RE: New colonies - will they never make significant money?

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RE: New colonies - will they never make significant money? - 8/29/2012 8:18:05 PM

Tanaka

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quote:

ORIGINAL: solops

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.

Agreed thats exactly why I hated SOTS!

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RE: New colonies - will they never make significant money? - 8/29/2012 8:53:30 PM

Apheirox

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They will definitely make money, szabferi. I've just returned to playing DW after a 1� year hibernation, checking out Legends. This thread inspired me to run a few tests. Conclusion to those are that tax levels is the end-all-be-all regarding colony growth. It really is a bit much how large an impact it has (I don't recall it having this large an impact back when I last played).

In my current game, playing a tech 4 Securan start, the first planet I colonized now has a fully maxed population of 14B. This took approx. five game years to achieve. This world now brings in a greater income than even my homeworld. Both this planet and the homeworld are now running 100% taxes(!) thanks to the absurdly huge Securan happiness bonus (they are still very happy!). Elsewhere in my empire there are worlds that have in excess of 100% growth rates (highest I saw was 110%) during the Securan growth cycle event.

None of this is possible without setting taxes to 0. Exempt your populace from taxation on all worlds save for the homeworld. Tax rate is everything. Be sure to disable the automatic tax management immediately when you next load up the game.

The worst thing about it is it leaves the AI impossibly far behind. Because it does tax all colonies it won't have this massive growth. That means the AI will very quickly fall behind the player in terms of strategic value which then translates into falling behind in research as well. Not much later, when you raise taxes on the new, billion-populated colonies, it will be utterly left behind in terms of income, as well. It seems like an oversight/bug that taxes work like this, really, because the AI would be infinitely more competitive if it was simply programmed to run zero percent taxes on newly established colonies, as well. 0% taxes is so powerful it's practically cheating.

< Message edited by Apheirox -- 8/29/2012 8:54:01 PM >

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RE: New colonies - will they never make significant money? - 8/29/2012 9:05:23 PM

WoodMan

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14 billion in 5 game years is extremely fast. I'm over 20 years in and my entire empire doesn't have that population yet and I do the same, tax at 0.

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RE: New colonies - will they never make significant money? - 8/29/2012 9:28:14 PM

szabferi

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Pipe, just a question on your screenshot: now it's clear for me how to move the colonists from one planet to another using the migration policies (and to make it even faster, I redesigned the passenger ships to have 4-5 times more capacity :) )

BUT:
Taking a look on your screenshot, why would you want to move away your colonists from the good quality and well developed planets (the top 2) to lower quality and worse developed planets?

This will impact your income in a negative way even on long run.... (that happened to me when I tried the concept).

So, for me it looks like, it should be used exactly the opposite way: we should pump the population from the 0% tax and lower developed planets to the high tax-high quality planets to max them. Dunno if the colonists would move from the 0% tax "resettle" planets to the 45% tax "assimilate" ones, but it looks pretty pointles to me to pump out colonists from the planets where they would pay more to the treasury.

Or I miss something :)

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RE: New colonies - will they never make significant money? - 8/29/2012 9:36:46 PM

joeyeti

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Question:

is there no economic drawback for worlds with 0% tax?

I mean, when you all put it like this (100% tax on the Home world and 0% tax on other colonies), it sounds like an exploit...

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Post #: 35

RE: New colonies - will they never make significant money? - 8/29/2012 10:19:33 PM

WoodMan

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The economic drawback is you don't get the income. However, in the long run it is better for your economy to let them grow first and then tax them. I think it is quite reasonable, to say to your population our homeworld is overcrowded, so if you are willing to be the trailblazers, to build a new world that to begin with has no farms, cities or infrastructure whatsoever, you can live tax free!

Edit: Don't set tax to 100% on homeworld, remember tax comes from your private sector, you will totally kill it, I made this mistake recently setting tax to 90%, lol.

< Message edited by WoodMan -- 8/29/2012 10:21:03 PM >

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RE: New colonies - will they never make significant money? - 8/30/2012 12:28:49 AM

Pipewrench

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szabferi,

You are moving from the high tax planets to the low tax areas.

