Yeesh, GalCiv3 is pretty rough

Well, it is possible to have a lot of unhappy planets just because you happened to find planets that have lower than average morale by default which limits your ability to tax.  Although early game the ability of tax to change income much is somewhat limited (as income is derived from population and your starting population isn't that big). 

Morale is also dependent upon how "full" a planet is with population, so morale on your homeworld can be boosted by shipping more pop off on colony ships.

I pretty much never have positive cash flow until mid-game, it's kind of just break-even forever before being comfortable.  But here's a few odds and ends that should help you keep your budget in the black:

1. don't rush too many things, you start the game with 5000bc, it's worth rushing a few things, but certainly not rushing production until you're broke - rushing isn't that great.
2. set your survey ship (pretty much every race starts with one now I think) to auto-survey.  Finding anomalies helps a lot with the budget as a lot of them will just give you a few bucks (25bc or 100bc or whatever), and this makes a huge different early game for keeping your numbers positive.  Like you might be losing 8bc/turn but then your survey ship finds one anomaly that give you 100bc - well you just functionally produced an even budget for 12 turns even though you're losing 8.
3. Trade sounds dumb, but it /does/ help your budget a lot.  You should be able to research trade fairly early on in-game and then you  get 5 trade licenses and can build 5 trade ships (they're cheap to build), then send these 5 ships off to the 5 furthest-away planets you know of on the map.  They'll bring back 4bc/6bc/7bc whatever each per turn each (the amount varies) and this goes a long way to balancing your books.  Note that these ships set up a trade route - so you just build one ship and then you get money every turn from that route until the route is cancelled (usually via war).  Similarly aliens will send trade ships to you, that will yield similar income - having good diplomatic relations with aliens makes them more likely to trade with you, so interacting with them is a benefit in this regard.
4. By about the time your big awesome planets are all built out you'll have researched whatever tech it is that allows you to build "aid economy" instead of a building.  It produces 25bc when you complete it and you can just "build" it over and over (it would be on the same planet list as all your buildings to build, etc) - that helps a lot too.
5. Ships and going to war is really expensive.  The quickest way to sink your budget is to start pumping out a bazillion war ships - they all have a maintenance cost which really adds up in a big way.  This is true all game, ships and wars and fleets is expensive and will burden any economic backbone your civ has built up, it's just the nature of the beast.  So, avoiding war and building all those ships (especially early game) really, really helps with the budget.  It can be difficult to do (especially depending upon your neighbors (some of them really are assholes usually)), but delaying building warplanes really, really, really makes economic sense.
6. Some buildings have maintenance costs associated with them to so auto-upgrading them isn't always the best idea (like research lab buildings, etc).  TBH I'm not sure how much of an issue this is in the final GC3 iteration, but in prior patches these costs could add up to quite a lot - although this was usually a mid-game phenomenon rather than early game (which it sounded to me like you were asking more about).

I think these 6 points should point you in the right direction, there are obviously a lot more strategies for maximising income, but I think it's beyond the scope of what you're asking about.  Honeslty, my budget is usually shit until late-mid game, but some races definitely do better than others (I also play on really slow pacing settings which I think makes this issue worse), so I feel like it's normal to not have extravagant income for most of the game.

Hope this helps, it's a great game.  Stick with it bud!

-tid242

edit: oh, I should also mention that I haven't played the tutorial, so I'm not sure what that entails (as far as resources, things to build, opportunities for war/trade etc)... but negative income isn't really that big of a deal and is totally normal.  It's having negative savings that'll bite you.  So keep a big chunk of your starting money to float your early game deficit spending - that's VERY normal.

Doesn't a negative income affect your Production? With a low-to-negative income you'll keep building and buying and keep sinking below because of all the things you need to make.

I was doing the Tutorial so I could learn the ropes, I was following the thing to the T and it sunk me below cost, I thought I was doing something wrong. You play as the Terrans and you have the jelly people (forgot their name) and you're fighting the Drengin.

They told me to gather up a Precursor thing I couldn't get as it literally told me to get an explorer ship to grab it but then it told me in a tooltip that I needed a dang Xeno Archaeology Starbase.

I had a few mining SBs that I upgraded so I could get more resources and build. I tried updating my research but I was firing into the dark and then I was on my way to fight the Drengin when I saw my money dip below negative. I couldn't keep my people happy but by trying to do so I wouldn't be getting an income by lowering my taxes; but also trying to get money by raising taxes sunk the morale even lower.

I didn't know what to do and I just threw my hands in the air thinking I squandered my resources to be in the negative numbers.


I'm one of those guys where if I'm not fully 100% comfortable with the Tutorial mission, I'd be completely ripped to shreds in the base game because of all the mistakes I made will translate over as I would make them again and again.

