I need space-welfare...

[Airpower]

I'm getting into trying harder difficulty levels, and I find that as I enter mid-mid game, my state income level dips lower and lower until I eventually go broke. I know I am doing something really wrong, but I can't figure out what. My private sector is always flush with a large income and large cash reserves. I can't seem to make that work for me though. Can someone help me? Here's what I usually do (I don't use any automation btw):

1) Expand early and hard, starting with high quality planets that are close, and expanding outwards.
2) Get at least 1 source of every strategic resource and 1 source of 10 luxury resources - not much more though.
3) Build 3-4 infantry per planet to defend from cheese invasions and pirate raids.
4) Rush for the research wonders, and build them at my homeworld (goodbye 60,000 credits/year)
5) Maintain 1-3 fleets comprised of 15-20 max-size ships. I keep them regularly retrofitted to max tech levels.
6) Leave colonies set to 0% tax until they generate 40-50k GDP, then I tax at 20-30 percent.
7) Build a moderately strong defensive base with rec/med facilities at each colony.
8) When I can build Inf/Arm/SF troops, I build 6000 size worth of mixed troops as an enemy homeworld assault force.
9) In mid-game when I get LR sensors, I make "eyeball" bases (expendable monitoring stations) to cover my territory

I play the tech toads so I usually outmatch my enemies in firepower. I also play very offensively and try to smack down weak neighbors and cap their homeworlds as soon as possible.

Without fail though, by the time I hit mid-mid game, even if I have an enemy homeworld, I am 200k in the red and I lose interest in the playthrough.

Guidance appreciated!

[Airpower]

Oh, forgot to mention, after getting the High-Tech research wonder, I pivot to get the first Trade Guild wonder, which I build at my Homeworld. The top-tier trade guild wonder is usually not long after. Doesn't seem to help though.

[Tcby]

[&:]
Hard to say... Can you upload a save?

[mensrea]

Update the designs of your civilian ships and the private sector will pay you to build/retrofit them. Do that a couple times and pretty soon all that private sector cash will be in your pocket.

[Airpower]

TCBY: Let me whip up another playthrough and I'll upload it.

Mensrea: Yeah I do that to keep my reserves up, but it seriously feels like cheating. Having to resort to that trick ruins the fun of the game for me. If I have to do it, I feel like I've already lost. Ideally I can figure out why I'm not making money, or why I'm spending so much.

[Tcby]

^I agree. I find it more enjoyable to improve my play rather than use exploits as a crutch.

[Retreat1970]

IDK for sure. I set my HW at 14% tax until max then tax up until +16 happiness. That nets all I need for along time. Unfortunately Quameno at 14% growth hurts. Bad. Your Empire summary screen should tell you all you need to know as far as expenses go.

[DeadlyShoe]

Well your first mistake is probably expanding early and hard. Out of control colony costs sank more than of my empires.

Don't get too impressed with AI colony spam, because every colony costs 3k income to support until it's on its feet. Even then it will cost -1k until it starts getting tax revenue. Plus any expenses incurred by colonizing or defending said planet.

really though the best thing to do is to keep an eye on the budget summary and see where your money is going. Note: Colony support costs will subtract from your income rather than showing up as an expense.

4) Rush for the research wonders, and build them at my homeworld (goodbye 60,000 credits/year)

Try not to do this. Spread your wonders out if possible, and don't build a wonder you can't afford just because.

[mensrea]

My mistake, I confused welfare with near cheating, heh. Just identify what is costing you the most money and figure out how you can cut down on it. It is legit to me to give private sector bases long range sensors, usually gas mines. You probably don't need 3-4 infantry for every planet, just the planets on the periphery or planets that are not defended by nearby fleets. I know in vanilla I used to do about the same with infantry but the exorbitant costs add up fast and would often screw my economy.

Also, this is my opinion naturally, but fleets are better than defenses on bases. They are not stuck in one place so you can assign them to sector defense or even system defense (or offense even).

You can also tax the hell out of people sometimes but you may not do it due to personal preference. Just keep upping the taxes until they are no longer happy so you know where to draw the line.

Finally, get command center, commerce and troop logistic techs. Mining techs seem to help too. I also assume that your putting energy collectors on most things to prevent them from using fuel unnecessarily. I even put them on defense fleets because they tend to just hang out in orbit or something.

For the record I should note that the AI economies are ridiculously buffed in harder difficulties, so don't try to use their GDP's or income as a benchmark or you will always feel inadequate.

[Airpower]

Here's a shot of my empire summary screen. Sorry but I don't know how to attach my savegame file...

Shoe, I have a question - my understanding is that the private sector pays for newly-created colonies. I have found that even if I spam colony ships and set up shop on every available piece of land, I still have plenty of income in my private sector. And colony spam sets me up well for the late game, when my tax base becomes huge. Am I going at this the wrong way though?

[Airpower]

This is a shot of my Empire screen on 25 December (so all resort and space port income is shown).

