Galactic Civilisations 2

[Crandaeolon]

You got the basic idea right. Factories and Research stations increase the caps for "basic" production. Basic production is then modified by the various other bonuses such as inherent civilization bonus, tile-specific bonuses, starbases etc.

Credits are used to fund the whole thing. Each production and research unit (after modification, i understand) costs 1 bc to utilize, up to your civilization's max production capacity. The amount of credits is divided proportionally to each planet, up to the maximum percentage set in the industrial capacity slider and modified by the military/social/research slider.

It splits MP between both categories?

Yup. Or more accurately, divides MP between military / social as set in the spending slider.

Then you build a basic factory. This adds 8MP, for a total of 18MP. Here is my problem - that 8MP is not an always present bonus as in other games. It needs to be activated in the same way as those base 10 points. It is a raised limit, not a boosted base.

Correct.

Therefore it costs more to run the same settings (say 70% spending with 50% to military) with the factory than without. The planet can put out more MP per turn, and reach a higher potential MP limit, but it costs more. Not a problem if you have a good economy, but potentially disastrous with a small one.

Yup. A strong economy is pretty much a necessity, since everything costs money.

So perhaps building factories at the start is not a good idea?

Well. You'll need that production to get those improvements done in _this_ century. It's also a good idea to burn the cash reserves on colony ships and scouts early on, or you'll miss the initial rush for colonies. And _that_ is gonna hurt.

How does the research increase building work? Same way as factories?

Research buildings produce tp (technology points) the same way as factories. What I don't understand is that why the technology and manufacturing fundings are interconnected? Technology and industrial production aren't dependant on each other, since factories produce manufacturing points and research buildings research points. So, why the hell must you decide a balance between them? Why can't I run both industry and research at 100%?

Anyone want to tell a frog what the economic space station can do?

Economic space station modules can boost the military, social and research point caps of planets in range, or increase revenues from trade routes that go through the area affected by the space station.

EDIT: I'm not really sure of all the factors. The numbers don't seem to add up. It could be that space stations and manufacturing/research resources boost the end result, after money is spent. Grr. Gotta hate poor documentation and shady mechanics like this.

Military stations can boost the abilities of allied ships in their range by a huge margin. They also possess some pretty impressive offensive and defensive abilities. They're basically "zone defense."

I'm not really sure about influence stations. They do boost influence, yes, but the mechanics elude me so far.

Edit2: copy-paste mishaps. :p

[Zenicetus]

Research buildings produce tp (technology points) the same way as factories. What I don't understand is that why the technology and manufacturing fundings are interconnected? Technology and industrial production aren't dependant on each other, since factories produce manufacturing points and research buildings research points. So, why the hell must you decide a balance between them? Why can't I run both industry and research at 100%?

Here's how I understand it. The spending slider is the throttle on your total industrial capacity. It controls how "hot" you're running your industrial output (including research). The sliders for military (ship building), social (planetary improvements) and research, divide up your focus. If you're in a research crunch and need to get a new tech fast, you ramp down your ship building and planetary improvements to put a focus on research instead. Call it more salaries being paid, more supplies being purchased, more people working, whatever. You can't have 100% of your potential industrial capacity going to research, and also have 100% of your potential industrial capacity going into making planetary improvements at the same time.

One thing it took me a while to wrap my head around, is the way industrial capacity is disconnected from income, which means you can run a defecit economy with more industrial output than you can "afford," as long as you have the cash reserves to dip into. There is a lower limit on that... $500bc I think, and you have to be careful about unrest because it causes a drop in approval when you're running a defecit economy. I often do it in the early colony rush, to support ship building, and to get an early espionage effort rolling. I usually don't climb out of the hole and get a net positive economy going until I have all my initial colonies settled. I sell tech like mad to the minors, to help fund the defecit economy when I need to. It contributes to unrest though, so you have to be careful not to run it too low. This may not be the best strategy, but it works for me.

