Difference of Planet Economics & Empire Finance

[MaWu]

Hi guys,

after a lot of reading in this forum I still do not understand the connection between the planetary economics and the finance panel.


Scenario: new game, cycle 1. My empire is one planet.


Planetary Economics Panel:
--------------------------

1. I do not quite understand what the GPP is although I guess that means the GNP (Gross National Product) of the planet, i.e. the sum of all people's revenues. I understand that it is made by population, DEAs etc. It currently is 1290 AU.

2. The tax rate is 21% (332 AU), but this is not 21% of 1290 AU. If I add the grants to planets or even the 4% system tax - it never matches.

3. I understand all expenses and the funding sliders, and I assume that the bank account is unique for each planet.


Empire Finance Panel
--------------------

1. Where does the Imperial Tex Revenue come from? My empire is made out of one single planet now, in the Budget panel the tax is set to 10%. I assume, that the tax is paid from the GDP (GNP?) of the planets, but 10% of 1290 AU is not 131 AU which is shown to me on the ledger panel, although it is pretty close. Is it perhaps a rounding error?

2. The Military Maintenance shows 1 AU although on the fleet list, there are two fleets with each 1 AU and Hawk Defense with 2 AU (= 4 AU)

3. My Military Grants are 92 AU but I don't know, where the money is spent. As I understand it, the military production on a planet is paid by the planet's revenues.

4. Grants to planets should be one source of revenues for the planets and as I have only one, is it included in the Tax Income? But 21% of 1290 AU plus 35 AU grants is not 332 AU which is the planet's tax income.

5. What is the System Tax of 4%? Is it taken from the GDP and raises the Tay Revenue of the planet? Doesn't seem so. Believe me, I added and subtracted everything from anything, but it never works out... (and I studied economics!)

6. I assume the empires bank account is unique, so we have a bank account for each planet and one for the empire.

Can anybody help?

[Lennier]

Originally posted by MaWu
Hi guys,

after a lot of reading in this forum I still do not understand the connection between the planetary economics and the finance panel.


Scenario: new game, cycle 1. My empire is one planet.


Planetary Economics Panel:
--------------------------

1. I do not quite understand what the GPP is although I guess that means the GNP (Gross National Product) of the planet, i.e. the sum of all people's revenues. I understand that it is made by population, DEAs etc. It currently is 1290 AU.

2. The tax rate is 21% (332 AU), but this is not 21% of 1290 AU. If I add the grants to planets or even the 4% system tax - it never matches.

3. I understand all expenses and the funding sliders, and I assume that the bank account is unique for each planet.
I've never quite understood where the money available for the planet comes from; I just look at the final amount and go from there. Some of the numbers seem to be "last turn" numbers; some seem to be "estimated next turn" numbers. I'm not sure which is which. There's other strange behavior on that screen. The amount spent seems to jump around. Try increasing one of the sliders 1 AU at a time; you'll see the amounts spent don't change at every click.:weird:
Empire Finance Panel
--------------------

1. Where does the Imperial Tex Revenue come from? My empire is made out of one single planet now, in the Budget panel the tax is set to 10%. I assume, that the tax is paid from the GDP (GNP?) of the planets, but 10% of 1290 AU is not 131 AU which is shown to me on the ledger panel, although it is pretty close. Is it perhaps a rounding error?
The imperial tax revenue is supposed to be applied to all planets in the empire. Again, some of the numbers are "last turn", some "next turn." I'm not sure which is which.
2. The Military Maintenance shows 1 AU although on the fleet list, there are two fleets with each 1 AU and Hawk Defense with 2 AU (= 4 AU)
I don't know.
3. My Military Grants are 92 AU but I don't know, where the money is spent. As I understand it, the military production on a planet is paid by the planet's revenues.
After the planet pays for military production, Roy spreads the military grant money around in an attempt to speed up projects. With only one planet, he's only got one place to put the money. The project on that planet should complete faster than what you would expect from the "turns remaining" on the MBQ. With bigger emires, you'll see this effect as the things that are listed as being built later in the sitrep.
4. Grants to planets should be one source of revenues for the planets and as I have only one, is it included in the Tax Income? But 21% of 1290 AU plus 35 AU grants is not 332 AU which is the planet's tax income.
The Grants to Planets money is added to the tax money; your planet should have 367 AU to spend. The planetary grants are a good way for Roy to start out planets when they are initially colonized.
5. What is the System Tax of 4%? Is it taken from the GDP and raises the Tay Revenue of the planet? Doesn't seem so. Believe me, I added and subtracted everything from anything, but it never works out... (and I studied economics!)
The system tax is applied to every planet and gets put into the system seat of government planet's account. Note that there are some inefficiencies in transferring money from local (planetary) economies to regional (i.e., system) or national (i.e., empire) governments and redistributing. IIRC you loose 5% of the monies involved.
6. I assume the empires bank account is unique, so we have a bank account for each planet and one for the empire.

