Yeah...

the only issue with overdeveloping your economy is that the players who rushrushrush to the point of bankruptcy are going to mop the floor with you, early game.  Mid to Late game, it's the other way around, but IMO the early game is the hardest to get past.

Xer0 \^/

okay xero i was saying this if it was in ECONOMY postion in larger games. i am the BEST advent eco player so im fairly sure i know what im talking about investments in lots of early trade pays off a ton more later if u ever see a player like jbaum online ask him how he constantly gets 10-30 creds than any of ur eco players for whole game. he is able to do this because he spams trade early.

Some feed is going to come out of the budget, that's for certain, but what's left needs to go towards economy.

Beyond that, it's really up to the front-liners to budget themselves and to ask for the appropriate levels of feed.  If there isn't enough to go around, they need to switch to a defensive strategy and put up starbases and block access to their pocket.  There's only so much a pocket player can do about this, and at a certain point he's in a catch 22; feed his allies and kill his own economy leading to defeat, or don't feed his allies and have his front-lines fall, leading to defeat. 

Not to offend you or anything, but in my opinion the difference between two skilled eco players is not very significant, at least compared with all the other variables.  It's going to come down to how the map randomed, and how much "bang for your buck" you're getting by sending feed to your allies.  These factors are simply out of your hands, and no matter how good you are if they're working against you then you're probably screwed.

The bottom line is that if I get a line of roids that lets my rapidly set up that trade chain, or a couple 3-rock neutrals in close proximity, that's going to be very hard for the enemy to compete with even if he is better than me.  On the other hand, a 1-lane roid-screw is going to seriously hamper my ability to actually get an economy rolling.  I've had some that were so bad that I was literally incapable of building an eco.  Similarly, some allies will be able to kill their opponents if you can hook them up with 5000 credits of feed, others will need that just to survive.  

There's a lot to be said for the eco player balancing the books and keeping his whole team running smoothly, but the bottom line is that the results are governed by forces beyond his control.



Doesn't matter; in the eco spot, Advent and TEC play virtually identically.  Even the Vasari aren't much different, but they get held back by the fact that the Jarrasul has no economic bonus on colonize and trade ports cost a whopping 4-labs (but if you're lucky you can grab extra neutrals to compensate).  Not a big deal for 3-lab Advent.

 

Lol.

OK here is my 5 cents to discussion.

I usually don't build more than 1 trade port on planet until I have four planets in trade line. Trade line is very important. At that point I start upgrading planets and spam trade ports. I also sell my factories as soon as in addition to cap colonizer I build enough ships to fill my fleet.

Now if you are vasari its much more important that you get resource extraction building (not resource extractor) since their resource extraction research is much faster and cheaper so I put 1 of those on each planet with more than 3 phase lanes.

TO XERO

In mp games depending on positions of the players each one has a role it needs to play. So the guy or guys that have allied players on left and right go eco (means develop economy as strong as they can and feed guys that are fighting.

 

 

 

After they develop economy (if teammate in trouble even before) as superfleet said either

-they start sb what they can and feed other players or they fleet up themselves (they still need to be able to feed)

-attack or harass  their eco guy and destroy his economy

-double guy that is already fighting with your ally (open second front) -with this they force their eco guy to fleet up and as it happens  sometimes they don't have factories or research ready to counter attacking fleet. Such attack can decide game very quick. If its executed  correctly fighting guy on enemy team might be reduced down to last planet  

refinary building should be based off of rock numbers, not phase lanes, and as vasari, with all your neutral grabbing, any resources that you get from a refinary tend to go to being sold on the black market...

untill you start having to buy stuff on the black market again... trade ports are the way to go. feel free to save 3 logistic slots on that planet with 5 phase lanes for refinaries... but trade ports, even as vasari, are very important.

I find broadcast centers much more important than refinarys. a single broadcast center increases income by 10% on your hw... and it gets better the farther away it is.  a fringe world... going from 35% to 45%, thats an income from taxes/resource extractor increase of 28.5%! thats huge! and, depending on placement and the map, you can get away with very very few of em, one broadcast center will cover preety quickly planets that are 2 phase jumps away from the building. (assuming your not running into enemy culture or capitalships bombing your planets, at which point we wonder why your going eco)

but ya. if say, i was rushing a player and crushed him, and now i have a large empire, and need to go eco... if i am vasari or advent, ill often get a broadcast center or 2 up first before geeting tradeports... and even as tec, they are high up on the list of things to buy. (expecially because of the tec's culture bonus... a single into that tier 4 tech, doubles the AM regeneration on your carrier cruisers... and not having to worry about AM on carrier cruisers is a very, very nice thing.)

