i give up .................... (Full Version)

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Alfred33 -> i give up .................... (11/3/2011 12:15:18 AM)

i dont know what i do wrong every time i usw 1508 of the addon


every game i play i can abort somewhere in the middle


im realy good this time have most colonies most military and so on


but i cant defeat the enemy

i have 4 AIs

on a 1400 galaxy

everytime i play i loose hope


i have fleet running around and assaulting enemy planets but i allways get into debt cause of stupid troop costs

and the enemy expands and expands while i take colonies on the other side

it seems endless



i use resorts yes

and they make profit yes

but -60k income and the only thing that saves me is the extra income of about 100k

is quite stupid

i fight i invade i win and cant completly kill the 1 Ai im at war with cause of his expansions


maybe i upload an save of 1 of the games if someone wants to tell me what i do wrong



WoodMan -> RE: i give up .................... (11/3/2011 12:53:59 AM)

Post a screenshot of your budget screen.  There are many things that you could be doing wrong, but without budget screen it is impossible to tell.

Are you overbuilding (or underbuilding) spaceports?  Are you securing trade agrrements with another Empire or two?

I think we have seen in the past people overbuilding spaceports.  My rule of thumb, Medium at homeworld maybe upgraded to large later on, small everywhere else.  Large and medium spaceports I only use for military purposes to guard very high population worlds or the worlds with the super resources on them.

Spaceports seem to boost your trade income massively, I'm not sure of the game mechanics or anything behind it, but I always try to build spaceports at the colonies near to my trading partner first.  Also, a trade deal with a distant Empire doesn't always give a good profit, sometimes none at all!  So don't leave planets spaceportless it will hurt trade income, but don't build large and medium everywhere it will cost a fortune in maintenance, also defensive bases should be built scarcely and only if you truly feel the need for them.  Try to only build 1 or 2 spaceports at a time (I try to stick to 1 unless my colonization has been running wild, unlikely on the game settings I use though).  If you build many at the same time when they all finish you will suffer a massive hit due to maintenance fees, building progressively will give you some idea of if you are about to go broke.

Don't build more mining bases than needed (I have all constructors on manual at all times).  For a small Empire one of each resource is enough, with a few extra fuel ones.

Final note, reclaim the high tech wrecks.  My personal tactic is to only build a very small fleet of destroyers to be on manual control for pirate and space creature attacks with a similar number of automated frigate and escorts knocking about to lend a hand if my destroyer fleet ends up out of position.  My main attack force is made up of reclaimed Capital ships from the wreckage sites.  A couple of these if claimed early enough can devastate an entire enemy fleet, and spaceports (including large) and costs a fraction of the maintenance and fuel of an large home built fleet.  This depends on research speed, which I have set to very slow (slower than the slider allows, have to manually type it).  With these settings wrecks become even more valuable, attack with the Caps, retire everything else for the technology.

**Note:  All of the above is using the RotS expansion pack, sorry I can't remember from version number if thats original you are playing or RotS.  Tactics probably similar in the original game though.

Edit: I should probably point out I'm no expert, but like you my economy used to suffer, but now I start on harsh homeworlds always and get a good economy running pretty quickly.



Nedrear -> RE: i give up .................... (11/3/2011 3:12:28 AM)

You can thwart the colonisation of an enemy easily. After repairing your income - following some of Woodmans points - you need a secondary advance fleet consisting of high speed frigates with lower guns. Use this one to actively scout and destroy colony ships of the enemy. A lot of micromanagement, but it will help to stop invading new planets.

Afaik the colonisation of the enemy should be no problem as new worlds are weak and worthless. Just capture his biggies and he will die down rather quick. He will not make one credit anymore as his revenue drops.



Data -> RE: i give up .................... (11/3/2011 7:13:43 AM)

quote:

Afaik the colonisation of the enemy should be no problem as new worlds are weak and worthless. Just capture his biggies and he will die down rather quick. He will not make one credit anymore as his revenue drops.


That is entirely correct but it also depends on how each of us rping in other ways. I tend to let them grow and have at them later on; micro-ing is not fun at this level for me.