Tried playing after playing GalCiv2 for a while, though even in that game I never won a single game and I either always had such little money I couldn't buy a military to defend myself or I just couldn't catch up to the big blob of influence coming my direction.

This was supposed to be *EASY*.

Yea, not sure about the whole tutorial situation.

But negative income doesn't really matter for anything other than it makes your bank account decline over time.  In GC2 there was definitely a mechanic where deficit spending eventually had an impact on morale - but I don't think it exists at all in GC3 - although I'm not 100% sure on this, it's not something that's big enough of a deal that it's seemed to impact any game that I've played.

 

If you deficit spend so that your bank account falls below 0, then it cripples your production, yes.  But otherwise spending more than you're making doesn't really matter.

 

As far as the production modifiers go, morale is actually important (if you mouse over your raw production numbers on a planet it'll usually list a morale bonus/penalty as a modifier to this), so it usually actually makes sense to try to keep morale high to get the better production by keeping a low tax rate, and just losing some money every turn because of it.

 

I'd try another game (again I'm not sure what's in the tutorial, but a sandbox game in a small galaxy with easy settings would be fine too) and not worry about the income/turn issue, because it's honestly not an issue until your bank account goes below 0.  Limit yourself to rushing no more than 2 or 3 things, and you should have ample money to get a whole lot of turns under your belt and then I suspect that you'll feel a lot more comfortable with the various systems in the game.

 

There's definitely a lot of mistakes one can make in getting an empire off the ground, but honestly there isn't really anything in the game that warrants feeling bad about, and the game is never over until some alien conquers all of your planets - so the money situation or what you built when and where on whatever planet or whatever all just ends up being water under the bridge.

 

Best of luck!

-tid242

 

edit: Oh, I should add - "building stuff" doesn't have much to do with money unless you "rush" it (ie buy it immediately, which costs money) or build something which has a maintenance cost (which usually costs 1bc/turn or whatever).  Otherwise if you build something and it takes 8 turns, or whatever, after the 8 turns it's built and it didn't cost you any money to do that.  So your money situation shouldn't impact your building or ability to build stuff really at all, except that you can't rush things, and if your bank account balance goes negative it'll reduce your ability to build/research by a very large %.

 

edit 2: FWIW the tutorial doesn't tend to get much love, so stuff might possibly be jacked up in it or something?  Like I said, I've never played it, so not sure.  I recommend just doing a sandbox easy game in a smaller sized galaxy and just fiddle around with it and see how it goes.

Hey,

//Appologies for typos, was writing fast. Maybe some time later I will fix them.

I'm definitely not an expert but since I can beat this game on incredible, I think I can advise to a beginner :) 

1. Do not rush unless you really see a good point in that like you need to finish a colony ship to get to this super cool 20lvl planet before your neighbour does. Another reason to rush may be to build something that may be built only once per galaxy and you want to be first. Later when you have too much money you may be rushing just to build up production faster.
2. As above said in the beginning of the game having 1-3 survey ships to capture anomalies is great for budget. Often you will get 200+ out of one.
3. Income buildings like market center and banks is useless and gives little income. Same with trade. I would not waste land for this.
4. You can have negative weekly income but dont get negative on your tresury. Negative tresury will reduce many stats, including research. 
5. TOURISM! This is is my singe and greatest income source. Tourism income is proportional to your influence, map tiles that has your color and define borders of your exmpire. Tourism kicks in mid-late game when your influence builds up enough. Here are stats from my round 171 on Incredible diff:
   
   
   
6. How to max it out:
   1. Build standard buildings, each gives +1% of tourism: "Port of Call", "Import Export Center", "Extravaganza". 
   2. Build one per galaxy building faster than others, each gives +1% of tourism: "Paxton's Emporium", "Boyer's World", "Restaurant of Eternity"
   3. to get +0.4% tourism as your race build

 

My little tutorial that may work better than in game tutorial. First of all I would like to note that I could not do well with cities and very high population, didnt work for me. If anyone reading this can propose a good tutorial on how to get more production with cities than with pure factories, I will be happy to review.

The below way of playing is more directed into Conquest with good options for Ascention and Technology Victory. For Influence and Dimplomatic victory you would need to play more with Race setup to boost requried areas. This is my way of playing, I do not include Slavers type of culture or other Race types. Maybe in future. The below is very flexible and would work with some changes on any race you choose:

1. Create your own race, here is my setup, look in game to check what each point gives.
   1. I chose Aquatic race type for extra tiles on planets and great buildings that increase research
   2. I chose 3xScouts as starting ships to explore other star systems quickly from start.
   3. I chose Colonizers for larger maps which means I do not need Administrators to colony planets.
   4. I chose Entineers to make my Shipyards very effective. 
   5. Here are the Traits and Abilities:
      
