Where is all my money going?

Atram,

Welcome to the forum.

Go to the Domestic screen (F4) and reproduce the income and expenses info at the top right of your screen. That would be helpful to us to determine the problem.

~SDC~

I am currently netting 3424 bc per turn. The breakdown is as follows:

INCOME
Taxes: 2125
Trade: 303
Tribute: 4
Total: 2432

EXPENSES
Military: 906
Maintenance: 572
Total: 1478

However, I am Minus (-) 3424 bc's at the moment. Periodically, my net worth will turn positive for a while, then I will go broke again. I am puzzled. It seems like a bug in the program, but I have been browsing through the forum, and I have not seen any other such complaints.

For what it is worth, I am running version 1.11.

Hmm... you want to send me your savegame? I can troubleshoot better with it.

Send the (savegamename).sav and the (savegamename) folder in Galciv/data/savegames to [email protected]
in a zip file ~SDC~
[Message Edited]

You're probably overspending: when your treasury goes below -500 billion credits, your factories stop functioning to get your net income back up. You're at -3400bc now. You're expenses are only the minimum maitanance on your social projects completed and your fleet.
~SDC~
[Message Edited]

Leases? (ie: rush buy)

Arturus Magi is right!

Set the Spend rating to Zero for a while and let your money come back to over -500...

Then increase your spend rating to a value where you are still making money...

I guess it will not be able to run more than 30% of your factories... Do you use all your trade routes? If not make more freighters and trade more... I often can get around 50% of my income from trade.

Echoing AIL.ST and Arturus Magi...

Where are your spending and taxation sliders set?

When in the game go to your Domestic Policy screen and then to Economics.

~SDC~

Thanks for the replies. There was a typo in my earlier post. I was netting 954 bc (Income minus Expenses), not 3424 per turn. My current balance was -3424.

Ray: I send the zip file to you. I played a few turns before zipping, but the situation is basically the same.

Arturus Magi and AIL.ST: Okay, I have just set my Spend Rate to zero. When I get a balance of 500 bc, I will gradually increase my spending rate.

I thought the Economics screen showed all the expenses. What other expenses are there?

Magus: My tax rate is 34% and the spend rate was 33%. Per AIL.ST's advice, spend rate is now 0%. I am sticking with the default income distribution: military: 33%, social: 33%, and research: 34%.

von Schmidt: I am not rush building/buying anything. I bought a colony ship in the beginning of the game, but it is now year 2202.

AIL.ST: I can establish two more trade routes. I have three. I am going to work on that.

Again, thanks for the help!

Atram, just to let you know, Ray lives in Singapore and may not get an answer back to you for several hours.

Atram: The other Expenses are that what your factories use when you have more than -500... You don't have these expenses as long as you are under -500...

Wait until you are over, set the Spend rating higher and see how according to the spend rating your expenses are raising.

Well, although I set the Spend Rate slider to zero % and have played several turns, I am broker than ever. Now I have minus (-) 8743 in my treasury. Even with the Spend Rate set at zero, the Economy screen says I am spending 1461 bc's per turn. I assume that means maintenance for my ships and social improvements cost that much. I have played around with the Tax rate; the optimum rate is 40%. If I set it higher than that, I receive much less money for some reason. Perhaps, my citizens give up their jobs in disgust at the higher tax rates.

Maybe it is just a coincidence, but it seems like I go deeper into debt whenever I invade an enemy's planet. I have just about eliminated the Torians and am eating up the I-League. Come to think of it, my money problems started about the same time I conquered my first planet. Could the increased maintenance costs of those planets be the problem? I destroyed a good portion of the population -- maybe they cannot afford those social improvements any more.
[Message Edited]

Atram,

that is very possible. On the left-hand side of the planet screen, it shows you a few stats about the planet (name, class, etc., I don't remember them all). At the bottom of the list is Income and Maintenance. The Income is based on your tax rate and the population; the Maintenance is based on the cost of improvements built on that planet. A good, high-population system might have 50bc in income and 45bc in maintenance, for a net income of 5bc. A fully developed system that you invaded that used to have 38 billion Torians but now has only your 1 billion surviving invaders may show an income of 8bc and a maintenance of 122bc, for a net cost to you of 114bc! If that's the case you can go and look on the Details screen for that planet and eliminate some of the costly projects that the Torians built (Virtual Reality Center , Info Net, Planetary Defense, etc.). (You probably don't want to bother tearing down things that you'd eventually re-build for yourself, though).

No matter that you expenses is in zero, your planets still are using money for maintenance, etc, ships, etc, etc, if when you lower your bar to zero, if your expenses are still more that what you get in, you -bc will keep increasing, try to sell some of your techs to the AI's to see if you can come out of the hole, other thing would be to sell some of your trade goods, try to set your sale at least to a 50 turns income rate and 100bc, don't try to get too much money in few turns, try to get a decent amount in as many turns as you can.

Any chance you could got to the Domestic screen and tell what your Military, Social, Research, Maintenance, Leases and tribute is when your spending slider is set to zero ?

