New colonies - will they never make significant money?

New colonies - will they never make significant money? (Full Version)

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szabferi -> New colonies - will they never make significant money? (8/28/2012 11:35:14 AM)
In my 3rd game, I still face the situation that in case of a 18 colony system, the majority of the income (70%+) comes from my home planet only. All the others, even the the ones with significant population yield much less (not proportional to the population) credits. Is this normal? So overall the colonies are just sources of material and a refuel/repair base for me, but they are not contributing credits into my empire budget. To be honest, so far I didn't care about the colonies too much, I made sure I have access to all the available luxuries (currently most of have 5) and all planets had a small (later medium) base plus some troops, but thats all. This is because so far it looks like for me this game is not about direct colony management (eg no buildings like in case of other 4xs) so I wonder how I could make sure my new colonies generate income for me and my home planet would develop better... any tips welcomed, because normally even the AI controlled home planets are better than mine...

Raap -> RE: New colonies - will they never make significant money? (8/28/2012 11:55:00 AM)
Pick out a few of your most populated colonies and build wonders on them. The wonders will give a huge development bonus, which in turn brings massive income( by allowing higher taxes). Obviously you should build the first wonder you get on your homeworld, but after that it doesn't really benefit from more wonders, so start placing the rest on the highest-pop colonies( only one for each). But yeah, except for those worlds, most colonies won't really generate much income. But note that colony growth can be greatly increased by having low( or no) taxes on the colony. This will in turn increase the speed at which a colony becomes useful/valuable. If you just have taxes controlled by the computer, you won't get this benefit as he will try to squeeze as much cash from them as he can without making them unhappy.

WoodMan -> RE: New colonies - will they never make significant money? (8/28/2012 3:39:05 PM)
What is the development or "culture" level on your other colonies? And the populations? You will need them to be highly developed, which requires luxury resources (at least constant stocks of at least 5).

Gareth_Bryne -> RE: New colonies - will they never make significant money? (8/28/2012 4:30:26 PM)
szabferi - Frankly speaking, no, they won't. Unless you made a late-start galaxy,OR you've captured\colonized a populous indy world OR built a couple of wonders. Population growth was intentionally cut in the first expansion (IIRC). Besides, your capital world has a 0% distance corruption bonus. A strategic idea would be to move your capital to a new colony and see what happens...

BigWolfChris -> RE: New colonies - will they never make significant money? (8/28/2012 4:56:18 PM)
If the population isn't near Max population, set it's tax to 0% You only tax planets with high-populations full stop

WoodMan -> RE: New colonies - will they never make significant money? (8/28/2012 5:14:36 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Gareth_Bryne szabferi - Frankly speaking, no, they won't. Unless you made a late-start galaxy,OR you've captured\colonized a populous indy world OR built a couple of wonders. Population growth was intentionally cut in the first expansion (IIRC). Besides, your capital world has a 0% distance corruption bonus. A strategic idea would be to move your capital to a new colony and see what happens... No it was increased in every expansion so far and in some patches too. So was the speed of migration. I'm happy with it now, you get your colonies to bloom in the late game which is fun, rather than establishing bases which are immediately profitable and play like a 10 min RTS like starcraft or something! I have had planets overtake myu homeworld before. If he has high populations and no money it is because of lack of development. If he has low population then he just needs to be patient.

ASHBERY76 -> RE: New colonies - will they never make significant money? (8/28/2012 6:48:31 PM)
Like the crazy bloated late game economy I have moaned about this and it's still a major issue for the game as it takes colonies about 50 game years to become relavent, which in DW terms is a mature game....The home world becomes far too important for most of the game which is not good for the A.I either. Advanced passenger ships only transport 2400k to new colonies which is the reason it takes an age.I would change it to 1,000,0000 at least. PLEASE ALLOW MODDING FOR: Facilities,components,resources,prices in the next expansion rather than more slider madness. IN THE NEXT EXPANSION.Thanks.[:)]

Pipewrench -> RE: New colonies - will they never make significant money? (8/28/2012 7:16:25 PM)
Stopping max populations from growing: Colonies shortcut F2 select the population tab set both population policy(drop down menu) settings to re-settle. hike tax rate to satisfied +2 to +6 Planets that need settlers now are set by: Colonies shortcut F2 select the population tab set both population policy(drop down menu) settings to assimilate. lower tax rate to 0. When the planets with large populations start shipping off people to re-settle you should see increased happiness because there is less overcrowding. Hike the tax rate again to force re-settlement. +2 to +6 works for me. redesign all colony ships with extra passenger and fuel cells as needed.

