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How to make money? - 12/14/2020 6:33:09 PM

dycu

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That's the one thing that I'm still strugling with. Is there any way to make some decent cashflow? Am I doing something wrong that I lose money all the time and need to sell some stuff not to bankrupt?

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RE: How to make money? - 12/14/2020 6:50:34 PM

Prozorovsky

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Hmm, off the top of my head.

Increase income tax asap, I don't know how much is too much but things were fine at 30% for me. Getting it up right at the start should make a big difference.

What's your wage for your workers? Are you ending up in some kinda spiral of ever increasing wages to keep them happy?

Are you paying recruitment bonuses for colonists and recruits?

What wage are you paying your army? Is your army growing quicker than your economy?

What are you paying your ministers and such? Are reserve characters pilling up and getting a good wage?

Is your private economy anemic? It can make you quite a bit between the various taxes.

Your treasury report should provide some pointers on what is going wrong. Need mo info!

< Message edited by Prozorovsky -- 12/14/2020 6:51:37 PM >

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RE: How to make money? - 12/14/2020 6:55:44 PM

dycu

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pg1

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RE: How to make money? - 12/14/2020 6:57:57 PM

dycu

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pg2

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< Message edited by dycu -- 12/14/2020 6:58:29 PM >

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RE: How to make money? - 12/14/2020 7:02:43 PM

dycu

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sorry for such a mess with pics but I cannot post them so quick and visible yet :P

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RE: How to make money? - 12/14/2020 7:08:09 PM

Prozorovsky

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Bro, Copperspring be leaching off you crazy. Smack those buggers and tell 'em the law... and prepare for a workers revolution.

Your income tax is 20% too, bumping that a time or two would help a fair bit, if you go government policy I believe people don't care quite as much about taxes.

Edit:

Thought a little more. You have a few issues, too many workers, workers a paid too much, and you don't have enough income.

Too many workers could possibly be fixed by transitioning certain public assets to private ones. You don't have to pay workers at the private hospice and hospital.

Workers being paid too much could be fixed by:

Moving public assets to zones where workers expect less payment.

Dropping wages and placating workers through other means: QoL, stratagems

Income can be fixed with taxes, investing in the private economy, monopolizing certain resources and selling at inflated prices.

Those are my thoughts on potential ways to deal with income issues.

< Message edited by Prozorovsky -- 12/14/2020 7:50:25 PM >

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RE: How to make money? - 12/14/2020 7:58:16 PM

Geezerone

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I'm guessing that the barfly Union Chief forced the worker salaries to be raised. That's why he always comes to some timely end in my games. I suppose you could always set your worker salaries to .001 and let their happiness crash, and then raise it up to the normal .005 to satisfy them.

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RE: How to make money? - 12/14/2020 8:03:52 PM

dycu

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by moving assets you mean building them somewhere else and close ones in this city?

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RE: How to make money? - 12/14/2020 8:39:16 PM

Prozorovsky

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quote:

ORIGINAL: dycu

by moving assets you mean building them somewhere else and close ones in this city?

Yes. Going where the labor is cheap should be an option. Whether it is a good one I don't know. Have to play it right.

< Message edited by Prozorovsky -- 12/14/2020 8:42:42 PM >

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RE: How to make money? - 12/14/2020 11:02:57 PM

Uemon

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Unfortunately the forum is not letting me post screenshot.

-Get some rare materials (ruins are the #1 best way)
-Sell rare materials
-PROFIT

I was gonna show you a screenshot of my current game where i can sell 390 rare materials for 7749 credits.

Compared to that, everything else fades in comparison.

The second best way is to be commercial and let private economy develop on its own? But its still light years behind of just selling rare materials.

Also note that upon starting a new game it takes a couple of turns before you can start making thousands of $s, at first youll only be able to sell like 100 rares and make couple 100 $.

< Message edited by Uemon -- 12/14/2020 11:03:42 PM >

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RE: How to make money? - 12/14/2020 11:18:32 PM

Philo32b

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Uemon's way is the best way I know of. You can also sell off machines if you find some. In my last game I was running massive deficits from my economy, but I would sell rare materials and (once I was producing my own machines with heavy industry) lots of machines, so money was never a problem. I did have a game once where nobody wanted to buy rare materials, and that was difficult. Keep in mind, too, that the price will go down for a few turns after you do a big sale.

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RE: How to make money? - 12/15/2020 11:19:40 AM

dycu

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It seems a little off that rare materials are such a good way of making money. I would expect that you can create an economy that will be sufficient to let you earn money. Maybe these materials should be harder to get or have more ways of using it to balance it? Or maybe the penalty for selling too much of them should be worse?

< Message edited by dycu -- 12/15/2020 11:20:42 AM >

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RE: How to make money? - 12/15/2020 1:27:41 PM

Uemon

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quote:

ORIGINAL: dycu

It seems a little off that rare materials are such a good way of making money. I would expect that you can create an economy that will be sufficient to let you earn money. Maybe these materials should be harder to get or have more ways of using it to balance it? Or maybe the penalty for selling too much of them should be worse?

quote:

are materials and (once I was producing my own machines with heavy industry) lots of machines, so money was never a problem.

