RBGC SG2 - In the Thick of It - TEAM G

[Sirian]

January, 2185AD

Priority for this term: increase taxes. This means increase morale, because lack of morale improvements is capping our tax rate below what our economy could sustain. I will research Nano Frequency first. Why are antimatter plants not in the governor list? Because our taxes are too low, therefore we don't need the extra spending capacity at the moment. This is a foreign situation for me. I generally set taxes to 50% during the initial social push and never look back. This caps population a bit lower, but we've got a runaway population now anyway, like more than twice the nearest rival and we haven't build jack yet. I would also like to connect some of these waiting freighters.

I'm not exactly concerned about the two techs we don't have. Warp Drive? No need. Our freighters are parked in orbit around alien homeworlds and we're not at war nor anywhere remotely near any semblance of a war threat. DefCon is Condition Green, threat matrix LOW. The other tech is Interstellar Tactics, the frigate tech, which we should research ourselves, because it sells at ungodly inflated prices, being on the path to the capital ships in the research tree. In my view, we would not benefit from trading away any techs over which we hold a monopoly at this point, because the AI's are about to dedicate to the capital ship path and won't be researching much else, so any goodies like Nano Frequency, they won't see for a long time unless we give it away.

The system under pressure from Toria could be defended with cultural starbases, but since we are sure to have them as allies, it hardly matters. I'll try to protect it if I can, but I'm not going to divert our whole economy to that effort. We'll just have to let the chips fall, for now.

I raise taxes to 37%, which leaves unhappiest two planets at 50 morale. I sell Alex seven techs for 55bct over 20. Research set to minimum necessary to learn Nano Freq. Freighter from Thuban is sent back toward Torian space. Might as well connect it to that double system. Eventually. Scout in the middle of the map is set to sector sweep around the Drengin star Markus.


February

We learn Nano Freq. Social to 100%, spending to 98%. Drengin have blown up a starbase in the void. Our constructor parked nearby moves to poach. We will have a tech resource next turn. Time to call in SiBCaT. We're going to need his services.

I set every planet and its brother to building morale improvements. The veto stamp is applied to every economic exchange, for now, and we probably won't get back to them on this round. Fortunately, the game will store all the partial progress spent toward them. Some planets could have medical centers, though: 5% morale is worth another billion or two population, or a 5% tax increase. Certainly, building a media center, embassy and medical center for the same investment as an economic exchange is more bang for the bc. Then there are the minor bonuses to research and starship strength on those medical centers-- and the latter are applied retroactively, even to ships already built. Spending deficit is over 100bct, but give me a few turns, and like my last time at bat, I will inject some adrenalin into this economy.


March

Petroni II builds its embassy, starts Media Center. Drengin and Altarian have made peace.


April

Some embassies complete. Alex connects a freighter. Torians connect a freighter and offer us a tech trade, their Warp Drive for our Nano Freq. We politely decline.


May

Drengin rushbuy the Galactic Exhibition after discovering Cultural Trade between turns. Yikes. Expect their influence to increase.


June

Earth, one of our two lagging morale sites, completes media center. Spending decreased to 88%.


July

Four media centers complete. Taxes increased to 43%. Spending decreased to 83%. Spending deficit has been erased. Altaria connects a freighter.


August

Two more media centers and two embassies complete. Taxes increased to 47%. Focus shifted to research. Drengin make peace with Toria.


September

I finally realize that the colony ship has not arrived at the planet? Oh. Because it never got launched. My bad. (See? Told ya I will lose track of orbiting ships on a regular basis, later in the game. At least that doesn't happen during the land grab). Not sure why I thought the colony ship was en route already, but that's the assumption I had been operating on. I launch 50m and set autopilot to Martzia.

We learned Tactics this turn. I trade to Cari for Warp Drive and 1077 influence points (sticking to the no cash sales except to Alex).


October

We learn Instant Communication. Torians connect a freighter.


November

We learn Interstellar Business. Elections held, we retained senate control. Relations with Yor now Warm.


December

Espionage level Medium reached on main rivals. We learn Marketing. Cari has learned Energy Focusing and has a monopoly. I trade Aphrodisiac to them for Focusing and 677 IP.

Focusing to Torians for Cultural Trade and 111 IP. The tech won't be active until next turn, though, so up to next player to connect a freighter for us (with a new trade route opening). Petroni to Torian home system would yield best cash return, but a route to Arcea or Yor might better further our diplomatic aims. Once again, my turn will end with us nursing a monopoly on some techs while knowing all tech known to our rivals.


January

Terror Stars are banned for five years.

We learn Interstellar Capitalism. I add Stock Exchanges to the governor list. All planets except those at 100 morale or under Torian cultural pressure are set to build stock markets, as these provide both economic and morale boost for a modest price. We have a monopoly on five techs, all of them of high value. Nano Freq and Capitalism are off the beaten path of AI research and (IMO) should not be traded away. Business and Marketing have valuable uniques, which we could start to build now, or more research could be done (Nanobots, Brain Waves, Basic and Advanced Repair, Genetic Mapping) to go all-out on a massive round of wonder building. Most of our planets are now parked on low morale and need those stock markets. We could also stand to open more trade routes. Up to next leader to choose priorities.

I did not reach my target tax rate of 50% but got close enough. Between added trade, more trade tech, and higher taxes, total income is nearly double what it was when I came into office. Thus, so is total spending.

SiBCaT saw some action during the latter half of the year, but he is a good kitty, not hungry for glory, but merely a reliable bean counter. So you have been spared the raw numbers. The relevant info is that we made a discovery every turn during the research phase. No goofs.


