage of your user base thinking (and saying) that you've made the game too easy.

DW is a game that is largely marketed (from what I've gathered so far) by gamers word of mouth and posts on other forums. The last thing you want is people posting that the game has been 'dumbed down' or 'nerfed' to cater for the RTS crowd (not saying that's the case but whenever you have a lot of people saying the game is too easy then you leave yourself open for this kind of stuff).

Potential buyers are willing to give a game that errs on the side of challenging a go but having a reputation as an 'easy' game without the option for choosing your preference is a bad look. Word gets around and even if you instigate a patch with the aforementioned slider a couple of months down the track you've having to make up a lot of ground. You've probably ended up losing a bunch of sales in the initial launch period when the game is fresh and new.

The previous paragraph is me with my 'game business' hat on. It's a pretty raggedy *ssed hat so take it with a grain of salt.

I'd stress that I'm not advocating making the game harder to cater for my personal preference here. It's important to cater for both groups. I am putting a case forward that you implement a difficulty slider as a matter of priority.

Personally if I can't get a challenge out of a game then I lose interest in it pretty quick, no matter how good it is. I suspect that there are a lot of other 4X players with similiar views. I've found ways with DW (as posted above) how to maintain the challenge so I keep playing it an enjoying but others may not bother to go to the extremes that I have.

I think DW is a great game with a great future. But I can see that you are going to get hit pretty hard if you let this issue blow in the breeze for too long. There is nothing in this post that you probably don't know or are aware of but given that you've already summoned the 'difficulty monster' out of the depths and had him zig zag across perceptions, I don't think you can simply ask people to ignore him with reassurance that you'll slay him some time in the future.

Of course all this is a personal opinion and I've been known to be wrong. Numerous times.

Cheers,
Lancer

[DasTactic]

I tried a few games with the Home System setting on 'Harsh' rather than 'Agreeable' and it makes a massive difference in terms of difficulty. Right from the start you have a negative balance and limited ships. Pirates are a real threat as you only start with a single Escort. I haven't played too deeply into any of these games but they are much more difficult.

With this in mind I think the economy in 1.0.4.4 is pretty close to the mark as far as I'm concerned. [:)]

[Fishman]

ORIGINAL: EisenHammer

I was able to get out of the red a few times, it's far from being DOOMED or DEATH.

If you have CASH RESERVES, you are fine. If the red occurs when you have NO cash reserves, you are SCREWED. Without money, you can't do anything, so at that point you are reduced to an impotent observer of a chain of events you are now powerless to affect.

[taltamir]

ORIGINAL: Fishman

ORIGINAL: EisenHammer

I was able to get out of the red a few times, it's far from being DOOMED or DEATH.

If you have CASH RESERVES, you are fine. If the red occurs when you have NO cash reserves, you are SCREWED. Without money, you can't do anything, so at that point you are reduced to an impotent observer of a chain of events you are now powerless to affect.

that is one point, it also very much depends on WHAT made you get into the red... if it was the AI building too much PRIVATE stuff then there is NOTHING to do get out of it. If it was because your STATE expenses outstripped your income but the private sector is still growing (and you just colonized a ton of colonies who have much growth to do) then it will also come out of it by itself...

for example, I had a case where I went from 60 colonies to 300 colonies in under 5 minutes. (sold tech for several millions to AI, bought hundreds of colony ships with the money). The auto troop recruiting sent me to the red in the STATE (I 500k troop expense, 20k ships and bases expense, ~200k taxes income)...
however, the private sector was flourishing and eventually grew enough to support this state expense and then some.

[lancer]

Goodaye,

I tried a few games with the Home System setting on 'Harsh' rather than 'Agreeable' and it makes a massive difference in terms of difficulty

I'd overlooked that setting. You're right. Harsh means HARSH. Really challenging.

Thanks for pointing that out.

Cheers,
Lancer

[Titanwarrior89]

I agree with both of you. Back is not good...... lets meet in the middle. There were some games back in b1 and two that I got out of the red but then there were some, that no matter what I did I couldn't get out of the red.[:-]

ORIGINAL: taltamir

ORIGINAL: JosEPh_II

I still don't understand this rationale that if I have a peacetime economy that I have to run in the RED to feel challenged!?? Maybe so on the Highest Difficulty levels but definitely NOT on normal and below.