...did the OP actually suggest installing colony pods? 

 

How long are you planning on playing, OP? Doesn't it take an hour for colony pods to pay for themselves?

 

I'm sure the OP has plenty of experience with the game and really means well, but I have a hard time taking advice from someone suggesting the use of colony pods.

To Pbhead

I assumed when I said those 4 phase lanes that all have extractors on the other end.

 

 

And yes me too. I build culture centers as soon as I can. I usually build them 4 planets apart. More on the edge of my empire.

And if we are specific as vasari almost always I buy tier 3 cheaper ships and buildings research (don't know the name) before I place first trade port. For 10 ports you get one free (credit wise).

Regarding colony pods. I don't bother with them unless enemy gets novaliths. After that I try to get my population count up. How long it gets to repay them...... Credit wise by my quick calculation around 35 min. That calculation doesn't include resources.   

And for all that do not know

superfleet = SB Warfleet = currently one of best players on SINS MP

okay i would like to say thanks to greg who is MR G a very skilled player on Sins MP and one of my favorites to play with. I suggested colony pods cus its and increase in income, i have never had the oppurtunity to really use it so i dont know how economically efficent it is, but it is a way to increase ur income

 

everything in sins depends on the scenario. if uve done verything else to increase your income, then it should be your last attempt to increase your income. also very usefull when novaliths are around

 

Well when I calculated colony pods self payout time i didn't count sb purchase into equation because I dont build them before novaliths come into play and at that point if u want to hold on to planet you need to have loyality purchased.

And 2 colony pod upgrade is much more effective than first since (i might be wrong on this) it gives you 3.3 or even more cred ps. Its not just 2x more. Its similar to tec trade on SB which doesn't multiply by 2 as well.

Now once u are forced to build sb on every planet you can easily add trade port on sb as well if you really want to max your economy. And that extra trade port somehow utilizes sb build even more. 

 

Neither did I; with the starbase cost you're looking at closer to 10000 effective credits of investment, and the payoff time for that is longer than 2 hours.  The 48 minute number I gave ignores the cost of the starbase.

Yeah, you are wrong.  The second level gives twice as much benefit as the first level... but also costs twice as much!  It's the most expensive starbase upgrade in the game, costing nearly as much as building an entirely new starbase.

The trade port upgrade is much better than the colony pods upgrade.  It costs less (1000 credits, 150 metal, 100 crystal instead of 1800/275/150), and it gives higher returns (1.6 credits per second plus trade route bonus as opposed to 1.3 credits per second).  Of course, I'd still reserve this one for expanding my trade route.  If you already have a starbase standing, then the trade port upgrade is a worthwhile addition, but don't build a whole new starbase just on this one's account...

 

Raging Amish can take credit for the 4.5:1 ratio; he was using it before I was, and I completely agreed with him that it's the best overall constant for these kinds of calculations.  It's not quite as good in the early-game where you often are selling resources, but it's very accurate in the late game where you're usually buying at least one type and rarely selling the other.

I completely disagree with your assessment of the factions.  Once you move over to a primarily trade-based economy, you will always have a surplus of credits and will need to buy one (if not both) of your resources.  In fact, I'd say Advent is in an even worse situation than TEC in this regard since they don't have any viable refinery and their extractor upgrade techs are more expensive.  Now, I will agree that Vasari usually hits trade a tad later and with their scouts can maintain a better resource income, but if they grow large enough they will also suffer this same issue.

The basic premise is that extractors get less efficient as your empire gets bigger (loyalty becomes a factor), whereas trade ports get more effecient as your empire gets bigger (trade route).  You can offset that a bit with refineries, but they have stacking issues and don't continue to improve like trade ports do as your empire expands.  The net result is that for a sufficiently large empire, credit income [b]will[/i] invariably outpace metal and crystal income.  So it's actually a fair presumption that you'll be buying a significant chunk of your resources in the late game.

 

Early game, yes.  But late-game with a mature trade network and maxed out logistics?  Not a chance.  He's buying both resources, guaranteed.