Here you can see our economy is indeed on the rise:

If we set our mind to it, we can manage a half-decent research pace:

I didn't do diddley squat on the military front:

 

[Sirian]

By the by, note that Drengin research has been nil since they rushbought that wonder. They may have done the short-term bct payment route and tanked their economy for a year or so. When I checked production output on the final turn, they had none of any kind. Could have been that way for months.

Here's our thriving trade situation:

Still hoping to hear from Frostblade about possibly joining Team G, but we're not going to pause and wait on that reply. The game marches on, so Ben is Up Now. (Already? Yeah, this is why it's best to have at least four players unless doing a special high intensity high maintenance event).


Team G - January 2186AD


- Sirian

 

[Physicist]

Originally posted by Sirian

Why are antimatter plants not in the governor list?

Because I forgot to add them . Sorry. IIRC, they became available in December, after my trading round, and as I was not spending on social, I forgot updating the governor.

Originally posted by Sirian

The veto stamp is applied to every economic exchange, for now, and we probably won't get back to them on this round.

Oh, I forgot to mention that . Sorry again. Those were kind of placeholders. I usually do not build Medical Centers, so I prefered to start building eco exchanges instead, although it was obvious that we would not finish them in the near future.

Ben: Don't care about the colony ships. Something like this happens, and the Autolaunch *is* kind of tricky.
I agree on the military point. As soon as we get a random morality event and move up in the alignment rating from 58 to, say, 68, I would expect the relation with Drengin to go down, anyway. However, we might want to wait for BShips/CombatTransports as BHammers will be outdated soon. As Sirian said, DefCon is low at the moment, so we might be able to wait for BShips. Just my thoughts.

- Physicist

 

[Sirian]

Because I forgot to add them

That was meant as a rhetorical question only. If you had added them to the queue, it would not have mattered, because our economy was not strong enough to make use of them. Still isn't, but almost there now. If we connect a couple more trade routes and complete a round of stock markets, we'll be at max spending with a surplus and be looking to change government and increase spending capacity, so we're right about where we want to be for now.

I usually do not build Medical Centers

Most top players don't. I'm a rare exception. I like all three bonuses they offer: research, ship strength, and morale. They are a relatively low bang-for-buck item, I admit, but I've fallen totally out of love with the economic exchange. so these are the item of choice for me from among the "can do without it" list. Morale achieves the same thing as economic boost by allowing higher taxes, so around about this point in the game I will beeline for morale improvements if relations are stable. Media Center, Harmony Generator, Stadium, Stock Exchange, Teleporters, and even Orbital Hospitals for low-PQ sites. The economic exchange is generally useless (completely) in the late game, but still useful early. Problem is, it costs as much as a wonder or trade good to build, so the 400 bc (per planet) invested to build it could be put to research to arrive at morale improvement tech faster, and just skip the eco exchanges altogether. That is the direction I've been moving for some time now in my own gaming.

The medical center (and news network, even, for planets in a real morale crunch) is available early. I'd much rather have it built than 100 points invested toward an economic exchange. The eco exchange is a time-related item. If they're going to be useful at all, you have to decide to build them deliberately, and make sure they complete early enough to get the benefit. That is, actually focus on them. They're far short of useless, but for me at least, I rate them less useful than medical centers and shipyards, and not a no-brainer when comparing to advanced quality control, even. The one certain benefit from the eco exchange that does last is the small influence boost.

Considering that your combined tax-population ceiling is raised significantly by even 5% morale boost, and that player is usually stuck (as we are now) with either lower tax rates (ugh) or pop growth capped for lack of morale improvements (waiting on those midgame morale upgrades), ANY available morale in the early game is worth it for planets that drop below 60 morale.

That's my strategic rationale, at least.

I agree on the military point.

Actually, Ben's last remark has it right. We are playing as Good, and thus not looking for an "excuse to go to war". Let's save that for a last resort, or if the Drengin start taking hallucinogenics and get the notion that they could pick on us and push us around. Instead, we may be able to use culture on them. We just have to be careful to focus cultural efforts only on the Drengin, so we don't get caught in an accidental cultural victory. Certainly, a full 5-way alliance would be the most impressive way to win. Short of that, a nonviolent victory would be next most impressive. Let's ride this out a bit and see what our chances are. We can always crush them later if it comes to that.


- Sirian

 

[samurai_ben]

I have received the file, and should be able to get a round in tomorrow.

On a related note, next week will be rather busy for me at work. While I don't need to bow out completely, I WILL probably need extra time on my rounds.

 

[Physicist]

Originally posted by Sirian
The medical center [...] Considering that your combined tax-population ceiling is raised significantly by even 5% morale boost, and that player is usually stuck (as we are now) with either lower tax rates (ugh) or pop growth capped for lack of morale improvements (waiting on those midgame morale upgrades), ANY available morale in the early game is worth it for planets that drop below 60 morale. [...]
economic exchange [...] I rate them less useful than medical centers and shipyards,

Thanks for the detailed explanation of your strategy, I am learning a lot here.

Good points about both MedCenter and EcoExchange , I agree with you (well, maybe not fully about the significance of the Starship bonus provided by the MedCenter, but that's a minor point, not worth arguing). The main problem I have with MedCenters is the upkeep of 2 gpt. Is the MedCenter worth the 100g necessary for building it? Definitely. Is it worth 2 gpt over many years? Hm, not so sure. Morale +5% is nice, but for 100g & 2gpt? And as I usually build research bonus buildings (except ResearchLab) late, anyway, I tend to skip MedCenters, too.
Might very well be the wrong decision, of course. I will try early MedCenters in my next game to learn more about this building.

Originally posted by Sirian
Actually, Ben's last remark has it right. We are playing as Good, and thus not looking for an "excuse to go to war". Let's save that for a last resort, or if the Drengin start taking hallucinogenics and get the notion that they could pick on us and push us around. Instead, we may be able to use culture on them. We just have to be careful to focus cultural efforts only on the Drengin, so we don't get caught in an accidental cultural victory.

