Hi All,



I found this post explaining the economy:



https://www.games2gether.com/endless-space/forum/33-strategy-guides/thread/14057-understanding-dust-production-and-income-in-a-system



But it's from back in May near/before release. Have any changes been made to the economy to fix these rather serious problems with taxation? I searched, but could find no info regarding any changes, so I have a proposal below.



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Game economies are not real economies. In real life, governments just let the people work things out for themselves, and then tax the successful businesses/people, and then it buys or contracts out for what it needs (planes etc). If we made our game like real life, a lot of the fun would be lost.



In this genre we make decisions that real governments would leave to businessmen, and we profit directly. So a game government (the player, really) builds factories, and then decides what those factories build. It's more like a dictatorship or a communist state. Or closer to home for us Americans, it's like a state owned 'business' like NASA. This is more fun for us strategy gamers - we want to build things, not just contract them out.



So I agree with the linked post that the old economy is broken. If I colonize a planet that says gives me 3 dust per pop, I should get 3 dust per pop. And if I then build an improvement that costs 3 dust upkeep, but gives me 1 dust per pop, then I should break even with 3 pop.



The old system multiplied the upkeep costs by taxing before upkeep. But the 'new' (proposed, really) system would 'hide' (divide) the upkeep cost of an improvement by applying taxes AFTER upkeep. Example: Say a system makes 100 dust, but no improvements, and our tax rate is a simple (no multiplier) 50%. We'd get 50 dust. Now say we build improvements that cost 20 dust upkeep. We'd now have 80 left to be taxed at 50%... so we'd really only be losing 10, rather than 20.



So I propose a completely different system: let's embrace the communist ideal! We already operate our factories, research facilities, and everything as if they're owned by the government, so why would we TAX at all if we own everything? But we need some kind of tax-like system to balance money versus happiness... I don't want to uppend EVERYTHING But since all money belongs to our communist-like state, let's not call it tax - let's call it infrastructure, or happiness, or whatever. It's a direct payment after we produce wealth and pay bills that improves the lives of our comrades: better roads, schools, entertainment venues etc. So this would be our more direct cash to happiness siphon.



So the end path would look something like this:



(Dust Production - Upkeep Costs) >>> State Wealth >>> Infrastructure

>>> Military

>>> Heroes



We'd be rewarded for good decisions with increased Dust Production, penalized by bad decisions with unnecessary upkeep. And we'd still have our slider for deciding how much liquid cash we have versus approval/happiness. I guess this is similar to the original Civ mechanism with their economy, where gold was divvied up between cash, science, and happiness, just minus the science.



And it could still be percentage based: 0% is you pay for nothing, and 100% means you pay for everything, with the actual cost abstracted based on pop size. This is where the game designers could throw in arbitrary (but I'd hope linear) multipliers to get the balance right. They could even create a few new faction traits for populations that are easier or harder to please.



Eiger Out

In gameplay terms, I can see your point. This kind of administrative games tend to go to the interventionism in economy, to keep the player busy micro (Or macro) managing the economy to add gameplay deepness. But in lore terms, I'm afraid that would strip a lot of personality of the game if all the races uses the proposed econonmy system. Truth is, in ES, there are not really a "trader" faction, except of the Empire, and it's more like a military-industrial complex with corporations and government hard to differentiate. What I really expect with trader is a "laissez-faire" economy. But then, If you think the concept economy in the game, it's hard to imagine, specially with some races. Sure the Empire and the Sophons, or the Amobea, can have a similar economy of what we can imagine of a modern economy. Correct me If I'm wrong, please, but when I read the description of the Sower, they're some kind of rowbats of the Endless, waiting for the return of the Endless. What kind of economy they can have? ROWBATS! And the Automatons, the hippy-ecological robots. They can't have economy, they're robots. Robots working for themselves, because in ES, the intern economy and the exterior economy are well separated one of another. So they have the argument of dust. Dust is the currency, and is also a resource. That brings another problem, inflation. Beign the currency based on a resource, the inflation is very low, almost unnoticiable, because government can't, in theory, start printing the currency out of nothing. But it's also a problem, because the currency can be weak or strong depending of the deposits of dust actually on the empire. So there can be inflationary or deflationary effects, depending on new foundings of dust or new techs making it more or less valuable. And finally, the keynesian approach of the economy tech. If you read the descriptions of the economy techs, they basically say: We make hyper-intelligent AIs who can make infinite money. So they take the money and invert it perfectly, always profit. They have all the information, always, at the needed moment, thanks to revenue zen (???) and quantum magic. So you can ♥♥♥♥ up even the most "capitalist" economies (Imperial, Sophons, Amoeba) with that keynesian computer magic.



"What do you want with that big economy speech?" Well, If I'm going to request, I'll make it clear. I like the idea of a new economy system, a deeper system. I want different economy systems. Every one would have it's pros and cons. I have been recently playing Victoria II, and while it's very different in politic, diplomatic and economic aspects of ES, dreaming is free, right? So Victoria II leaves the player with the decision of what economic system will be in his country (Not exactly, there are some political conditions, but that's another story). Interventionism combines capitalism, and private investment, with the capitalist of your country making some of the infraestructure and factories, and you subsidizing companies, making some of the infraestructure too, investing in private enterprises and making factories on the key sectors of the economy (Weapons, raw materials...) There are also state capitalism, where the player has all the power to make whatever he wants (Pretty much like ES right now) and finally, laissez-faire. Laissez faire gives big bonuses to the capitalist of your country, and they have to build the factories and the infraestructure, you can't interviene. But your decisions in politics and diplomacy will help to boost your economy by even low taxes and good relationships with the countries you trade. Maybe you can implement this on ES, depending of the race affinity and such. I have great hopes in ES turning into a real space empire manager, and no another "Kill everybody" game.



Obviously I don't expect the same deepness of the Victoria II system implemented in ES (Although it would be epic, and it could fix the Victoria II's laisez faire, which is utterly broken, because of the stupid capitalist AI making ice factories in the middle of the desert), but a revision on the economy would be nice

Hi Gofredd,



My idea really had nothing to do with communism vs capitalism, really. That was just mild tongue-in-cheek attempt at humor. It was really just an attempt to fix the economy problem described in the linked post.



Briefly the problem is this: as things are now, your income is a result of tax rate. Lower taxes, and you actually PRODUCE less. This screws up the intuitive relationship between dust production, dust system improvements, and what ends up in your pocket.



My idea is to simply put the cost of keeping your people happy AFTER income is tallied and accumulated. So basically you get ALL the money you produce, but then have increased costs to keep the people happy, leaving you with approximately the same net income, but without the oddities caused by the current system. Since we're in the role of the government, it makes more sense to call this new cost infrastructure rather than anything related to taxes.



Some of your other points I didn't quite understand.





Cheers, Eiger

Nice proposal for increasing the wealth of the economy. Why don't we start investing self. It will result in increase in self and countries economy.

There would be another solution to the problem. When you look at a system improvement it could also show you which amount of dust you would get per pop at the current tay rate.

Here an example

Adaptive taxation system gives you 2 peropulation: at a tax rate of 50%

So if you have a tax rate of 25% you will see something like this when you hover over the improvement icon



2 per opulation: for planet

1 per opulation: for planet at the current tax rate

-7 for improvement