Infinite money for AI factions, thoughts?

[Falcrack]

NPC factions in X4 have no money constraints. They are given infinite money, which means that money is essentially worthless to them. Any sale of any wares produced in their territory to another faction is essentially a 100% loss. NPC shipyards selling ships to the player is a total loss for the selling faction, they might as well be giving the ships for free to the player because the money they receive in return has no actual real value to them. It is like one island nation buying coconuts from another island nation, and paying them ocean water in return for it. The lack of scarcity in terms of money supply means that it has no value for NPC factions. Yet they will happily accept our credits as we buy ships and wares from them, while they receive nothing of value in return.

Having infinite money for NPC factions makes the game far less dynamic from the financial side. It is like in X3, where you had a window dressing economy where the wares did not actually matter to produce ships and stations. Now in X4 the wares matter, but NPC factions can get around that by simply purchasing whatever they need from other factions, offering them money from their own infinite accounts, paying what are essentially worthless credits to get valuable items in return.

Of course, making it so the AI factions have limited money would probably require a number of other gameplay changes to make sure it works. If not, problems could arise, like all the money in the galaxy collecting in the account of one faction. Money, as they say, is like manure. It should be spread around. There needs to be guaranteed circulation of money, or the economy grinds to a halt.

To make finite money for NPC factions work, I think you would need to have some sort of situation where factions receive a steady, guaranteed supply of money, perhaps from their control of sectors. Every sector they own gives them a certain amount of income per hour. But if they receive some steady income per hour, that would need to be coupled with some sort of steady expenses also, such as maintenance fee or wages, otherwise the money supply would simply balloon and we would be back to the situation we have now where there is basically infinite money for NPC factions, like what would happen if you tried to fill a bathtub that had no drain, using a faucet that couldn't be turned off. So with steady income from planets, and steady expenses to maintain ships and stations, there would be an equilibrium where income is balanced by expenses, resulting in a stable, but finite, supply of credits in the galaxy.

[GCU Grey Area]

I'm fine with major factions having infinite money. They often control multiple planets with populations in the billions. When you consider how much a self-sufficient shipyard with a population of say 250k can make per hour, the GDP generated by populations many orders of magnitude higher must surely make any credit-based interaction with the player so utterly meaningless in comparison it might as well be infinite. I'm sure it also makes the programming easier if it's one less thing to keep track of.

[Falcrack]

I'm fine with major factions having infinite money. They often control multiple planets with populations in the billions. When you consider how much a self-sufficient shipyard with a population of say 250k can make per hour, the GDP generated by populations many orders of magnitude higher must surely make any credit-based interaction with the player so utterly meaningless in comparison it might as well be infinite. I'm sure it also makes the programming easier if it's one less thing to keep track of.

This is the kind of thinking that gets governments in trouble. They think they have infinite money, that they can simply print more. They do not. Print more money to cover expenses, and the value of the printed money inevitably decreases.

As nations expand in size, their income grows, but so do their expenses. If financial constraints do not exist for these factions, then money might as well not exist. But it does, for good reason, as a means to allow for convenient exchange of goods for money.

[EGO_Aut]

Finite money does not work, ask FED.
If a faction(state) needs money, they print it.

[vvvvvvvv]

NPC factions in X4 have no money constraints.

Should be kept this way, as unlike player, they have civilization and population backing them up. Space activities are a small facet of said civilization.

[LameFox]

I don't really see the point of limiting it to be honest. Sure it's not fully simulated, as many things aren't, but what if it was? Would we even notice it when it wasn't breaking down? It seems like to make any use of it you'd need a whole new game designed with a very different sort of gameplay in mind.

[grapedog]

Even if they had finite money... they still also have ship caps. they can't build like crazy even though they technically can afford to.

what problem would finite money solve?

[TheDeliveryMan]

Maybe for some future version of X, but not for X4.
Finite money makes the economic simulation much more complex and fragile. In X4 the economy must not break down on its own until very late game. Even a very passive player should still be able to buy ships from NPC factions.
This change would probably require a full rebalancing of productions and ware prices and it would not be possible to add it to ongoing playthoughs.

[charlie1024]

I don't think limiting their money is not good because of XENs. Credit is only valid for bio-creatures of the X-Universe. For XEN or KHK so, credit doesn't mean anything. This means factions have critical weakness, based on the XEN capships power, they'll fail to endure the XEN pressure. That will be an unfair game.