Also, note that military production (ability to make ships) is "banked" and isn't a drag on your economy if you're not using it. You'll see the points in parenthesis on each planet, when it isn't being used. Social production (ability to make buildings) isn't banked, and it's wasted if you're not actually building anything on a planet. That's not necessarily bad... it's just a game balance decision the devs made. So be careful about setting more social production than you actually need.

[Crandaeolon]

You can't have 100% of your potential industrial capacity going to research, and also have 100% of your potential industrial capacity going into making planetary improvements at the same time.

But... industrial capacity is not research capacity. Factories produce MP = industrial capacity. Research buildings produce TP = research. You don't need MP to produce research points, therefore the fundings for each shouldn't be connected.

The amount of people on the planet has no effect on either industrial or research capacity: industry runs at the same efficiency whether there are 0.1 or 10 billion people on the planet. The capacity is entirely dependant on the amount of factories/research centers; population only affects taxes.

My point is this: Suppose i have the sliders set at 33% each. Each planet uses 33%(military) + 33%(social) = 66% of its industrial capacity, and only 33% of its research capacity. Since both require different structures that produce different things (MP vs TP) and population doesn't affect anything, what's the deal with connecting them? The planet could have 20 billion people and I might have 100,000 billion credits in the treasury, yet there's no way to get research running at full efficiency without shutting down industry.

Social production (ability to make buildings) isn't banked, and it's wasted if you're not actually building anything on a planet.

I'm inclined to believe that this is a bug. It's certainly not logical, and it's contrary to what the manual states. Page 29:

"Social Production, represented by hammers, is spent on projects. If you have no projects queued, the number above the hammers will be in parenthesis. In this case, the hammers are not drawing bc from your treasury."

Seriously, there's a lot of illogical, counterintuitive and poorly documented stuff in the game. The release version was also quite full of bugs; thankfully most of them are squashed now.

[Crandaeolon]

Espionage is also rather stupid. Once you get full access to a civilization, you'll keep stealing technologies even if you don't spend a dime in funding. It's like buying a one-time ticket to their research databases! Access levels should at least degrade, it's quite retarded like this.

[Spino]

I bought GalCiv2 last Wednesday and it has occupied all of my free time. It makes an amazing first impression and quickly sinks its claws in you until real life responsibilities somehow manage to tear you away from it. No small feat since World of Warcraft has virtually monopolized my gaming time since I bought it last August. Suddenly the travails of a level 60 gnome warlock seem to pale in comparison to carving out a slice of the galaxy for my people as they reach for the stars...

I haven't had this much fun with an Explore/Expand/Exploit & Exterminate game since I played the original Civilization and Masters of Orion games on my old Amiga 500! Medieval Total War comes close but that was primarily due to the tactical battles instead of its strategic gameplay which was somewhat lacking. Virtually everything about GC2 is slick and well done, this is especially surprising given the size of the developer and its limited resources. GC2 may not be state of the art in terms of visuals & sound but it has it where it counts and that's what keeps me coming back for more. The best part about GC2 is the AI which is astoundingly good. The AI is so good that I've been forced to abandon all those sloppy habits I developed playing Rome and other strategy titles with lackluster AI. Not only do you have to pay attention to what your opponents are doing but formulating a long term strategy is absolutely essential to victory.

Any developer who decries the difficulty of producing a challenging, let alone competent AI opponent (and one that does NOT cheat) ought to pick up a copy of GalCiv2 and prepare to be schooled. Stardock is a small company with decidedly limited resources and yet GC2 seems to have the most depth and challenge of any strategy game I've ever played. to keep you coming back for more over a very long period of time.

