Some Economic Advice

[Jorgen_CAB]

ORIGINAL: zgrssd
Which only makes the fluff explanation even less sensible [&:]

I don't think I ever seen a game that work like real life of this scope before... so it is an abstraction.

Instead of thinking of this as actual money instead think of bonus income as an exchange of just goods and services that can only be used in specific ways. It is just translated into credits to calculate it's worth.

[zgrssd]

Look, I get it is a game balance rule.

It is still wierd as heck that I end up with a lot of money in my bank - and can not spend any of it* because any extra upkeep would ruin my colonygrowth!

*Except Crash Research and Diplomatic Deals

[Spidey]

ORIGINAL: zgrssd

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

You can see this in the real-world as well. Occasional "emergency spending" packages are nowhere near as effective as predictable consistent investment in an area. You can spend money in the short-term, but you simply can't do certain things that require say a five year or ten year predictable budget if that can't be guaranteed from year to year. In any case, this is the design intent for this release. There are plenty of ways to spend bonus income, but there are also these new ways to spend extra cashflow. You can still play the game so that you over-expand and put yourself in very negative cashflow and things will still work more or less, it just has an effect.

Regards,

- Erik

I think you should stop trying to explain it like this.

Becuase if that is the argument - see Option 1. I can turn my stored money into a Predictive income. And it is not like Stimulus has never been done by incuring debt.

It also flies in the face of the fact that Tax income and expenses are not exactly predictable over 5-10 years in a game where:
- I could loose my capital to alien invasions
- have to double my fleetsize all of a sudden
And that in just one month.

If you say "it is to prevent the player for expanding too agressively", you will get acceptance.

What Erik said is not the full and complete description of modern macro, but to my knowledge it really isn't wrong either. If you're trying to fund societal improvements, it's best if that funding is a function of the economic cycle rather than money pulled from a one-time pile or from inherently unreliable revenue streams. You could make a gaming mechanic to "lock in" some funding but what would such an abstraction effectively be in the context of the game?

It's a bit like if the US were to fund that infrastructure thing that needs to happen at some point by selling military hardware to the private sector.

"Don't buy a boring Glock for home protection, buy our refurbished F-16, now for civilian use!!"

Would that really be a convincing approach? Would anyone feel comfortable with an infrastructure deal that is funded on that basis while the regular budget goes unsustainably in the red year after year? Wouldn't it inspire a lot more confidence if the regular budget was in the green and included the funding for the infrastructure investment, even though a ten or twenty year plan can obviously still get wrecked at a moment's notice by any number of things. Just look what happened to the Paris Accord. Or the Iran Deal. Or the TPP.

That's not an unreasonable concept to work with, it's not flat out wrong (as far as I know, anyway), and it promotes balanced budgets as a concept, which is always a nice thing. But the way it is implemented, it doesn't actually force the issue, does it? The player can still deficit spend and as I understand it, that strategy might even come out ahead of a balanced approach in the long run, if the investment secures the right territory that contains the right resources. So what if you're not at peak econ right away if you get sole use of a debris field with some nasty boats? So what if your base econ is suboptimal in the short term if you've got the spice?

I have not played DW2 yet, admittedly, but it seems to me that this way there's a genuine choice to make between an aggressive spend-to-the-limit approach, which is a gamble to secure stuff fast, or a slower approach that secures less stuff here and now but does provide a more stable foundation. It is not an obvious choice, is it? My recollection of DWU is that the choice there was a bit more onesided. Being slow was just not beneficial. You had to respect your construction capacity, your mining capacity, and the logistical limits of your civilians, but beyond that it was balls to the wall and pedal to the metal. As I recall it, at least. It has been a few years.

[Erik Rutins]

If if allows you to accept it, yes it is a game balance rule. [8D] However, it's also based on certain aspects of reality when it comes to long-term planning and spending.

The whole area of bonus funding has bigger plans in the future, which I can't speak in any detail about now, but I expect over time there will be more ways to handle your bonus funding.

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: Spidey
That's not an unreasonable concept to work with, it's not flat out wrong (as far as I know, anyway), and it promotes balanced budgets as a concept, which is always a nice thing. But the way it is implemented, it doesn't actually force the issue, does it? The player can still deficit spend and as I understand it, that strategy might even come out ahead of a balanced approach in the long run, if the investment secures the right territory that contains the right resources. So what if you're not at peak econ right away if you get sole use of a debris field with some nasty boats? So what if your base econ is suboptimal in the short term if you've got the spice?

