Taxes, morale, and pop growth balancing at start-up

from Stardock Forums
I have read the early strategy posts, but I still have some early game strategy questions related to the relationships between taxes, morale and population growth.

I can raise taxes a lot in the beginning so that my economy is going full steam (100% spend) and not incurring a deficit, pumping out colony ships quite often (military slider set to 50-55%). However the decrease in morale causes population to grow much more slowly, meaning that my colony ships are going out with few people aboard and thus founding colonies that can’t themselves produce colony ships for a while because of their very small (i.e. around 100 million pops) which grow slowly (slower than Earth usually, lower planet quality). And of course low pops mean less taxes and production capacity, so that while I may have a number of systems (never, it seems, as many as the Drengin) they’re not doing an awful lot, and neither is Earth which gets rather quickly depopulated even without putting a lot of people on each colony ship.

Alternatively, I can use a setting which keeps morale higher and either not spend 100% or incur a deficit (or both). Of course this slows down colony ship production, but population grows faster and has longer to grow in between colony ships which can be sent out with larger payloads. I like playing on the largest maps, which means the expansion phase is lengthy and I can’t afford running large deficits for long. I’ve been reading about using propaganda, will try that, any comments on how it fits into the mix?

So what’s a better strategy in your experience? Slower initial expansion (in the number of systems colonized) but greater population (more taxes, production, per planet, colonies starting with larger pop bases) or is it truly imperative to just claim as many systems as you can even if it means just plopping down almost empty (i.e. 50-75 million) ships?

Also, morale advantages would seem to have the tangible benefit of letting you keep taxes at a higher level while getting a similar approval rating. How do the extra taxes you can impose because of a morale modifier compare to a straight economic modifier? How great a proportion of a planet’s taxes/production potential comes from quality vs. population? So how big of an advantage is it if your planets have somewhat higher pops earlier on (let’s say you let Earth grow to 1.5 billion vs. you let the pop fall to half of that through aggressive colonization/low morale, or send out colony ships with 100 million in them vs. 300 million or more)?

I have seen the Drengin do both (they always seem to be my neighbours, and while I’m at the edge of the map they’re towards the centre and always cutting off my routes to expansion), I’ve seen the dropping down colonies of 50-75 million, and I’ve seen them with colonies of 1-2 billion early on when my pop is less than that on Earth (in different games, it would appear to have been different strategies). They are obviously much better at balancing things than me (normal intelligence).

And while starting locations have their advantages/disadvantages, how critical are they? When I start off at the edge of the map and I’m cut off two sectors in (biggest map) by the Drengin, are the odds so bad that I might as well restart unless I really feel like a challenge?
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Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
I'd like some answers to the starting population questions also. I've tried a few different things - and it always seems like I'm stuck dead last with pop... most of the time the Altarians have 3-4 times my pop - as far as the graph is concerned anyways..

Any help?
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
I'd also like to know more about growing my population. I know that if I can get at a minimal a class 19 for Earth then I'm in the game. It seems the better the planet, the better the growth potential.

My concern for now is finding that right level for Tax and Spending rate. I've also fiddled with those resource slide and I think that I fiddled too much :( Wound up in a debt and the only way out is with a Spend of 10%. My Military spending is 206bc

I had earlier did a quick growing of my military might by having all 34 planets build Battle Cruiser and the spend rate was at 100 and so was the Military slide. Should have seen what was done when Social was at 100. LOL
Sins of a Solar Empire II
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
In my current game, I'm in the same boat with you, BarryB. I built so many Battlecruisers for defense that I looked up one day and saw that I was spending over 200 BC on military representing the maintenance on those ships. For a while there, I had an economic boom and was bringing in 400BC total and spending 200BC on research. When the economic boom ended, I was shocked to see my research drop to just 20BC or less.

When I get back to the game this weekend, I'll definitely need to make some serious money selling techs!

Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
Population growth is dependent on morale. I usually ensure that I run my taxes at the 100 limit, at least for the majority of planets - that keeps my population at max.