More good news is GalCiv2 is doing extremely well in terms of sales. Stardock's head developer recently published a comparison of both GalCiv games on the official forums and dropped some sales figures in for good measure...

http://www.galciv2.com/Journals.aspx?AID=106589

The game did reasonably well selling approximately 150,000 units worldwide. 70,000 or so in North America retail (I don't have the exact number), nearly that # overseas plus electronic. At the time of this writing, GalCiv II in its first 10 days have exceeded that North American # and by the end of the month may exceed the # of units sold electronically. We will be looking into what precisely caused such a huge difference in sales and report the findings. But so far -- word of mouth is king. Simply put, people seem to like GalCiv II and tell their friends.

Looks like we'll be seeing alot more from this little company in the years to come.

P.S. Tip of the day... make exploring and colonizing the sectors around your homeworld as quickly as you can your top priority. The developers have admitted that the AI receives one 'unfair' advantage over the human player; it knows where ALL the planets are at the beginning of a game. Since the AI doesn't have to waste time or resources finding those colonizable planets it means every turn counts! Build as many colony ships as quickly as you can and get them to those habitable planets ASAP!

[Spino]

Espionage is also rather stupid. Once you get full access to a civilization, you'll keep stealing technologies even if you don't spend a dime in funding. It's like buying a one-time ticket to their research databases! Access levels should at least degrade, it's quite retarded like this.

I believe the developers have promised to address this in an upcoming patch.

[Zenicetus]

But... industrial capacity is not research capacity. Factories produce MP = industrial capacity. Research buildings produce TP = research. You don't need MP to produce research points, therefore the fundings for each shouldn't be connected.

Well, we can argue whether it *should* be connected or not, but that's the way the current game is designed. Research is tossed into the same bag as the others, and it's all considered "industrial capacity." Actually that makes some sense to me, because most important research even now is done on an industrial scale, and has been ever since the Palomar telescope and the Manhattan project.

I'm inclined to believe that this is a bug. It's certainly not logical, and it's contrary to what the manual states. Page 29:

"Social Production, represented by hammers, is spent on projects. If you have no projects queued, the number above the hammers will be in parenthesis. In this case, the hammers are not drawing bc from your treasury."

The devs have said in the official forum that the manual is wrong. They tested having social production banked instead of spent, but didn't like the way it affected game balance, and took it out of the final release.

FWIW, one of the devs just posted a message saying they might reconsider that... like maybe having unspent social production converted to credits in your treasury. But it's not certain. He also said "the AI would love it"... which makes me wonder if it's really a good idea.

Seriously, there's a lot of illogical, counterintuitive and poorly documented stuff in the game. The release version was also quite full of bugs; thankfully most of them are squashed now.

I agree, the game could be better documented. Some of this is obviously the devs being very close to the game and understanding it completely, and they don't see that some of it is not very intuitive or well-explained.

Overall though, I don't have too many complaints. There are only three big things that bother me right now, and none are deal-breakers. The first is the way the AI's trade tech like crazy... which forces you to keep up, and it also "normalizes" the tech too much (e.g. not enough variation between races' capabilities). Second, the micromanagement involved with upgrading starbases. Pumping out a steady stream of constructors gets tiring. And finally the surrender mechanics... the way a faction you have on the ropes, will suddenly surrender to another faction instead of collapshing or surrendering to the player. I understand why they did that.... to make it more challenging and harder to steamroller the map, once you get some momentum going. But sometimes it can cause huge shifts in power balance. It can feel like a game you've played well, with good strategy, has been wiped out by a random dice toss.

But I'm still enjoying it.

[doc_bean]

I haven't gotten the game yet, I'm still waiting for the demo. But I'm loving the developers and the Galciv2 homepage, especially when they quote the bad parts of the reviews and then say the reviewer is right, or when they tell people who aren't sure whether or not to buy the game to just wait for the demo instead of trying to sell them the game

But the latest episode is just disturbing :

For example, we were quite disturbed to discover that the company that makes Starforce provided a working URL to a list of pirated GalCiv II torrents. I'm not sure whether what they did was illegal or not, but it's troubling nevertheless and was totally unnecessary.

I hope whoever posted the link gets thrown in jail for inciting theft (possibly handling stolen good ?)

