I thought I understood DW economics but I can't explain this

[Shark7]

If anyone does manage to figure this out, would you kindly explain in a 'DW Economics for Dummies' way so maybe I can someday understand it too? [:D]

[fruitgnome]

The following refers to only 1 colony that pay tax!

Could it be possible that the value on the colony represents a variable value but a value at one moment - so much tax has this colony to pay this year if the situation will be the same. The situation changes at every time for example through the population and the income of the colony.

And the value in the overview is the average value how much tax get the state empire pro year from this colony?

[Spidey]

I don't think so, Fruitgnome. The main sinner in my dataset was a max pop world with nothing much changing in terms of economic production.

@ topic

It's been a bit quiet due to my work mostly preventing me from looking further into this mess, men I hope I'll get some better gathered this weekend. And if it still remains completely impossible to make sense of what is going on then I hope one of the people one would presume are in the know would be so kind as to comment on whether everything is as intended or if I'm documenting a fairly serious bug in the user interface.

[fruitgnome]

Thery are changings i.e. population grow - max - grow - max and so on. A nother point could be that civilian ships are building and perhaps it affects the tax this would make sense for me.

[Shark7]

Civilian ship building income falls under other income, namely as spaceport income.

That's the reason that the other income fluctuates so much, as you build civilian ships it goes way up, but when the shipbuilding stops for a while, it declines to next to nothing.

[fruitgnome]

Then I guess it is the changing of the development level or a bug. I'm exited.

Edit: Maybe this explains it:
(Galactopedia Colony Taxes)

"The population of each colony goes about their private business, generating wealth. Your empire then taxes this revenue generated by your private citizens." - Then the tax on build private ships could play its role.

And this describes it only in short:
(Also Galactopedia)

"Colony Income = Total Population × Development Level" - Or this is the reality.

[DeadlyShoe]

you should check if your problem is in GDP or in tax rate.

namely, add up your colonies gdp and see if it matches what is reported on the empire screen for imperial and civilian income put together.

i would guess there's an inefficiency applied to the GDP of very large colonies that isn't showing up on the front end.

[Spacecadet]

I think I went over this a long time ago.

The problem here is that you don't show enough information.


Let me address the 1st Post (OP) :

Your Summary Screen shows your Colony Tax Income = 372K (STATE), this is also what your PRIVATE Sector lists as Colony Taxes under expenses (as it should).

You've also highlighted your Capital Colony, showing that it is collecting 507K in Taxes, and this is where a lot of the confusion comes in.
You said that all other Colonies are set to 0% Tax rate, so these Colonies are most likely going to have negative Cash Flow.
There are also other pluses & minuses we don't get a full picture of to see why the 507K is down to 372K in the Summary.

We really need a picture of the Colony Screen to see what the values of each Colony are, but with 36 Colonies it's not going to be an easy picture to put together.

[BlueTemplar]

ORIGINAL: Analogical

Let me flesh out my earlier suggestion with a specific example, so that it'll be a little clearer. In the reference game I was using I have 5 colonies, of which only the home planet has a tax rate greater than 0. The colony display for the home planet shows tax revenue of 60K, but the empire summary screen shows total colony tax revenue of 56K -- the same anomaly Spidey was complaining about in the op, albeit on a smaller scale. The colony displays for each of the four planets other than my home world show a tax of 0% (-1.00k). Those negative tax values sum to exactly the difference between the home planet's 60k and the empire summary's 56k. (These colonies had populations ranging from 184m to 743m, culture scores between 48 and 95, and corruption of either 0 (1 planet) or 1% (3 planets)).

I'm simply suggesting that if Spidey looked at the individual colony displays for his 35 outside planets he might see negative tax revenue entries that accounted for the anomaly. Why those negative numbers are there is another question of course.

Why doesn't it show for me then? Is the Homeworld different? Is it just a rounding error?

[Analogical]

In part it does, BlueTemplar – your colony display shows the same (-1.00K) entry for “Tax” that I was highlighting in my post. Where your example differs from ours is that you have no colonies with a tax rate greater than zero. As to why the empire total doesn’t then report the negative value, I see two possibilities: One is that the empire “Colony Tax Revenue” entry isn’t set up to display negative values, so it reports the total as zero instead; the other is that this whole issue of a mismatch between the colony tax reports and the empire total is related to the difference in reporting intervals – snapshot for the colony screen, annual totals for the empire summary.

Does anyone know the exact definition of “Annual” used in the empire summary? Calendar year? Year to date? Last 12 months? Projection for current year based (say) on year to date?

[fruitgnome]

You said that all other Colonies are set to 0% Tax rate, so these Colonies are most likely going to have negative Cash Flow.

That will be the explanation!

[Raap]

No, that's not the explanation. It might explain half of it, the part where no income shows up at all until you cross some specific threshold. However, it doesn't explain why the discrepancy grows bigger the more tax income you have. There's some other factor at work here too.

[Twigster]

Wow... even though I thought I was seeing my empire's economy respond as expected to different policies, I am going to take a closer look at this.

[Blabsawaw22]

the Economy needs an overhaul.. time for distant worlds 2..

I play pirates and when I have 200,000 cash, the AI decides it's going to take 60,000 and buy resources.. meanwhile i have mining and gas stations with all the resources being mined but it doesn't take the resources from there.. so i gues sthis is a bug

[Aeson]

Does anyone know the exact definition of “Annual” used in the empire summary? Calendar year? Year to date? Last 12 months? Projection for current year based (say) on year to date?

Varies depending on the line item. Fuel costs, construction costs, and bonus income are year to date. Colony tax revenue, ship and base maintenance, troop maintenance, facility maintenance, and I believe pirate protection costs and the two tribute entries are one year at current rate and do not appear to consider the income or expenses to date.

[Analogical]

Thank you, Aeson. As I understand it then, your definition would rule out any contribution of the annualization process to the colony tax issues that we’ve been discussing.

[Blabsawaw22]

So why is my Freighters going off purchasing 90,000 cash worth of resource purchases every year? I have all types of mines getting all the resources around .. but they just keep purchasing things from others.. what gives?

im pirate play and I just want my 2 spaceports to be filled with my own mining stations resources.. not going to buy from others..

I think i tried turning off "trade with other empires" in policy menu but they still seemed to purchase resources from others...

[DeadlyShoe]

I think that option turns off other empires being able to purchase from you. I don't think there's any way to turn off purchasing from other empires.

90,000 a year is a lot of demand! Do you have lots of unfulfilled requests in your empire?

[Blabsawaw22]

I'm not at home right now but I will post up a picture of what I am talking about.. It's one if my biggest things that I hate.. I think it's luxury resources like yaras marble .. But the point is I have all the resources sources covered with mines.. So what the heck are they doing!?

This may be bugs on pirate play...

Maybe this doesn't happen with standard empire play..

I'll post up pics in an hour

[Blabsawaw22]

OK here is the pic.. I had 90,000 before.. but you get the idea.. look at the arrow and then look at how i get negative for mining income. etc..

bugs??


I have mining stations.. so why are they freaking out and purchasing resources..