AI Kills Me in GDP - GDP Screenshots Incl.

[Bartje]

He said it was supposed to be capped;
 
ergo: It's safe to assume that its not supposed to drain your complete income away.

[vils]

An option to disable corruption alltogheter would be nice, perhaps as an option during the galaxy setup phase pre-game..

[Dadekster]

I don't know much about the whole corruption issue, have never noticed it tbh, but even when I am the largest empire I am rarely in 1st for GDP. I do everything myself except set taxes and run 1.04 with humans as a republic or monarchy. I generally build what the AI recommends but sometimes I will interject my own builds depending on what I think I might need down the road.

[taltamir]

ORIGINAL: Bartje

He said it was supposed to be capped;

ergo: It's safe to assume that its not supposed to drain your complete income away.

just because its capped doesn't mean the economy would not get worse... goning from corruption of 50% to a cap of 60% by building more colonies might not bankrupt you, but it CAN result in more colonies = less money (but it doesn't have to, it just depends on whether a 10% increase in corruption is caused by more or by less of 10% increase in number of colonies... and the exact size and development of said colonies).
After it reaches the cap, further growth will result in linear increases to your wealth. (of a lower slope then original growth, but still linear)... where each colony adds an equal amount... so you have a curve with dips with times where it goes up and times where it goes down.
There are far too many variables (colony quality, population amount, development amount, exact ratios, etc) for it to be "safe" to implement on a per colony approach. It should be per tax income bracket and only affect income of the bracket.

that being said, I am typically so stinking rich I don't even notice corruption... so maybe you should upload your saves where you are going bankrupt. If anything, I am guessing that you are encountering other issues. Such as the accidental retiring of all gas mining stations (due to a bug in the retrofit code for gas mining stations) resulting in you massive empire having 0 fuel sources. Causing prices of ships to skyrocket and bankrupting you private sector which bankrupts your state.
Aka, its most likely a bug and potentially not even caused by corruption... so upload such saves.

[Erik Rutins]

Just to nip another bit of speculation in the bud, the AI does not get any advantages on corruption, it works the same way for the AI as it does for you.

[jscott991]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

Just to nip another bit of speculation in the bud, the AI does not get any advantages on corruption, it works the same way for the AI as it does for you.

That's a relief. At least he is getting just as screwed as I am.

But I still don't understand some things you said earlier.

If adding a new colony increases empire-wide corruption that means that expansion is costing an empire money.

A new colony earns basically zero and if it adds to corruption on older colonies, how doesn't that reduce economic output?

Something is jacking up the corruption on my core worlds and that makes the end game (say 60-70 years in and 200 or so colonies) a quagmire that is no fun.

Corruption is functioning as a clock. Its forcing you to end the game by X date or basically have an unplayable empire that can't be rescued. It needs to go.

[Cindar]

Does the corruption scale based on colony numbers? Or is it something else like GDP or population? I imagine that if what Erik says is true about adding another world never causing you to make less money that it would be a sliding scale based on your GDP or Tar Revenue or something.

[Erik Rutins]

As I understand it, corruption scales based on your total population and the number of systems globally, as well as the population of each planet locally, as well as the distance of each planet from the capitol system (this acts as a local corruption modifier).

I will say again that the idea that corruption should drive large empires into negative income or reach 100% for colonies is not correct, that's not the concept or the intention. I'm looking forward to seeing some save files so that we can see what's going wrong there, but it sounds like in some cases for very large empires there may be a bug in corruption scaling.

I have not seen this myself in late game tests, but it may be that I didn't hit quite as many colonies as those reporting here.

I would appreciate if this potential bug were not assumed to be the intended design.

[jscott991]

And I would appreciate it if corruption weren't in the game to begin with or could be turned off.

[Rustyallan]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

As I understand it, corruption scales based on your total population and the number of systems globally, as well as the population of each planet locally, as well as the distance of each planet from the capitol system (this acts as a local corruption modifier).

I will say again that the idea that corruption should drive large empires into negative income or reach 100% for colonies is not correct, that's not the concept or the intention. I'm looking forward to seeing some save files so that we can see what's going wrong there, but it sounds like in some cases for very large empires there may be a bug in corruption scaling.

I have not seen this myself in late game tests, but it may be that I didn't hit quite as many colonies as those reporting here.

I would appreciate if this potential bug were not assumed to be the intended design.

Erik, thanks for that bit of info on how it's supposed to work. I know we've all been wondering about that. I'm working on a savegame where I'm trying to expand and drive the corruption as high as I can. One quirk I noticed in skimming the colony list is that while my home colony is at 55% corruption, I have other colonies a couple sectors away that are at 43-48%... a couple more sectors and it jumps to 78%+ and then on the other side of the galaxy, my new colonies are in the 65-68% range. I'd say this shows that distance from the capitol may be a small modifier indeed.

[Cindar]

ORIGINAL: jscott991

And I would appreciate it if corruption weren't in the game to begin with or could be turned off.

Don't be ridiculous. If corruption was turned off you would be hitting 10 million income late game. There is no reasonable way to spend that much money.

[Rustyallan]

Don't be ridiculous. If corruption was turned off you would be hitting 10 million income late game. There is no reasonable way to spend that much money.

Late game? more like mid-game. I'd get bored fast if that was the case.