At the start of the game, I put my tax at somewhere between 30-50. As morale is heavily dependent on planet quality, it will wary depending on how lucky you got with Earth quality (varies between 16-20). Fiddle with the tax meter every turn to ensure you have 100 morale and as much tax as you can get away with.

Max government spending, all military will build a colony ship in 2 months (which is one every three, but ...). I usually try to find a place to drop the early colonizer ASAP, so I can use it to build a horde of scouts.

Exactly how to continue depends a LOT on the situation. 2-5 rounds of colony ship building, then tech up for impulse and translator ... at which time you try to make tech trading any which way.


~SDC~
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
I don't worry about cash and population in the beginning. Expand, expand, expand! At game start, keep taxes at 33%, max the military slider so you have (60/20/20), start Earth building colony ship and spread out. Note: If you want your initial ship to have more than 100m colonists, move it onto Earth and relaunch it next turn.

You will slowly go into debt this way, but you incur no long term payment penalties and crank out colony ships at a very good rate. To get your colonies going faster, make each one at least 200m. For planets with larger populations, put about 1/3 of the population on a colony ship. Any planet with less than 350m or so due to build a ship should make a constructor.

When you get close to -500 cash you reduce spending until you show a very slight profit and keep expanding. Once the expansion phase is over, increase taxes until you show 75% or so approval, Adjust your sliders for the type of game you play, and enjoy your good opening position. If you keep your approval at 65-70% you will slowly have to drop the slider down, but that will only increase your population growth. Eventually you will catch up, and likely surpass your opponents.


~SDC~
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
Thanks for the info about setting the Resource slides (Mil/Social/Res) to 60/20/20. I saw it mentioned in a few places and gave it a try. Works like a charm. :) It was playing with the Tax rate that I needed some insight. Now, I'm more comfortable with that thing.

The spending rate tactics were a blast. :) Beasts me having to crank that Mil slider to 100 and not be able to do any Research or Social projs.

I know some had said to grab Universal Translator, first and in general I agree. Except, I need to crank up some speed so I head straight for Impulse.

Well, this is agame where it doesn't pay to be too shy about deficit spending. Just have to be careful about getting into the negatives.
Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top
Yeah... I answered my own question in my game last night.

Set spending to 100%. Taxes to the highest point where Earth was 100 Approval. I built 1 scout first - I find this helps with getting 2 extra turns of growth on Sol before you start cranking out colony ships.

Then colony ships, with my military set to around 75-80% (a colony ship every 3 turns I think it was), the rest in research.

I was playing a large map, all races set to intelligent. By the time I met 2 of the major races (the Torians and Antaerans)all 3 of us were almost exactly equal in pop. I also managed to partly build then buy diplomatic translators, gravity accelerators and later, aphrodisiacs. There was one occasion when I moved all my spending to research to grab impulse drives in 2 turns to literally race the Torians to a juicy class 20 planet my scout found.

The colony ships I sent from Earth varied from 100-300M people. For 15&16 PQ worlds I'd send about 100M.. increasing the amount for better worlds. More for better worlds or for "seed" worlds - ones that had more inhabitable systems in the sector. I also sent 2 colony ships with 300M a piece into neighboring clusters to sercure a presence in them. It all worked very nicely.. and Earth never fell below a billion people - that made a huge difference to my growth I think. Most colonies would start on constructors and a few scouts.

After the initial expansion I did what others have mentioned.. raised taxes til my approval was about 60-65, dropped production to the point I was making a small profit and changed my production to 40M/20S/40R.

I finally met the last of the major races, the Yor, and I'm currently sitting with the 2nd highest pop and tech, and the highest manufacturing and economy with about $2000 saved up.
Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top
Watch it! : ) Higher taxes slow population growth, and can even decrease population. As it's explained by devs higher taxes don't actually kill people, but knock them down into a poor social class where they can no longer afford to pay taxes.