2. After you start new game your main priority is EXPAMSION. Find as many habitable planets as possible and colonize them. This is a race:
   1. Build only Colony ships, Contructors only when you see that some start system has multiple resources (Duranium, Promtheum, etc). 
   2. Send scouts evenly around to all the star systems. After your colonize a planet your travel range extends around that planet so make sure at least one scout is around to search the star systems.
   3. Research I start with Artificial Gravity for +1 move of my scout and colonby ships. Then I either got to Interstellar Travel for another +1 
      
      Before or After Interstellar travel you need to get Factories to start increasing production:
      
3. As you colonize first planet you will be able to make your first ideological choice. Choose Benevolant Pioneering for a colony ship with 5 population. Immediately put your colony ship to homeworld planet and then eject the ship from orbit but choose only 1 population. Use colony ship to colonize next planet. This way you efectively increase your homeworld population by 4 and this mean you can build 4 more colony ships.
   
   1.  
4. GOVERNMENT: As you colonize first planet you also need to chose a Government. I stick to those that give me +% to Ship production and +2 moves to my ships. This gives faster expansion early and more strategic adventage later. IMPORTANT: Controll how many colonies max you can have with specific Government as if you extend beyond the limit you will quickly loose approval and all production stats will drop. So I pick in this direction:
   1. 
5. IDEOLOGY. You can choose many path here. But I would focus on chosing those that bring you most benefits and not stick with only one type.
   1. Afer initial choice of Pioneering, start chosing Menevolant until you can pick Intimigating to be able to produce Menevolant ideology. Otherwise after you are done with Pragmatic you will not have enough Ideological choices to build Menevolant. So this secures constant income of Menevolant ideology points without ideological choices in game.
      
   2. Next start chosing Pragmatic choices to get all the benefits of free 3x constructor ships, better ship production and +2 radius of star bases.
      
   3. If you are playing against some aggressive races and you know you will nto be ready to fight them, activate this Ideology trait when you see another race begins to really dislike you:
      
   4. Then I go All in Menevolent:
      
6. COLONY BUILD. Its is CRITICAL to use the adjustment bonus as much as possible. These multiply the benefits. Dont be affraid to restructure the layout of coloty buildings when you get more tiles:
   1. You can later invest in increasing available terrain throug this line of technology:
      
   2. If you play it well fro the first 100 rounds noone will attack you. So you need not to produce many war ships. Instead produce Supply Ships to reuse Ship production back to Colony social construction. This of corse if you cannot build colony ship or after you colonized all the available plantes. Pick the world to support that need kick start:
      
   3. For Production, build arnound central tile. put there factory on level 1. Later replace wtih Fusion Power Plant when you get the technology. Look how all the buildings around benefit from this powet plant, +3 to all around. Its best if you can include colony capital to be also adjusted to fusion power plant. This way you also increase Raw construction.
      
   4. Same for research build planet, build around central Innovation Complex. Even Research planet should have some tiles that give production to first help build research buildings but also contribute to ship production:
      
   5. Technology Capital Planet. This is planet where you can have a large number of research buildings with Technology Capital building in center. But on top of this you also have enough production, minimum 100 for all construction. This is to be able to build every second round an "Aid Research" that gives +100 research points. Its most optimal if you have planet that can reach 200 construction per round so you get +100 research every dound.
      
   6. Captical planet. Here is mine, Focused on production. I put here all the buildings that multiply production, also all here that are once per player. I put those buildings (those that give +3 +4 +5 to production to adjusted buildings around them) in one line and put around them buildings that immediately add +1 +2 to All construction and to ship construction. Keep those separate as +X to ship construction do not increase values of All construction around them. Maximum Ship Contruction I got in game was around 1100-1200 per turn, you can probably get more:
      
7. CITIZENS. They can greatly boost research, production, deplomacy etc. But I use them rearely for this. Reason is that it is very gard to get enoufh Administrator to cover whole map with your starbases on one hand and on the other hand to product enough legons to conquer. Citizens are fastest way to get Legions for conquering planets. So I save them for this purpose mostly. However you can use some of them:
   1. Promote to Administrators to get 5 administrator slots for colony ships, constructors and hyperlanes. Then (Got to Summary tap for citizens) pick Adminsitrators and promote them to "Minister" for another +5 administrators. So 1 citizen can give total of 10 administrators. Promotion to Minister requires "Artocarpus Viriles". So it would be good to have a planet that grows this resource.
   2. Promote to Generals to get 5 legions neede to conquer plantes. Then promote them (Summary tab) to Supreme General for another 5 legions. One citizen can give you total of 10 legions. Promotion to Supreme Genral requires "Helios One". So it would be good to have a planet that grows this resource. Otherwise you need to buy on market when it appears or use shipyar missions.
   3. MAke a 1-4 researchers and send them to your most developed research planets.
   4. Make 1 Worker type and send him to techomlogy capital, to help maximize rate of "Aid Research" construction.
   5. When you conquer a planet there may be enemy specialized citizens there. I usually "Promote" all scientists for 10 Prometheum each and then send them to my research plantes. Same with Engineers and Workers.
   6. Remeber that each Administrator and General can be 
8. RESEARCH: You need to adjust your path here to your objectives:
   1. Expansion
      1. Ship moves to be faaster than others. Engineering path, Interstellar Traver and onwards everythingthat gives you +1 movement.
      2. Population growth (you need to have enough population to pack on colony ship). Governance path, Interstella Immigration and onwards everything that gives raw +0.0x to population growth. Rememer to keep space fo a building or two that increases morale.
      3. For production increase after you get Factory and your planets are finishing to cover their space with Factories, move forward to Xeno Mnufactoring to go to hext level. If I'm short on Duranium I stop at Mega factory.
      4. Factories will do nothing without "Space Elevator" and "Star Port", These greatly increase your production and are more impotant than factories:
          
