enough economy? » Forum Post by CaptainYar

Mumblefratz

Join Date 07/2006

+139

What is considered good varies significantly based on a lot of different issues. Which version of the game you're playing is very significant since there have been major tweaks to the economy and morale. Certainly morale has to be considered right along with the economy.

Besides the version of the game how many economic resources you have makes a huge difference (obviously at 39% bonus per resource). Also being evil and building the Mind COntrol Center for it's 100% global economic bonus is huge. Top all of this off with the "prosperity" event that doubles all of the above, you can easily be operating with economic bonuses in the 300~400% range. With these bonuses a good economy is on the order of 1000 bc's per week per planet. In a gigantic galaxy this can get up into 1,000,000 bc's per week or more. Obviously on a small map you'll have far fewer planets but the 1000 bc per week per planet is a good metric to shoot for.

Also if you keep a treasury balance of 20K or over you do lose a portion of your income as "graft". The percentage of income you lose is based on the absolute value of your income. In the 400 bc per week range this loss may be very minimal, perhaps on the order of 5% but at an income of 1,300,000 bc's per week I lost close to 50% if I didn't spend my treasury down each turn. You can directly check how much you're losing by comparing your income while your treasury is above 20K to your income when your treasury is below 20K.

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Mumblefratz, that's a ridiculously high standard, I've never achieved anything close to that, and I'm not exactly a newbie. Income is only half the equation anyway, you need to spend the money efficiently too, and regularly rush-buying things is about the least efficient way to spend money.

CaptainYar, your economy is good if you're making money when your overall spending is at 100%. If your 400bc per turn is your net profit after all spending, maintenance, espionage, etc., then you're doing just fine. With more than 20000 bc in the bank, your income is penalized, so stay below that threshold. In this situation, I'd work on increasing my spending capacity, by upgrading factories and labs, or conquering new planets.

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Mumblefratz

Join Date 07/2006

+139

Mumblefratz, that's a ridiculously high standard, I've never achieved anything close to that, and I'm not exactly a newbie.

As I said it's dependent on a lot of things but on a gigantic map 6 or more economic resources is not unusual. Actually 1000 bc's per week per planet is very achievable. When I made 1.3M bc's per week (I still have a screen shot somewhere or other to prove it)towards the end of my last game it was with the economic prosperity event, the Mind Control Center and 6 fully mined economic resources, but at 1.3M bc's per week for 425 planets that comes out to an average of 3000 bc's per week per planet. I've easily done 1000 bc's per week per planet without the prosperity event and as neutral so it was without the MCC as well.

Your point about what to do with such levels of income and the fact that such levels of income are not necessary to win at the highest difficulties are absolutely correct. I was just stating what kind of economy is realistically possible.

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Voqar

Join Date 03/2003

+21

Mumblefratz is an expert who has done a lot to push economy to the limits, including games on gigantic with maximum habital planets and playing games well beyond they're over just to see how much money can be accumulated/generated.

Is the 100% bonus from evil a bug, or not? I've never seen clarification. I haven't tried evil for lack of clarification and unwillingness to wallow in cheese of that magnitude of it IS a bug. And neutral rocks anyways, so it's nearly moot.

I'd say 400/wk with 20k surplus on a small map sounds pretty good, especially for your first game IF...IF... you are running at 100% industrial capacity. The trick in GC (IMO) is to run at 100% capacity forever and maintain a strong economy (while also paying to have a decent military and whatever else). If you're a new player and haven't read any guides or strat posts you could very well be running at the default initial capacity, which would make your economy look more robust than it really is.

Economic potential scales a lot with map size for a variety of factors. I think you'd be lucky to pull in a measure of 1,000's of bc/week on a small map without the game being over or essentially over.

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In my games I refuse to go over the 20k barrier. I will max out espionage, rush buy soon-to-be-completed stuff, build industrial sectors, Anti-matter power plants, starships, spam starbases--anything--to stay just under 20k. I don't build economic planets (but I do choose my economic capital wisely), and I don't build morale improvements except on the bonus tiles.

It's good to have your economy on fire like that, but you still need to spend it wisely on good things.

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Mumblefratz is an expert who has done a lot to push economy to the limits,

Yes, I've seen his examples and no, it is not an exaggeration. The man knows his 'shit' when it comes to economy in this game. All hail the mighty Mumblefratz!!!

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I have never seen anyone note this, but if you are using trade then you do not want to have more than 5,000 BC in your account.

Trade is halved if you have more than 5,000 BC in your savings.

So over 20,000 BC in your savings kills your income, and over 5,000 BC kills your trade.

