Creative accounting in GC

from Stardock Forums
First off, let me add my voice to those saying do not assume victory until you are actually there. I have done well at times until the very end, then wham! Brad has stated IFAIK that depending on difficulty, the ai may plan up to 25 moves ahead, with a plan suddenly comming to fruition and changing things. I agree that this appears to happen regularly.

My question is the sudden downturns. I am on subnormal large and doing very well. Suddenly, I notice that I am negative bc from a thousand or more bc in reserve. I go to economics and it shows a healthy positive bc cashflow. Go to planets and morale is fine. Hit turn, and I go more negative even though my cashflow is still positive on the accounting screen. I looked at the displays on the mini-map and it showed no production at any planet??? This will turn around eventually but what is happening?

Is this the fruition of a destabilizing attack?

It has happened more than once in more than one game.
I saw no economic downturn news alerts, etc.

Thanks



156 views 2 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
On the flip side:

I had a system defect from my empire, and suddenly I went from ~0 bc to 10,000 bc!

I'm sure there's a reason for it, but I sure don't get it. :)
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
I'm not sure if this is exactly what you're experiencing, but it sounds similar to the problem i was having.

If you hit -500 or more in the hole, all spending will be discontinued, which means your planets won't produce anything (no production) but you'll have a _large_ positive cash flow. However as soon as you get above -500 production again any cash flow problems will reasert themselves, and you may quickly go back into the negative again.

I got into that cycle and couldn't figure it out for awhile, because every time i hit negative cash i'd look at the economics chart and it would say i have a lot of cash coming in. I didn't look at the economic scale in the alternating turns for quite awhile because i always had a positive amount of cash at the time. :)
Star Control: Origins