I have not played DW2 yet, admittedly, but it seems to me that this way there's a genuine choice to make between an aggressive spend-to-the-limit approach, which is a gamble to secure stuff fast, or a slower approach that secures less stuff here and now but does provide a more stable foundation. It is not an obvious choice, is it? My recollection of DWU is that the choice there was a bit more onesided. Being slow was just not beneficial. You had to respect your construction capacity, your mining capacity, and the logistical limits of your civilians, but beyond that it was balls to the wall and pedal to the metal. As I recall it, at least. It has been a few years.

Thank you - for not having played the game, you've certainly summarized the intent of the choices created by these changes quite well. [8D]

Regards,

- Erik

[zgrssd]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

If if allows you to accept it, yes it is a game balance rule. [8D] However, it's also based on certain aspects of reality when it comes to long-term planning and spending.

The whole area of bonus funding has bigger plans in the future, which I can't speak in any detail about now, but I expect over time there will be more ways to handle your bonus funding.

Could I mod it so it takes the money off before expenses?
Like 5% of my Brutto income? Instead of 5% of my Netto?

[Erik Rutins]

You can if you wish manually control the funding and reduce the reserved portion so that more goes to the bonus funding, but expenses always get paid first before bonus.

[Panpiper]

I don't understand what the 'reserved' funding does. If it goes into your surplus cash pile, the same pile that gets boosted from civilian ship construction, then it would seem to me to be entirely self defeating. You WANT that money in colony growth and research do you not? Or am I missing something?

[zgrssd]

ORIGINAL: Panpiper

I don't understand what the 'reserved' funding does. If it goes into your surplus cash pile, the same pile that gets boosted from civilian ship construction, then it would seem to me to be entirely self defeating. You WANT that money in colony growth and research do you not? Or am I missing something?

You still need on-hand cash to start ship construction. Including Colony Ships.

So nope, it should not go 100% into C-Growth and Research.

[Jorgen_CAB]

ORIGINAL: Panpiper

I don't understand what the 'reserved' funding does. If it goes into your surplus cash pile, the same pile that gets boosted from civilian ship construction, then it would seem to me to be entirely self defeating. You WANT that money in colony growth and research do you not? Or am I missing something?

I would say yes...

From what I understand from the streams that I have seen you should basically set that to zero, whatever you set the Ship/Troop/Facility at does not really matter as they get payed no matter what.

Then you set the Colony/Research based on which you want funded more than the other if you don't have cash flow enough to fund both categories.

After this whatever is over you get into positive cash.

There probably is little reason to automate the funding as that will just reserve 10% for no good reason most of the time.

You probably want in most situation lower your tax to be as close to zero cash flow you are comfortable with as that gives the highest colony growth.

If you don't have enough bonus income to buy ships or crash research you probably have bigger problems.

I can be wrong but that is my understanding from looking at the streams... I have not seen anyone trying it though, don't think many people even thought about how it works yet.

[Erik Rutins]

The reserved portion actually comes out first, which is a way to use your predictable income to build up your cash reserves. Then your expenses get paid. Then any excess will go to colony growth or research based on the weighting you've given each of those areas.

Most of the time, keeping something Reserved helps as you then have the funds to buy new ships, troops, build facilities, etc. Sometimes the bonus income will give you a windfall, but you don't know for sure exactly when that will happen and how much you will get. If you increase your Reserved portion, you'll build up cash on hand more quickly. If you decrease it, you'll have more going to pay expenses and bonus funding. Personally I find the automation handles this well for me 95% of the time.

Regards,

- Erik

[Panpiper]

ORIGINAL: zgrssd

ORIGINAL: Panpiper

I don't understand what the 'reserved' funding does. If it goes into your surplus cash pile, the same pile that gets boosted from civilian ship construction, then it would seem to me to be entirely self defeating. You WANT that money in colony growth and research do you not? Or am I missing something?

You still need on-hand cash to start ship construction. Including Colony Ships.

So nope, it should not go 100% into C-Growth and Research.

In the OP, Erik pointed out that expanding too fast could be a problem. You do not want to be pumping out shit tons of ships and other things, no more than you need. What you DO need is a healthy population growth and solid research, because if you fall behind on either of those things, you are probably losing.

Meanwhile civilian ship construction pours huge amounts of cash into your reserve, a good deal more it seems to me than a 10% reserve would contribute. Shoot, if I could I would be trying hard to pump as much of that civilian paid cash into colony growth and research, not the other way around, which is what happens if you have that 'reserve' set to anything other than zero.