I didn't express my thoughts clear enough. When I stated to agree with Ben on the military point, this included his last sentence. We *are* the good team, and I do *not* intend to choose the militaristic way or "trigger" a war. (We have already discussed this topic in the "SG Q1" thread at galciv.com, before we started playing this game.) Actually, I would be careful with early alliances as they might push us into wars with third parties (e.g. the Arceans) we want to keep good relations with.
I mainly wanted to say that our miltary is (or was during my turns) a little bit light at a few points, but that we might want to wait for the availibiliy of BShips to "correct" that.

Originally posted by Sirian
Certainly, a full 5-way alliance would be the most impressive way to win. Short of that, a nonviolent victory would be next most impressive. Let's ride this out a bit and see what our chances are. We can always crush them later if it comes to that.
[/B]

A "five way alliance victory" would be the ultimate victory for us, but I do not really believe that we would be able to achive that. We could do that as neutral civ, but as soon as we come near to an alignment of 70, I expect the relations with the Drengin to go down. There are ways to compensate that (a lot of trade routes to Drengin now and alliance ASAP, then increasing alignment rating), but, hey, early alliance with warmongering Drengin, you know what that means .... Not our way...

As you said, best to just continue and see what happens. Maybe we are lucky?

- Physicist

 

[Sirian]

Is the MedCenter worth the 100g necessary for building it? Definitely. Is it worth 2 gpt over many years? Hm, not so sure. Morale +5% is nice, but for 100g & 2gpt? And as I usually build research bonus buildings (except ResearchLab) late, anyway, I tend to skip MedCenters, too.

Good question. Consider that many players apply the same logic to settling PQ13 and 14. "They have no income. All they do is suck up spending. That only takes away from my other planets." In the short term, that may be true. It is an investment choice. Depending on how long the game goes and how highly player prioritizes morale improvements, those low grade planets could pay off. They pay off more if an early 100% social spending rush upgrades them to PQ15 or better more quickly, since at that point they are adding SOMEthing to the total net income, even though they do spend more than they make.

A lot depends on your strategy. If you set split spending and stick to it, you will benefit less from settling PQ13 and 14. If you want to prioritize the very earliest wonders, you need to conserve your starting bankroll, not invest it into planetary projects that won't pay off for fifteen game years. If you plan an early military move, to be aggressive before the capital ship era, settling those low PQ planets may only drag on your plan.

Everything depends on the strategy, the priorities. Those who do not like the Fusion Power Plants and tend not to build them will like Economic Exchanges more. The two are somewhat redundant. One is cheap to build but pricey on maintenance and comes with a production boost. The other has no maintenance or production boost, but costs as much as an early wonder to build. I find the readily buildable fusion plants "pay for themselves" with their economic boost and bonus production. The bonus production, the part after the plus sign, is "free", truly, so that counters some of the costs without even factoring the economic boost yet. Power speeds the arrival of other improvements, whose benefits will acrue faster. Some do not see it that way, though.

The question is not whether medical centers should be a priority. They are NOT. The question is, once all the priority buildings you want built everywhere are done, what should you choose first out of the low priority "could live without em" buildings. I find the medical centers to be the clear winner from that category. For small/weak planets, the morale boost is NEEDED to help the pop grow, and the income and productivity boosts from higher pop covers the maintenance. Larger planets see more return from the research and starship bonuses, which again covers the maintenance. As long as the thing brings enough benefit to "break even" against the maintenance costs, why not invest in it? That 5% research boost can be worth as much as 25 rp for a 2bct maintenance cost, if say the planet reached 500 base research. Even a modest 100 base research brings back 5rp.

As for the starship bonus, think of it this way. Is 5% worth anything by itself? Only to ships with a BASE attack or defense value of 20 or more. Is a shipyard with 10% worth anything? Only to ships with a base value of 10 or more. Ah, but add them together and you see a total of 15%, which is added before being applied. Now a 15% boost only needs a value of 7 on attack or defense to give a 1 unit boost. That would be a significant advantage to any ships battle hammer or stronger. Every point counts. If you save a 280 bc battle hammer, that covers over ten years of maintenance costs on the medcenter, not counting its other benefits. If you save a 500 bc battleship, how much is that worth? The military benefit only increases in strength and value as the ships increase, and the potential savings if it makes the difference between saving or losing a ship also rises.

Should a med center be built instead of anything higher on the priority list? Of course not. But the fact is, some planets will run out of useful things to build while others are still working on them, or are building wonders and trade goods. Then what? Sit and let the cash burn? Or build something of lesser value?

I usually have med centers on my governor queue because if they would always be my first choice from the "whats left" category, why do the work of manually adding them at each planet? If they are the best of "the rest", why not just stick them on the end of the governor list?


- Sirian

 

[JaxomCA]

There is one thing you overlook about Economic exchanges. You can reach the cap on tax return one of two ways, through high economy bonus or through high population. Building a EE lets you get the same amount of tax cash for a lower tax rate, thus a higher morale, thus a higher population, thus a higher income. Deciding to build economy enhancing improvements or morale enhancing improvements would depend on what ressources you have available to mine. If your area of space is rich in morale ressources, it's probably better to build morale enhancing buildings, it's probably better to build economy enhancing ones if you lack the morale ressources. It is certainly better to build ecnomic buildings if you have access to economy ressources.

Since I try to build as many wonders as I can, my research usually lags behind my social spending. If I have many planets in the same pq range, like 19-20, I will try to build a wonder on each of them but if I have only 1 or 2 high pq planets, I will build economic exchanges on the other planets while I run through the list of available wonders with my high pq planet. I understand an economic exchange cost almost as much as most wonders, but there is a good chance you will loose the race to a wonder if it takes 20+ turns to build it. You can never loose the race to the EE.