Tampa_Gamer -> RE: New colonies - will they never make significant money? (8/28/2012 7:41:21 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: ASHBERY76 PLEASE ALLOW MODDING FOR: Facilities,components,resources,prices in the next expansion rather than more slider madness. IN THE NEXT EXPANSION.Thanks.[:)] +1 AMEN. The time is ripe - with the recent failures of other 4x space games...blowing this game wide open for such modding would add serious legs to its longevity.

WoodMan -> RE: New colonies - will they never make significant money? (8/28/2012 7:52:41 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: ASHBERY76 Like the crazy bloated late game economy I have moaned about this and it's still a major issue for the game as it takes colonies about 50 game years to become relavent, which in DW terms is a mature game....The home world becomes far too important for most of the game which is not good for the A.I either. Advanced passenger ships only transport 2400k to new colonies which is the reason it takes an age.I would change it to 1,000,0000 at least. PLEASE ALLOW MODDING FOR: Facilities,components,resources,prices in the next expansion rather than more slider madness. IN THE NEXT EXPANSION.Thanks.[:)] 1 million is way too high for my tastes. I'm happy with it as it is now. So yes I agree, please make these things moddable instead of enforcing changes in patches! I think if I were to design a game like Distant Worlds I'd try and make it so that the galaxy developed through three stages, each a different and enjoyable experience for the player. 1)Early Age: The empires race each other to colonize, claim territory etc. The homeworld is key, all other colonies being young at this stage. Wars will be fought with few ships and troops due to lack of strong economies. 2)Middle Age: The galaxy is pretty much colonized fully now and the colonies have started to develop. You start to see a difference in economies as the young colonies start to bring in some cash. As the economies grow so do the militaries and you start to see obvious super powers emerging towards the end of this stage. 3)Late Age: The colonies now reach similar values to the homeworlds, meaning that the leading empires start to get huge economies. It is now up to the few superpowers to battle it out with massive economies, huge fleets, enormous ground armies and high levels of technology. I think that would be a great game and it doesn't require colonies to grow fast, in-fact it is entirely based on them not growing fast! In the current situation I can see why some people would want things faster, but I would really hope this would be optional, I've opposed it about 5 times in a row and every time it gets made faster and faster and it hasn't made the game better yet and I don't think it will, it just makes the game faster, not better [:(]

Anthropoid -> RE: New colonies - will they never make significant money? (8/28/2012 8:26:11 PM)
Here is a question idea to ponder? What about a galaxy where victory conditions could not be met for 999 years instead of the 99 that it presently limits? I only have the stock game, and have not been able to play much lately, but that is the limit for my game.

ASHBERY76 -> RE: New colonies - will they never make significant money? (8/28/2012 8:28:26 PM)
The DW gameplay speed does not match your plan.By the time new colonies develop to any relavence most of the tech is already researched at the standard normal level and the A.I is more or less beaten..The end game you perceive would be a lonely game with no new tech left.New colony development is out of sync with the games pacing which I think is 75 ingame years max.I think in your scale that would be early to middle age.. I also have to enforce my own houserule not to invade A.I homeworlds because it is the powerhouse for your economy for the whole game in my testing.

