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Economy Strategy & Questions
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I have been trying to figure out if embassy and neural net are routinely worth the cost or are they just a drain on the economy (esp. playing maso where money is tight). Here is a strategy I have been using but I wanted to hear if it makes sense to others. On a recent game Earth had revenue of 98 and spending of 136 so I built both embassy and neural net. It seems logical that . . .
If embassy boosts the economy 5% on a planet, then would it make sense to build embassies on all planets with 40 bc revenue? 40 bc x 5% = 2 bc so does that mean than on a 40 bc revenue planet that an embassy "pays for itself" because the extra 2 bc per turn is the maintenance cost of the embassy. If so, one might be getting the star influence and the morale boost of the embassy "for free" (or at least paid for) by the economy boost.
The same might be true for a neural net that gives a 10% economy boost. Might it make sense to build these on planets with 50 bc revenue because 50 bc x 10% = 5 bc which is the cost of maintenance of neural net? Is one getting the 25% research boost "for free" because of the economy boost of neural net?
And how does this interact with revenue cap of planets, which I read is about 4x PQ?
Please share your thoughts. Am I overlooking something in this strategy? Thanks in advance.
          
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Rick,
To be honest with you, I always blindly build embassies, because I feel 2 BC maint. is not bad enough to bother me. I always think twice about Neural Nets, though. I can't help but think 5 BC maint. is just too much for that, even if it is a boost to economy. It's good to have on a couple of your best planets, which can support that kind of a drain on revenue, but not on most planets.
    
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Embassies -- 5% economics and 5% morale for 2BC maintenance.
Neural Net -- 10% economics for 5bc maintenance.
These are both revenue neutral or revenue positive IMHO.
I tend to avoid VR center until stadium and teleporters are build, and build it only on low morale planets.
How are you doing on maso? ( he asks and then checks the metaverse ranking ) ( sheepishly hits submit )
  
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vincible --
good point, but even that is oversimplified. Your point is that the 5% bonus is applied to a "base", not what is displayed. Unfortunately, there are numerous econ modifiers (political, starbase, resource, anomoly) and we don't have the calculations to see which bonuses are applied in which order.
Secondarily, deciding to build at a certain income level is tricky, because tax level and morale *both* affect the individual planet's income, and both change over time. I thing the only way to really answer this question is to look at individual cases.
1) build inprovement and save game.
2) play a turn and record income / expenses.
3) reload game.
4) destroy improvement.
5) play a turn and record income / expenses.
I would be curious to see some numbers here if someone wants to take the time.
Cheers!
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Thanks for all the replies. Darn, I knew that had to be too easy. 
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Maxtipherous,
it doesn't matter what order the bonuses are applied in, they all get added together into a single factor before they are applied. If you have +5% from anomalies, +20% from government, +20% from tech, and +30% from improvements, then you have +75% no matter how you switch them around.
Where it does get complicated, as you point out, is that the base output will change based on your overall spending percentage, your slider settings, population, and morale . If your planet has a base of 50 at 50% social, 100% overall, your extra 5% for the embassy gives you the 2 that you need to make it effectively free. If you have to cut your spend rate back to 60%, your planet's base will drop to 30, and suddenly the embassy is costing you 1 (assuming that the game rounds down). Or if you change your social rate to 30% , the planet's base will drop to 30 again, leaving you in the same situation.
My own rule of thumb is, if it provides 10% per BC of maintenance cost of factors you want, then you should build it. Teleporters give +40% (25 morale, 15 econ) for 2 maint so they're a definite build. VR Centers give 20% morale for 5 maint, so I never build them. Planetary Defense gives 30%, but I never want defenses (I'd rather kill the transports) so I never build them either, regardless of their maint cost.
Since embassies are +5 morale/+5 econ/+10 influence for 2 maint, I only build them on planets where I want the extra influence too.
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Hi ricbayer,
don't underestimate morale. It brings either population grows or higher tax rates. Both directly leads to more income.
On a high PQ planet I usually have higher morale values anyway and I build morale improvements later than on lower planets. But at the end I build them on all. I try to balance this since more than 100% is not possible and I can't increas tax rates to high since the lower PQ planets would suffer to much.
Best regards, Volker
   