[Crandaeolon]

Well, we can argue whether it *should* be connected or not, but that's the way the current game is designed.

Hehe, I'd actually argue that they should indeed be connected so that you need MP points (produced by factories) to fund research. Maybe also a penalty to funds that aren't produced domestically. That would encourage to build more balanced worlds instead of the one-dimensional research/industrial/economical behemoths that are most optimal now.

FWIW, one of the devs just posted a message saying they might reconsider that... like maybe having unspent social production converted to credits in your treasury. But it's not certain. He also said "the AI would love it"... which makes me wonder if it's really a good idea.

Yeah, probably not. AI already has a distinct advantage because it can manage spending on a per-turn basis (most human players probably won't bother), and calculate leases with high precision.

Overall though, I don't have too many complaints.

Me neither, the good stuff easily outweighs the minor niggles. I don't mind the surrender mechanic too much - it can be turned to the advantage of the player as well, and I like fighting proxy wars. It's great that the AI knows how to fight proxy wars as well.

My pet peeve is the much-touted tactical battle display and ship design; they're mostly cosmetic. Everything is based on the same die rolls, and things like positioning or initiative (in the tactical sense) have no effect. Ships always take damage one at a time, and combatants just float around pointlessly. Why bother to do something like that, if there's no point to it?

And ship design. I don't know what others think, but for me ship design should be about fiddling with fun, interesting and varied gadgets, not dull incremental upgrades to size or damage. I can partially understand the design decisions behind that; it's to prevent exploits against the AI. But... accommodating the AI at the expense of the human player ceases to be fun at some point.

For good examples of tactical battles that don't allow direct player control, one could take a look at Space Empires IV or even Dominions 2. Great PBEM games both, by the way.

[Xiahou]

But... industrial capacity is not research capacity. Factories produce MP = industrial capacity. Research buildings produce TP = research. You don't need MP to produce research points, therefore the fundings for each shouldn't be connected.

Its not that confusing to me, I just think you're looking at it wrong. It's all about funding- your sliders for military, social, and research only control how big a slice of the total funding pie you get, while the size of the pie is determined by your spending slider.

You're not taking MPs and exchanging them for TPs, you're just taking funds from one category and diverting them to another. It doesnt matter how man MPs you can produce if they arent getting funded.

[Crandaeolon]

ts not that confusing to me, I just think you're looking at it wrong. It's all about funding- your sliders for military, social, and research only control how big a slice of the total funding pie you get, while the size of the pie is determined by your spending slider.

I'm not confused at all, I'm just wondering about the voodoo numbers and the odd way of doing things.

It's pretty easy to check for yourself. Start a new game with a custom race, who doesn't get either production or research bonus. Then look at main colony building (24 MP and 24 TP) and fiddle with the sliders. At 100% output and 50/50% social/research, it's a predictable 12 social MP and 12 research produced, total expenditure of 24 bc.

Now, let's build four basic labs (5 TP each) and have another look at the stats. Social production for the colony is still at 12 MP (50% of total industry capacity), and research is at 22 TP (50% of total research capacity), for a total of 34 bc spent.

Now, let's put 100% of funding to social. We get 24 MP of social production, expenditure 24 bc. Another tweak of the slider to 100% research - 44 TP produced, with an expenditure of 44 bc. WTH, the available money and manpower suddenly almost doubled?

The spending slider sets an upper limit for the production capability that gets utilized, while the military/social/research sliders set how large a percentage of a colony's production (capped by the spending slider) in a given area is used. There is no pie - the system doesn't care one bit about how much money is available, only how much the colony can potentially produce.

What I don't like is that even with a practically unlimited economy, my research colony's research works at 30% of maximum capacity because of some weird need to make a "universal" spending policy for a huge galactic empire! Not one imperial advisor ever thought that planets might not be balanced, but instead optimised for a specific purpose? Thank goodness for the ability to focus on a specific area, otherwise I'd long gone mad at the stupidity of the system. I understand it's meant to be abstract, but still... the developers obviously understand the necessity for finer control, hence the focus buttons. Why not go all the way and disconnect the sliders and make it possible to adjust each colony separately?