So I always put all the maintenance free buildings in the governor's list, the EE coming in last position. In some games, the EE are built early on most planets and provide great benefits. In other games, they never complete on most planets because I run out of wonders early and keep getting better things to build before EE, like stadiums or stock exchanges.

Also, I think it is better to have a planet or two burning cash on empty projects than to have them burn cash on marginal buildings, and then pay the maintenance on those buildings, while still burning cash on empty projects.

The early game of Galciv is a juggling act, I don't think any predetermine build order and research path fits all situations, past the necessary universal translator and pq enhancing buildings. Depending on where you start on the map, who and how far your neighbors are, the star density within you initial range, and the type and availability of mining ressources, you have to adjust your building and research priorities to fit those conditions. This is the part I like most about this game, the juggling act to best fit the starting conditions. Once you have met everybody and stabilized relations, it only becomes a matter of how you want to win.

 

[Sirian]

Building a EE lets you get the same amount of tax cash for a lower tax rate, thus a higher morale, thus a higher population, thus a higher income.

There are two problems with this analysis.

1) There is a cap on per-turn pop growth.
2) There is a cap on income.

There are several benchmarks involving pop growth. I sat down and figured them all out at one point, but I do not remember the exact numbers any longer.

I believe the core growth rate is 3% of population. Perfect morale doubles that to 6%. Player can get up to 120% boost from tech and trade goods, and more with bonus abilities. Say no bonus, though. Still, 120%, if it multiplies with the morale boost of 100%, would be a total of 13%. If it is merely additive, that would still be 10%. I never bothered to experiment to find out which because it isn't really actionable information.

Nevertheless, the growth cap per turn is 200 million, regardless of other factors. That means it takes five months to grow a billion people. In five years, you can grow twelve billion.

If player loses the bonus for perfect morale, there is still about a 7% growth rate, if both pop growth trade goods are owned. In that case, any planet that exceeds about 3 billion people has already passed the threshold of max growth per turn, as long as its morale is above 52. Planets with perfect morale reach the max growth rate at a mere two billion. The main problem with growing new planets in the late game is the expense of rushbuying additional morale improvements to continue raising the ceiling.

And guess what? Those morale resources don't offer much value. I am not sure exactly why, never been able to track it down. There may be a cap on how much morale bonus can be applied, because adding more makes NO DIFFERENCE in many cases. The only thing that matters is adding more morale buildings. And the only thing that slows growth is reaching the current morale cap where growth stops at or slightly above 50 morale. (Below 50 and you LOSE population each turn, until stabilizing at 50 morale).


The income situation has a cap also. The cap is about 370% of PQ value, or just under 4x the PQ for each planet. More is obtainable, but only pennies.

So there is a hard cap on pop growth rate and a hard cap on total income. There is also a cap on spending capacity. All these caps combine to set boundaries for what player can achieve, to where exceeding a certain amount of efficiency no longer matters. This is NOT true for military bonuses, research bonuses, and influence bonuses, where more is always better. More than one economic or morale resource, though, is generally useless except for denial purposes. When you've exceeded "all you can use", any extra is wasted. Thus why invest the resources into the costly, time-consuming eco exchanges, when they will be rendered useless by other economic factors?


The pop growth vs income issue only matters in the early game. Raising taxes right out of the gate is a total disaster. Player needs an initial pop growth surge using the perfect morale bonus to grow enough people to generate an income by the time the initial 1k bankroll is consumed. However, the benefits of cheap improvements are so good, they override the costs of higher taxes, thus I usually dial up the tax rate to 50% the moment I start the first social push, because as soon as PQ improvements and entertainment center are done, the planets can sustain the high taxes and still have 100% morale, or very close. Thus the sooner those are built, the better.

It's after that point where the early morale issue hits. Players can gain enough income boost from higher population allowed by a 5% morale improvement to pay for the maintenance on embassies, med centers and news centers. This is also the point at which income is still way under the cap, thus any economic benefits will kick in.

How much benefit does an eco exchange need to pull in to pay for itself? More than it costs, because the money spent to invest in it is not the only cost. There is also the time. Time which could have been spent on something else. You've got to make a marked profit off the things for them to pay out. That means you need an average INCOME IMPROVEMENT of 8bc per month over four years just to break even on the building cost. And you are up against the clock, because at some point you'll hit the income cap, and after that the benefits diminish, until you reach the point at which income would be the same with or without the eco exchange.

When you can gain access to economic resources via a starbase is exactly the time NOT to build economic exchange centers. Those economic boosts from the starbases will get you to the income cap sooner, by boosting the effects of other economic buildings. This shortens the life of the eco exchange in terms of real benefits.

If you start with economic bonuses, that only further diminishes the useful lifespan of the eco exchange. Once you would reach the income cap without needing an eco exchange, it has become useless. The only reason NOT to sell the ones you've built at that point is the minor influence boost and the zero maintenance.

Perhaps I play with Federalist Party and Economic Bonuses more often than you do, Jaxom. Any economic bonus at all, from any source (starting bonuses, starbases, even some techs) reduces the value and useful lifespan of the eco exchange improvement. Past a certain point, they become not worth building. However, if playing with zero economic bonus, the potential length of the useful lifespan, before the growth curve smacks into the cap anyway, would be longer, thus the buildings would be more attractive. And they are much more attractive yet for anybody who skips the fusion power plants some of the time. I don't.


There's one more point. You are arguing that more total income is possible by keeping morale higher. Higher morale means higher max population, which means more total income. But that is only true if the tax rate is held the same. If the reason morale is higher is because taxes have been lowered, then income has dropped.

