AI Kills Me in GDP - GDP Screenshots Incl.

[Munchies]

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.

Either put up or shut up.
Upload your save otherwise I have doubts to what you say.
Quite frankly I don't believe anything you say because you are just so hard set against corruption. You are like a politician. Never speaking the whole truth, almost to the point of a lie, just because it is something you don't want.

And if it IS a bug, then you need to UPLOAD your save.

I have exactly 189 colonies in my game and I am still making waaaaaaay more than my enemies.
Will it all change after I pass the 200 colony mark and start going bankrupt? Maybe, but then again I will upload my save for the Devs to analyze if it does.

[jscott991]

I don't have a later save at the moment, but here is a save where it is starting to happen. Colony revenue is 471k. Corruption on most worlds is +60 percent, climbing toward 70 percent. (People do understand what this means, right? The game is artificially removing a staggering percentage of your income for no reason other than your empire size. But I guess we'll all ok with that.)

This empire is still earning in the positives because of huge resort revenue (which is hard to predict or duplicate).

In 20 years, this game will be unplayable. In less than that, the empire will have very little money and a consistent negative cash flow.

I'll play further and see if I can replicate my earlier results (which occurred at 80% corruption on every world). I wish Fishman had his save. He endured this state longer than me.

http://www.mediafire.com/?jzgi3nhjjzt

PS. Everyone one of those sites is a pop-up monster.

[Bartje]

Haha

Nice to see you've uploaded the save! jscott!

I agree that corruption is a bad word. It should be Inefficiency and I also agree that something close to 100% inneficiency is rediculous.

Personally I'd say a worst case scenario of 80, perhaps 75% innefiency is acceptable and can be made plausible within DW. (Fringe colonies; Tax evasion; weak central authority, corruption; old technology etc..;


But then again, with a corruption slider coming along we'll be able to set this our selves.

[Cindar]

ORIGINAL: 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.

And how exactly would you intend to stop an empire from having ridiculous amounts of cash like in earlier versions of DW?

ORIGINAL: jscott991

I don't have a later save at the moment, but here is a save where it is starting to happen. Colony revenue is 471k. Corruption on most worlds is +60 percent, climbing toward 70 percent. (People do understand what this means, right? The game is artificially removing a staggering percentage of your income for no reason other than your empire size. But I guess we'll all ok with that.)

This empire is still earning in the positives because of huge resort revenue (which is hard to predict or duplicate).

In 20 years, this game will be unplayable. In less than that, the empire will have very little money and a consistent negative cash flow.

I'll play further and see if I can replicate my earlier results (which occurred at 80% corruption on every world). I wish Fishman had his save. He endured this state longer than me.

http://www.mediafire.com/?jzgi3nhjjzt

PS. Everyone one of those sites is a pop-up monster.

You are using the Monarchy government. You are spending 900k in fleet maintenance. You have the Way of Darkness government tech which cuts maintenance by 50% (otherwise you would consider a democracy or republic which improves income and reduces corruption, but are not quite as good). I think I've found a problem. Changing this gives you another 450k in profit.

Your fleet/ports could also be constructed more efficiently if you optimized your designs, I bet you could cut your maintenance by another 1/2-1/3rd with no loss of capability. Don't put research labs on all your ports, just put 5 on one research station near a black hole. Use far less and/or no armor since space creatures are no threat at all. Stop using lasers, especially on stations. You certainly could cut back on your fleet, your military power is 100k vs 36k for the next strongest, but I'm not even considering that. That puts you up to at least 600k profit.

You have WAYYYYYYY too many troops. 92k spent on troops? That can be cut in half easily. So about 650k profit you are missing out on.

[jscott991]

You are completely missing the point.

Despite founding 20 more colonies, colony tax revenue has declined to 427k several years further in this game. So Erik is completely wrong. Founding more colonies DOES cost you tax revenue because of corruption effects. I didn't think there was any doubt about this fact, but perhaps there still is.

Corruption has now crested 70% on most core worlds.

[Rustyallan]

You are using the Monarchy government. You are spending 900k in fleet maintenance. You have the Way of Darkness government tech which cuts maintenance by 50% (otherwise you would consider a democracy or republic which improves income and reduces corruption, but are not quite as good). I think I've found a problem. Changing this gives you another 450k in profit.