   2. Safety
      1. Universal Translator needed to talk to other races. Take it just after you meet fist race. After initial contact with every race you should trade with them and offer "Open Boarders" which significanlty reduces tensions and gives you more time before they decide to attack you.
      2. Military:
         1. Pragmatic "Negotiator" Ideology trait will give you 50 turns of time during which noone will be able to start war against you. 
         2. Make sure you have Planetary Invasion tech. This allows to produce transport ships with which you can invace and take over other players planets or retake ones you lost.
         3. Choose one type of attack tech for my space ships and focus on it. I picked Missiles and along the way tool the enhancements that reduce weight to pack more. Later in the game use not only rockets but also components that increase fire rate, they stack so use both.
            1. I start building war ships when I get Harpoons technology which significantly boosts Missile power.
            2. Use only weapons that do not require resources like Duranium, Elerium etc. Start using them let game when you have too many resources.
         4. Keep all the Defensive Systems tech in mroe or less equal level. Each ship give at least one type of each shield as each opponent will probably use different weapon types. 
         5. Late game make sure you use fleet wide self healing hulls technology on each ship. It will stack and make you almost invincible. Also make sure you use at one engine +4 moves. This with right goverment with give 16-20 moves per turn.
         6. Sensor range is good but heavy. You can add to your fleet some small support ship that will carry largest sensor available. 
   3. Victory Type: The above way of playing is more directed into Conquest with good options for Ascentions and Technology Victory. For Influence and Dimplomatic victory you would need to play more with Race setup to boost requried areas.
      1. Conquest. IF you want to defeat everyone else just stick to the Military description above and conquer! Make sure you keep citizen usage to minimum till late game. Only for colony ships and constructors, but not on every resource you find but focus on areaswhere one constructo covers multiple resources. Why? When you convert Citizen to General you get +5 legions. Needed to take over enemy planets. You can also produce these from Duranium but you need 5 duranium per 1 legion... so 25 duranum per 5 legions that is also given by 1 citizen... You will need a lot of duranium to upgrade your star bases and factories.
      2. Influence. This is ridiculus from my point of view. You need to be in peace with all factions and have 50% map covered by your borders. In fact this means you need to defeat everyone who does not like you and at the end you probably will be one of the last civilizatins. So this is not a peaceful victory. Only other lucky situation you dont need to concquer is to be elected for head of United Planets and keep pushing through votes to stop all wars for following 25 turns... possible. 
      3. Ascention: This is great one, Peaceful. It may be time consuming to defeat every one. Or even impossible if enemy is too hard. But Ascention gives you a way out. If you take enough Acention crystals and relics on the map you can follow this line to technology to gain ascention points from each relic you have. Here you really need to max this technology and starbase upgrade to be able to gather enough point fast enough:
         
      4. Technology: This is another peacefull one. You need to focus more planets on technology buildings and follow this technology research path. You need to get past Ascention (RED) phase of research. At the end you need to build several buildings in the right order to trigger win. So read in internet how to build it, cant remember now. 
      5. Diplomatic: You must be in alliance with all civilizations. May be challenging as there is multum reasons why other factions will not like you (different ideology - cant avoid, sharing borders, you closing to a victory in some area, too much army, too much influence). hard to get any in alliance. So you cannot be too strong with military so you are not accused of pursuing conquest victory, you cannot be too technologically advanced or you are accused of pursuing technology victory, rach gives -3 to diplomacy/relations level. I made a few aliances with properly factored race but it wasnt possible with all factions so I had to conquer all others... didn't seem very peacefull Eitherway you may be more lucky then I am. 
         1. Interstellar Governance tech  path all the way to gain Diplomatic bonus with make other like you.
         2. Cultural Influence tech path all the way to gain Diplomatic bonuses.
         3. Build Diplomatic Corps. put diplomats on other races to increase their attitude.