I do see your point. You can use economic buildings in lieu of morale buildings by translating economic power into morale power, via lowering taxes. That's a great argument for the value of the embassy over the other low-grade morale upgrades, since it has both morale boost and economic boost. Also a good argument for the value of stock exchanges, which the AI places virtually zero priority on researching.


There's a point in the game where player does not yet have any pop growth trade goods, and where the sweet middle-game morale boost has not yet begun. This is the only phase in question. Before that, it's no-brainer territory. Land grab is top priority, then player needs a few techs to produce both freighters and PQ upgrades, then build the PQ upgrades and entertainment centers. That sets the morale cap up into the billions, where the planet will have to grow to about 5bil or more before it runs out of morale. Thus there is a time period there where player has no worries. Run perfect morale every turn, as the pop growth is worth more than the pennies from higher taxes.

As pop growth starts to run up against that ceiling, though, player is still trying to build those early items and catch up on research (and tech trading). By the time the economic capital has been built, freighters launched, PQ upgrades completed everywhere, and manufacturing centers built, the pop growth has caught up to the morale ceiling and growth has slowed.

At that point, if taxes are lowered to keep pop growing, the total income per turn drops. I believe it is better to let it cap off there and push on to morale techs, than to pause and build economic exchanges. There's nothing urgent in the early game. Galactic Stock Exchange? That's just one more reason NOT to build eco exchanges, if you get it. Galactic Exhibition? Expendable. Grab it if you can, sure, but if you don't, it's a relatively minor loss. Trade goods? You can buy any trade good you miss, thus only the wonders are a truly lost opportunity. Is it better to build trade goods if you can? Sure. An awful lot depends on your access to minors, though, and to how many are buying from you for cash.


Player always gets a monopoly on techs after Nano Frequency, though. So player can always get Harmony Crystals, Virtual Reality Modules, and often can build Ultra Spices. Media Centers are available, Harmony Generators are a pittance of research away, and player can have his pick of Stadiums, Stock Exchanges, or Teleporters in short order. Plus at this point player either builds or trades for Aphrodisiac, so the combination of higher morale ceilings for pop growth and higher growth rates soon propels the player into the range at which pop is growing at the capped rate of 200 mil per turn, per planet. Then the "lower taxes means higher population" no longer applies.

The higher the abundancy, the faster the research rate relative to the social construction rate. Research targets are fixed. For higher abundancy, player can get to morale upgrade techs faster and easier, thus why wait to build economic exchanges? For lower abundancy, trade provides more income boost per planet, which leaves player spending at 100% anyway, thus no need to raise income to the max, thus why pause to build economic exchanges?

Where is the situation in which it pays to stop and build economic exchanges? Perhaps only the one you described, trying to hit all of the early wonders and trade goods. You can't pause to do more research, as it's "now or never" on shooting for the early uniques, leaving some planets without anything to do besides build economic exchanges.


I started out a big fan of the economic exchange. Then I came to understand the game's various caps more, and to realize what the actual returns are. The only times that I will choose to build economic exchanges civ-wide are games where I have not snagged the Galactic Stock Exchange, do not have any economic resources in range, have not selected any economic bonuses from initial picks or political party, and am not playing pure evil alignment (where I know I will build the Life Force Power). If my economic bonus is next to nil, the eco exchange will have a longer life and can pay me off for building them. That ain't very many games, though. Almost every game I play meets one or more of those four conditions, where I have eco bonuses, and I know I'll reach the income cap early on and not need to waste time on eco exchanges.

I don't usually build many med centers, either. I just happen to find them more useful than 100 shields invested into an eco exchange I don't intend to finish building.

That's my current thinking, and as time passes, it evolves more and more away from building eco exchanges. I don't usually add them to my governor lists any more, not even at the end.


- Sirian

 

[samurai_ben]

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/

January

The initial report is filled with good and neutral news; no negatives this time around. Even better, January opens with a "hello" from the Drengin:

Not exactly an overwhelming present, but it's nice to know they care. On to the turn.

A quick scan shows that we're at 100% research at the moment; in keeping with Sirian's desire to boost our tax revenue, we're researching Organic Piecing with one month to go - actually two, as "Zero" counts as an additional month. At the moment, there is no war amongst the majors, the Drengin and Yor are trading only with us, while the Arceans are trading only with the Torians. That's gotta be a long trade route.

At the moment, we have an enviable 17 trade routes, but only three of them are our own. If war breaks out again between the Altarians, Torians and Drengin - and it's likely - our central position between those three empires puts 9 of those routes in danger. Translation - our economy is good and getting better, but we're far too reliant on foreign freighters. With no immediate threat to worry about, priorities for this year will be:

- Tech research to increase our own trade network and make use of our freighters.
- Tech research to boost our overall trade income.
- Founding the two PQ14 colonies near Arcean space as early as possible, and pray for an Event - maybe even two. If necessary, Soil Enhancement will be bought outright to bring them to PQ15
without interfering too much with the research going on.

With the goal of researching these techs as quickly as possible, I'm going to micro-manage the sliders this year to let us spend the excess on military (to get our defenses lined up and finish the last colony ship, maybe start on a constructor or two) and social (to continue Sirian's project lineup). We have more spending capacity in Science than in the other two categories; moving away from 100% research will save us a bit of cash. So, we can actually increase the spending rate.

This month: Spending to 100%. Tech to 52% to finish Organic Piecing in "1" month (really 2). Social and Military at 24% each. Petroni I and Gladstone II are both building colony ships; we only need one. Petroni's is almost finished and is closer in terms of distance, so Gladstone gets a constructor. PETRONI AUTO-LAUNCH OFF! Divert the scout on sector sweep of Drengin space to spy on their southern starbases, just in case war picks up again.

February

Nothing particularly interesting.