Wicky -> RE: i give up .................... (11/3/2011 9:52:45 AM)

Have you tried designing your own gas/mining stations with weapons? If so, the civilian sector won't be totally defenseless against pirates.
Then you can easily scrap half your military ships to save a ton of monthly upkeep cost.



Data -> RE: i give up .................... (11/3/2011 10:01:02 AM)

While some of that upkeep will be put on the private sector now they may be more able to cope with it, given that mining stations tend to grow in numbers it might be a problem in the long run. But by then you'll bathe in money anyway [:)]



Gelatinous Cube -> RE: i give up .................... (11/3/2011 10:24:38 AM)

How could having too many mining stations be a bad thing? I tend to build lots of constructors and leave them on auto (only thing I usually leave on Auto--they're just tedious!), and they do a fantastic job (I think).



Alfred33 -> RE: i give up .................... (11/3/2011 11:55:18 AM)

here is the income screen

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/4/20111103115048.jpg/

Constuctors repairing capital wrecks without any progress since nearly 1 year
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/577/20111103113202.jpg/

and current galaxy map where you see what pisses me off
i need more ships i need to get rid of those pesky little things
but somehow i have now tax income

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/3/20111103113338.jpg/

my empire diplo screen pls watch tax and population compared to enemy
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/832/20111103121939.jpg/


here is the enemy data
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/46/20111103122036.jpg/


WHY does he have 50k more tax income with nearly same population???

i have tax on automatic i would think automatic will make best out of it as ai can do it too



its just sick every game ends like that for me it takes out all the funn

btw yes the frigs roam freely to help on attacks and all bigger ships are put into fleets i had no war yet so there only 3 destoyers build









Data -> RE: i give up .................... (11/3/2011 12:48:35 PM)

so the biggest drain is the ship and & bases maintenance for both the private and state sectors



Alfred33 -> RE: i give up .................... (11/3/2011 2:04:46 PM)

ähm yes

should be normal on a space sim i think


but what about th problems?

enemy getting more tax with same population?

how should i wage war with 20 ships ruining my income?

i ave played allmost everything

started master of orion 1+2+3 +space empire series +galactic civ +imperium galactica 1+2 and so on


NEVER had such an bad feeling that something goes dramaticaly wrong

seems like you have no answer too

maybe its the game

well like i said in topic ill give it up its stupid
there was an 5% chance someone still playing this knows whats the problem is but seems like error



Data -> RE: i give up .................... (11/3/2011 2:17:59 PM)

I'm at work so I speed read and update, not much time for details. But I can tell you that the pop level is not the only relevant aspect with taxes, the enemy may tax it's planets more than you.
Also, you can have as many ships as you like but you need to make them cheap (maintenance is a precentage of the constructing cost, 50% iirc) and get more income via taxes, resorts, trade etc

Hope this helps.



WoodMan -> RE: i give up .................... (11/3/2011 2:30:21 PM)

I can't remember how tax income works now, but its not just based on size of population, it has something to do with development level which is based on access to resources too I think.

Looking at your screen, why do you have 12 colony ships?  Are they all on their way to colonize worlds or just sitting around until you need them?  Never have colony ships sitting around doing nothing!  Use the expansion planner and click the build and colonize button so when you want to colonize something your colony ship will be built and go straight there.  You have -20k and your colony ships are causing -12k of it.

Like spaceports where I said only build 1 or 2 at a time, treat colony ships the same.  Have no more than say 1 - 4 on the map at the same time.  You also have about 10 more explorers than I do.  Your constructor count is good though (I personally go for 4 or 5 too).

Other big difference is your trade income is 3k, I have had more than 100k from a single trading partner in the past.  But for this you need the super resource and a trade agreement.  You can get around 12k from a single partner without a super rare resource though, obviously more money if you have more partners.



MadMcAl -> RE: i give up .................... (11/3/2011 2:37:59 PM)

quote:

HY does he have 50k more tax income with nearly same population??? i have tax on automatic i would think automatic will make best out of it as ai can do it too


He has Mercantile Guild as government form. That means, he has 30% more income from his colonies, and 10% less maintenance compared to your republic 5% and 10% higher.
Or, in other words, his colonies make 25% more money than yours would with the same factors, and he has only 82% of the costs to maintain his ships and bases (actually a bit better for his Haakonish, or, in other words, 81.5% of your costs).
If you look at the screens and calculate a bit, than you find out that he has nearly 31% more colony revenue. Alone with the colony income bonus he would have 440k colony revenue (actually less, as he has fewer colonies, but we can't guess the actually colony income better) Most of the difference should come from the maintenance costs (civilian). If your civilians had his maintenance bonus they would have 31.45k less maintenance costs, or 31.45k higher colony revenues.

