Economic changes (not liking it). Am I alone?

Yes, the economy had changed a lot in Dark Armada and Twilight. You cannot leave the fundings at 100% all the time anymore, you got to budget your expenses. A little practice on it and you will be able to get back to your warmongering ways.

Try not building so much on each planet. Try keeping your population at 100% morale initially to build more population (even with lots of economy buildings, a small pop isn't going to make you much money). Trade for population bonus techs.

The problem with building a big infrastructure early is it's expensive. Your colonies tend to start out losing money, so by building things on them right when you get them, you're costing yourself even more. Let them grow a bit before you fill up every tile.

Also, try not to quick buy anything. I mean anything; not ships or buildings (early on, at least). Later on when you get the hang of it you can buy some initial buildings, but start off without doing it at all so you're not confined that way of doing things.

You're going to go into the red for a while most games, especially on harder difficulties. This is okay, it's just a test to learn to manage your economy.

Good luck

I've been playing drath so far and have yet to get into economic troubles. I don't but rush anything because it gimps your economy too much. Even with the horrible population growth the drath do get, by the time my economy sinks to the red, it is usually about to rise up. I devote my homework mostly as production, my PQ 4 world as a research base, then, large planets i find get farms and econ buildings unless they have some crazy bonuses.

But also I'm no warmonger. I just make everyone else go to war, and that includes even more profit for me. Thanks War Profiteering!

I have to admit that I am not a fan of the economic changes. I understand why the changes were made, but that doesn't mean I have to like it quite yet. I will eventually get use to it (hopefully). Before I played Metaverse games, I modded my games so economic buildings provide a bigger benefit in DA!

I've definitely not made the adjustment yet. I've only played a handful of ToA games so far and I basically suck at managing money. I feel like I have to win the game before I run out, or else I lost. I've been relying on survey ships and trading with minor races.

If your going straight from DL to TA the econ changes can seem huge, but it started in DA. In DA the econ was tighter, but eventualy you still could make plenty of money as long as you avoided the early game woes. So far in TA, and I admit I haven't had a lot time with it yet, It seems more balanced. Due to the slower development of your empire you can sustain better in the early going, but won't end up with loads of extra cash late game cause you have to use a lot of that for the more exhorborant(SP?) maintenance costs. As a metaverse scoremongerer I don't want to like the changes because it effects the scoring potential of my games, but from a pure gameplay perspective I think it balances better than the previous versions.

IMO the changes makes the game definitely better and more balanced, now you have to find the right balance between research,soc. prod. and mil. production and maintain an healthy economic system is so much harder due to mainteinance.

The effects of the new economic sytem are the following:

-slower initial expansion, so that the rush for planets is nearly no more an issue

-filling a planet with improvements is not always economically sustainable

-fielding a huge army unlike before is a real pain for your economy

-toward end game you have no more 1000bc/week

-games are definitely more challenging


All these changes at least for me address most of the issues present in GC2 and make civ management harder and funnier

Haha, I played on a Gigantic Galaxy last night, as Terran Alliance. I was overrun by the Krynn-Consulate, who, at that point (maybe after 100 turns) had well over 40 planets colonized!

Alot of interesting insight here into the tweaked economy of Twilight.


I think the tweaks were very well thought out and have benefited the actual gameplay of the game. My favourite tweak so far has been to the increased importance of "tourism" aka territorial holdings. It brings a new facet to the game that wasn't really there before and I have welcomed it with open arms.

Twlight does play a bit differently, but it's quite manageable once you overcome the initial shock to the system. Personally, I've found some success making recruiting centers a high priority, building only those on my colonies, and relying on my homeworld for industry. I do generally cntrl-n till I get a precursor mine on my homeworld, since it saves so much on upkeep now that even basic factories run 3 upkeep/turn. It's much cheaper to build and maintain one on a precursor mine than 8 in seperate tiles.