Tanaka -> RE: New colonies - will they never make significant money? (8/28/2012 8:39:35 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: ASHBERY76 Like the crazy bloated late game economy I have moaned about this and it's still a major issue for the game as it takes colonies about 50 game years to become relavent, which in DW terms is a mature game....The home world becomes far too important for most of the game which is not good for the A.I either. Advanced passenger ships only transport 2400k to new colonies which is the reason it takes an age.I would change it to 1,000,0000 at least. PLEASE ALLOW MODDING FOR: Facilities,components,resources,prices in the next expansion rather than more slider madness. IN THE NEXT EXPANSION.Thanks.[:)] Wouldnt faster colony growth make the crazy bloated late game economy even worse? [&:] I love the sliders btw whats wrong with more options for the player? Although allowing all of these things to be modded should definitely be added! A slider for the economy, colony growth, and resources scales would be an awesome addition!

Tanaka -> RE: New colonies - will they never make significant money? (8/28/2012 8:44:10 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: WoodMan No it was increased in every expansion so far and in some patches too. So was the speed of migration. I'm happy with it now, you get your colonies to bloom in the late game which is fun, rather than establishing bases which are immediately profitable and play like a 10 min RTS like starcraft or something! I have had planets overtake myu homeworld before. If he has high populations and no money it is because of lack of development. If he has low population then he just needs to be patient. quote: ORIGINAL: WoodMan 1 million is way too high for my tastes. I'm happy with it as it is now. So yes I agree, please make these things moddable instead of enforcing changes in patches! I think if I were to design a game like Distant Worlds I'd try and make it so that the galaxy developed through three stages, each a different and enjoyable experience for the player. 1)Early Age: The empires race each other to colonize, claim territory etc. The homeworld is key, all other colonies being young at this stage. Wars will be fought with few ships and troops due to lack of strong economies. 2)Middle Age: The galaxy is pretty much colonized fully now and the colonies have started to develop. You start to see a difference in economies as the young colonies start to bring in some cash. As the economies grow so do the militaries and you start to see obvious super powers emerging towards the end of this stage. 3)Late Age: The colonies now reach similar values to the homeworlds, meaning that the leading empires start to get huge economies. It is now up to the few superpowers to battle it out with massive economies, huge fleets, enormous ground armies and high levels of technology. I think that would be a great game and it doesn't require colonies to grow fast, in-fact it is entirely based on them not growing fast! In the current situation I can see why some people would want things faster, but I would really hope this would be optional, I've opposed it about 5 times in a row and every time it gets made faster and faster and it hasn't made the game better yet and I don't think it will, it just makes the game faster, not better [:(] I am with you on all these points! Agreed!

ASHBERY76 -> RE: New colonies - will they never make significant money? (8/28/2012 8:52:16 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Tanaka Wouldnt faster colony growth make the crazy bloated late game economy even worse? [&:] I love the sliders btw whats wrong with more options for the player? A slider for the economy and resources scales would be an awesome addition! The bloated economy is just another ignored issue that never got balanced just like irelavent new colonies.Both need to be fixed by Codeforce. I like sliders but if the game was truly moddable having all these game slider would not be needed.

Tanaka -> RE: New colonies - will they never make significant money? (8/28/2012 9:03:57 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: ASHBERY76 quote: ORIGINAL: Tanaka Wouldnt faster colony growth make the crazy bloated late game economy even worse? [&:] I love the sliders btw whats wrong with more options for the player? A slider for the economy and resources scales would be an awesome addition! The bloated economy is just another ignored issue that never got balanced just like irelavent new colonies.Both need to be fixed by Codeforce. I like sliders but if the game was truly moddable having all these game slider would not be needed. Well I guess I would be ok with colonies being a little more relevant as long as the economy did not scale like crazy with them! I agree with things needing to be more moddable! [:)]

szabferi -> RE: New colonies - will they never make significant money? (8/28/2012 9:14:34 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: WoodMan What is the development or "culture" level on your other colonies? And the populations? You will need them to be highly developed, which requires luxury resources (at least constant stocks of at least 5). Please find the colony list of mine - to be honest, im a bit unsure of: - which number is the development level (is that the culture?) - are my colonies well developed or not? (the green text says my colonies have high level of development) - how to find out if a colony gets constant supply of luxury resources (should I check the cargo of every colony?) - what is the potential max population of a given colony Tax is on auto, as far as I read I should take over this setting and apart from the home I should reduce it to zero. The question is, when I should raise again. I would appreciate any specific advice... ps: sorry if the questions are so basic, feel free to rant if I should read something in advance ;) [image]local://upfiles/42918/3C3849DCD19443C4A6F1144C8358BC6B.jpg[/image]