Your fleet/ports could also be constructed more efficiently if you optimized your designs, I bet you could cut your maintenance by another 1/2-1/3rd with no loss of capability. Don't put research labs on all your ports, just put 5 on one research station near a black hole. Use far less and/or no armor since space creatures are no threat at all. Stop using lasers, especially on stations. You certainly could cut back on your fleet, your military power is 100k vs 36k for the next strongest, but I'm not even considering that. That puts you up to at least 600k profit.

You have WAYYYYYYY too many troops. 92k spent on troops? That can be cut in half easily. So about 650k profit you are missing out on.

Fishman's game, which we'll never see since he purged it, claims to have had negative income with practically nothing left to spend it on anyway and over 80% corruption using Way of the Ancients government, which is where corruption would be out of control.

One thing I'm watching in my current game is the private sector income. It managed to drop from a 20b surplus to 2b before turning positive on income again. I've been tracking down problems and correcting them. FWIW, I have 250k in troop maintenance, but I'm at war with the entire galaxy right now and am just going around invading almost everything. Fleet maintenance is 785k, with all my patrol ships and I have 4-5 active fleets. Cashflow is quite negative, but I have a surplus that's actually been maintaining about even.

One thing I am curious about regarding the corruption calculation...
How is the government corruption modifier factored in? What I mean is that if the cap is 100% and I'm following the Way of the Ancients with a -20% to corruption, how is it possible to see over 80% corruption? Democracy and Republic are -25%. Since fishman claims those are the governments and numbers he saw, I don't see how it should be unless the modifier is to the starting point and not the cap. And that's assuming the cap is 100%, which I highly doubt is the case.

[jscott991]

In the stickied thread on the update, ceyan is showing corruption of 80-90% with only 94 colonies.

Fishman might be right. The cap might be 100%.

[Cindar]

Your worlds don't exist in a vacuum. What probably happened was:

1. Your resort income went down, or it was unusually high prior to this (as you say, resorts are ridiculously unreliable).
2. Your private sector started ordering less ships. Space port income is only slightly more reliable then the resorts.
3. The colonists you took from your better developed worlds are paying less taxes on the new worlds.
4. You are creating more of a fleet then you need to defend these new territories.
5. Some other combination of events.

I have just taken my own empire from 110->180 colonies and my profit has stayed steady or gently risen even as my corruption went from 70->80%.

[Bartje]

Are you sure it was tax income (resorts don't fall into this right? We can we filter them out?)

Perhaps resorts do need to be stabilized somewhat??

[Rustyallan]

ORIGINAL: Wenla

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.

Actually, Erik mentioned in the past that distance from capital was not a huge factor in the corruption formula and that players don't need to move their capital to the center because doing otherwise puts them at a terrible disadvantage. My observations are that his statement is true. My homeworld is at the top-center of the map. Distance does not seem to be a huge factor in the level of corruption. I'd love to know what is causing the wide variations though.

ORIGINAL: taltamir

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).

By the time I controlled 30% of the population of the galaxy of, by then, 10 empires... yeah, they can declare war all they want... And I agree, the steamrolling is the fun part. The relaxation after a hard game's work getting to that point. The reward of stomping on all the empires that annoyed you with crying about your ships refueling in their territory.

[jscott991]

ORIGINAL: Cindar

Your worlds don't exist in a vacuum. What probably happened was:

1. Your resort income went down, or it was unusually high prior to this (as you say, resorts are ridiculously unreliable).
2. Your private sector started ordering less ships. Space port income is only slightly more reliable then the resorts.
3. The colonists you took from your better developed worlds are paying less taxes on the new worlds.
4. You are creating more of a fleet then you need to defend these new territories.
5. Some other combination of events.

I have just taken my own empire from 110->180 colonies and my profit has stayed steady or gently risen even as my corruption went from 70->80%.

I'm not tracking resort or spaceport income.

The Empire summary screen will show you tax revenue. My tax revenue declined from 471 to 427 as my empire got older/bigger.

This will happen to anyone. This idea that you can optimize certain areas to make money regardless is not the point. The point is that expansion costs you tax revenue because corruption values increase faster than new colony income. Tax revenue is falling. Sometimes I wonder if people even look at all the data the game poorly presents. Based on responses, I'm guessing no. There is more at work in the game than the silly display in the upper right (which is usually wrong).