Keep morale at 100%, take +30 econ and +10 morale in race setup, and select either federalist (+20 econ), universalist (+5 econ, +10 pop growth) or for narrowly focused diplomatic strategies, populist (+10 morale, +10 diplomacy). Prioritize the first level econ and morale techs, then go for Xeno Ethics. You can also get the first level government for another +10 econ.

If you are going Good (viable now for the Altarians) or Neutral, there is immediate economic benefit to Xeno Ethics. If you are going evil, you've got to research to and build the MCC. This is usually the point I have to increase taxes until morale drops to 40% on my least happy world so that I've got enough income to hold things together till the MCC is built. From there, smooth sailing .

I haven't played many ToA games, but in one game, I did try for MCC. I looked at my income before and after purchasing it. It dropped by the lease amount. I didn't get the economic bonus that I'm used to getting in DA. Are you sure the MCC is the same as before?

It's not It worked in the Beta, but it's broken for the release. This renders Evil essentially unplayable and Twilight unusable by players looking for Metaverse scores competitive with DA and DL. I'm grieving.

I fully expected the MCC to be fixed properly for ToA, so I didn't expect the economic bonus when I built it.

I just saw the thread in the support forum. Looks like the nice side benefit was removed and replaced with nothing.

When (if?) the MCC is fixed, I highly doubt they will change it to the DA version.

I haven't played enough to see the differences between good, neutral, evil in ToA. Is evil really that bad off without the old MCC?

I'd be inclined to change it for both.  I honestly wasn't aware of the MCC issue.

Ouch....the MCC is the top reason to play evil in my opinion. I hope it gets fixed to what it was originaly intended, or to the 100% econ bonus.

Also with the psionic beam being changed too, I'll be much more likely to play something other than evil for once.

Sentient species taste better...

Is there any way we can convince you to restore the MCC to it's (evidently unintended) state, with the +100 econ bonus? I can fully understand not wanting it to function differently than you'd originally envisioned it, but changing the MCC now is really the mother of all nerfs. Very simply, it would make the game much less fun. No one wants to buy a new expansion so they can build empires that are markedly weaker than their old ones.

It would also have a rather devestating impact on the Metaverse I'd think. Most high scoring strategies are pretty dependent on the MCC. If people wanted to stay competitive, they will almost certainly avoid Twilight (and some veteran players who were on the fence may decide against getting the expansion). Many will probably also avoid updating if this nerf is ported back to DA in a future patch. New players would have little incentive to aim for high scores, since they couldn't hope to reach those posted with the old MCC, like Magnumaniac's 975,000 yesterday (a new record for a legitimate score). The old masters would have little incentive put much effort into Twilight for the Metaverse if the scores ran far lower than with DA and DL, and it could rather dry up the Metaverse prematurely. It may not, and this is close to a worst-case scenario, but I do think this could leave a lot of your most enthusiastic customers disilluisioned.

It's a pity, because I love pretty much everything else about Twilight. It's your game and no one should question your right to change it as you see fit to more accurately match your vision. You've made a wonderful game, one of the best computer strategy games ever. I also understand that Metaverse players are a small, overly vocal and overly represented portion of your customer base. It would not be fair to expect you to change your mind, but personally I would be thrilled and appreciative if you did re-consider. Thanks for taking the time to read this if you do in fact get a chance!

JustinSane, your post solidified what I have been considering about the MCC for a while. That this one individual structure is a deal-breaker for an expansion that you otherwise love everything else about, convinces me that the 100% econ bonus is just too good, and it needs to go. I love the MCC, and I play evil almost exclusively because of it and a few other things, but it obviously creates a terrible imbalance between the alignments. In the interest of game balance, I think it's time to fix it. Or, something which more people might support, enhance neutral and good so that they can be more competitive from a scoring perspective.

Sentient species taste better...

Call me dumb, but what IS this MCC?