(actually, maybe it is 10,000 BC that kills trade, I can't check it for sure as I am at work right now. But you can easily check this for yourself in game -- something you should always do because just because someone said it in a post doesn't make it true.)

- Livonya

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All hail the mighty Mumblefratz!!!

Oh yeah, Mumble is the Galactic taxman - you can hear the citizens hiding their stash in mattresses as he walks by.

Don't get disheartened by his numbers - you are doing just fine (but keep your reserve below the 20K mark). What Mumble calls a "good" economy, and what most others call it aren't exactly on the same page, in fact they're not even on the same bookshelf.

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Dunno, I have about 200k and I already dont know what to do.

Anyway, I consider a good economy when you can do everything you want without needing to work too hard. I dont like micromanagement that much, so I hardly rush things, even if I do have the money.

Barely upgrade ships too. Actually my fleets are quite weak and I only build ships when I´m preparing for war. Only god knows why they dont atack me, even if I´m playing at the inteligent A.I. setting.

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Mumblefratz

Join Date 07/2006

+139

All hail the mighty Mumblefratz!!!

Give me a break.

Actually the master is Magnumaniac who taught me everything I know about getting a high income.

Anyway in my latest game I'm trying to optimize production instead of income. I've also enabled tech trading and minors for the first time along with trying out an entirely new strategy. The biggest downside of high income is that it forces you into quite a bit of micromanagement when it comes to spending the money. There are ways to "assembly line" the process but still it's tedious. Income is a means to an ends and by no means is it the only way to go. It's only one of many different tools that should be in everyone's toolbox.

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Mumblefratz

Join Date 07/2006

+139

Mumblefratz is an expert who has done a lot to push economy to the limits, including games on gigantic with maximum habital planets and playing games well beyond they're over just to see how much money can be accumulated/generated.

Actually, I do not play games well beyond when they're over.

I've ended each game that I've played by December of the earliest year I could have possibly ended it. There's not a whole lot of point to dragging the game out beyond this. Some folks think that the secret of getting a high score involves "milking" the game beyond its natural end. I actually take offense at this suggestion because it's in fact not true.

If you're going to make accusations of "milking" you may as well make accusations of outright cheating. I don't particularly appreciate either.

The true secret of getting a high score is not by milking the game long after it's otherwise over but by optimizing the four components of scoring (population, economy, research and military might) throughout the entire game. It's not so much that you have a high income at the very end of the game that's important, it's that you're making 50K early on while others may only be making 25K. A "high scoring" strategy is one that incorporates score maximization as an integral part of the strategy from the very beginning not as an afterthought once the game is otherwise won. Ask any player that has scored above 200K and you'll get the same answer. You might be able to "milk" a 100K game into a 150K game if you're lucky. I can guarantee that no one can "milk" a 100K game into a 300K to 500K game.

Is the 100% bonus from evil a bug, or not?

The 100% bonus is a "bug" in the Mind Control Center that has been known for so long that it's apparently left in place as conscious decision by the developers as something necessary to make Evil a playable option.

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What about population. How much is good?

And if you do add more planets to a game, that increase the points you will get in the end, doesnt it? So I guess you could "cheat" if you add hundreds of planets to a gigantic game.

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Mumblefratz

Join Date 07/2006

+139

What about population. How much is good?

And if you do add more planets to a game, that increase the points you will get in the end, doesnt it? So I guess you could "cheat" if you add hundreds of planets to a gigantic game.

More pop is better in a number of ways. Higher pop gives you more money, gives you more soldiers for your transports and make your planets more difficult to conquer. Also more pop scores higher, but with the nerfage to morale buildings the old high pop strategy is dead and buried. Clearly, the more planets, the higher the pop, the greater the production, and the higher the scores in general.

This is by no means cheating since everyone that plays gigantic abundant all games can play on a level playing field. However, I agree that this is by no means "fair" to folks that simply prefer to play other size galaxies. In fact this is the motivation for what the Metaverse Council is trying to do with AltMeta Brackets. By creating divisions based on galaxy size and victory type, people that prefer games other than the gigantic military victory can have a realistic chance to compete against others playing similar games.

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I take zero stock in the Metaverse scores. That's why I don't bother with Metaverse. It would be awesome if the Metaverse hosted GOTW's like the Civ folks do, though. I enjoyed hearing everyone's AAR's for the exact same maps I played.

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Mumblefratz

Join Date 07/2006

+139

It would be awesome if the Metaverse hosted GOTW's like the Civ folks do, though.