In the screen shot I gave you:

All high taxes are on re-settle and have large populations.(satisfied)
All low tax planets are on assimilate to take them in.(happy)

My 2 large planets are at 59% and 62% tax respectively with happiness at 2-7%. This will still allow growth but will make the population look for something better. My 4 closest colonies are on assimilate. The last 2 at the bottom are on do not accept because they are too far away for now.

I also make sure I have as many unique luxuries as possible to increase happiness.

Open colony panel [f2]
select a colony
click on the cargo tab
click on amnt column so that lowest numbers are at the top
there you will find what you have and what the colony needs.

The key reason to resettle:

A population diversified leads to:

More demand for resources which leads to more freighter traffic which leads to more of a commerce bonus. Every base has these and it acts as a cash register.
I make less on taxes at the start but I make bonus income from the freighter traffic generated to each growing colony. With greater traffic the private sector will build freighters which leads to bonus income.

Remember that many different luxury resources lead to happy well off citizens who live for leisure and can afford it. Travel agencies become swamped with bookings to far off resorts.

< Message edited by pipewrench -- 8/30/2012 1:00:32 AM >

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RE: New colonies - will they never make significant money? - 8/30/2012 2:54:32 AM

Apheirox

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quote:

ORIGINAL: joeyeti

Question:

is there no economic drawback for worlds with 0% tax?

I mean, when you all put it like this (100% tax on the Home world and 0% tax on other colonies), it sounds like an exploit...

The only real reason to tax your population is if you risk running into a war. Otherwise, the fastest way to expand is to tax as little as possible - ideally, you just need enough money to purchase colony ships and the token forces needed to protect them from pirates etc.

Money isn't actually very useful in this game. Almost anything you can do with money is warfare-related so if you have the option of developing peacefully it is better to avoid taxation. The only real thing money can be used for in terms of building economic strength is to initiate crash research. You could try crashing some colonization techs but it would be healthier for your empire to instead lower taxes and let them prosper. That builds your empire's strategic value amongst other things - your strategic value determines your max research rate so you are indirectly boosting that as well. Also, very populous planets have the benefit of being harder to conquer as well as training troops faster. Most importantly, perhaps, is the fact that only moderately large colonies (0.5B) can build colony ships and only fully developed colonies (around 10B) build them at full speed (600 units). Low taxes and the rapidly growing population that results will therefore let you spit out colony ships much faster than normal.

< Message edited by Apheirox -- 8/30/2012 2:59:10 AM >

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RE: New colonies - will they never make significant money? - 8/30/2012 8:32:24 AM

szabferi

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Thx, It makes sense.... probably I was too drastic with the migration of the people from my homeworld to the developing 0% tax colonies, because I saw drastic income reduction and that was not compensated by commerce bonus at all.

Decision, decisions all the time :D

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RE: New colonies - will they never make significant money? - 8/30/2012 1:30:51 PM

Apheirox

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Yeah well, that can't possibly be true... Those handful millions you move off the homeworld mean nothing to your income as they are a drop in the ocean there. On the newly settled colonies, however, they're worth their weight in gold.

What really matters for your initial income is ensuring that you max out the homeworld development level as soon as possible. That means mining luxury resources and keeping the mines and the freighters safe from piracy. Accomplish this without overspending on early military and your economy should be solid.

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RE: New colonies - will they never make significant money? - 8/30/2012 1:53:15 PM

Pipewrench

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szabferi,

Just remember its like a door, if your income is dropping too much and your not comfortable just set it to accept colonists again. You can even direct certain races to one specific planet so you can start building enough of a population to colonize a new type of planet.

There are many conditions that add to growth that would take pages to write and explain. This is only a small part of it as you need to be doing may things to improve your colonies. Race, Government, wonders, spying all can help.

Expansion still is very slow and out of your control which is frustrating. Unfortunately it can also backfire if another empire is close, better developed and assimilating other races. Pirates can even slow expansion. Work out your own system and if in doubt put everything on automatic.

The next patch or expansion could throw this all out the window , who knows. Just experiment and have fun.