I dont think this is something you can really do. The choice seems to be either go full commercial and let private economy develop on its own (you will get strategems that will give your private sectors 1000s of $s so you can kick start your private economy many many many times faster) OR you can sell rares and not think about any of that stuff whatsoever.

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RE: How to make money? - 12/18/2020 12:34:29 AM

Sandow

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I noticed the tendency for the market to 'crash' after a big sale goes through. But it usually doesn't last for too many turns, and if you make a sale to restore your economy for awhile, then the market should recover by the time you have another large surplus to unload.

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RE: How to make money? - 12/25/2020 5:46:04 AM

Grotius

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I'm also having money troubles. Yeah, I can sell off rare minerals, but aren't they a scarce and finite resource? If you mine long enough, don't you exhaust them?

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RE: How to make money? - 12/25/2020 6:29:27 AM

Maerchen

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It depends on your planet if rare metals are a scarce or abundant resource. Young planet, nothing exhaustingly mined out during colonization, or megacity ruins = abundance.

I sell rares during the first stage of my empire, and then when I will soon get to polymer/heavy combat armor I keep it.

Mind that, depending on your difficulty setting, you start with 30-0& income tax. And depending on your tech level start you have resource mines already set up or not.

My preferred start is hard difficulty, tech III and no council. My first council is almost always the interior council. Overcoming the money issue is priority #1, good leaders will come with interior director experience, making everything else easier.

< Message edited by Maerchen -- 12/25/2020 6:37:03 AM >

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The good thing is, we have all the information in the reports. The bad thing is, we have all the information. Maerchen, 2020

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RE: How to make money? - 12/25/2020 7:10:12 PM

Grotius

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Yeah, I just watched a video of a guy who picks the Interior Council first. I'll try that in my next game. Does the Council help in any way besides making it easier to raise taxes?

I usually start normal difficulty, tech I, no council. I may try hard difficulty next time, but I already have my hands full.

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RE: How to make money? - 12/25/2020 7:38:23 PM

newageofpower

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Interior is insanely good for maintaining relations with your Leadership. Half my cabinet is 90+ with correctly timed ~~bribes~~ Bonuses, Official Gifts, etc

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RE: How to make money? - 12/26/2020 12:08:38 AM

Grotius

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Good to know. My cabinet isn't too wild about me, lol.

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RE: How to make money? - 12/26/2020 4:12:07 AM

Maerchen

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Interior director is really your 'wand of wonder' in this game, Grotius.

He does 4 administration rolls in his skill log, but use the leadership skill on national stratagems.

Early game I do prioritize like this: taxation 40% - tariffs 1% - human resources 40% . interior policies 9% as I want to get

a) taxation up to 50% sales tax and income tax 40%
b) retirement and recruitment stratgems that allow me to fire all the cap I and IIs and replace them with cap IV-Vs.

As soon as taxes are putting my finances in the black, I switch it to 5-10% and change the interior policies to 39% to get Wargames, Cabinet retreat, Grand Convention etc. and Mission Impossible. All these are leadership stratagems, so you might want to give your interior all charisma buffs you can grab. I prioritize him in favor of the foreign affairs director in doing this.

The national stratagems all hand out bonuses to relation beween you and your leaders and a lot of XP for them. And as higher cap leaders normally come with higher attribute values, they will learn faster and have higher skills in the long run.

In late game it may make sense to give your interior the role of the supreme command counselor, as his admin will be insanely high because of the constant 4x use, generating all the PP you may need.

The cherry on top is the Mission Impossible stratagem. For 50 PP your director makes a leadership vs 150 skill roll and generate FP with it. You can crit with this roll, so 4FP are possible.

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RE: How to make money? - 12/26/2020 5:05:00 AM

Grotius

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Wow, I had no clue about any of that. Thanks for the information, Maerchen. I may start a new game and build the Interior Council first.

Not to say that my current game is dull! I started about 6 hexes from another major power, on a lifeless world. In previous games, I've been able to beat up on minors or non-aligned, but not so here. From the get-go, I've been fighting a major power. It has much stronger units than the minor regimes. It's been fun, and militarily it's going okay. But my unrest is high, my popularity is low, my treasury leaks 60 credits a turn, and I'm running out of food and water, lol.

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RE: How to make money? - 12/26/2020 8:05:33 AM

Maerchen

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You are welcome. One has always to take advice with a grain of salt though:

Interior first works very well, but only if you have a bit of a breather; like on your world it would be sort of a waste of time.

I had a short 3 major 1 minor small moon like you described. I went full aggro and made model design the first as I wanted better troops asap and light tanks early on can do wonders. Taking the food and water supply away from the enemy was key.

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RE: How to make money? - 12/26/2020 4:04:43 PM

PerfectDeath

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Efficiency Drive is huge, though it scales off your admin level but its about 15k to 30k depending on roll for around turn 100+
Until then i was basically selling via trader to cover each turn's expenses.
I'm -700 in the hole each turn rn but can easily make it back. Also some market prices are very inflated now so I can make 2k from selling a turn worth of food.

In some earlier games the income was easy to come by from private economy growth but my last few games were lower pops.

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RE: How to make money? - 12/29/2020 2:26:23 PM

beyondwudge

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I've found that worker salaries can really empty the coffers early on. You build all these assets, have roaring resource extraction but suddenly a massive deficit.

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