March

Our colony ship reaches Martzia, and we get an event - and wow, it's a doosie:

This is basically going to make the planet unprofitable until Terraforming arrives, but it's going to help us in the alignment department. If we have problems with it, we can always give it to the Arceans to boost relations. We have to bite the bullet on this one. PQ drops to NINE. Ouch. Our alignment stands at Neutral (68).

Finish Organic Piecing, start Xeno Trade Persuasion. Tech spending to 74% to finish next month; Social and Military at 13% each, still at 100% spending.

Petroni finishes its colony ship (launched with 50 million), Earth a battleaxe. Both switch to Constructor production.

Choosing Xeno Trade Persuasion makes me realize I forgot to connect our open route in January. This one goes to the Arceans. We now have one trade route of our own with each major.

I take a closer look at Martzia, and realize that this is a good example of why NOT to settle a PQ9:

-14BC per turn is bad. Morale 37 is worse; this thing isn't going to grow. Rush-buying Soil Improvement will cost 560, or almost half of our treasury. We don't need this planet, at least not this badly. Just to be sure, I check our game rules:

"Team G will aim for good alignment and must win by Alliance."
"Team G must finish with alignment at or above 70."
"Team G may not start wars, by any direct or intentional method, but may act freely against those who declare war against them or against their formal allies."

That's it. Nothing in our variant rules about gifts. Time to call the Arceans. They politely accept our questionable "gift." I was hoping they might bump relations a notch, but no luck. Maybe I should have thrown in a Scout.

Going back to the main screen, I see something REALLY odd:

That's a capital icon - but they still have their original at Leto! Something's screwy.

Vesta now has a defensive Battleaxe, so our Scout leaves orbit to spy on more Drengin starbases. If they're at war with Alex, they might lose one.

April

Arceans build an Econ Capital. Altarians declare war on the Drengins. Knew that treaty wouldn't last. We finish Xeno Trade Persuasion and start on Trade Organizations. Betelgeuse I finishes its News Network; it's still under Torian influence, so I manually start an Embassy.

The best we can do on Trade Organizations is one month (meaning two). Research to 84%. We are still turning a small profit at 100% spending. I connect our Thuban freighter to the Torian double system.

May

Again, nothing interesting happens.

June

We finish Trade Organizations, start on Conglomerates. Torians declare war on the YOR, not the Drengin this time.

Researching Conglomerates, the best we can do is 3 (4) months, but we can do it at 74% spending. At 100% spending, we're now pulling in 76 bc per turn, though I expect to see a lot of mini-freighters vaporized in the next couple of months. Military and Social again split the remainder.

An econ resource just opened up in Drengin space. Nice job, Alex.

We have a constructor at the Drengin triple resource cluster; I'll divert it here instead and hope to have a replacement ready if something gets hit in the cluster.

Connect a trade route with the Altarians. We now have two of our own trade routes with each of our obvious future allies, and one with each of the other majors.

 

[samurai_ben]

July

The news keeps getting better:

Our tech rating is outstanding. And yeah, you bet we're not cruel, after we took a PQ9 hit to save a couple of worms!

Scouting around, I see that the Arceans have abandoned Martzia. Can't blame 'em. The REALLY entertaining part is that it's back up to PQ14! Just for fun, I switch Gladstone III to build another colony ship - ready in 2 months.

August

It's starting:

Cari also builds the Eyes of the Universe. We settle Lasitus I; no event, and worse yet, it's going to take 50 turns to finish Soil Enhancement. I'll let it build up while we finish a couple of trade techs and then think about making a late-year social push (if it's warranted) or a direct buy (if it's not).

September

We lose another foreign trade route due to the wars. Gladstone finishes our last (?) colony ship, launched with 50 million, and goes back to building Constructors. I send one of our ancient Defenders along to keep the colony ship company and ensure that we'll have something in orbit when we settle the colony.

I tweak tech spending to 78% to get Conglomerates next month. We are now at -27 BC at 100% spending due to losing a couple of trade routes, but I don't bother changing spending just yet.

October

We finish Conglomerates, start Xeno Propaganda to squeeze an extra 10% out of all of these new trade routes. The best we can do is 1 month (meaning 2), but we can do it at only 46% spending. Note that shifting the emphasis away from tech saves us a few bucks; we're back up to 16 BC per turn at 100% spending, even before starting the new trade route. I see we're still Neutral with the Arceans; I decide to give them a second route.

WHOOPS - just checked the screens again. I'd forgotten about the Yor! We're Friendly with them, so I forgot we didn't have a route with them yet. We have NO routes with them except for their two - which are in danger because of their war with the Torians! OK, my bad - next route goes to the toasters.

November

I tweak tech spending to 48% to ensure we finish Xeno Propaganda next turn. We pick up the tech resource in Drengin space.

December

Finish researching Xeno Propaganda. With no other trade techs on the list at the moment, we can breathe for a moment and take stock of the situation. Alliances and Battleship pop out at me from
that list. But our alignment is still Neutral, so Alliances won't come into play just yet; and we won't get a second Event when we settle Martzia (again). Battleship is the way to go.

We may even beat most races to this tech. If they have anything worth trading for it, they'll pay dearly. Those decisions will be up to my successor. I have decided that trading for cash in this game is like kicking a puppy, though; our economy is VERY robust and doesn't need the help, the only "threat" is the Drengin, and they're fading.

The best we can do for Battleship is five months. To stay in the black and keep the target date, I need to tweak the total expenditures level and the ratio sliders. Final levels are 80% tech at 94% spending.

Our "new" colony ship will reach Martzia in January and will be my successor's responsibility to start developing. I'm tempted to rush-buy Soil Enhancement for Lasitus - it's certainly within our budget - but I'll wait in case my successor wants the planet to "grow up" matching Martzia.