< Message edited by pipewrench -- 8/30/2012 2:02:27 PM >

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RE: New colonies - will they never make significant money? - 8/30/2012 5:22:30 PM

Apheirox

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I doubt your pop policy strategy is actually beneficial, pipewrench - in fact I think, as you are also suggesting yourself, that it could be harmful. Whenever I check status on my passenger ships I see none that are just idling - all of them are hauling people around in my empire (You can check this by opening the 'ships' tab and browsing to 'passenger ships' in the dropdown box - they will all list 'transport' as their mission). Therefore, I don't see what one would stand to gain by using the more limiting pop policies on colonies.

On an unrelated side note it isn't correct what was discussed on page one about passenger ships carrying 'only 2400k' and how it should be 1M... let's be clear: First off, 2400K is 2.4M so much more than you seem to think - but this is just per module, not per passenger ship, the real value is much greater. Even the lvl1 passenger ships standard AI design with no tech upgrades carries 10 modules worth 1200K each for a full 12M pop per ship while the late-game designs will carry far more than that. This explains why colonies with 0% tax right next to the homeworld grow so amazingly fast with several hundred million just a few 'turns' after you colonized.

< Message edited by Apheirox -- 8/30/2012 5:27:33 PM >

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RE: New colonies - will they never make significant money? - 8/30/2012 7:02:36 PM

ASHBERY76

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You do not control passenger ships or migration targets.So even if you have 22 ships passenger ships with a larger empire more than half might be full of tourists.It takes too long for that number of ships to migrate enough people to a mature sized empires colonies to any degree especially by the non tweaking A.I empires.

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RE: New colonies - will they never make significant money? - 8/30/2012 7:27:29 PM

WoodMan

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I've found a great impact on migration is the distance between the colony and the homeworld (or wherever the migrants are coming from). Setting up a colony in your homesystem grows way faster than one that is far away. This might sound obvious, but over time it can make a really big difference, your passenger ships might be doing a journey ten times shorter, or more, than if they were going to a further away colony, logically that would suggest then that your colony would grow much, much faster if it is close!

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RE: New colonies - will they never make significant money? - 8/30/2012 7:50:53 PM

Pipewrench

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Apheirox

You have every right to do what you believe. I only have explained to new players what the drop down menu's do in regards to population movement. If you believe the drop downs serve no useful purpose other than taking up space that is totally up to you.

Woodman,

totally agree, short distance makes for faster trips.

Have fun

< Message edited by pipewrench -- 8/30/2012 7:51:55 PM >

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RE: New colonies - will they never make significant money? - 8/31/2012 1:31:01 PM

Apheirox

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@ pipewrench

There's no need to get defensive, I'm only asking because I'm interested in understanding your strategy. If you don't want to take the time to spell it out for me that's fine but you can just say so. I can see how setting your colonies up to try to ensure that it is always the colonies with the lowest pop rather than those that already have an established pop of a few hundred million that receive the immigrants would be beneficial. If that's what you're trying to do it makes sense to me. What I'm questioning is simply the 'resettle' policy part - I would imagine your passenger ships would start forcibly focusing on moving pop away from planets with this policy rather than just focusing on moving pop to planets that need more inhabitants. Therefore, I would think a 'Do not accept' policy would be better for the established colonies - that should accomplish the same, but without restricting the passenger ships overmuch.

@ Ashbery

Like I write above it definitely makes the best sense to have the immigrants go to the very low pop (<100M) colonies if at all possible where they have the greatest relative impact. Like Woodman says, low pop, close by colonies are the best. I don't think it was ever intended that immigration should be on a scale where you are moving around pop by the billions. Imagine if we sent a space ship to colonize Alpha Centauri tomorrow: would billions be put into stasis and shipped off? In an old empire: A tech 7 AI designed Human passenger ship holds 36M. I'd find it sensible if that value was changed up to, say, 100M, but if you want to change it all the way to 1B I think it simply loses credibility: A passenger ship holding one billion people? That's not a passenger ship, that's an evacuation fleet... I think the 36M version is more believable and when you consider than an old and large empire can have over a hundred ships you are in fact moving people around by the billions every 'passenger ship cycle'.