Atram,

I've looked at your savegame.

The reason for your debt is due to a higher monthly expenditure as compared to your income. Once your treasury drops below -500bcs, the economy goes into shutdown mode. This means that all your resources are channelled into cash to restore your treasury above that level. That is why you see yourself getting a big surplus in your accounts. Once the empire treasury returns to >-500bcs, you need to change your spending slider to make sure that your net change in treasury is positive on a monthly basis. Else you will continue slip into a cycle of going into debt, shutdown & restore.

Some tips on how to improve your overall game:

1) Build more social improvements that help your morale, industry, research and economy. Very useful social improvements include all those with zero maintenance, entertainment network, fusion power plant, stock market, research lab, anti-matter power plants, teleporters, economic exchange, etc. You should use a governor with a queue list to reduce micromanagement.

2) Scrap (go to planet details, click on the improvement on the left list and select cancel project) projects that are no longer useful. You have news networks, planetary defenses and cultural exchange centres deep in your own territory. These aren't going to be useful but they sap your cash every month.

3) Build constructors and mine those resources. Since you currently have problems keeping up your morale (in the fifties range with tax rate only at the thirties), it would be a good idea to go for morale resources (don't forget to build those morale improvements as well). Other resources are also very useful.

4) Reduce your huge military. Your current military rating is 304 but if you move all those ships that you have sitting next to your systems into orbit (being in orbit increases the ship attack) your military rating would shoot up further. You can scrap (no money back) or better yet sell or trade all those scores of defenders, starfighters, battle cruisers to the AIs. Your numerous frigates and battle hammers are sufficient to deal with the remaining AIs. Ships cost maintenance, so spending 1/3 of your income on maintenance means much less for social improvements and research.

That's all for now. Let us know if you have more questions. Have fun.

~SDC~

Thanks for your analysis, Ray! I have printed out your tips, and I am trying to implement your sound advice. It is hard for me to scrap ships, though, even weak ones. I would rather use them to try to overwhelm the enemy. It is more fun, even if most of them are destroyed.

I seem to have gotten my cash flow problem under control. I have about 9000 bc's -- I twiddle with the slider bars every turn if I start to lose money, or make an excessive amount.

Thanks, again!

The problem is not caused by my monthly expenditures after all. It occurs because every time I invade an ai planet, it costs me 2 or 3 thousand bc's. I cannot figure out why, though. The planets are always turning a profit, even though they have lost most of their population.

Has anyone else experienced this problem?

Just a wild guess, but are these new wars with fresh invasions or a continuation of old wars? Once you go to war with someone, all the trade between them and you are finished. If they are a major trading partner already (especially if it is their mini-freighters coming your way and few of yours going theirs), you might just be shooting your economy in the foot by cutting off a good deal of trade income.



There are uses for old line ships, but mostly as commerce raiders (destroying enemy mini-freighters to other aliens), picking off weakly defended planets with only transports or colony ship guards, or killing woefully underdefended starbases. The fact is that corvettes are going to be next to useless against death knights and frigates are going to have a hard time vs. dreads, for example. It is better to first try to sell the old ships to a minor who is one of your trade partners but is being picked on by the majors, or to a major alien who you intend to drain money off of by making him suck up the maintanence cost of the old ships (after you get your payment, of course), or to a major alien who needs a little help in a war and is going to sacrifice those ships in short order anyway once they find targets.

Galciv is a game that favors the attacker, though. So if you have a speed and sensor advantage (by building Grav Accels and Eyes of the Universe) you might be able to effectively hit an enemy ship, destroy it, and run back out of range of a counter-attack. This could put some life into the old ships, but there are limits. As I pointed out, corvettes are not going to realistically kill any death knights, but a corvette might take down a battle cruiser. Essentially, in any battle involving ships of equal classes and near equal weapon/defense bonuses, the attacker is going to win. An attacking ship one level below a defender (frigate vs. battleship, for example) usually has a chance. But on defense, you better have an edge in class or a big advantage in bonuses.

Hi, Gerraken! Thanks for the thoughtful reply. Regarding the planet invasions, the money loss occurs any time I take over an ai planet, whether it is in the beginning of a war or the end, whether they are a trading partner or not. I will have a positive cash flow going, take over a planet, and immediately take cash hit of 2 to 3 thousand bc's that turn. The following turn my treasury amount will start going up again, so it does not seem to have anything to do with the loss of trade partners. Also, the planet itself will be turning a profit. I have checked the Trade screen and the Economics screen, and nothing else has changed.

I am beginning to wonder if this is some sort of game balancing feature of GalCiv. I am so far ahead of the ai players in every respect in this current game that I am unstoppable. Perhaps this cash penalty is meant to provide some challenge to a player who is getting too early an advantage.

Hi Altram,



If you don't use "traditional warfare" when invading a planet, there is a BC cost for invading it is stated on the invasion screen.

Ooooooohhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!

Thanks, Aaberg. I really should read the fine print!