Petroni II finishes both its antimatter PP and our first Battle Hammer.

January - Handoff

No events or construction finishes in the pre-turn. Here's the current map situation:

Final notes:

After Battleship is done, we should definitely think about researching Alliances, just in case a random event occurs. We could conceivably buy alliances with everyone except the Arceans at this point and use our deep pockets and tech advantage to buy peace as well, meeting our victory conditions. All we really need is better Arcean relations and one morality event.

I think we should keep a careful eye on Antra, the Altarian capitol. If that planet starts getting unhappy, we could flip it by accident; and a cascade effect could start. We don't want to win this one culturally by accident. Besides, they're supposed to be our friends. If we get a morality event, giving them Andersona might be a good way to seal the deal.

So, depending on the luck of the draw, I may not even see this game again...

At the Plate: Physicist
On Deck: Sirian

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/rbgc-sg2-teamg-jan2187.zip

 

[JaxomCA]

Sirian, you build embassies, med centers and news network, I don't. That is 300 bc out of the 400 required to build the EE, and I save 6 bc per turn per planets. The life of EE is longer than you state, when you load combat transports to exterminate the aliens, you may or may not get extra benefits from the EE, but at least it doesn't cost money to keep it around until then.

Is it worth it to stop other projects to complete EE on all your worlds? No it isn't, unless you are very short on cash. Is it worth it to push the EE behind minor secondary buildings? In my book, no. On my lowest PQ planets, it even stays ahead of the manufacturing center.

I don't think there is a cap on morale bonuses. I have had a game where I reached 400%+ on the morale bonuses and I was able to run 80% tax at 100% morale. Of course, there was very little difference in tax revenue between 60% and 80%. But I was able to get rid of all the morale only buildings and still run a confortable 50% tax rate, saving a lot of money on maintenance.

On the wonders/trade good thing, you are right, none are necessary to win. It is a matter of style for me, if I build fewer than 75% of all wonders/trade goods, it means I have played a bad game. If I miss only 1 or 2, then I have played a good game.

Ben, the pq 14 planet will still have the 31% penalty on pq. You can get more than one colonization event on a planet as long as the event doesn't add a plus or minus on the detail screen. So you won't get an event either. At least that is how it works if you settle and abandon the colony. I don't see why it would work differently if you give the colony before it is abandonned.

 

[Physicist]

Got it. Will play today.

- Physicist

 

[Zed-F]

Some good pointers here, as I would expect to see with Sirian hosting. The debate concerning EE is informative too. I guess which is better mostly depends on how "mobile" your population is -- both moving from low PQ worlds to high PQ worlds, and also moving out of your current empire entirely in a bid to conquer other systems. With higher base population, even small morale boosts are valuable, whereas with lower base pop, the exchange is more attractive.

I would always put the exchange somewhere in my build list. I am forever running out of useful stuff to build anyway. I'd probably build the embassy before the exchange in most circumstances, as it has both a morale and an economic boost, but I'm less enamoured of the med center. Whether that falls before or after the eco exchange depends on circumstance, but probably the eco exchange will come first in most cases. Since I usually do some poaching of enemy worlds at some point during the game, I think this lines up fairly well with my gameplay style.

 

[samurai_ben]

JaxomCA:
"Ben, the pq 14 planet will still have the 31% penalty on pq. You can get more than one colonization event on a planet as long as the event doesn't add a plus or minus on the detail screen. So you won't get an event either. At least that is how it works if you settle and abandon the colony. I don't see why it would work differently if you give the colony before it is abandonned."

I wasn't aware of that...Well, no harm in trying. I usually don't stick to Pure Good in my games - certainly not to the point of taking that big of a PQ hit on a world that's marginal to begin with. Come to think of it, I've never had a world lower than PQ13, ever. I WAS aware from reading the threads that we wouldn't have a shot at another event here...

If this is the case, listing the planet as a PQ14, but having it revert to a PQ9 for us, makes a lot of sense. Not every race would care about the worms, and this avoids the cheese of resettlement to avoid a negative event. IF it works; believe me, I didn't plan it with that in mind. My thought was that if the planet DOES wind up as a development-worthy PQ 14, with Lasitus also nearby we would be able to culturally assimilate the Arceans if necessary.

Anyway, we'll see.

 

[Physicist]

Report on the year 2187

As a first note, I was short of time today, but I did not want to drag my turns into Monday, so the report is a little bit "quick and dirty".

January

The important screens for us:

Foreign relations:

As a side note, we are seval techs in front of the pack .

Trade:

And here the military graph:

Not a critical situation, but we might have use for a few BShips

Wars:
* Drengin & Altaria
* Drengin & Alexians
* Yor & Toria
I note that the Drengin are wearing down Alex. Their only planet is down to 10000 pop and is only defended by a single transport.

Following Jaxom's explanation, it does not make sense to settle Martzia a second time as it will return to PQ9 again. Thus I stop the colony ship and, not really knowing what to do with it, I set it on guard mode.

Wonder Situation: Propaganda Maschine, Restaurant of Eternity & Ultra Spices are available. Combined with the availibility of Stock Exchanges and the lack of infrastructure at Lasitus, we might want to go 100% social for a short time, again. For the moment, however, I change spending from M 10 / S 10 / R 80 to M 17 / S 0 / R 83 in order to get 2 BAxes next turn. Then max research on battleship, alliances & star democracy techs. Then a military spending phase to get a few of those battleships and constructors.

February

Interturn, Toria declares war on Alex, who are at war with Drengin already. Poor Alex... At least, they have a BAxe again as defender.

March

Interturn, we reach medium espionage level for Yor and Arcea.