And don't even get me started on influence mechanics.

[Xiahou]

I still dont follow you... Let's keep with the 1 planet example. The spending slider would indicate how much of the planet's total industrial capacity you're going to devote- ideally, 100%. From there, you get to determine where this capacity is allocated social, military, or research. You seem to be saying that research should come from a different pool of resources than social and military production? I dont understand why- if you're going to devote 100% of capacity to research you cant also throw 100% of your resources into military production because some of the capacity is devoted to research.

Now, let's put 100% of funding to social. We get 24 MP of social production, expenditure 24 bc. Another tweak of the slider to 100% research - 44 TP produced, with an expenditure of 44 bc. WTH, the available money and manpower suddenly almost doubled?

We're talking about very abstract things being expressed in a fairly simplistic manner. The total capacity is more than just money, it'd include labor, natural resources, power, ect. You shouldnt think of a 'research facility' a literally just a research facility, but rather a buildup of infrastructure to allow for greater research capacity.

What I don't like is that even with a practically unlimited economy, my research colony's research works at 30% of maximum capacity because of some weird need to make a "universal" spending policy for a huge galactic empire! Not one imperial advisor ever thought that planets might not be balanced, but instead optimised for a specific purpose? Thank goodness for the ability to focus on a specific area, otherwise I'd long gone mad at the stupidity of the system. I understand it's meant to be abstract, but still... the developers obviously understand the necessity for finer control, hence the focus buttons. Why not go all the way and disconnect the sliders and make it possible to adjust each colony separately?

Yeah, I can see where some might have wanted that, but to me it'd be a headache in huge galaxies- I'd rather control it from one point. But, I suspect the real reason it wasnt done was because it would've made the AI design more complex by several orders of magnitude if it had to constantly tweak sliders on every single planet.

[Crandaeolon]

I still dont follow you... Let's keep with the 1 planet example... ...We're talking about very abstract things being expressed in a fairly simplistic manner.

Yep, it's abstracted. I also suspect that it's a balance mechanic to keep things equal between AI and human. Still, it could be done in a less hamhanded manner. The system works fine for a small number of balanced planets, but when optimised worlds come into play it gets a little wonky.

I suppose there could be a plenty of excuses for the abstraction - availability of domestic funds and resources, manpower, relation between private and government sector, logistics of an intergalactic empire etc. But they're just that, excuses. In reality it's only a mechanic that someone made up, and has little or no connection to real-world (or even made-up ) economics.

ou seem to be saying that research should come from a different pool of resources than social and military production?

It would be logical, since factories produce MP for military and social, and research buildings produce TP for technology. The abstraction is just unnecessary, since it's a voodoo fudge factor. There are zillions of other games that do just fine without such heavy-handed abstractions.

I suspect the real reason it wasnt done was because it would've made the AI design more complex by several orders of magnitude if it had to constantly tweak sliders on every single planet.

That's most likely correct, a finer control would require the AI to specialise its worlds to be more competitive. Currently, specialising is one of the advantages that a human player has over AI - and it's "balanced" (read: crippled) by the imperial-wide production sliders that make specialising less effective.

I'm of the opinion that the AI takes too much spotlight in this game. The game is tailored to accommodate the AI, not the human player. Another evidence of this is the reluctance to make even remotely meaningful tactical battles. The devs have frequently stated that they do not want human players to "exploit" things. Another way to say this is that they want to limit human beings to the level of the AI, which is, by the way, an exercise in futility - in complex games like this there's always something to exploit.

[Xiahou]

Yep, it's abstracted. I also suspect that it's a balance mechanic to keep things equal between AI and human. Still, it could be done in a less hamhanded manner. The system works fine for a small number of balanced planets, but when optimised worlds come into play it gets a little wonky.