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Thanks again for the replies. Walldorf Volker, there is another way to add morale boosters to planets. Or we may be saying the same thing. 
The goal is to get all planets at 100% morale to get the population boost. I tend to build most morale boosters on my worst planets because like you said, more than 100% doesn't help. My high PQ planets tend to stay at 100% even without harmony generators, entertainment networks, or multimedia centers until maybe the population is VERY high. The PQ boosters like soil, habitat, terraforming, and The Terraformer tend to take care of necessary morale boost in high PQ planets without monthly maintenance fees. On the other hand my lowest PQ planets might even need the expensive virtual reality centers, which can pay for itself if it allows you to raise taxes and keep approval at 100%.
I guess the bottom line is that if you don't want to pay the maintenace costs of the morale boosters on your high PQ planets because they are already 100% morale, why build them? Instead, build morale boosters on planets to get them to 100%, then stop until they drop below 100% again. If one avoids building un-necessary maintenance requiring structures or at least delays until they are necessary because of population increase, then one can save bc.
One last trick is to build the harmony generator for a few turns until it is ready next turn - then stop and build nothing or build something else you may want later (multimedia center or embassy or whatever). Build it then stop at 0 turns to complete so you don't incur maintenance fees. Then, if you need a harmony generator or other structure later, you can immediately get it in one turn.
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| It can be useful to put morale boosters on planets with 100% morale. If you build morale boosters on planets with 100% morale, it means you can raise taxes. Sometimes by a lot. |
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Vincible, I am confused. Let's say you have two planets and the morale of planet A is 100 and planet B is 60 at a slider tax rate of 35%. Wouldn't it make more sense to build the entertainment network at planet B to get it to 100% so you can get the population boost or raise taxes further? On planet A you can build a banking center or whatever instead of a morale booster because Planet A is already 100%.
So are you saying a morale booster on planet A would allow an overall increase in tax rate somehow? Even without changing morale on planet B? How can you do this when we have no individual planet tax sliders? What am I missing?
It does seem that if you build both you pay 2 bc per turn per planet = 4 bc / turn. But if you only build on planet B, then it only costs 2 bc / turn. Is this correct?
Please explain again. Thanks.
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ricbayer,
if you have planets below 100%, then you definitely want to do what you can to get them up to 100%. Raising taxes when you have a planet below 100% will absolutely make it even less happy.
But, once you have all or most of your systems at 100%, the odds are good that they would really be at something like 115% or 130% or better, if 100% wasn't the limit. They're at 100% happiness, with a 15 or 30 percent buffer of excess happiness capacity.
Because they've got that buffer, you can raise taxes to pull more money out of them. They will still stay at 100% happiness until you exhaust that buffer. Depending on how big of a buffer you actually have (which unfortunately you never really know until after you exhaust it), you may be able to raise taxes by 5%, or you may be able to raise them by 20%.
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I understand now. Thank you. I think we are all on the same page. It is just that I start with the lowest morale planets first. If all are 100% morale, I increase taxes until I see the total approval rating at less than 100%. Then I go find the planets that are under 100% (maybe 1 or 2 or 3). Then I build the morale enhancers at the lower morale planets first and save the money for morale enhancers at the 100% morale planets until they are under 100% morale. In other words, if all planets are 100% morale, raise taxes until you find the weakest morale planet and plan on building morale boosters there first is what I do. In the mean time, you can always build morale boosters and stop at zero turns until you need them. Again I am only talking about planet morale boosters (entertainment, harmony generators, multimedia, etc). General overall morale boosters like resources are always welcome. Thanks for your input.
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Has anyone managed to figure out how much de-stabilizing money the enemy is spending when the message arrives from spies. I usually just crank the propaganda slider over to max. It would be nice to have a rough idea. Any Detail item that may indicate that? Looking at the race itself tells you if they are spending on destabilizing(if you spend on espionage) but that indicates the total being spent by them and not what is applied against you, I guess. 
   
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rb: Hmm...leaving some items poised at zero turns sounds like an interesting idea (assuming that I remember to change the build order at zero!) You're building something you don't need against the time when you expect to need it later. I suppose the idea is that this doesn't waste money because you'd be spending for that production even if you didn't use it. Either that or you're "investing" in infrastructure (or both). Comments?
 