April

After some very quiet turns that were only interrupted by a little adjustment of spending rate, I get an active interturn:

Well, as I said, the Alexians are having a hard time: The trade route from Vitellius to Wardell, falls.

And, we get this message:

Hm, I don't think this helps us much, as we own Aphrotisiacs and our growth is probably at the max. cap already. Actually, our growth has already slowed owing to overcrowded planets/low morale.

Finally, battleship tech comes in!

May

Again an active interturn:

Another trade route, Markus (Drengin) to Thuban falls.
Alliance tech comes in.

Well, it was nice as long as it lasted.

 

[Physicist]

June

And, deja vu, another trade route, Vitellius (Alex) to Rathra, falls.

The half year report: as expected, we are doing "quite ok" technologically...

July

Star Democracy comes in:

and, of course, we change government.

August

Major economy change, we are now going M 80 / S 0 / R 20. BShips are queued in our PQ21+ planets.

Interturn: Altaria & Drengin make peace, but the Altrians declare war on the Arceans immediately.

September

zzz

October

Interturn: Advanced Diplo comes in

October

We upgrade the military starbase

November

Interturn:

We get a senate election, and I know that our morale is low (~ 55%). But, we are lucky:

For the next election I should reduce taxes during election turn.

As a side note: Drengin declare war on Arcea.

December

Interturn: The first battle ship rolls off the asembly line, and we learn Brain WaveMapping.

The Altarians declare war on the Alexians.

Summary and Final Comments

The map:

A tiny map only, as, basically, nothing has changed.

Sirian: the two autopilot ships are constructors going into regions where "resource watching" might be fruitful. Fine tuning of the autopilot location might be necessary. Note that the last colony ship (together with a defender) is on guard mode next to Martzia.

*DIPLOMACY:
Relations are stable, friendly with all majors except Arcea (neutral)
The Alexians are now at war with the Drengin, Torians and Altarians.
The Arceans are at war with the Drengin and the Altarians-
The Torians are at war with the Yor

If we want to continue building our civ, we could research a few more of the cheap wonder techs and then go for the wonders; this would also help to get those Stock Exchanges and would help Lasitus (still lacks infrastructure, but I did not want to buy a Soil Enhancement for more than that we might gift in a few turns to the Arceans).


Very quiet and fast turns, but I had one main problem which (almost) gave me a headache during all my turns: We are the top dog, the winning civ, but I had/have no idea what strategy we are following. I would propose to discuss that before we proceed (at least before my next turns come up ). Two points are to be discussed: how to improve relations, especially with the Arceans, and how to get to 70+ alignment. I see the following possibilities:

* alignment: that's easy: either we wait for a random event, or we start settling the crap planets to get one or two more events, probably abandoning the colonies afterwards. Is the latter within the spirit of the game?

* relations: I have never bought an alliance (i.e. gifted an AI to close relations) before. We probably could do that with all majors except Arcea (I am just guessing), but I have no idea concerning Arcea. We have a lot of stuff we could gift (trade goods, money, techs, even planets), but can we get from neutral to close by gifting only?
We could start building trade booster starbases instead, this might help our relations.
Culture flipping of the Arceans might be another option, as we culturally control the sector of their northern star, but at low culture level only (below 500).
Or should we just go on and see what happens? The Arceans are at war with two majors, among them the Drengin, their direct neighbor, who are wearing down their defenses. But invasions? You know about the AI's invading capabilities... The Arceans are weak, and would immediately fall to the attack of an human player, but an invasion by the AI? This might take ages.

What is your opinions, guys?

Good luck to the next player.

- Physicist

The file: http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/rbgc2-g-2188.zip

 

[Sirian]

Regarding strategy, settling low-PQ worlds just to scrounge up morality events is not in the plan. From a context perspective, it does not make sense. In fact, I asked Cari to do something about this loophole and she later said that she had, removing all events for PQ below 10, but that is not currently working, so I need to ask her about it again. Since we are now within reach of our alignment goal, I'd say we can wait on automatic events to reach the rest of the way.

As far as buying alliances, my experience with buying relations up to friendly is that it is easy. From Friendly to Close, not so easy. I've gifted techs and tens of k in cash and gotten squat for it. We can try, though. If I can get Arcea to Close giving them obsolete tech, then I will choose one or two low-impact techs to give away to the rest and see what happens. Or rather, that would be the move if we had the required alignment to win. If we are still waiting on alignment, then there's no use moving on the alliances because we'd only end up in wars. The alliances need to be done in one push to win 5-way.


Ben: When I handed off to you, I handed with a tech that would be done in one turn. I know the display (upon reload) said otherwise, but trust SiBCaT, not the display. No harm done. You got the research finished without waste and upgraded our trade situation. Still, later in the round you were still trusting the display and seemingly not factoring bonus research into your calculations. With the bonus still low, that's not a big deal, but trying to micromanage research with a larger bonus, you need to be able to figure the actual research points, thus my bonus calculation technique. If research bonus gets up over about 30%, much less into three digit range due to starbases, the display becomes wholly unreliable and there is only SiBCaT to trust. See the end of the first succession game thread here in this forum if you don't know what I'm referring to.

Chances are, you will see this game again. I do not intend to settle low-PQ worlds hunting morality events, so unless time hands me one or two, I won't even try to finalize a galactic alliance.


- Sirian

 

[AmulekBird]

Hi, guys. It looks like I'm available to play again. I have deliberately not looked at the N or E games in case I could come back. (Though in the Forum N announced they were done ;P) Can you use me again??

 

[Sirian]

Amulekbird: Yes, we can still use your help. In fact, I have not yet begun to play, so if you are ready to jump in, go ahead and take a turn now. Make sure you catch up on the thread first, though.

ROSTER:

Sirian <<< On Deck
Ben
Physicist
AmulekBird << UP NOW


- Sirian