With your current average tax rate (of 28% compared to his 22%) that would enhance your income by 8.8k.

My advice would be to change your government type.

You could go to Monarchy. You would loose 5% of your colony income (or 16k). On the other hand you would also loose the 10% maintenance malus (bringing your civilian maintenance costs down to 154k, in turn giving you back your 16k) and lowering your maintenance costs (for your empire) by 9k, floating said 9k into your coffers every year.
Or you could go to Democracy. That would add additional 10% to your maintenance costs (16k more civilian maintenance costs and 8k additional costs for you) but on the other hand enhances the colony revenue by additional 5% (returning your colony revenue to 352k) but gives you additional not so hard factors.
+25% approval rate will enable you to have higher taxes (by maybe 5% (bringing your tax revenue from 28% to 33% of 352k, or in other words, up to 116k, bringing you an whopping plus of 15k) without making your people unhappy. It makes your colonies grow much faster (+15% growth) so that they bring you more money in shorter time, and of course you get 25% research speed (meaning you should be able to research much faster, enabling you in turn to sell your techs, what in turn should bring much more money (a rather low tech is worth 100k. If you sell it for 75k to each of your friends they become better friends and you have earned 150k. And if you sell it for 60k to your chosen enemy then he will probably agree to a trade agreement and converting your enemy into your friend).
If you instead want to go to war then you should consider feudalism, with 10% maintenance bonus (in your case going from 108% to 88% or nearly 32k higher colony revenue and 17k less costs for you) but I for one wouldn't care for the -10% approval (making it necessary for you to lower your taxes) and the -25% research (well, I for one are a technocrate in the play type, so I research what ever I can as fast as I can and use the techs as merchandise and/or bribe).
In the short run either democracy or feudalism will help you. In the long run I think democracy is the better bet, but that is for you to decide.

But you should try with all your might to get a trade agreement with everybody.



AlPhi -> RE: i give up .................... (11/3/2011 2:56:15 PM)

In the original post Alfred33 said: "but i allways get into debt cause of stupid troop costs". I wonder if he has loads and loads of troops being generated and sitting doing nothing on all his colonies while perhaps he needs far fewer for his invasion fleets. I fell into that trap once. The colony development threshold at which troops are recruited can be adjusted upwards to reduce the proliferation of troops.



Data -> RE: i give up .................... (11/3/2011 3:02:38 PM)

yap, that's a known trap also but if you check his empire summary troop maintenance is not that high compared to the rest
also has only one transport, agents are no biggie either



WoodMan -> RE: i give up .................... (11/3/2011 3:22:15 PM)

I think there is no need to give up on your Empire, it isn't too hard to fix.

Retire all colony ships: Saving 12k
Half number of Explorers: Saving 4k

Total Saving so far: 16k (of required 20k)

The resort bases are only breaking even, perhaps one of them has no passengers.  Check this, if one of them is generating all the income and the other is empty, retire the empty one: Potential Saving 2.5k

For the rest I would change the large spaceport to a medium, or reduce troop and frigate numbers a bit until you break even.

The Haakonish Consortium would be a good trading partner and they are already pleased, I'd try to pursue a deal with them.

Then like somebody said above, focus on the Ugnari highly populated valuable worlds where all their income is coming from, if you can't invade the planet because they have a high troop number, try to destroy the spaceport and the blockade it, strangling them.  A bombardment will educe the troop defenders and make an invasion easy, but you destroy your prize and your reputation in the process, so weigh options carefully.




