A few questions - money and population

On economy: Encyclopedia. Economy. Lots of explainaints.

When I started playing, I left the tax and spending sliders on the economics screen alone. Just messed with the Military/Social/Research split to begin with. The initial presets of tax/spend is 33%/50%. Which means you are trying to spend more then you get in tax. After you get rolling along, that means you are going in the whole. Initially, you cannot actually spend all that 50% (not enough workers) so it doesn't matter.

Mess about with your tax/spend sliders to adjust your overall money gained/lost per turn.

You are not getting any 20+ planets because they are generally only found at yellow stars. The AI starts out knowing where all the yellow stars are. You do not. You need to build a scout to start with, and rush about, looking for yellow stars. And then run colony ships over to them. The game does 2 rushes... rush for yellow star worlds, then rush for resources. After that, the AI settles down to it's strategizing...

I understand the sliders, but it still tells me I have a net income of 100 with the current settings. How do I tell how much of that 100 is spent on other things?

Thanks for the word on the 20+ worlds!

The economy screen, over on the right, shows you what your expense break down is. How much for military ships (Military), Social project upkeep, espionage, tribute and leases you are paying, etc.

And you are welcome. Some people go with leasing extra colony ships in the beginning, for a chance at some yellow worlds. others go for 100% max spending with high Military, 0 Social, and minor Research at the start. (Doing that, you can spit out a colony ship every 3 to 2 turns in the begining/early part of the game.) Depends on your strategy choice.

That's the confusing part - I study the economy screen in-depth and it says I have a net income of 100. I mean net is after expenses. So how come I don't gain 100 per round when it specifically shows 100 net after expenses?

Sorry if I'm being brain dead on this

" The initial presets of tax/spend is 33%/50%. Which means you are trying to spend more then you get in tax."

Really? I thought the spend rate was the amount of you tax that went straight to building stuff. If that's the case then I'll have to change how I fiddle with the sliders.

I thought that, too. But when I started a new game, I left the tax at 33% and put spend at 100%... I was now losing money (only about 7bc, not much when you start with 1000bc).

As far as the 20+ planets go, it's partly luck (on the way the map is made), as well as how aggressive you are at sending out the colony ships. I'll build one scout, then send the scout and the survey ship off in two directions (towards whatever directions the nearest stars show on the galaxy map).



~SDC~

"That's the confusing part - I study the economy screen in-depth and it says I have a net income of 100."

If it says, over to the top right, Net Income: 100, then yes your treasury should be increasing by 100 a turn. When are you checking this? Don't check it at the beginning of your turn. For some reason I don't quite understand, it changes over the course of your turn. Check it just before you hit next turn.

There's really no direct relation between Tax Rate and Spend Rate. Tax Rate is, obviously, how much you are taxing your citizens. Spend Rate is the percentage of your industrial capacity you are _paying_ to use each turn. So naturally, as you increase Spend Rate, your Net Income will go down.