EDIT: Check out this screenshot from this quick'n'dirty game I just finished. This is on a tech 7, homeworld only start. Within 15 years I expand the population to from 10 to 80B and completely depopulate the rival empire using immigration. How is that for passenger ship efficiency!

Attachment (1)

< Message edited by Apheirox -- 8/31/2012 6:19:24 PM >

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RE: New colonies - will they never make significant money? - 8/31/2012 8:35:44 PM

Pipewrench

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Apheirox,

There was no offense taken. This is just a game and all of us are expressing opinions. Heck for all I know this whole strategy could be thrown out with the bathwater in the next patch or for the last 20 starts what I have been doing has worked and now it doesn't.

I will give your do not accept a try but I am wondering what happens if another empire is close by your planet and is at max population. If range is the key scripting factor then you would not get those new races dropped off because of distance.

This is only from seeing this happen twice but from what I have experienced if you are on re-settle it will still accept others because of proximity if another empire.

The screenshot you have is great. In my last game I had the ikkuru colonize a planet very close to the home wold of the Atuuk. 4 passenger ships of mine started hitting his maxed population and dropping them off to the new colony. In 2 minutes of game play my small native population went into the minority. 1 then departed on a tourist pickup to a developed planet and the others three preformed 2 more round trips back to his overpopulated planet. They then went to my resettle planet and dropped back on the new colony.

this leads me to believe:

a maxed population is a priority call for a passenger run,
with tourism second in line,
and re-settle is third.
and a random factor thrown in to the mix.

I will try the do not accept and see where the passenger ships put this as a scripted priority. I use that setting on any new colony that is not too close to another friendly empire or is so far from my developed colonies that it ties up passenger traffic for long periods.

Attachment (1)

< Message edited by pipewrench -- 8/31/2012 8:54:15 PM >

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RE: New colonies - will they never make significant money? - 8/31/2012 10:31:36 PM

Apheirox

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I think I understand your reasoning behind 'resettle' over 'do not accept' now: You believe that 'resettle' means the colony still does accept new inhabitants, only it will try to resettle them afterwards - correct? In that case I can see how it might make sense to use it. It sounds like you have done quite a bit of research on this so I'll take your word for it if you say that's how it works. I will also try the resettle policy myself and monitor the passenger ships. My impression was simply that resettle is a more restrictive form of the other policy - that it works both as a 'do not accept' and has the additional clause that the population is unwanted and will be moved elsewhere (likely a penal colony somewhere so 'resettle' being mostly a policy the 'evil' aligned empires would use).

Here's the manual's line on the topic:

RESETTLE

Actively migrate these races away from the colony to other colonies that will accept them.
If you have enabled the empire policy setting �Use Penal colonies to implement Enslavement�
then these unwanted races will be migrated to Penal colonies for enslavement there.

< Message edited by Apheirox -- 8/31/2012 10:45:15 PM >

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RE: New colonies - will they never make significant money? - 9/1/2012 12:30:08 AM

Pipewrench

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Well... you see I am reminded of something I forgot which actually could be an exploit.

I remember the penal colony settings when I tried this many games ago while enslaving the kiadian. That is how I learned about movement of races to specific locations.

You could be very well correct and I am actually running with a script that is being ignored without a destination call on a penal planet and without penalty.

Thanks for the input and I will have to watch this over the next week.

edit, made me think and remember again..?......

RESETTLE

Actively migrate these races away from the colony to other colonies that will accept them.
If you have enabled the empire policy setting �Use Penal colonies to implement Enslavement�
then these unwanted races will be migrated to Penal colonies for enslavement there.

That is the big if, Before the patch it held that if there was no penal colony a location would be picked. It might of changed with the patch but I can only go on what I have observed with older versions. I am short of time but if anyone finds something different happening I would appreciate a posting.

p.s. To any new player :

You do not have to know this as the AI does a great job of moving populations around. It is not required to know how to fully understand every setting or option.

All this is about is getting more horsepower out of the same engine. When you have the game semi-mastered start pulling towards the dark side and enslaving races. Then you will have a new game with new problems. There is many layers to the onion and that is why this is a very good game to play.

< Message edited by pipewrench -- 9/1/2012 1:43:06 AM >

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Post #: 49