Jeeves -> RE: i give up .................... (11/3/2011 3:40:56 PM)

This might seem counter intuitive, but it is actually easier to run an empire playing against the maximum possible AI empires. The reason is that you can finance your empire's maintenance and expansion costs for the first ten years simply by calling up every AI empire every 19 days when technology is updated. By crash researching technology you gain total control over who gets what. If you sell a 60k technology for 10% of its current sale price, which ranges from 2x to 2/3 its research points, then you will get with 19 AI empires about 15x6= 90k income cash for the 15k you spent to crash it. There ARE LOTS of 60k and 120k techs if you make technology cheap (15k base) and start at level two civilization. I am at the end of year seven in my current game, with 42 colonies, mostly independents I conquered using troops. You can conquer colonies without serious reputation damage if you actively seek out pirate bases to destroy by clicking around on star systems. Reserve your colony ships for the seven special ruins, the loros, korobbian, and zentabia worlds, and colonizing systems with special asteroids or ringed planets for resorts.

In other words, you will not have these money problems if you play against more AI empires, practice good diplomacy, and expand like crazy to get high revenue independent populations through troop conquest...

A word on diplomacy. Always maintain a large cash reserve. Whenever you meet an AI give gifts until they agree to trade you their galaxy map, getting all your cash back by selling technology. Then get all their technology, saving you from duplicating their efforts. You will wind up doing crash on about 1/3 of the first level but 2/3 of the second level and almost all higher level technologies, with the level meaning the level you start researching in. When you meet an AI get a free trade agreement in the first session with them, even the bugs when you are not a bug. Dhayuts make excellent trade partners with fast merchant ships, and their galaxy map is about twice anyone else's at the same game date, not including yours. Aim for a high reputation so that you do not have to trade too much of your technology goods just to get the free trade agreement. Always trade your territory map in the early game so that the AI empires can send their merchant ships to your nearest spaceports rather than going all of the way to your home world. NEVER trade your galaxy map! Build modest spaceports early on, but about year four or so, start building medium ones, especially on the conquered independents population two billion or more. Never buy a colony ship or constructor etc unless you have a spaceport. You can get ten to twenty points increase in colony happiness just from the recreation and medical components. I micromanage everything n my games, designing and trading with the AI is just my cup of tea.

In other words, you can get about 2-3 times your own empire's income by trading technology at ten percent of market value to 19 AI empires. That should solve your money problems. You can't trade with them until you meet them. So check pirates every couple weeks to see if they have a contact with an empire for sale. Also when you get a galaxy map, it often shows systems of other empires near the one you just bought a map from. Be sure to click on every system added to the map, there might be a mine from an empire even though there are no colonies.

Send your explores out manually until all of the AI empires have been met and you have found all the special luxury and ruins worlds. It is worth the effort when you say move to rather than explore unknown system. By game year six my 30-45 explorers have put a name on every system in the 1400 system galaxy. I use galaxy creating of random clusters with all AI empires the same start conditions as mine, 19 of them the maximum allowed, at average distance with me starting at galaxy center...

Lonnie Courtney Clay



Alfred33 -> RE: i give up .................... (11/3/2011 5:32:10 PM)

ok im back thx for answers


1) yes the colonie ships are all onroute to planets
2-3 where to slow and it was allready colonized but this ships are allready onroute to new planet



2) the troop maintance comes from 3 strongpoints i placed close to enemy so my fleets have a shorter way to load new troops

auto troop recuitment is off it allways doomed me

3)on 27 colonies i have 9 spaceports + 1 large at home planet

ok maybe medium would be enough but i dont think thats the biggest problem

4) hmm 21 frigs for empire patrol are to many while i have 27 colonies??

well maybe i try to stock up my invasion fleets with some of them

5)this super rare resources are still in game? i have never seen one since i installed the addon

6) what going wrong with my construction ships trying to repair the Capitals? they sit there forever and forever and ..... i dont see any progress

7) oh yes the explorers well its an 1400 stars game the first i do in every game it build explorers with extra fuel range (480)till 10-12 and later more up to 20 more or less to find good worlds fast engough before enemy is faster



Data -> RE: i give up .................... (11/3/2011 5:42:27 PM)

5) yes, they are but you get only two planets with each of them (so six in total) in the entire universe. Check the diplomacy screen, whichever race got to them first will show as trading / not trading them with you.



WoodMan -> RE: i give up .................... (11/3/2011 6:49:04 PM)

Wait...

I'm looking at your income in the top right and it says you have over 50k bonus income.

