What am i missing?

from Stardock Forums
I love the game, but there's something that i don't get.

My style of play in 4x game has always been to be on top in the economic field. That way, i can produce more then everybody. But it's not working too well in GalCiv.

I win pretty much every game, and i increase the difficulty level after winning a few at the same level.

Right now, all races are Intelligent (Difficulty level 60). According to the FAQ on the galciv website, it should put the AI races at the same economic level as me.

When i look at the computer's planets, their income coming from it is at least 2 times as high as mine, but what i don't get is why.

I look at the alterian's home planet. It's a class 20, with 4.455 billion people, 100% morale. It generates 68 BCs.

I look at Earth. It's a class 22, with 6.7 billion people, 94% morale. It generates 55 Bcs.

At this point, i start investigating why. After all, Earth is my economic capital, and it can't rival my opponent's ordinary planet.

Step 1) I pump espionnage, and i learn that the alterian have a +19% economics. I have a +73% economic.

Step 2) Looking at the planet detail, Earth has a +163% economic rating. So i invade the alterian planet to find out It has a +70% economic rating. Still not there.

Step 3) As soon as i invade the Alterian planet, it's income drops to 33 BCs.

The only thing that i can think at this time is tax rate. I'm using the default 33% taxes. Even if i raise it, i can't reach the AI's level of income, and the morale drops below 30%, despite the fact that i have a better morale statistic (+63% via +20%)

The Alterian republic was just an exemple. The Drengin are doing even better.

So my question is, what am i missing?

Thank you.

P.S. Sorry for the long post, i just wanted to include as much information to get a good idea on the problem.

~SDC~
557 views 7 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
Oh, BTW, i'm already using propaganda.

~SDC~
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
If I'm not mistaken (a very large if), propaganda reduces your financial output. It's a cost, eh?

End transmission.

~SDC~
Galactic Civilizations III
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
Also, given the massive drop in morale, you may have pushed your tax slider TOO high.

At higher levels of tax income decreases as people start avoiding the taxes. There is a peak efficiency for taxes, you just need to play with the slider to find it.
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
What government are you using? Every step up gives you a +20% Econ boost, but it won't show in the summary stats. If they have amore advanced gov't, that will help them.
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
I found out what i was missing. I still need to check and make sure i can reach the computer's income, but here's what i found out.

Morale enhancement from buildings have MUCH more impact then morale enhancement from your civilization. That's what i did wrong, i usually didn't build morale enhancing devices, and rellied on my race's morale modifier.

Also, during my research, i came across something else. income is not linear. You get a base income from the planet, depending which class it is. So even if you have a tax rate of 0%, you still make money from the planet. The higher the class, the more income you get from it. Then you get 'ticks' for every population increment. It starts with small increments (100 people) and ends up with 1000+ people. Every 'tick' gives you approximatly +2 BC, which is then multiplied by your tax rate. (So if you have a tax rate of 50%, you get +1BC).

Now social enhancements increase the whole amount (Taxes + Planet base income), as do goverment changes (BTW, planet enhancements and goverment enhancements are additive), while racial enhancement only affect the taxes gotten from the planet.

So in short, racial economic enhencements are worth nada is you don't have a very high population.
Built those morale building modifier, they'll be worth it, especially if you have high economic modifier.
Planet quality helps, of course :) But then again, everyone knew that :)

~SDC~
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
Aside from making your lower quality planets much easier to invade, do you think the best bet is to move all your population from your PQ 15 to PQ 19 worls to your PQ 20 and above worlds? With the lower population on the PQ BC per turn. Then, for every billion people added to the planets, you will earn an additional 2 BC per month extra until the population reaches, for example, 10 Billion people. At that point, the morale will drop 10 points, and you will be losing 30% BC per Billion. So, you end up with, again for example, a net loss of 10 - 5 billion = 10 * 0.30 (30%) = 3 BC. So, by going from 9 Billion people to 10 Billion, the morale drop reduced your taxes by 3 BC whereas the increase in population without the morale drop would have only increased your income by 2 BC. (Once again, these are all hypotheticals and not actual values. I'm just saying that I hope someone tries to figures these out and posts them.)

Of course, it might also be possible that you could "lower" your income tax by 5% and make the cutoff point be 12 Billion instead of 10 Billion. But that tax rate would affect ALL your planets instead of jus this one... (Again, this is just hypothetical.)

I hope someone sits down and figures this out and posts a cheet sheet. :)



Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top
Ok, well after playing for 3 hours, i still can't reach the computer's high income.

I really can't figure out why.

If anyone has an idea, let me know.

~SDC~