[Jorgen_CAB]

ORIGINAL: Panpiper
In the OP, Erik pointed out that expanding too fast could be a problem. You do not want to be pumping out shit tons of ships and other things, no more than you need. What you DO need is a healthy population growth and solid research, because if you fall behind on either of those things, you are probably losing.

Meanwhile civilian ship construction pours huge amounts of cash into your reserve, a good deal more it seems to me than a 10% reserve would contribute. Shoot, if I could I would be trying hard to pump as much of that civilian paid cash into colony growth and research, not the other way around, which is what happens if you have that 'reserve' set to anything other than zero.

I think it will be interesting to balance the amount of explorers, construction ships you can afford so the civilian sector can expand and give you bonus income to keep building more ships that you need, then you need some ships (and troops) to fend of pirates. Eventually a fleet to make sure your neighbours don't attack you.

It will be an interesting balance to walk while fully fund your colony growth and research.

I probably would rather spend the tax on maintenance for the ships I need to expand and defend what I have rather than saving them in the bank, that is what the bonus income from the private sector is for.

So that means zero reserve of cash from taxes in almost all instances. At least as long as you gain decent bonus income... it should be regular enough and you can always have some buffer of cash for a rainy day if you like.

[Jorgen_CAB]

The way I see the economy expansion I would try to find a good number of construction resources to get a decent surplus of resources. Then I would try to get that technology which give you the resource exploration module so you can quickly scan planets and find the resources they have and move on. You can even have separate "prospectors" with only that module so they always move on after that. The important things is to find as much luxuries as you can to improve your planets development, that and finding more Caslon.

So... try to centralise all construction resource mining as close to your home system as possible and then start sending out construction ships for mostly luxury and Caslon.

Only build the military ships you need to protect those trade routes until you are able to build a strong economic base.

[StormingKiwi]

ORIGINAL: Panpiper

ORIGINAL: zgrssd

ORIGINAL: Panpiper

I don't understand what the 'reserved' funding does. If it goes into your surplus cash pile, the same pile that gets boosted from civilian ship construction, then it would seem to me to be entirely self defeating. You WANT that money in colony growth and research do you not? Or am I missing something?

You still need on-hand cash to start ship construction. Including Colony Ships.

So nope, it should not go 100% into C-Growth and Research.

In the OP, Erik pointed out that expanding too fast could be a problem. You do not want to be pumping out shit tons of ships and other things, no more than you need. What you DO need is a healthy population growth and solid research, because if you fall behind on either of those things, you are probably losing.

Meanwhile civilian ship construction pours huge amounts of cash into your reserve, a good deal more it seems to me than a 10% reserve would contribute. Shoot, if I could I would be trying hard to pump as much of that civilian paid cash into colony growth and research, not the other way around, which is what happens if you have that 'reserve' set to anything other than zero.

I agree with you.

At one point in his Ackdarian Livestream series, Larry Monte had > 1 billion credits as his cash-on-hand balance, with a fair amount of crash research occurring, off an annual income stream of 4000 - 5000 credits, and he didn't play that game for 200+ in-game years.

It's pretty clear that the flow of income isn't as significant as claimed by Erik, given the magnitudes in comparison to one another.

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

That's because it's unpredictable. Long-term funding for growth and research can't be dependent on the swings of bonus income, which is why it's required to come from cashflow.

It's quite possible to manage your expansion and economy to have positive cashflow, but I think it may take getting used to for folks who are used to "expand/rush at all costs". It's also possible to play with negative cashflow and have bonus income keep you afloat, but in DW2 there is a cost for that in the lost growth and research funding as well as some other things that depend on cashflow (more state ships, more troops and bases, more facilties).

In my opinion it's fine to sometimes go negative when you need to, but you should try to avoid staying at negative cashflow for long periods.

Regards,

- Erik

You know this is nonsensical, right?

1) Bonus income is also a form of revenue.
2) If your balance is over a billion, a deficit of 5000 a year can be sustained for 200 years.
2b) If that deficit is a productive investment, such as in colony growth, that deficit could be sustained for longer.
3) In reality, the private sector would be furious if the state price gouged them to achieve such massive account balances without any way of keeping the money flowing through the economy.

[Jorgen_CAB]

ORIGINAL: StormingKiwi

You know this is nonsensical, right?

1) Bonus income is also a form of revenue.
2) If your balance is over a billion, a deficit of 5000 a year can be sustained for 200 years.
2b) If that deficit is a productive investment, such as in colony growth, that deficit could be sustained for longer.
3) In reality, the private sector would be furious if the state price gouged them to achieve such massive account balances without any way of keeping the money flowing through the economy.