I just opened up my game and looked at my last save and my expenses are in fact way worse than yours in around the same year.  I have more cash on hand than you but a more negative cashflow, the bonus income is keeping me going fine, I don't see what you are complaining about now as you in fact have a massive positive cashflow not a negative one.

Edit:

Your is cashflow -18k
Bonus +50k

so about 30k positive income



Alfred33 -> RE: i give up .................... (11/3/2011 9:11:25 PM)

yes but the bonus is extremly unstable


btw i simply played on sold some techs to get me going and have allready enslaved the purlpe in the middle and the once below me


so ok thx its working just feeling like ferengi to sell research to get going

but ... it works 68 colonies now 2 slave empires with 10-16 cols left

now it starts to get boring 2nd place has 30 colonies hehehehhe hmmm we will see



MadMcAl -> RE: i give up .................... (11/3/2011 10:36:43 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Alfred33

ok im back thx for answers


1) yes the colonie ships are all onroute to planets
2-3 where to slow and it was allready colonized but this ships are allready onroute to new planet



2) the troop maintance comes from 3 strongpoints i placed close to enemy so my fleets have a shorter way to load new troops

auto troop recuitment is off it allways doomed me

3)on 27 colonies i have 9 spaceports + 1 large at home planet

ok maybe medium would be enough but i dont think thats the biggest problem

4) hmm 21 frigs for empire patrol are to many while i have 27 colonies??

well maybe i try to stock up my invasion fleets with some of them

5)this super rare resources are still in game? i have never seen one since i installed the addon

6) what going wrong with my construction ships trying to repair the Capitals? they sit there forever and forever and ..... i dont see any progress

7) oh yes the explorers well its an 1400 stars game the first i do in every game it build explorers with extra fuel range (480)till 10-12 and later more up to 20 more or less to find good worlds fast engough before enemy is faster


1) Try to build your colony ships manually (meaning refrain from using the build and send colony ship button). Build them at planets with as much population as possible, as that strongly influences the building speed.
Build anything you can with construction ships (stations, especially space ports) or in orbital yards (every ship except construction ships, supply ships and colony ships). For manual control design a "escort" that is, for all purposes a construction ship. They are faster build in the ports and don't clutter your extremely valuable production places on planet.
Design them so that they use as few resources (in number of different resources and in the sum of resources).
What ever you do, try to build them at planets with space ports (only ignore that if you can't build it at a planet with a port), as the port extremely accelerates the delivery of resources.

2)Nothing much to say here. Just make sure you have a enough troop transports available (and ready) to transport the troops to your colonies if necessary.

3)Way way to few. Any colony without a port is essentially cut of from trade. It is cut of from the revenue generated by trade.
Your 352k colony revenue are most probably mostly (80%) generated by these colonies with ports.
Also I see you have 9 research stations. If you have them at places with a research bonus, then why don't you use a resort station with added labs instead, as most res-bonus places also have a scenic modifier?
If they are not in such places, why build them at all?
A small space port like you have it initially has 75% of the research output the research station has (of course the RS has it concentrated on one type, while the SP spreads it) for twice the maintenance costs.
For that you not only get 75% of the research, you get a bonus in trade, you get 2 additional ship yards and you get a small fortress for the defense of your colony.
Now if you tweak the design a bit (you normally don't need a small fortress. For an real invasion it is at best an annoyance, and the occasional Pirate is better served with mobile forces) you get it much better.
Again, with the initial tech I took the SSP, took out 11 of the 13 blasters, 8 of the 10 shield generators, 8 of the 10 armor modules and 2 of the 4 reactors. Instead I added a lab of each type.
The resulting station had 50% higher research output than a research station for 46% of the maintenance, and it still has all the goodies of a space port except the fortress one.
If you retire your 9 research stations and build 6 space ports instead you should have 800 less maintenance costs with the same research output. But your trade should more or less explode. Especially if you tell your trade partners the positions of the new ports.
But build the ports with construction ships, as they are up to 10 times faster with it. Even with a 500M population they are 2-3 times faster.

4) IMHO way to few. You need at least one ship in every system that has one of your colonies, defending it from pirates and so on.
A single frig should ensure that your trade is protected there. Better make that 2 or 3 (later go up to destroyers, cruisers and way later capitals).
But to get that you have of course bring up your revenue, so there is nothing you can do ATM.
Wait until the lightweight SSPs have begun to bring in money (should go fast after the ports are finished).
Use part of this money to build further ports.
Use another part of it to defend your systems.