Yeah, but a specialized planet is still a specialized planet. If you're funding said category at 33%, it's still going to produce more points by being specialized- it's not like they're totally worthless. Also, I regularly move the sliders depending on what Im building from one extreme to the next- if I need ships I'll pump military and the planets that have high manufacturing will shove out ships every turn or two. Once I get as many as I need for the moment, I flip it back to research or whatever. Obviously, I do leave resources split 33/33/33 or some variation as well. But still, a manufacturing heavy planet will produce more quickly than one without factories.

It would be logical, since factories produce MP for military and social, and research buildings produce TP for technology. The abstraction is just unnecessary, since it's a voodoo fudge factor. There are zillions of other games that do just fine without such heavy-handed abstractions.

I still disagree here. You can have all the factories you want, but they're not going to produce goods (MPs) if you're diverting resources into research programs (TPs).

For myself, Im glad it doesnt have tactical battles. I already skip almost every fleet battle as they take too long and I dont think they'd really fit the mood of the game, but that's just my opinion on it.

[Crandaeolon]

This would probably be high time to start winding down this particular discussion, and focus on something productive.

Agreed on specialisation - high-quality worlds that have natural bonuses to things are very important to develop in a specialised manner. In my current game I lucked out and found a planet with huge bonuses to research, so apart from the initial factories and other infrastructure to get things started I just loaded it up with research buildings and set focus on research, except when upgrading the labs. It's responsible for a good half of my total research, even though there are about 15 other planets in the empire.

Economy is very important. Critical, even. For the few first games it's highly advisable to pick a race with economic and morale bonuses (to allow higher taxes); it makes things so much easier. BTW, it appears that the "stock" races get a bit more leeway in ability picks (higher total than the custom race), and also a naturally higher logistics score. Some get unique abilities, such as 100% loyalty and 25% miniaturisation for Yor.

The governments don't seem to function as advertised. They do not raise production caps as indicated in the in-game screens, but boost taxes as stated in the manual: Republic 15%, Democracy 25%, Federation 50%.

I haven't quite figured out the exact mechanics for influence, but proximity seems to be important when placing influence stations: the closer, the better. However, constructing an influence station in the sphere of influence of another race is an act of aggression, so it's useful to build an "initial" influence station first to boost your borders closer to the colony you want to affect and then build another station as close to the colony as possible.

For myself, Im glad it doesnt have tactical battles. I already skip almost every fleet battle...

Yep, me too. It's just that i'd rather not have these tactical battle displays at all, if they have no other functionality than being a marketing gimmick. Better tooltips, technology descriptions and such would be far more useful.

[Crandaeolon]

To be honest, this abstraction hasn't hindered or bothered me in the least. Talk about making a whole lot of hooey about nothing... ...I actually watch every battle, and enjoy it..

Alright, I guess I have gone too far playing devil's advocate. Apologies! It's just that truly good games like this tend to bring out the little niggles, and it's far more annoying because they stand out in an otherwise excellent game.

BTW, does anyone know of a place where I could get a list of all technologies and improvements that affect logistics?

[BDC]

Gah the forums there won't let me register...

[AggonyDuck]

Sounds like a fun campaign.
What difficulty level are you playing?

Challenging

[Phatose]

It's not MoO/MoO2 like in any real way, but it's not a bad game. I'd just prefer more depth on the tactical level.

Kind of fun to edit yourself in a race of space gods though.

[Bob the Insane]

I managed something a little odd last night, I actually had too good of a start...

I was playing a small game to demo to some friends (to make it extra embarrasing of course) and I spammed out the colony ships and lucked out finding habital worlds...

So successful was I that my empire was way larger than all the other races at the end of the colony race...

But, then it turned up that my colony maintainence now outstripped my lowly tax income so I was even loosing money with the production sliders set to zero... I got into debt bad and with no way to recover my aspiring empire bogged down in debt and civil unrest... I don't know if things would have been recoverable at some point but I was falling way behind the other races and the last straw was the Dregin declaring war on us while we had no military capability...