Everyone is certainly free to have their own opinion of the Metaverse, but a Game of the Week (most likely game of the month) is one idea that's under consideration by the Metaverse Council for incorporation within the AltMeta. Right now this is not the top of our list since at the moment we're mostly involved in setting up brackets in the AltMeta divided by game sizes and victory types, but a GOTM is definitely something that's on our agenda.

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Philocthetes

Join Date 10/2003

+153

Trade is halved if you have more than 5,000 BC in your savings.

Can we get some confirmation (Kryo? Mumble? Magnum?) of this nasty corrollary to the >20k penalty?

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Mumblefratz

Join Date 07/2006

+139

Can we get some confirmation (Kryo? Mumble? Magnum?) of this nasty corrollary to the >20k penalty?

That's the first I had heard of an impact on trade. Never used trade that much so I never noticed, however you can easily chart your income in the current turn as you spend down a high treasury balance by looking at the domestic spending screen. You can do the same for your trade income as well.

However if this similar to the issue with income, then the percentage lost may be dependant on the total value of trade. In this case you may need high values of trade to notice this.

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Some folks think that the secret of getting a high score involves "milking" the game beyond its natural end. I actually take offense at this suggestion because it's in fact not true...You might be able to "milk" a 100K game into a 150K game if you're lucky.

When I posted my 2nd MV game (with 283 planets ended in Dec. 2227) back on Sept. 18, 2006; it scored only 99500.
Shortest Gigantic, Everything Abundant, 9 Incredible AI, Military Conquest?
I played the game for another year to complete the research tree and grown my population then re-submitted in Oct. 2006 to score 155500! So milking a game can make a big difference but it was a pain spending my huge surplus each turn!
Tips for Maximizing Your Game Score

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Is the 100% bonus from evil a bug, or not?

The 100% bonus is a "bug" in the Mind Control Center that has been known for so long that it's apparently left in place as conscious decision by the developers as something necessary to make Evil a playable option.

You're kidding, right? Its not like Evil has any other huge perks (like awesome weaponry, free starbase upgrades, wonder to negate invasion costs, or that ethical choices give bonuses to Evil versus penalizing Good and oftentimes Neutral choices)

cough-cough

It should be noted that having a strong economy is not the same as having gobs of liquidity. One of the mistakes I make is to desire that 100K+ bank account, when the money should be put to good use in buying upgrades, tech, making bribes, and, yes, quick-purchasing ships or improvements . .. and supporting a powerful military. I do like to have a "war chest" before launching a military campaign, of course.

I agree about the figures, though, very achievable. I would be earning between 2100-2300 BC a turn in the game I'm currently in if I wasn't splurging tons on espionage as well as trying to keep the population happy and breeding like mad. I've never used the Mind Control Center since I learned it doesn't work as designed (but probably will now when I must play Evil).

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Mumblefratz -

In my opinion, you are absolutely wrong.

Milking is EXACTLY what you need to do to get a massive score.

I was only scoring in the 100K range until I started prolonging the games to build a better score.

In my last game I finished the game at the end of 4 years (which will come up as a 3 year game when posted).

My score at the time would be 187,000 if i simply invaded the 3 planets that were left to my enemy. I had 650 planets and they each had 1 planet.

I then concentrated on boosting my score. At the end of year 4 I had 300,000 and at the very end of year 6 (which posts as 5 years) I had over 500,000 for my game. I could have played one more year and gotten this score to around 550,000 or 575,000 but I was simply too bored to do it. It isn't any fun.

Getting a high scores has little to do with skill at the game. It has everything to do with patience. I consider trying to get a high score a different game. That can be interesting, but it really is just about pushing your score up. I enjoyed learning how to do it, but honestly it was just prolonging my games for the points. Nothing more.

Here are my "secrets".

1) Finish the game as soon as possible. Leave 1 enemy with 1 planet, or a couple of enemies with 1 planet each.

2) Build 16 military starbases in a cluster with every defence and offensive military boost.

3) Build thousands of tiny ships with just 1 weapon and 1 defence on them, and then move these thousands of ships into the range of your military starbase cluster (depending on your computer this can take a lot of time as your system slows way down as you get thousands of ships built).

4) Make sure every planet in your empire has at least 20 Billion people on it.

5) Keep tech reasearch spending at 60% of your total spending.

You have to do this as quickly as possible. You never ever want a game to go past year 7 as your score will take a heavy penalty. And NEVER end a game before year 5 or 6. Ending at the end of year 6 is your best choice.

I can now get a score over 400,000 every single time with any race or any super ability. The only thing that stops me is time. I simply don't have the time to do it, nor the patience.

In the last couple of years I actually read a book while playing because when I hit "end turn" it takes 5 to 10 minutes for my computer to move all my ships towards my military base cluster.

