Cash on hand vs Automation equals frustration

[Bellrock]

I’m not sure where I’m going with this post, may be a bit of a rant, but I’m finding the economy side of the game to be a bit frustrating. I don't recall at this point of how many games I have attempted, however, a major reason for restarting had to do with getting a decent economy going. Without cash on hand you cannot build new ships (aka fleets), facilities, and others items. An issue I’m continuously find myself having is waiting for cash to be on hand to do a thing, only to have it disappear (apparently spent), while maintaining year after year close to zero cash balance. Checking the economy tabs balance sheet does not seem to provide the transparency as why that is so. However what I am certain is zero cash means you can’t build anything, and where is the fun in that?

In initial games I traced the issue to having colonized a planet, or building too many ships; the maintenance costs were bankrupting the empire. There are no in-game inductors to indicate what a new colony will cost on a given planet, resulting in a random bankrupt empire.

Learning from that, my Current game the State Economy shows I have just under $300k in annual income (having colonized 10+ planets).

Some interesting things of note, I count six trade agreements with other empires. The Trade Bonus is showing $3k bonus to income (not much given the $300k annual income), however also see a $-30k Resource Trading cost for a presumable net of $-27k income. I was under the impression trade was a benefit? I assume there is happiness bonus from the trade, but by the numbers it is not apparent how this translates into a net benefit. Furthermore, there is no way to control how much you spend on trade imports so you can adjust and stay cash flow positive. I guess the idea is you have to cancel unbalanced trade agreements then?

Tourism doesn’t look much better having some 15 resort bases, and receiving around $5k income, with a $3.6k in resort base maintenance. Total Tourism is $1.4k income, again is hardly significant given the $300k annual income, but then sad given capital/resource cost to build the resort in the first place. Is tourism working correctly, as in, am I doing something wrong?

Ignoring the Trade and Tourism in my current game, Annual Bonus Income (ship building mostly) is netting me just under $100k in income (not bad). I have managed to keep Cash flow to be positive for the majority of the game. You would think with the positive Cash flow and Bonus income cash on hand things would be fine. Nope, year after year I’m cash poor.

I have since taken note of the automation settings under policy settings. I turned off the auto build of ships early in the game as I wanted to control that (given lesson learned from earlier games of too many ships means going broke). After desperation for lack of cash, I realized troop recruitment might be an issue as this was set to auto. Having turned this off, I saw no change in my cash balance. After some investigating my home planet, and others, were still building troops as adjusting the overall policy does not adjust individual planet settings (existing planets were still sit to auto build.) I guess you have to turn these off individually?

Furthermore, looking at the balance sheet there is a line item for Troop Maintenance cost, however there is no line item for Troop Recruitment cost (Odd given, there is a line item ship building and Facility Building). Is Troop Recruitment cost being included with Troop Maintenance cost? As my troop maintenance is consistent from year to year, I suspect this expense may be a missing expense. If this had been listed as it’s own line item it may provide a clue as where some cash had been going (see above).

Regarding Planetary Facilities, in the early game I change the policy setting to ‘Suggest’. However, I do not I recall seeing such a message to suggest a building in some time, and checking the log nor see message for asking to build a facility. However, I have a planet building a Planetary Administration building that I did not ask for. My Annual Expenses show $160k for Facility Building, enough for three such buildings. However, I currently only have this one planet building facility (I assume something may have already been completed here.) Furthermore, On the State Economy tab, next to Cash (line item) there is box showing $-50k with a cursor highlight showing Advisor Reserving for a building (yet no pop up message.) It appears the game is building these building (creating the cash problem) automatically regardless of the auto policy. Is anyone else having an issue with this?

One last issue I’m having with the balance sheet is it only goes back one year. As things are now, there are a number of one time expenses that roll off the economic statements before one has chance to check (I typically don’t check balance statements every year). As I’m trying to understand where the cash is going, or waiting for cash to come in, things don’t seem to add up. I’m showing positive cash flow but have no cash, and it is not apparent why given the current balance sheet setup.

Thoughts or insights?

Thanks,

[MichaelJ007]

You're right. There are a lot of line items missing, or probably in the wrong place.

THE PROBLEMS
- No line item for queuing research.
- No line item for rushing research
- Various other items like troop recruitment.
- Ship building and maintenance apparently rolled into one.
- Retrofit costs?
- Like wise there are civilian economy spends like refueling freighters, that apparently goes nowhere, when they should be paying you.
-The 'cashflow' calculation also takes into account things it shouldn't, while ignoring other things. Admittedly, bonus incomes would be hard to predict, and so is outside of the cashflow anyway.

Regardless, the most egregious thing is that you have no cash of your own. Cash you supposedly reserve for yourself gets spent by the AI on maintenance, retrofitting, purchasing resources, etc, and you have little/no control over this.

THE ALTERNATE
Besides VASTLY improving the balance sheets of the game, the "budgeting" or "funding" page should allow you to allocate budgets to different AIs, that they are constrained to, while "reserve cash" is ring-fenced from the AI. That may end up begging the question of penalties if you budget poorly (like troops/ships/bases losing health or being disbanded). The reverse would be if you allocate too much money to AI budgets, and then you would need a way to appropriate it.

SOME ADVICE
For now, your best bet is to watch your expansion and early expenses very carefully so as not to over-extend yourself, and to keep keep an eye on maintaining a positive cashflow (as far as you can trust the cashflow figure).
On the funding policy screen, I would suggest setting your RESERVE to 0%. Yes. Zero. Let the game use all the cash it can for boosting research and colony growth. If you can do this and still have a more or less positive cashflow, your expansion will be sorted.
The single biggest cash killer is colonising poor planets, or colonising too fast. ALL colonies are a loss to begin with, let alone if you colonise a lemon.
You have already learnt to not allow the game to auto-build ships and troops.
You can also set the ships and base design to MANUAL/MANUAL for all state ships so you don't retrofit unnecessarily, but if you haven't overextended yourself, this is not a problem.
Conversely, you want the Private Economy to retrofit as often as possible, because that is a major source of cash. So tailor your research around getting techs that trigger private economy spending (construction, ship techs, etc).

[Kriegsspieler]

I'll just add that if you don't auto-build ANYTHING you end up with more money than you can reasonably spend in the early game. The AI builds excessive numbers of just about everything, so don't let it. It's more micro for you, sure, but you will see a dramatic difference.
I have taken to playing on "extreme" difficulty setting and it is still ridiculously easy to have a lot of money.
Clearly the profits of the private economy need to be turned down -- a lot!