I still can't build everything I want or even need on Normal settings without watching my bottomline. And this is how it should be!

When I go to War I DO NOT want to be hamstrung because I don't have the capital to build a Modern fleet and/or Defense Bases. But several of you seem to think this is How The Game Should Be. More Normal players will be discouraged By Not having a decent economy than the few of You Uber players who make good money on the highest levels.

Sorry if this is abrupt and abrasive to some of you but Gee Whiz back off a bit! Let the rest of us have a chance to form an opinion and not be railroaded into making the economy Too Hard Again! [:@]

JosEPh [:-]

I agree with you... I have no idea why people want that, but apparently they do.
A difficulty slider should take care of that...
I agree with erik, we have a good default setting right now...

Erik, if you see that, I did notice that in a sandbox game where I was the only empire left I had 1 gas mining stations only resulting in ridiculous prices (50 for hydrogen). I manually built 30 gas mining stations... a little later they all disappeared. I am not sure if the econ AI scrapped them or if the pirates aggressively hunted them down, but i was at 27 sources of hydrogen at one point and now I am down to zero... also all my construction ships disappeared (I had 12, I retrofitted all of them to latest design, and they all disappeared a little later).

[jscott991]

We already did meet in the middle. B4 is supposed to be the middle ground between b1 and b2 and 1.03.

[Titanwarrior89]

Like I said lets meet in the middle. We must not be there if you guys are still unhappy.[:-]

ORIGINAL: jscott991

We already did meet in the middle. B4 is supposed to be the middle ground between b1 and b2 and 1.03.

[Munchies]

I find the economy a little too easy at the start too. To the point I do not get challenged and discouraged to play.

In my recent game playing the Kiadians I had 6 colonies, and of my 4 neighbors (They were not right next to me. I had to explore for a bit to find most of them) one had 5, one had 4, one had 13, and one had 24. I had a bad draw of planets I could colonize.

Yet I had the second best economy out of the group and by far the biggest military. And I never redesigned my ships to be more powerful. Just put an extra fuel tank on the frigs and destroyers. I only built ships that the AI suggested. Found one capital ship of 78 power and one destroyer of 40 power.

I fluctuated between 3000 and 20000 income the entire time. At one point I had 150k in the bank with nothing to spend it on. Didn't need a bigger fleet although the advisor wanted me to build 14 more frigates.

The nearest AI, Haakonian or whatever that reptile is called, had an independent in his home system of the same race. And he NEVER colonized it. He was the smallest of the group but had the second highest military strength.

The AI also does not aggressively defend their colonies either. I had to kill 2 extremely giant Kaltors in a neighbors system that had been eating my freighters for a while. Was eating his space port everytime he tried to build one. So sent my fleet to take them out. Biggest Kaltors I ever saw too! [X(]

The AI needs to buy info from pirates such as indies, abandoned ships, etc. If they do that already then they need to begin going after them more quickly.
I no longer buy info from pirates because it just puts me further ahead.
And they need to defend their colonies. If it is a big threat then they need to gather ALL their ships and send them in.

Anyway, it is too easy.
You guys seem to not want a challenge while playing?.. I want to have to fight to win the game, not play a colonizing sim.

Who knows. Maybe the problem is deeper than just the economy. Perhaps the economy is just right and tweaking the AI behavior will balance things out. (more aggressive for example and better ships designs)

P.S. I always play on chaos setting in a 1400 star galaxy. Most everything else on normal.

[jscott991]

An empire with only 6 colonies SHOULD always be in the black. What could you possibly be spending your money on that would drain you into the red?

And why would the game be more fun if you were even smaller than your AI opponents?

I'm sorry, but you seem to have drawn the perfect game for a challenge. You're small, while the AI is big, and you don't have many choices for colonization. On top of that, you want your economy to be in the tank?

And 3000 to 20000 in income is nothing. Turn on Troop/agent automation and that will dry up immediately.

Making economics more difficult or challenging is NOT going to improve the combat in this game. You will always roll the AI as long as he declines to design effective ships and doesn't build anything big.

[EisenHammer]

For people who are having a hard time with the economy I suggest setting your home system to excellent at the start of a new game.

