Why do the AI's out-tech me early on?

What AI intelligence you playing at? I usually out-tech the AI.

I'm playing average AI's all around, so I thought I'd stay equal or get ahead with the tech bonus.

Grifman

How do your economics look? One of the factors that drives how hard you can research is the overall strength of your economy.

I notice the same thing play with average AI players and find a major race early in the game you are lucky to have the universal translator, impulse drive while the have 4 or 5 technologies.

I think the planets you start with is a big factor as well. If the class of Earth is 15-18 while th e Alien home world is 25 it makes it hard to catch up.

the best strategy is to research diplomacy techs first. Then you can trade teches early on so you catch up quickly. Also, you can milk Minor races for money. Minor races will pay for for tech that it costs you to buy tech from others, if you have good diplomacy bonus. That means you can buy off all the tech from other empires on the money made by sales of tech to minor races, plus income!

The sad thing is that you should not have to trade have minor races and major races just to stay on par. If you play average the AI should be average and not be able to research faster than you.

I think that it is a two pronged strategy for boosting your tech rate: You have to boost the economy and the tech at the same time. I always find it goes faster if one of the first things I build is the banking center. Also if you can find a ecnomic resource and put a constructor on it that helps tremendously.

For me, boosting your economy means tax rate at 100%, spend rate at 60%. As long as nobody's voting for me, I'm not too concerned about what the citizens think of me as a human being. Besides, the approval rating usually rises fairly quickly.
When approval starts to sag again, you lower your tax rate.
When your treasury starts to hemorrhage due to lost tax revenue, go for the tech that increases your maximum trade routes by 1 and fill that third route right away. If you've got a trade good, trade it for cash. (This doesn't usually work for me - it seems as if the aliens would rather deal with the devil than trade with me. Maybe they just expect things for free this close to Christmas.)

End transmission.

In any real-world economic system, a tax rate of 100% will cause economic activity to drop to zero very quickly. I haven't tried it in GC, but I would hope that the economic model would penalize you more than just by approval ratings sinking.

by trade manipulations I'm running at 0% tax and 100% spending and 10,000+ in the treasury. I focus on social production and buy off the best alient ships and all their transports

Doh!

I meant to type spend rate at 100%, tax rate at 60%; and if I wasn't an idiot, that's exactly what would have happened. :notsure:

'In any real-world economic system, a tax rate of 100% will cause economic activity to drop to zero very quickly. I haven't tried it in GC, but I would hope that the economic model would penalize you more than just by approval ratings sinking.'

It does, but not directly. Sinking approval ratings means sinking morale, and morale figures into alomst everything else somewhere along the line. 100% tax rate without all morale improvements, techs, and resources means you highest planet's morale probably won't be above 40%, which will severely reduce tax income, production, and research (and should reduce influence, in my opinion, but doesn't now).

And 100% tax rate doesn't nessisarily mean economic inviability, unless you assume capitalism, which often isn't be the case with the first form of government in GalCiv, dictatorships; and may not be with the second, democracies (true communism could be abstracted to be a form of democracy; it is 'by the people,' and 'of the people,' there just isn't a government to do it 'for the people').

"And 100% tax rate doesn't nessisarily mean economic inviability, unless you assume capitalism, which often isn't be the case with the first form of government in GalCiv, dictatorships; and may not be with the second, democracies (true communism could be abstracted to be a form of democracy; it is 'by the people,' and 'of the people,' there just isn't a government to do it 'for the people'). "

A 100% tax rate means that any productive acheivement by every worker, whether recorded in days of work, pounds of grain, or numbers of stellar drive components produced, if taken and used for government purposes. Ergo, no incentive to work to prioduce; ergo, everyone 'mails it in'. Like in the former Soviet Union, when the actual tax rate was not 100%, but close to it. Great achievement was not rewarded, so very few produced great achievement; but everyone still wanted 3 hots and a cot.

This is the only game I am aware of that requires about a 60% tax rate to make a coin or 2 per month. In the real world, a 60% tax rate would strangle growth, cause riots, etc. Might work for a few turns to pay for a big starship or for defensne in a tough war, but IMO, anything over 40% should have dire consequences in the game, if it purports to be a simulator of sorts.

I get Taxed 60% all the time, am heard of no riots.
Half the cash is taken up front, Fed Tax, Prov Tax, CCP, EI, etc...., then you have 15% sales tax, gas taxes, property taxes and all sorts of hidden taxes.

I love somebody actually thinks that 30% of what they make goes to taxes in the big picture much more is taxed.

A Social Democratic Society is always not efficient and expensive.

Now as far a the game is concerned early in the game you can set spending rate to 100% and tax rate to 60% and get away with it. You trade goods and you can find ways to stay at this level for awhile. But over time the Tax rate has to drop. I think of the Tax rate is what to Federal Government takes without all the other taxes.

One of the biggest factors is how quick can you find a planet at class 26 or higher. This is a major advantage if all your planets are class 15-18 forget it the aliens which always seem to get better planets to start with will out produce you.

Even if you get a class 26 planet then Aliens always out produce you early in the game. They fact gets worse with the smart aliens. I do not know how they must play with different rules. At genius level they build ships like crazy, their population goes up like crazy and get technologies faster. Try to build ships or research as fast you population with drop because you are not spending money on social programs.

Just play with no higher than average ALiens or cheat.
I explained in another thread two easy way to cheat.

I don't know. Maybe I'm a freak. I have yet to have any problems beating the pants off of the aliens in every respect on Average. By the time I meet any of the Major races I am leaps and bounds ahead of them in tech. I have way more planets and way more population. I usually don't have many ships, but if any of them declare war on me that changes damn quick.

I do follow a VERY large colonization run at the beginning, putting my military spending to 55% and overall spending to 100% to pump out the colony ships and expand in all directions as fast as I can. By the time I meet any major race I usually have at least 12 systems under my belt(if there were no majors around me at the start).

I don't understand why would anyone want to play anything less than "genius" AI? unless it's for learning purposes, but then you shouldn't seriously discuss it. Most gameplay testing should be conducted with toughest difficulty level, unless the toughest levels involve heavy cheating.

Because the game should be fun for everyone, Master Lame, even those just starting out.

Not everyone is the gaming wizard you are. Does that mean that the game shouldn't serve their needs too?