This is not so much a bug report as it is a balance issue.

Whenever I play the game with 12 competitors, inflation skyrockets.

It costs almost 3k dust to buyout a vodyani harvester at turn 20.

Hello there :)

Could you please provide a save for us to look at? That'd be quite helpful!

Thank you for your report!

I don't think a save is needed, it was and still is easily reproducible, inflation simply goes rampant at the amount of dust produced, especially considering AI claims 100 dust a turn achievment by the turn 1.