I think we already concluded it is a game balance mechanic.

You can rationalise it any way you want as the bonus income can be in resources you can't convert to just about anything. As @Panpiper said above... it is hard to sell tanks instead of small arms to your population. If those additional resources are in a form you can't easily convert to raw currency it has limited uses.

It is not really any point trying to rationalise it as you can bend the explanation anyway you want. It is quite an abstracted mechanic as it is.

[Spidey]

ORIGINAL: StormingKiwi

You know this is nonsensical, right?

1) Bonus income is also a form of revenue.
2) If your balance is over a billion, a deficit of 5000 a year can be sustained for 200 years.
2b) If that deficit is a productive investment, such as in colony growth, that deficit could be sustained for longer.
3) In reality, the private sector would be furious if the state price gouged them to achieve such massive account balances without any way of keeping the money flowing through the economy.

These kinds of run-away numbers could also be a bug. I haven't seen the streem but if the Civs are dropping that much money then their econ has to be ridiculous. Or there's some multiplier somewhere that isn't working the way it should. Or it could be an unforeseen balance issue that is likely to get tweaked at some point.

That being said, there probably should be some way to buy a "crash growth" project for a colony with your cash-on-hand pile. Or at least some way of recycling your money back to civilians if the civ economy is falling apart. But the trick would be to implement this in a way that doesn't invalidate any other playstyle than early rush expansion.

[Erik Rutins]

I didn't see what happened in Larry's preview, but I do know that the preview build has some exploitable issues where you can gain ridiculous amounts of money through diplomacy (we'll fix these for release). Do you know if that was involved in the billion credits you are referencing?

I can say that it's not typical in my experience to have a billion credits sitting around in DW2.

Also, as I mentioned earlier, the bonus funding mechanics are only a beginning. You can expect more mechanisms for using funds throughout your empire in the future.

Regards,

- Erik

[Jorgen_CAB]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

I didn't see what happened in Larry's preview, but I do know that the preview build has some exploitable issues where you can gain ridiculous amounts of money through diplomacy (we'll fix these for release). Do you know if that was involved in the billion credits you are referencing?

I can say that it's not typical in my experience to have a billion credits sitting around in DW2.

Also, as I mentioned earlier, the bonus funding mechanics are only a beginning. You can expect more mechanisms for using funds throughout your empire in the future.

Regards,

- Erik

I watched that Stream too... and I think that he did not use the money for crash research much either so it was steadily increasing. If he spent them on research more he probably would not have that much money in the bank. I just re-watched quickly the last few episodes of the Ackdarian play-through where he had close to a MILLION at one point. Several crash research would cost him around 200k at that time and was not used.

I think it is safe to say he could have spent that money to either buy tech from other factions or used them for his own research. Having a few 100k in the bank probably is healthy though as a strategic reserve.

He also had issues with funding his research even tough he had positive cash flow, perfect example where reserving 10% is detrimental. Less research also mean research is slower so you can invest less money into crash research as well as it takes more time between developing technologies.

It is sort of a catch 22 moment if you are not managing the economy properly, especially if you allow the AI to manage funding at those times.

Why is the AI reserving 10% of the income when you have 800k in the bank?!?

In my opinion the AI should reduce the reserved cash to promote colony and research funding if you have good bonus income and especially if you have a large pile of cash. Probably would help AI empires too in most circumstances.

[StarLab]

ORIGINAL: Jorgen_CAB

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

I didn't see what happened in Larry's preview, but I do know that the preview build has some exploitable issues where you can gain ridiculous amounts of money through diplomacy (we'll fix these for release). Do you know if that was involved in the billion credits you are referencing?

I can say that it's not typical in my experience to have a billion credits sitting around in DW2.

Also, as I mentioned earlier, the bonus funding mechanics are only a beginning. You can expect more mechanisms for using funds throughout your empire in the future.

Regards,

- Erik

I just re-watched quickly the last few episodes of the Ackdarian play-through where he had close to a billion at one point. Several crash research would cost him around 200k at that time and was not used.

I just did a skim through my VODs. Do you have a timestamp of when you saw the Billions? I see 1M+ but nothing in the billions in my spot-check. I half remember misspeaking the number as a BILLION by mistake, but I think I corrected myself shortly after (but didn't come across that moment in my skim-check of the VODs). I think this is where the confusion is. I'm pretty sure I've never seen credits in the billions...