[johanwanderer]

Looking at your summary, a few things come to mind:
[ol][*]You income is very poor for the number of colonies. Open the colony screen and sort be revenue. Your home world should be at the top, probably providing > 80% of all the income. The rest are likely to contribute very little due to high corruption. Solution? Research regional capitals and place them in strategic systems. That will reduce corruptions and enhance revenues.
[*]Your troop maintenance is high (compared to fleet / base). See if you can find better / cheaper troops (Mortalen, Keskudon, etc.) Assimilate them and build troops exclusively on those planets, then transport them elsewhere. Otherwise build robotic troop if need be. That may cut your troop maintenance by probably 50% if not 75%.
[*]Consider build some resort bases.
[*]Consider switching government (a high research government is no help if you can't foot the bills).
[*]Last resort, consider raising taxes.[/ol]
Hope that helps!

[Airpower]

Ooh! Robot troops! That's really smart - I will do that.

Here's a screenie of my colony list, sorted by revenue. Is my main colony low in population? Maybe the high tax rate has caused everyone to emigrate away, reducing my State tax base? This could be compounded by the fact that I colonize every available rock, giving them more places to go to. Hmm.... possible?

[aZmoDen]

To be honest, your not taxing your planets enough.
You should really have about 40-50% of your private colonys income as tax. That coupled with your spaceport and resort base income should be enough.
It also looks like your troop maintanece is abit large, i would only station 1-2 troops on a planet with a defence station in orbit.
What it seems like is your double fortifying (and doubling necessary expenses) either have enough troops to defend from pirate raids OR Have space station above.
Another idea is instead of spreading immobile bases everywhere, put that money into fleets, have 5-7 ships defending a system with a planet in it, put space stations with min shields and rec/med centers above each planet but all the armour weapons and extra shields should go on ships, remember pirates rarely raid systems with fleets in them.
You are also double dipping on research. Your government is research focused without income and maintenance bonuses, yet you also rush expensive research wonders. Add to that a low tax rate, with expensively defended planets and your are in for a lean time.

SO!
-tax your home colony 50%.
-put defence fleets of 5-7 max level ships guarding systems with planets (i would add an extra ship per target-able planet/mining station per system).
-have space stations above your planets with rec/med centers but not overly massive, keep those armour plates and weapons for your fleets.
-reduce troop levels abit, 1-2 troops are enough on systems that dont get raided (because you have fleets)
-If rushing research wonders, change government to something that has maintenance bonus and/or income bonus.
-Consider rushing trade bazar / market place, putting one or both of these on your homeworld plus a 50% tax rate, will give you loads of income.

If theres anything else i missed im sure someone will point it out, good luck!

[johanwanderer]

ORIGINAL: Airpower

Ooh! Robot troops! That's really smart - I will do that.

Here's a screenie of my colony list, sorted by revenue. Is my main colony low in population? Maybe the high tax rate has caused everyone to emigrate away, reducing my State tax base? This could be compounded by the fact that I colonize every available rock, giving them more places to go to. Hmm.... possible?

Look at the 2nd colony in the list. If you stick a regional capital in there, you would probably end up with 500K revebue from it (instead of the current 135K). That's a big difference.

And yes, wait for some of the colonies to develop before expand more.

Last but not least, kill those pirate bases

Edit: Yes, your main colony is WAY low on population. Holy cow.

[Airpower]

Okay, here's a shot of the planet's info before and after a regional capital is built there. I guess that's 229k worth of GDP out of thin air. Good suggestion.

Before regional capital:



After regional capital:

[DeadlyShoe]

You have WAY too many troops.

Once you finish with any regional capital stuff, you'll want to scrap at least one of your wonders (trade guild?) and rebuild it at Varunat.

[Tcby]

6 billion is very low at that stage of the game. You should also tax your other colonies less (preferably at zero) for longer. Their growth rate will be far too slow at this level of taxation, and the revenue is small. You could also build more resorts

[Retreat1970]

Johan is correct. Your tax income is poor. Is your HW max pop? By this time it should be. Tax your max pop HW until it's just happy (+16). 0 Tax on colonies until max pop then max tax.

Too many troops. Are you at war? Then maybe you need them. Get rid of half. Maybe more.

Technocracy is great, but if you can't build anything what good is tech? Money rules this game (for me).

You're already +90% tech (plus more with characters), do you really need the wonders for research boost? That's some maint savings.

Just some ideas.

6 billion is very low at that stage of the game

This ^. A Homeworld at 1/4 pop is a disaster.

[johanwanderer]

I know we're comparing apples and oranges here, but attached is my list of colonies. Check out the values compared to yours. I don't know if this is the right thing to do or not, but I try to spread the wonders around my top colonies, making them better. I also have 5 infantry + 1 planetary defense at each colony, but Keskudon troops are cheap. I wouldn't do that if they were more expensive.

Also notice that my capitals (the top 4 colonies) provided some 75% of the empire's income. The other 80 are there just to make things lively