So game over...

A little warning for anyone else seeking to expand your boarders too quickly...

[Bob the Insane]

Also about 10 I think, what I remember was total maintainence reaching 109bc and enve with a 100% tax rate I could only raise around 108bc.

I used my initial cash reserve to spam out the colony ships and build up Earth...

So I would love to hear what you did...

[Butcher]

Don't forget, you can 'optimise' a planet by clicking the tag in the box where it gives you the relevany hammers, shields etc. This comes at some loss of military and social production of the planet, but what does that matter if the planet doesn't even have a starport...?

[Zenicetus]

I was playing a small game to demo to some friends (to make it extra embarrasing of course) and I spammed out the colony ships and lucked out finding habital worlds...

So successful was I that my empire was way larger than all the other races at the end of the colony race...

But, then it turned up that my colony maintainence now outstripped my lowly tax income so I was even loosing money with the production sliders set to zero... I got into debt bad and with no way to recover my aspiring empire bogged down in debt and civil unrest...

You can run a defecit during the colony rush, but it has to be supported by cash reserves so you don't get too deep in the hole. Buy ships, but don't finance them. Get some research going on the techs that are quickest to research, and try to find other races quickly, so you can start selling your techs for cash. The minor races are really good for this... they love to buy your tech, and in the early phase there isn't much that's strategic. So I just sell everything. That's one reason I spam sensor scouts as well as colony ships in the rush phase, so I can find trading partners quickly.

You can get a LOT of cash to help support a defecit (or near defecit) economy this way. It's about the only way to boost your income in that phase, since your population isn't giving you much tax income yet, and you won't be running freighter trade routes that early.

<edit> P.S. I just noticed you were running a 100% tax rate. That's way too high.... you can do the colony rush with 49% tax rate, which will help with the unrest problem. Going too deep into defecit spending will also cause unrest, but not as much as a high tax rate.

[Bob the Insane]

<edit> P.S. I just noticed you were running a 100% tax rate. That's way too high.... you can do the colony rush with 49% tax rate, which will help with the unrest problem. Going too deep into defecit spending will also cause unrest, but not as much as a high tax rate.

Thats is not something I normally do, it was just to show the point of how deeply I had gotten into the hole...

The point is taken though, try and sell stuff...

Only issue was the game I was playing was a real small one of Humans against the Drengin (kind of Federation vs the Klingons kind of thing) so there were no friendlies to trade with...

[GoreBag]

I would have stopped building ships (unused military production doesn't cost ou a cent) on most worlds. If I was still struggling, I would have begun focusing the production on worlds where there were no ships being built on military production to further reduce my spending (taking away from research and social production). A few economic buildings here and there (generally one on each world, if there's enough space) and then, just sit back and let your taxpaying population grow. It takes a while to level out, but I can usually manage 100% spending after everything gets going.

[Ja'chyra]

Ordered this off of play.com (along with another copy of RTW as I broke the first one ) and it should be here tomorrow, if it's not as good as you all say I'm afraid I'll have to sulk for quite a while as I am very poor this month.

[Phatose]

Strangely, I'm finding that a production world, focused on research and surrounded by starbases puts out much more research then a research oriented world. Much more, in fact. This normal?

[Crandaeolon]

I noticed that a manufacturing-oriented world can output a decent amount of research (more than should be theoretically possible, i think) by focusing on research, but an optimised research world (labs instead of factories, etc.) is still more effective. Maybe your research world has less benefit from starbases, low-quality labs, less racial bonuses or somesuch?

In any case, a new patch (1.1) should be available rather soon to fix a lot of the current bugs and oddities. It includes economics fixes and tweaks to the system, and better tooltips to explain where the numbers come from.

[Butcher]

And an optional banning of tech trading.

[GoreBag]

Banning of tech trading? That just seems silly.