As Fishman has pointed out, the longer you play, the worse this will get and eventually you will bog down and collapse.

Corruption is a game clock. It's a poorly designed money sink that also all but forces you to finish the game before it eats up your entire income.

[Bartje]

If this is true then it is a bug;
 
Didn't Erik specificly state your tax income shoudn't shrink when founding a new colony. It should just grow less then you would expect it too.
 
Or perhaps i've misunderstood??

[jscott991]

ORIGINAL: Bartje

If this is true then it is a bug;

Didn't Erik specificly state your tax income shoudn't shrink when founding a new colony. It should just grow less then you would expect it too.

Or perhaps i've misunderstood??

Erik's replies are contradictory. The way corruption works doesn't mesh with his earlier and present explanations. Corruption doesn't just eat up income on NEW worlds, it eats up income on old worlds and it grows as you found new colonies.

Therefore, there is no way that corruption won't reduce your income as the price of expansion. If corruption rises 1 point on your homeworld because you founded 10 new worlds, that is going to lower your tax revenue. New colony worlds just don't produce that much tax revenue.

Track tax revenue as you grow. I'm sure you will see that it collapses as you get bigger.

[Rustyallan]

Watching the private sector numbers is probably a better indicator of what's happening in your empire. I've never seen the empire tax income vary from the tax number in that column, but I have seen those numbers fluctuate and that's what I'm watching in my current game.

[jscott991]

ORIGINAL: Rustyallan

Watching the private sector numbers is probably a better indicator of what's happening in your empire. I've never seen the empire tax income vary from the tax number in that column, but I have seen those numbers fluctuate and that's what I'm watching in my current game.

My private sector has been in the red forever.

[Cindar]

ORIGINAL: Rustyallan
Actually, Erik mentioned in the past that distance from capital was not a huge factor in the corruption formula and that players don't need to move their capital to the center because doing otherwise puts them at a terrible disadvantage. My observations are that his statement is true. My homeworld is at the top-center of the map. Distance does not seem to be a huge factor in the level of corruption. I'd love to know what is causing the wide variations though.

Colony development level and population size, probably. If your capital is the largest and most developed colony its possible it will have the greatest corruption even after you add in the distance modifier.

ORIGINAL: jscott991
Erik's replies are contradictory. The way corruption works doesn't mesh with his earlier and present explanations. Corruption doesn't just eat up income on NEW worlds, it eats up income on old worlds and it grows as you found new colonies.

Therefore, there is no way that corruption won't reduce your income as the price of expansion. If corruption rises 1 point on your homeworld because you founded 10 new worlds, that is going to lower your tax revenue. New colony worlds just don't produce that much tax revenue.

Track tax revenue as you grow. I'm sure you will see that it collapses as you get bigger.

Sorry, but I'm just not seeing this even with an empire much larger then yours. In fact after I hit the corruption cap my income skyrockets to 1,000,000 and still climbing at around 90% corruption max.

[jscott991]

You aren't looking at tax revenue then. Overall income (in the upper right) is meaningless. Resort income and spaceport income aren't important to this issue.

Or we're playing very different games. I want your version.

Plus, you've already shown you're micromanaging and min/maxing in a way that we were told wasn't necessary. That's fine, but it also isn't relevant to corruption.

I am thrilled though that you are showing corruption percentages in the 90s. That seems definitely proven now. So at least its a step.

[jscott991]

It's a complete, corruption fueled, economic collapse:

Tax revenue has now fallen to 413k. Corruption on the homeworld is at 76%. My homeworld was once earning over 100k in taxes with a rate in the 40s. Now at 50%, its revenue has fallen to the 80s. This is happening to everyone. It's just some people paper over it with other moves to make more money; moves you shouldn't have to make (like gamey government changes, min/max'd unit design, or artificially low fleet levels).

[2guncohen]

Wow thats a huge dipp in the red ...
Good luck to reform this [X(]

[jscott991]

And more. Fishman is right. Eventually, tax revenue collapse is inevitable.

Note that I'm not doing anything, just letting time pass. Colony revenue has dipped to 394k.

Gee, what is causing this? Could it be . . . corruption?