Of course they could always just slow down how much money you make at the start and make players struggle like crazy. (think harsh x10 at normal start)

Or ramp up expenses for everything as the game progresses. Then players could complain about that.

There are several ways it could be otherwise done with pros and cons all around. Erik has already stated a couple of times that they will be giving players some control over corruption so it shouldn't be as much of an issue. Personally, I haven't had issues with it in game yet. I have noted and am tracking the high corruption values in my current game, but corruption isn't what's killing my economy... At least yet...and I'm trying to make that happen. I'd love to know what all the factors for corruption are though... mostly because I love to dig in the guts of games like this. [:D]

[Fishman]

ORIGINAL: Bartje

He said it was supposed to be capped;

He keeps SAYING that, but then he keeps dodging the issue on what the cap *IS*. What he seems to be saying is that the cap is 100%, which is not really a cap at all!

[jscott991]

ORIGINAL: Cindar

ORIGINAL: jscott991

And I would appreciate it if corruption weren't in the game to begin with or could be turned off.

Don't be ridiculous. If corruption was turned off you would be hitting 10 million income late game. There is no reasonable way to spend that much money.

Corruption is not the only way to control economic output. It's simply the easiest way to program. You don't have to worry about players being able to do anything about it. That's a double edged sword: players can't do anything about it.

It's ridiculous to have 80% corruption on your homeworld because you founded a colony.

[VarekRaith]

Upload saves!
Seriously, if it's a bug, it will be fixed.

[jscott991]

ORIGINAL: VarekRaith

Upload saves!
Seriously, if it's a bug, it will be fixed.

I doubt it is a bug.

And fighting with the FTP server is the only thing less fun than corruption-wracked empire simulation.

[ceyan]

ORIGINAL: jscott991

ORIGINAL: VarekRaith

Upload saves!
Seriously, if it's a bug, it will be fixed.

I doubt it is a bug.

And fighting with the FTP server is the only thing less fun than corruption-wracked empire simulation.

http://www.mediafire.com/
http://www.filedropper.com/
http://www.fileden.com/
http://www.filefactory.com/
http://www.megaupload.com/
http://www.yourfilelink.com/
http://www.rapidshare.com/
http://depositfiles.com/en/

I could keep going, but I've used three of those personally and know they would work for these purposes.

[Wenla]

ORIGINAL: Rustyallan

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

As I understand it, corruption scales based on your total population and the number of systems globally, as well as the population of each planet locally, as well as the distance of each planet from the capitol system (this acts as a local corruption modifier).

I will say again that the idea that corruption should drive large empires into negative income or reach 100% for colonies is not correct, that's not the concept or the intention. I'm looking forward to seeing some save files so that we can see what's going wrong there, but it sounds like in some cases for very large empires there may be a bug in corruption scaling.

I have not seen this myself in late game tests, but it may be that I didn't hit quite as many colonies as those reporting here.

I would appreciate if this potential bug were not assumed to be the intended design.

Erik, thanks for that bit of info on how it's supposed to work. I know we've all been wondering about that. I'm working on a savegame where I'm trying to expand and drive the corruption as high as I can. One quirk I noticed in skimming the colony list is that while my home colony is at 55% corruption, I have other colonies a couple sectors away that are at 43-48%... a couple more sectors and it jumps to 78%+ and then on the other side of the galaxy, my new colonies are in the 65-68% range. I'd say this shows that distance from the capitol may be a small modifier indeed.

I was just going to comment that information that Erik gave us means that best place to place your capitol is just middle of galaxy, but you gave us different information/facts.

[VarekRaith]

ORIGINAL: jscott991

ORIGINAL: VarekRaith

Upload saves!
Seriously, if it's a bug, it will be fixed.

I doubt it is a bug.

And fighting with the FTP server is the only thing less fun than corruption-wracked empire simulation.

Then upload it to a file sharing service that ceyan posted and I'll upload it to the FTP server.

[taltamir]

My 700 planet empire is literally swimming in money. Even without relocating my capital to the center (of course, once I do I swim in even more money... but it both cases its very very large numbers)

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

As I understand it, corruption scales based on your total population and the number of systems globally, as well as the population of each planet locally, as well as the distance of each planet from the capitol system (this acts as a local corruption modifier).

This is very involved, very complex code meant to account for a variety of factors (4 specific factors)... which is why there are likely to be issues compared to only counting one factor such as your total tax revenue (much easier to reduce safely) or population.
Either bugs in the code, or fringe cases (What happens to someone who has only humans and colonies lots of systems, but only 1 planet per system? or other unusual expansion patterns) could result in the issues he is seeing.
He really should be uploading a save. Because even if it isn't a bug it is not how the system is intended to work, and it will provide an example of a fringe case which would contribute to the way corruption works being changed.

As for people saying you shouldn't be able to "Steamroll" small empires... yes you should, this is why "victory" is achieved at 30% of total galaxy population and not 100%. Because at that point you should be able to steamroll, you won, all thats left is the most fun portion of the game... the mop up. (but some consider that boring).
I only wish the AI was a lot more aggressive in using said money. I am wealthy, but it barely builds any ships, nor does it use my massive fleets and to concurrently invade all planets of a tiny empire that goes to war with me... It would invade, but sloooooowly.

Anyways, sounds like a corruption slider (from none to very heavy) might be the only way to make "everyone happy"... heh.
so many sliders...