WoodMan -> RE: New colonies - will they never make significant money? (8/28/2012 9:27:59 PM)
Hey sza, Yes development and culture are the same thing. It is a bit of an oddity that in Distant Worlds it depends what screen you are looking at as to what it is labelled [:D] Lots of your colonies have extremely good culture, well done [:)] Look at Urbaulas, that is a money earning colony, it has high culture and a population that is pretty good too. Depending on what game settings you used, that can be a very high population, but i'm guessing by the number of colonies and the population of the homeworld you are on quite easy settings (my homeworlds usually max out before then, or around then). None of your other planets have high enough populations to boost your economy significantly! You are making some cash from them (I think because your development is so high, even at this low population you are earning some cash) but my rule of thumb is to leave tax at 0% on any planet with a population under 2000m (2 billion). With your taxes that high growth will slow down quite a lot, it is better to let them grow faster with 0% and then hit them with those level taxes when they get a couple of billion on them [;)]

adecoy95 -> RE: New colonies - will they never make significant money? (8/28/2012 9:46:41 PM)
it is possible to get worlds to grow, but it still takes forever, set their tax rates to zero. i have found that, for some bizzare reason, no matter how happy a population is, it has no affect on growth rate, and that growth rate seems completely dependent on your tax rate.

jpwrunyan -> RE: New colonies - will they never make significant money? (8/29/2012 2:52:12 AM)
Uhm, I wanna go back to something that was said which made NO sense. Putting PASSENGER compartments on a COLONY ship accomplishes.... what exactly? Also, would multiple colony modules on a colony ship increase initial colony size? I think so but only tested it once amd then didnt actually pay attention to the result. And, I wonder if passenger compartments on state ships could allow you to pick up population from your colonies and move them around. If so that would be awesome. I could finally live my dream of being Space Hitler.

Pipewrench -> RE: New colonies - will they never make significant money? (8/29/2012 3:40:42 AM)
double?

Pipewrench -> RE: New colonies - will they never make significant money? (8/29/2012 3:41:30 AM)
szabferi, This might give you a hint. [image]local://upfiles/33731/D412764E72BA4157A2E76A45209409F7.gif[/image] What WoodMan has said is quite correct. I can only really add that population growth is like a pyramid. As soon as you find your second colony close the door and tell people to re-settle. In my experience it works like a pyramid, This is on the hardest settings by the way and not one planet was invaded or found with a population. As soon as you have colonized your first planet set the home planets sliders to resettle. Do this as a planet policy not empire wide. Raise taxes and push your population to get out. My taxes are now paying for crash programs. Notice that my second planet has no smile which means my taxes are up and now both planets are on resettle. This now feeds 4 which feeds 8 etc. The big planets have just enough happiness to keep growing but are refusing any new races or colonists. Any new races will go to your small colonies. This is still slow but your passenger ships are finally doing something useful because you are directing them where not to drop off colonists.

WoodMan -> RE: New colonies - will they never make significant money? (8/29/2012 8:20:24 AM)
Great management of population Pipe! I've never thought of trying to actively manage it like this, I just let the migration happen. It seems people can't wait to get off of my homeworld quick enough for some reason! [:D] But yeah you seem to have a very good spread going on there across the colonies. Remember resettle doesn't always resettle them in your own Empire. I just resettled a Quameno population into the Ikkuro empire and now my Haakonish have the Ocean planet to themselves. Oddly, the game leaves 1m Quameno on the planet and won't remove them (which would remove them from my Empire entirely). Not sure if that is a bug or design.

