Financial Slider Recommendations?

[Arazok]

Does anybody have any tips for how to manage your budget? Early/Mid/Late game?

I generaly hike my empire tax toward 20 percent, and my planet tax upward fo 7-10. I was noticing for a bit that the higher I set my empire tax, the less my planets were producing, and I began running small deficits.

I tried setting the polict to savings. All that happened was my planets stoped building everything, and the "debt reduction/saving" % on my planets went through the roof. I then ran even larger deficits! Get nothing, and pay through the nose for it?! ok.

What do you guys ususaly do with this stuff? I'm at about turn 150 now, and I have my Grants/
Research and Military set to about 30% each. I'm feeling that the grants to planet slider is a waste of money this late in the game. Any suggestions?

[AlanC9]

I presume you don't have a lot of new colonies at turn 150, right? Grants probably won't do much for you at that level.

I never run Imperial taxes that high. Then again, I aim my development on each planet to produce good local tax revenues (good industry on all worlds plus high-value bio/mine DEAs and spaceports), so a producing planet doesn't need Imperial money to function.

[Arazok]

In this game no. I've been stagnantly locked in a descent position where I have two empires on either end of my systems. They are both much wearker then I am, and I esily fight off their half-assed attacks, but when I invade they smoke me. Mostly because I can't get my new designs out very quickly. I've noticed that playing with these sliders makes a HUGE difference in output. I'm looking to get the edge I need.

[MarcP]

REDUCE the empire-wide spending.
You may think you're changing the total tax burden when you change the empire and system taxes, but all that you're really doing is shifting the taxes from one level to another. I usually run with system taxes of 5/empire taxes of 10, and should probably run with them lower.

The viceroy will then increase planet
spending, and you'll produce more.

At least you'll get to control how the money gets spent, unlike the empire-wide research & military grants.

cheers,

Marc

[Mailer]

I don't agree with one of the above statements. Planetary grants always have a use, as many of my planets still spending more money than they make because of my overdriving of production. My planets NEED those grants because I want that battlecruiser to come out in 4 turns instead of 30 turns. Granted, some of my planets are rich enough to afford my demands (planets with contraband special generate a LOT of income i've noticed.)

But other planets, even developed ones, might be spending more than they make even 200 to 300 turns in.

[MarcP]

The problem is that you have no way of controlling grant spending (there is some completely opaque algorithm), while you can control planetary spending. It is true that the grants can pump up production, but it is just as likely that your cash will go to making more frigates at random little planets as it is that they will go to big ships at big planets.

I also think that the interplay between global and planetary taxes is extremely misleading. People *think* they're getting more cash by raising empire taxes, when in reality the viceroys are deciding the total tax rate with almost no input from the players. All you're doing is controlling how much the planets spend locally and how much gets dropped into an empire-wide pool for the computer to allocate. High empire taxes seem to redistribute cash from the big planets to the small ones, as far as I can tell.

cheers,

Marc

[TommyLV]

The way that the grants are made is a little strange. For one of my new colonies (about turn 475) a grant of 2M AU was given in each of its first 3 turns. This new colony hasn't finished its first DEA yet so the MAX output is 50 or 60 PPs and I have 7M AUs in the bank. Yet other planets have an income of less than a thousand AUs and 5k in the bank and have difficulty overdriving production at all. This is not a good combo.

[Skymage]

I keep my empire taxes as low as possible without completely strapping my empire

--Example--

In my current game (psilons, large 3 armeg galaxy, senate win off, ~turn 450) my empire tax is at 3% and my system tax is at 1%. This gives my empire enough money to maintain the fleet (~1300 ships active) and give grants to new colonies (usually after I've glassed the previous owners off of it :) ). This also allows the planetary viceroy to crank up the planetary taxes to ~33-37% and build those leviathens in 5-8 turns :up: . One other benefit is, this gives the VR plenty of room to control unrest and build the infrastructure needed to become industry heavyweights.

--End Example--

I know it sounds wierd, lower taxes and get more. Think of it more as whether the money stays local or goes to the central government.


SkyMage

[Paul5343]

Turn 1 to about 50 I reduce tech slider to zero, and have about 20% military and 80% planetary grants selected. Later in the game I will adjust to speed up tech and crank up the military slider at times of war.

The settings for peace prosperity etc. make a big difference to military production, when I am building my fleet I raise these until it is finished.

[Czaroc]

I agree and disagree with a lot of what is above :) which is always the case.

In your position I would lower my empire and maybe system tax and raise planetary taxes. Also, select your big producing worlds (anything size 8 or bigger) and mark them with a few astricks (renaming them). Then you can find them easier. Go to all of these marked planets and rebuild them to maximize production.

Two choices are to put one industry in each region and fill the other with something usefull (mine, farm, research) or to make these planets all industry.

Either way put one government dea on each planet to boost your manufacturing. (I think you will get 4% increase w/o a SSOG)

Don't worry about shorting yourself resources. Go to other planets to make up the difference fi you are playing it close on resources. I know it is difficult to rip a mine off of a mountain on a very rich planet, but it will be worth it in the end. you can basically have these Monster Producers build all of your ships and your other planets can all focus on research (more money on the slider bar), which will boost your tech level a little.

Lastly, for 20 turns or so, stop building big ships on these monster planets. Put money into building and improving your DEA's, building infrastructure, and shipyard improvements. When they are done, you should have 40-50 planets each kicking out a premium ship each 3-4 turns.

Anyways - my 2 cents.