Camdar
Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top
My tactic has been to almost ignore the population race at the beginning and middle parts of the game. I fully participate in the mad colonization dash in the early game; in most cases getting as many or more planets than the AI. In all of my successful games, I've been way behind in pop, but have been in the lead or at least 'keeping' up with the AI in almost all of the other categories (research, military, production, etc). This has worked well even in my current game: huge map size on 'challenging'. I tax heavily, usually at least 60%, but I try to make sure my average morale is at least 50% to keep population from declining (and to make sure I don't lose the senate). I use propaganda to keep individual planets at the 50% min. morale level. The higher tax supports more spending and prevents my pop from outstripping my morale infrastructure. Once I have the morale improvements in place, I can then reduce taxes way down and watch my pop shoot up, quickly catching and surpassing most of the AI, which I usually do later in the game. I'm not sure if this strat will work at higher difficulty levels, but it hasn't hurt me yet. Any comments?
Reply #10 from Stardock Forums Top
I find that I do real well if, during the colony rush portion of the game, I lower taxes down to about 30%. I've done this twice, and have dashed out to a population lead both times. Of course, I had the 15% Planet Quality bonus too, which certainly had an effect...

~SDC~
Reply #11 from Stardock Forums Top
Have any of you tried using the 50% method? Set your sliders to all military, then every time a colony launches a colony ship you ship out 50% of the population. I tried this last night and got (IMO) really good results with it. It's easy to get 100% morale for 2x pop growth because all your planets have fairly low population (so generally no need to fiddle with lower taxes or propaganda), and it's easy to expand quickly because the planets on the edge of your expansion are building ships just as quickly as those inner systems. I had +10% pop and morale bonuses, I was planning to stop this for any given colony when 50% of its pop would be below 100 but I finished colonizing before this ever happened. Pop growth with 100% morale and +10% pop on low-population planets is -fast-.

On a side note, is anyone out there trying 'back colonizing' in GalCiv? That's where you push your first few colony ships -way- out there, so you are colonizing from the outside->in instead of the inside->out. Since the comp AIs expand so aggressively this might help grab much more territory because you'll cut them off from your more inner systems. I haven't tried it yet, it might not work in GalCiv since the computer knows where to send its colony ships, but I know from 4x games where this does work that it's a very powerful tool for grabbing a significant territory advantage.
Reply #12 from Stardock Forums Top
The problem with the 50% method of shipping out is that you can accidentally overload new colonies.

Of course, I don't bother to ship colonists off just to raise morale - it doesn't really do much in the long run, except result in you having far too many colony ships doing nothing.

~SDC~
Reply #13 from Stardock Forums Top
My method is 100% military with all planets over 100M people building colony ships. This works well even at the "crippling" difficulty level on large/huge maps. Planets below 100M build one or two scouts, then start building constructors to claim resources. Earth sends out 200M-300M per colony ship, usually ending up around 600M after expansion. Taxes are usually at 30%, or whatever it takes to keep Earth at 100% morale while colonizing.

The "back colonizing" idea is great for resource claiming, but not as critical for colony ship building. The difference is that new planets in GalCiv can immediately build colony ships almost as fast as the home planets. (Unlike most games, where new colonies have to build up for a long time before building new colonizers.)

I like to use the back-colonizing method mostly because I choose the +1 speed bonus. Many times I will just barely grab a frontier planet (much closer to his homeworld than mine :) ), but easily backfill before his colonists can reach my interior planets. The problem is that if you don't get to the frontier planet first, backtracking can be very costly in lost colony ship production.

If you go for a trade good or tech-sales strategy, your initial low population is almost irrelevant. In my last few games (at high difficulty levels) my incoming tribute was more than twice my taxes+trade. (In fact, in my last game I was so busy creating constructors that I forgot to build any trade ships. The game was practically over once I grabbed 4 military resources. It now takes 2 enemy battle cruisers to kill one of my defense-3 300+HP constructors. My *defenders* can take out (non-upgraded) enemy starbases. :) )