Theluin -> RE: New colonies - will they never make significant money? (8/29/2012 8:57:27 AM)
That was introduced in a patch a few months ago Woodman after some people complained about loosing colonies because the whole population was exterminated/resettled.

szabferi -> RE: New colonies - will they never make significant money? (8/29/2012 10:57:13 AM)
Thx for the feedbacks. Everything what is on the screenshots are result of the AI work. Why the development is so high I dont know, because apart from a small starbase, I built nothing (is that responsible for the high development?) Meanwhile could anyone tell me that: - how to find out if a colony gets constant supply of luxury resources (should I check the cargo of every colony?) - what is the potential max population of a given colony

Gareth_Bryne -> RE: New colonies - will they never make significant money? (8/29/2012 3:13:15 PM)
pipewrench Kudos!!!! How often do we miss the evident in the options??

adamsolo -> RE: New colonies - will they never make significant money? (8/29/2012 5:42:21 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: pipewrench szabferi, This might give you a hint. [image]local://upfiles/33731/D412764E72BA4157A2E76A45209409F7.gif[/image] What WoodMan has said is quite correct. I can only really add that population growth is like a pyramid. As soon as you find your second colony close the door and tell people to re-settle. In my experience it works like a pyramid, This is on the hardest settings by the way and not one planet was invaded or found with a population. As soon as you have colonized your first planet set the home planets sliders to resettle. Do this as a planet policy not empire wide. Raise taxes and push your population to get out. My taxes are now paying for crash programs. Notice that my second planet has no smile which means my taxes are up and now both planets are on resettle. This now feeds 4 which feeds 8 etc. The big planets have just enough happiness to keep growing but are refusing any new races or colonists. Any new races will go to your small colonies. This is still slow but your passenger ships are finally doing something useful because you are directing them where not to drop off colonists. Brilliant! Now that's a migration policy! DW never stops to surprise me, neither its community :)

WoodMan -> RE: New colonies - will they never make significant money? (8/29/2012 5:51:05 PM)
Hey sza, It is virtually impossible to tell just from those shots why development is so high. Your colonies with 100 are normal colonies which have access to enough luxury resources, that is how you get 100%. The colonies with more have development bonusses which could be caused by any of the following or a combination of them: wonder on the planet, Korabbian Spice, Loros Fruit or Zentabia Fluid access (can be via trade not through direct mining from the planet), access to a resource that gives your race a development bonus (it says which in the galactopedia under the entry for whichever race you are playing), ruin on the planet possibly more stuff I forgot! Max population is decided I believe by the size and quality of the planet but I have no idea of the exact numbers at all or if anything else impacts it. I do know that small difference in quality % can make huge difference in max population though!

solops -> RE: New colonies - will they never make significant money? (8/29/2012 6:54:59 PM)
I LIKE the game speed. It feels more real and it forces some tought strategic choices. I do not want another game like SoTS where everything develops so quickly. Long term planning should be required.

Pipewrench -> RE: New colonies - will they never make significant money? (8/29/2012 7:28:50 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: WoodMan Remember resettle doesn't always resettle them in your own Empire. I just resettled a Quameno population into the Ikkuro empire and now my Haakonish have the Ocean planet to themselves. Oddly, the game leaves 1m Quameno on the planet and won't remove them (which would remove them from my Empire entirely). Not sure if that is a bug or design. I'll have to look into that type of situation Woodman. Seems strange unless your policy was empire wide?! To any new player, Just have fun and remember that this game has many aspects that make it very deep and will create games within games. For instance, without even touching a weapon : Focus on how fast can you raise your taxes to 50% without creating unhappiness. Focus on how fast can you can raise the colony development. Focus on how fast can you develop a spy. Focus on how to corner a luxury (*edit or tourism market) to increase revenues with other empires without going to war. Focus on how to sell bases to other empires. szabferi, In general you never want your population to reach max. They will lose happiness. Just have a planet that is well developed and has access to more luxuries with a low tax rate. Use research and spies to increase this and you will notice a change. It happens slowly at first but it will pick up speed. The speed of growth is a matter of debate which has merit for both sides. You will have to make up your own mind on that.

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