[taltamir]

ORIGINAL: EisenHammer

For people who are having a hard time with the economy I suggest setting your home system to excellent at the start of a new game.

and for those having an easy time, set your home system to harsh... that starts you out with a MSP instead of LSP, you are losing 20k in state and the private sector is losing 20k, and your home planet sucks...
You have 50k, and you better spend them wisely.. because if you don't grab some REALLY good planets... if you don't, you will never be able to become profitable.

Even if you do... by the time you do that the AI empires are 2 to 3 times your size.

[EisenHammer]

ORIGINAL: taltamir

ORIGINAL: EisenHammer

For people who are having a hard time with the economy I suggest setting your home system to excellent at the start of a new game.

and for those having an easy time, set your home system to harsh... that starts you out with a MSP instead of LSP, you are losing 20k in state and the private sector is losing 20k, and your home planet sucks...
You have 50k, and you better spend them wisely.. because if you don't grab some REALLY good planets... if you don't, you will never be able to become profitable.

Even if you do... by the time you do that the AI empires are 2 to 3 times your size.

True... I guess we already have our economy difficulty slider.

[Munchies]

ORIGINAL: jscott991

An empire with only 6 colonies SHOULD always be in the black. What could you possibly be spending your money on that would drain you into the red?

And why would the game be more fun if you were even smaller than your AI opponents?

I'm sorry, but you seem to have drawn the perfect game for a challenge. You're small, while the AI is big, and you don't have many choices for colonization. On top of that, you want your economy to be in the tank?

And 3000 to 20000 in income is nothing. Turn on Troop/agent automation and that will dry up immediately.

Making economics more difficult or challenging is NOT going to improve the combat in this game. You will always roll the AI as long as he declines to design effective ships and doesn't build anything big.

Did you even read what I wrote? sigh

I said that economy maybe be just right (ie. perfect) and that the other areas may bring it all together. Just needs a slider?
Also I NEVER said I wanted my economy in the tank!
and being positive 20k with the military I had is NOT balanced (had auto design on). I was more than double the military strength.
You do not know what I had in my empire. I could have had LSP's on all 6 colonies for all you know.
One of my fleets had 12 destroyers and frigates. not to mention the countless other escorts and frigs on patrol.

I said it was too easy for me. Are you calling me a liar?

And I am not small by any means. It was still early in the game. Are you saying I should be gaining one planet every minute of game play? That sir is unbalance and too easy.

By the way, that 24 colony empire is getting wiped now by the small Haakonian empire that had the second highest fleet strength. Which is what should happen if you spend every dime on colony ships and ignore military.

And I could wipe the AI anytime I want. I stopped building military ships because I was already sooo far ahead. and still had awesome economy FOR MY SIZE AND UPKEEP.

No matter how you try to put it or what you say. with my ship upkeep and all other things going on (private sector was making 200k) it is too easy for me.


And the 2 big AI opponents were able to colonize the Ice/volcanic worlds so of course they should be bigger than me.
Even though they have crap for defense and are being crushed now.

You keep acting like you should ALWAYS be on the top and be able to outrace the AI with ease. Where is the challenge?
Until someone invents a computer AI for gaming where the AI can learn and think just like a human, then there will have to be limitations for the human for it to be a challenge.

I am not good at explaining things as others are, so I will leave it at this.
I know there are many others that think like me and don't want a cake walk when they play. (BUT we don't want to ALWAYS struggle up hill either!)
We want to have to think and take chances like.. should I skimp on military and keep right on colonizing? Or be ready for a surprise attack?

[Munchies]

ORIGINAL: EisenHammer

ORIGINAL: taltamir

ORIGINAL: EisenHammer

For people who are having a hard time with the economy I suggest setting your home system to excellent at the start of a new game.

and for those having an easy time, set your home system to harsh... that starts you out with a MSP instead of LSP, you are losing 20k in state and the private sector is losing 20k, and your home planet sucks...
You have 50k, and you better spend them wisely.. because if you don't grab some REALLY good planets... if you don't, you will never be able to become profitable.

Even if you do... by the time you do that the AI empires are 2 to 3 times your size.

True... I guess we already have our economy difficulty slider.

I started at normal homeworld and had a MSP that I later upgraded.
I will try the poor homeworld. I admit that I never tried it. Was trying everything on normal to get a baseline diff.