I can't tell you how boring it is.

As someone that has scored over 500,000 I personally think Metaverse scores have a lot more to do with your patience and the patience of your friends and loved ones than your skill at a strategy game.

I am not trying to say that people that get high scores aren't good players, but that getting high scores is a lot more about trying to get high scores than it is about winning games.

Personally, I think they should change the Metaverse so that you can NOT turn off Alliance, Influence, and Tech victories. This would prevent the harvesting of massive scores.

- Livonya

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Mumblefratz

Join Date 07/2006

+139

When I posted my 2nd MV game (with 283 planets ended in Dec. 2227) back on Sept. 18, 2006; it scored only 99500.

I played the game for another year to complete the research tree and grown my population then re-submitted in Oct. 2006 to score 155500! So milking a game can make a big difference but it was a pain spending my huge surplus each turn!

OK so this is an example of exactly what I said was possible, taking a 100K game and making it into a 150K game. You could perhaps extend the same game a second year and get another 20K. Extend it out a third year and you may get another 5K. You get diminishing returns very fast. If you want to hit end turn for 5K a year then be my guest. The point I was making was that you don't get another 50K points for each year you artifically extend the game. You could extend your 100K game 20 years and you wouldn't make a 300K game, so therefore people scoring 300K must be doing something more than just milking.

Perhaps what they're doing does involve some level of skill. However it does seem that the natural tendency of most folks is to assume that someone that scores higher than they do must be milking the score (a slightly more polite term than cheating). This applies equally to the 100K player when looking at the 300K player as it does to the 50K player when looking at the 100K player.

I personally haven't yet scored a game over 300K but I'm familiar with the games of folks that regularily can and do make such scores. There's a very simple reason why they score higher than I do. It's because they're better players than I am.

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This is exactly why I don't take any stock in Metaverse scores. That's okay--I didn't take any stock in Civilization scores, either.

I wish there was a way to replay the same map on different difficulty levels. To compare when people won the same map, and on what diff level--now *that* I would respect.

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Mumblefratz

Join Date 07/2006

+139

Mumblefratz -

In my opinion, you are absolutely wrong.

Looking at the last games you've submitted, I have to disagree with your conclusion. I guess what I'm disagreeing with is the statement that you're milking the game. By your statement you could have ended your 500K, 5 year reported DA game in 3 years reported. If you wish to call a 5 year game milking then so be it, but I don't.

Assuming a correspondence between DL and DA games (I've not yet played DA), there is absolutely no way I would have been able to come close to that timeframe. I've completed both of my gigantic suicidal games in 8 years reported. By any stretch of the imagination I may have been able to have made that in 7 years at best, but I really doubt it. One noticeable difference is 650 planets in DA. I've never seen over 500 in DL and usually 450 is the norm so that would account for some major scoring difference. Still you have to conquer or flip by influence or obtain by diplomancy an "extra" 200 planets or so. I can't believe that that takes no "extra" time.

Regardless of what you call it, I can only look at your scores and conclude that you're a better player than I am. That is my over-riding point, that score does in some way correlate to ability. I'm not saying it's perfect, but on the other hand I feel that people that are denying it has any correlation at all are merely sour grapes.

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Mumblefratz -

I really doubt I am a better player than you.

The only difference is that I made it my goal to score over 400,000 and then I made it my goal to score over 500,000 and I figured out what had to be done to do that.

I really don't think that makes me a better player.

I am not saying I am not a good player, I think I am, but what I am saying is that high scores have little to do with the fact that I am a good player and more to do with the fact that I was trying to get a high score.

With DA it is MUCH easier to get high scores because there are more planets available on Gigantic Maps. It was stunning to be able to get over 600 planets. I never did that with DL.

In any event, I just don't think that my rank has has anything to do with me being one of the best players. I just don't think that is true. I am a good player, but I don't doubt for a second that there are tons of players equally adebt if not more adebt at this game.

- Livonya

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Mumblefratz

Join Date 07/2006

+139

The 100% bonus is a "bug" in the Mind Control Center that has been known for so long that it's apparently left in place as conscious decision by the developers as something necessary to make Evil a playable option.

You're kidding, right? Its not like Evil has any other huge perks (like awesome weaponry, free starbase upgrades, wonder to negate invasion costs, or that ethical choices give bonuses to Evil versus penalizing Good and oftentimes Neutral choices)

cough-cough

No, I'm not kidding. If it wasn't for the MCC I would never play Evil and it would leave Neutral as the only realistic choice. However, I certainly agree that Good get's the short end of the stick.

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