Is there a way out of negative treasury and cash flow?

[TeeWee]

In one of my games, my economy suddenly tanked. Probably a combination of over expansion, alien invasion and a solar war. I recall that the decline was rather sharp: From around +300 to - 300 in a couple of turns.

With the treasury also dipping heavily into the minus, I can no longer do anything to improve things. Is there any way put of this?

I could perhaps withdraw into the three core worlds and just abandon the other colonies or decommission a few vessels. But I have no money to create new facilities (morale is now a huge problem) or treaties (resolving the solar war).

Or is this just a good example of how not to lead a empire in exile and am I better served by just starting a new game?

A big part of the problem I have is that I have very little insight in how the economy works. I'd love a summary page which tells me exactly what sources of income a colony has and where the maintenance is going and what causes bonus / penalty to these values. I'm sure something like that is on the to do list for TB though...

[Nullzone]

I had pretty much the same happen to me, and restarted as I could not recover.
Lesson learned: +300/turn is nothing, you need at least +1000 midgame onwards to built some comfy savings. In my current game my income dropped from +2k to -200 for ~10 turns, and I completely ignored it as I could afford it with ~50k in the piggybank.

What difficulty do you play on? Which turn are you on?
How many colonies do you have, and how well is your mining (main cash source) doing?
What does your overview screen say for expenses/income?
How did you build up your colonies, and what tech do you have researched?

[TeeWee]

I've sort of given up on that specific game as I couldn't see a way out of it. It was a Normal difficulty game on the second map (largest on non-Elite version). But it's still on my iPad, so I can give a few answers:
I have 7 planets, including my 3 core worlds.

Upon reviewing, I'm low on minerals. Only 14 minerals are mined.

Rychart Prime has lost the housing race: 10 pop in 8 housing; Morale plummeted to 1 and it has negative income as well as almost 300 maintenance.

I'm now reviewing all colonies and comparing it to the TB's Let's play videos. I'm definately in a CP-heavy builds, lots of factories everywhere, but few mines and exchanges. The focus on CP is also evident in the tech tree: I beelined the Colony-2 module and only when the alien threat started, did I branch out on some military techs. I've then dipped into the first politics line.

My lesson learned on a more critical review: credits >> other resources. Everything costs money. I couldn't buy more housing, get a treaty going, get more mines, nothing. I'm going to need to adjust my play style significantly. I'm usually playing a "more production before anything else"-type player, but in 4X, in my very limited experience, that's just not a healthy way to run an empire...

[fallen]

TeeWee - we are working on some loss conditions for you. Certainly, there are games that you just wreck and can't recover. Learn and replay is a big part of the genre.

You -can- save these games, if you move quick enough and prevent your treasury from going massively negative. Take appropriately drastic measures to ensure this. If you go -10,000 Credits, you'll never build another upgrade and you're really hosed.

If you are having economic woes and are a CP-heavy economy, try the other style. Planets don't really need more than 4 CP for a long time, imho. CP-heavy economies are very susceptible to big swings.

[chronic]

If you're playing clans spam mines with javat. That extra +4 gives you a sprawling 2k and beyond economy in no time.

Sent from my Dell Venue using Tapatalk 2

[azedenkae]

I just assume you gotta demolish an immense amount of developments to lower your expenses and hope to somehow earn income again...

Otherwise yeah, it's all about planning. :/

[fallen]

azedenkae - you've got to check the Empire summary and find out what is costing you the money. Then act on it!

[hlo]

Forgot the thread but someone mentioned go for more Mines. Build Mine before building Hab when you first colonize a new planet. I have been growing 1K plus few years in. Forget the space fleet and don't explore more than half the distance to the other side so you don't have to deal with aliens. War with aliens is a huge money loss.

[fallen]

Check the YouTube for a primer on how to build your economic power house!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wy5zOdBTmY