Mind Control Center. It's original intent is that it would greatly increase chances of planets culturally flipping to you, but it's broken and instead gives a 100% economic bonus and hinders planets from flipping to you, in DL and DA. In ToA it apparently only hinders flipping, with no other bonus.

Sentient species taste better...

You what? The big military production bonus, free starbase upgrades, best colonization events and early access to powerful weapons aren't enough?

Evil is strong without the MCC. With the MCC it was massively overpowered, as I think the metaverse shows. Personally, I'd like to see it fixed properly to the original intent, or the economy bonus put to something a little more reasonable.

But then i really would like to have the flipping ability it was supposed to have. That would add a cool feature and it is not as overpowered as the old MCC.

I agree that returning it to its intended effect would be the best way to fix it.

Sentient species taste better...

When I play Evil, I usually avoid building the MCC. The other Evil-only achievements are plenty powerful and I like to keep the ability to flip planets. Especially with the Korath and Dark Influence.

I agree that from a pure game balance perspective, the MCC is/was not balanced. As far as I know, the highest known score in any game was Magnumaniac's 975,800. The highest known score without using the MCC was 529,900 Neutral game by the same player on his Storyteller account. To the best of my knowledge, there has not been a legitimate game with Good alignment to score over 200,000. All of the highest scoring games were played with Evil, and the MCC is the primary reason why.

The question then is one of priorities. If game balance is the priority, then the old MCC needs to be replaced with something else (perhaps matching it's tech description). Neutral will likely become the alignment of choice for most players looking to score well who also choose to update/switch to Twilight, but the scores will be far lower than those of comparably skilled players using DA 1.80g. Good will remain underpowered excepting the Altarians and possibly Thalans in Twilight and tiny, sometimes small, maps. The potential competitive issues I (somewhat direly)forecast above may or may not come to pass. If KzintiPatriarch is opposed, then it is quite possible I've over-estimated the sentiment of many of the most zealous Metaverse players.

I probably over-stated how weak evil alignment would be without the MCC compared to good and neutral. I think, more accurately, it would be slightly better than good (again, excepting the Altarian and possibly Thalan tech trees) and moderately worse than Neutral. This would be closer to balance between the alignments than there has historically been.

If the Metaverse is a higher priority than game balance, then the MCC should be restored so scores pre/post Twilight will retain some degree of continuity.

One possible compromise: Give the MCC a +75 econ bonus. Eliminate colony upkeep for all colonies under good alignment rather than just the 5 most populous. Increase the base morale bonus for Neutral alignment somewhat, maybe 15-20%.
The effect of these changes would be to make the alignments much closer to balanced than had been historically while getting the MCC close enough to what it was to (presumably) be acceptable to score mongers. It would also make Good playable on map sizes larger than Small. Currently good alignment does not scale well due to the 5 planet cap on its primary economic bonus. It also would fit with your stated philosophy of preferring to avoid drastic nerfs.

If I'm the only one who will terribly miss the old MCC, I'll learn to live with the new pretty quickly and this is a minor issue from Stardock's perspective. If there are a significant number of other players who have similar sentiments it may be worth taking that into consideration.

Put one more vote in the "return the MCC to its intended function" column. The 100% econ bonus never made any sense, always represented a significan disbalance between alignments, and anyway I've always wanted to be able to build a mind control center that actually controlled minds.

Well...looks like changes will definitely be coming. I don't understand how Frogboy and others weren't aware of the MCC issue, but now they are definitely aware and have acknowledged the problem.

First of all, high metaverse scoring was already impossible in ToA. The economy in ToA is much more difficult to manage. Even constructors have a maintenance fee. The old MCC isn't enough to make ToA competitive with DA or DL on the metaverse.

So properly fixing and balancing the three ethics is the best choice for ToA.

As for fixing MCC in DA, if it happens, I won't be updating my client. As I mentioned, I do not like the enormous economic changes and playing evil in DA is my best option for how I prefer to play this game.