Can anybody help? That is correct. Money can get transferred from one planet to another (system taxes) or from a planet to the empire back to another planet (imperial taxes.)

[DavidByron]

I seem to have lost my notes on this one... and I had a quick check against the starting turn and saw some problems (of course turn 1 may be a bit odd anyway - try turn 2).

The basics are well known and you got them right: planetary tax goes to the planet, system tax to the lead planet in the system and imperial tax to the imperial treasury. The grants then spend money at the planetary level.

Previously I've published some findings here but nothing particularly in one place unfortunately. Some details I remember:

(a) The GDP is calculated from population levels and DEA outpit as you said. The exact formula is available in the Economics 101 thread. It is complex. eg for a Bio DEA it is the sum of (output that is eaten x 7.5) + (output that is used in industry using higher techs x 5) + (unused output x 2.5 x 1-unemployment rate) + (amount for rare biomaterial = output x fertility level x some constant I don't recal). Formula for the Bio Mining and Industry DEAs are in there and I think Da Blade put some figures up for Space Ports which I cannot confirm. Apart from that only population and Recreation DEAs give money and they are fairly small and a simple formula.

(b) The Income figure is not the income you got, or the income you will get, but a sort of fudge between the two, an estimate of what you will get next turn if next turn has the same tax and GDP and so on as this turn, and consequently an accurate report of what you did get this turn until you change the tax% and then refresh the calculation by exiting the planet screen and re-entering it. It includes both system tax (if the planet is the system leader) and planetary tax. The calculation really is basically tax rate x GDP. Later in the game certain buildings like Commodities Market and maybe Gov add-ons provide a % bonus to the tax Income (not the GDP!) without changing the tax rate. This gets you to within less than 1% of the end result but as you say there's a little discrepency, which in your case is about 0.6% of GDP although it's usually about 0.9% in my repeats of the situation. What's really odd is that if you put your tax rate down to 0% and then up and refresh you might see that discrepency disappear. Oh by the way leaders also effect income, usually by about -2% of the Income (not 2% of the GDP!). after you've eliminated that odd discrepency by fiddling the tax rate up and down you sometimes see an even smaller discrepency from a pattern of "round down". eg a GDP of 1290 or 1291 often gives 128 Income.

(c) Whereas the planetary Income will refresh with a change of tax rate the imperial income will not because it is what income you actually got last turn. Of course that's what the planetary Income is initially so it's odd to hear that the imperial income has a little descrepency of about 1-2 AU *up* not down. Incidentally I was using 10x larger figures than you and still only getting these discrepencies at 1-2 AU levels.

(d) Haven't looked at the fleet maintainence costs. I assume you costs on the fleet list are rounded diffferently. I think the tables say something like .1% of the cost of the hull is the maintenance cost.

(e) Military grant is expended as Lennier said, at the planets in the same way as the planets normally spend the military monies, but after the planets have spent their monies --- I reported a while back the tell tale ordering in the sitrep of the construction reports. A planet will ocassionally be mentioned twice, once for its production making something and then for the production of something using imperial grants. Unknown how the AI minister decides which planet - presumably it looks to spend the monies in the planets that have the lowest "colour" of override costs first - which is what the research grant does. I could NOT see a 5% deduction in this process. I actually fund almost all my research through imprial grant these days. Perhaps I should do the same for military.... but with research the lack of control is not an issue.

(f) the planetary grant given in the turn just gone is listed next to the income - so it probably is best to think of the listed Income as last turns (but beware that it refreshes when you change the tax rate). Terminology: above when I mentioned "Income" I wasn't including the planetary tax or trade numbers. Different calculations.

out of time......
btw do you know how to access the data tables?

[MaWu]

Hi,

ok, thanks a lot. It is ok for me to know, that this are not exact figures in a way. Slowly I get a feeling for it and that's probably what the designers intended. A little tough to understand though...

btw do you know how to access the data tables?

No, but that's okay. I don't want to repeat macro-economics ;)

Thanks, MaWu