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I just go ahead and build the morale improvements on the theory that the planet will get to the point where they need it eventually, and I'm too lazy to go around and switch things at the 0- or 1-turn-left mark.
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citahellion
Excellent points. I usually build entertainment network, multimedia center, harmony generator, transporters, on every planet, then use vr center, spin control, and secret police on the lowest planets. I have heard of guys that maintain separate build queues depending on original PQ, and I assume they would be morale-heavy. A lot of management either way, but pumping the taxes makes it more than worthwhile.
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On the lower-quality planets, I'll build Transports or Combat Transports instead of building VR Center and other high-maintenance social projects. Funny how drafting billions of people into the Space Marines unconditionally makes the rest of the planet happy.... 
Anyway, it's cheaper to have 5 billion people sitting in a CT rotting without shore leave than it is to build up VR centers and Spin Control. And if I don't even need the troops, sometimes I'll decommission the full transport. No more ship maintenance cost, no buildings to maintain, no outcry from the populace about friendly fire losses.
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The VR center is 5 bc per turn for 20% morale. The combat transport is 6 bc per turn for taking 5 million people off the planet. If you need the combat transport, then building it on the lowest morale planet seems best. I play "no military" so rarely make combat transports (well every few games to take out a terrorist like Dmer or to speed up a culture bomb game near the end). Thanks for the input. 
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| Anyway, it's cheaper to have 5 billion people sitting in a CT rotting without shore leave than it is to build up VR centers and Spin Control. And if I don't even need the troops, sometimes I'll decommission the full transport. No more ship maintenance cost, no buildings to maintain, no outcry from the populace about friendly fire losses. |
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Not only that, you get a decorative ring around the planet when you space five billion citizens. Up close, the facial expressions are particularly interesting. BWAHAHAHAHAHA
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#24
by Citizen Regalis - 11/13/2003 6:50:12 PM
Going back to the original post in this thread...
They pull their own weight under some circumstances. The former slightly more often than the latter. The higher the planet quality, always and hereafter: PQ, and population, though potentially only to a point, and the less the current overall planetary +economy, hereafter: econ, bonus, the more likely they are going to be to be buoyant. (If someone wants to take the time to make a formula for when to build each "+econ improvement with maintaince", be my guest. The three factors you'd be integrating, I believe, would be PQ, planetary +econ bonus, and the actual tax revenue. The tricky part is you have to figure out the intricacies of the actual tax revenue formula. Meaning you have to track out how morale influences tax revenue.) If you end up being afforded the freedom to buy embassies early on, it is probably worth building them purely on their economic merit on major--high PQ, high population--worlds. When to get rid of them, if you aren't worried about influence, is another matter entirely.
On to the second part, the revenue soft-cap is applied after the +econ bonus is factored in. After the final revenue from a planet exceeds double the PQ there is a minute penalty to income; however, once you reach 4xPQ, the penalty to further income is very noticable.
Everything can potentially reach a point of critical mass, provided your overall +econ is high enough. A point where your income from every planet is already a decent bit over 4xPQ, and every percentage you raise taxes amounts to just a measily 1bc or maybe even nothing. At this point, it could actually net you more money to destroy +econ improvements that have upkeep. It could also net you more money to destroy morale improvements with upkeep; even if you have to lower the tax rate!
If this helps or not, I don't know. If you get to this point in the game, good money says you've won. (The pun wasn't intentional, I swear.) It's not often you get your economy to its apex and find the AI still in a position to be a challenge. (Although, I believe it is possible to get to this point with individual worlds, with economic capitols, much earlier on, if you are looking to skim a BC or two off the top for the duration. Be wary of the loss of econ anomalies or elections, though.)
What I want to know is how the AI manages to have worlds produce 8x their PQ. 
To clarify something from one of the replies that may be misleading in the context of the original quandary, the only slider that will effect your revenue is the tax slider. The amount of money generated per turn is unrelated to government expense or the mil/soc/tech sliders--they affect spending rather than revenue, which only affects net gain, which still has no bearing on whether that %econ mod is pulling its own weight. (Except indirectly in that if you run into the red your morale will suffer; and, morale is a component in actual tax revenue.) Increasing social spending does not increase your base tax pool, only your ability to produce econ modifying projects...
You know, Truman was onto something when he said all he wanted was a one-armed economist.
But on the other hand, we should really be more concerned with net gain than increased revenue. So... now we must decide if, even if it nets no increase in revenue and is, in fact, a drain, which should be true most of the time, the neural net is worth keeping because of the research boon. Keep in mind only 1/3 of the 25% bonus, or 8.33%, it adds is actually "free." The other 2/3s of the bonus are simply added to your basic pool, which you pay for. Yet, this does mean you could conceivably set your research slider lower and decrease government spending a tiny amount to achieve the same Gross National Product--or, perhaps, Gross Imperial Product--for that slight drop in government expenditure. This would be "benefiscal" only when 8.33% of your base research pool exceeds 5bc/month.
One more point to keep in mind, though. 2/3 of the boon from research anomalies is bonus, free, production. So if you have developed several research starbases, it would probably be more cost effective to destroy your research labs and simply increase the research slider and government expenditure.
There are also, conceivably, situations in which the fusion and antimatter power plants would be worth scrapping. That would be if your base production is capped and your bonus production is significantly in excess of 3xPQ (the soft-cap) and would remain so without them; this, AND your revenue would still be over 4xPQ without their economy bonus. It seems unlikely to me, though, that you would fail to find more pragmatic manufactoring improvements to remove first. I've never looked very closely though.
If you are running at 100% expenditure and still in the green, neural nets and power plants are always worth it.
Ask a silly question; get a silly answer.
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