5) Yes there are, but with only 18 explorers your chances of actually winning the prize are slim at best.
If you should happen to stumble over one (speak about luck) DON'T! TRADE! YOUR! GALAXY! MAP! at any price until you successfully colonized the planet.

6)A Constructor needs resources to repair and/or build. Go in the ship list and look at the cargo of the constructor. If the wreck is in one of your systems, build a space port there that draws civilian shipping. If not, well you are S.O.L. as there is no way to force the civilians to supply a ship far far away from home.

7)Way to few. The interesting systems are few, and if you lose it you lose it. In the beginning a explorer is worth more for you than 2 or 3 cruisers. Don't ever sell your galaxy map if you can prevent it, but try to buy the ones from the others. Talk to pirates and buy information about independent colonies and interesting places.

I hope that could help you a bit.
Of course I still stay by my advice to change your government type.
That is ATM a rather bad government for you.



Bingeling -> RE: i give up .................... (11/3/2011 10:49:14 PM)

I was puzzled by your high number of colony ships. I don't ever have 11 ships underway in a normal game. Are you very eager to colonize low quality worlds? Usually only the finest ones are worth taxing, and there is a limit to how many hangarounds your need to boost trade, I guess? Also, those space ports you may enjoy handing to everyone can add up to a bit, as well as troops the AI decides to garrison them with.

An AAR image from a game that was well underway, but in no ways mature.

[image]http://i1109.photobucket.com/albums/h426/Bingeling/Swarm/Part2/planets.jpg[/image]

There are two obvious taxation objects, but one was hard to tax. It was a fresh conquest, and it seems I was at war with the species at that time. A few more can be considered for taxation, 30% of 10 is really nothing that makes much impact, though. Rather keep it at 0 and make them breed unless you really hurt for cash or positive cash flow.

That image is with the AI running taxes.

Screenshots taken at the same time show 18 colonies, 55k positive cashflow, 5 escorts, 13 frigates, 70 destroyers. I wonder why I had the escorts and frigates, I ran the military and little else.



Alfred33 -> RE: i give up .................... (11/4/2011 12:30:05 PM)

ok thx all i will try this in my next game



Data -> RE: i give up .................... (11/4/2011 1:34:53 PM)

quote:

Rather keep it at 0 and make them breed unless you really hurt for cash or positive cash flow.


This should be a prototype 4x development strategy, it works in so many games.



Bingeling -> RE: i give up .................... (11/4/2011 3:17:10 PM)

In one game I had a giant quite low quality colony. I am still not sure if letting them breed would make more people leave, or if high taxes would. A giant colony with lots of emigration could really boost growth of nearby richer colonies...

3% growth is not a lot, but 3% of 18000M is 540M a year, which is a healthy boost to fresh colonies if you can make them leave...



feelotraveller -> RE: i give up .................... (11/4/2011 3:30:19 PM)

For immigration to happen you need worlds (nearby) with greater happiness and/or higher development. Which generally (but perhaps not always) means that you would need to tax heavily the world you want them to leave from. Still, 1% growth (can't go lower I think) of 18000 is still 180 and depending on the lowness of taxation on other nearby worlds you could get more... not sure of the threshold but perhaps even 1 or 2 lower happiness would do it.



Bingeling -> RE: i give up .................... (11/4/2011 3:35:29 PM)

But what happens when the colony is full? They stop making kids? Or do people leave to keep under limit?

Scaring them off with 0 tax on developing colonies should not be too hard, I felt a very good growth in that game. New colonies may lack development, though, but if you got an 18000M colony in the area, getting some luxuries should not be hard.



Data -> RE: i give up .................... (11/4/2011 3:39:41 PM)

quote:

But what happens when the colony is full? They stop making kids?


Birth control laws, mass killings, enslavement....take a pick.



feelotraveller -> RE: i give up .................... (11/4/2011 3:40:46 PM)

Oh, I did not understand that the colony was full. Never had that happen to me... I guess I just don't tax my new colonies enough [;)].



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