[PersonyPerson]

Finite money would be desirable only if every aspect of a faction's economy was interactable. In X4, only the space aspect is. The major factions have billions of individuals under them, all generating wealth for their states and likely having trillions of credits in their treasuries planetside, so you can just assume that their source of income is from that.

I don't like the fact that it is assumed that the planet in sectors you own are just assumed to be under your control, instead of having to do a siege or ground invasion (and then having to deal with partisans and a disloyal/unproductive populace afterwards), or heavily bribing the local government to certify the population's loyalty because it's not realistic, but I also understand that scope creep is a thing, so the fact that they have infinite money in the setting the player is in doesn't bother me.

[Ragnos28]

I don't see a problem if factions have infinite money, because money provide no (unfair) advantage for them, in relation to the player.
If a faction cannot protect its miners, traders and production facilities, infinite money is useless (look at ZYA, the eternal xenon doormat).

[GCU Grey Area]

I'm fine with major factions having infinite money. They often control multiple planets with populations in the billions. When you consider how much a self-sufficient shipyard with a population of say 250k can make per hour, the GDP generated by populations many orders of magnitude higher must surely make any credit-based interaction with the player so utterly meaningless in comparison it might as well be infinite. I'm sure it also makes the programming easier if it's one less thing to keep track of.

This is the kind of thinking that gets governments in trouble. They think they have infinite money, that they can simply print more. They do not. Print more money to cover expenses, and the value of the printed money inevitably decreases.

As nations expand in size, their income grows, but so do their expenses. If financial constraints do not exist for these factions, then money might as well not exist. But it does, for good reason, as a means to allow for convenient exchange of goods for money.

Was not referring to governments, but to the factions as a whole - the billions upon billions of Argons (or Paranids, Borons, etc) of which those factions are composed. Presumably a significant proportion are busily beavering away on their planets creating a staggeringly vast amount of economic activity. Compared to that the activities of a single space-based company (i.e. the player) are utterly trivial - they operate on completely different scales, many, many orders of magnitude apart. Entire planets are not going to go broke because the faction that owns them paid a mission reward, or bought some resources, or even a shiny new billion credit fleet of ships. Such things are a drop in the ocean on a planetary scale.

[Falcrack]

I'm fine with major factions having infinite money. They often control multiple planets with populations in the billions. When you consider how much a self-sufficient shipyard with a population of say 250k can make per hour, the GDP generated by populations many orders of magnitude higher must surely make any credit-based interaction with the player so utterly meaningless in comparison it might as well be infinite. I'm sure it also makes the programming easier if it's one less thing to keep track of.

This is the kind of thinking that gets governments in trouble. They think they have infinite money, that they can simply print more. They do not. Print more money to cover expenses, and the value of the printed money inevitably decreases.

As nations expand in size, their income grows, but so do their expenses. If financial constraints do not exist for these factions, then money might as well not exist. But it does, for good reason, as a means to allow for convenient exchange of goods for money.

Was not referring to governments, but to the factions as a whole - the billions upon billions of Argons (or Paranids, Borons, etc) of which those factions are composed. Presumably a significant proportion are busily beavering away on their planets creating a staggeringly vast amount of economic activity. Compared to that the activities of a single space-based company (i.e. the player) are utterly trivial - they operate on completely different scales, many, many orders of magnitude apart. Entire planets are not going to go broke because the faction that owns them paid a mission reward, or bought some resources, or even a shiny new billion credit fleet of ships. Such things are a drop in the ocean on a planetary scale.

I've heard this line of thought before, and honestly, it just sounds like a silly excuse for not having money be a factor for factions in this game. Just giving reasons for Egosoft to not have to bother with figuring out a way to make the financial aspect of the game work, which other strategy games have been able to.

I like strategy games. But a strategy game is not a strategy game if the AI plays by a completely different set of rules than the player. When factions get infinite money and the player does not, then that prevents X4 from truly being a strategy game.

Imagine playing Stellaris. But while you as the player get limited energy credits, the AI factions get infinite energy credits. Because someone figures that programming the AI to intelligently use energy credits is too hard. Or hand waves and justifies that since they are talking about these massive planetary governments, that energy credits would somehow be a non factor for them.

[LameFox]

That is kind of a funny example since Stellaris AI cheats like mad to even approach parity with players. And if I recall correctly each AI nation's home planet does actually spontaneously generate some base level of resources so it won't collapse.

I would point out though that rather than rework the game to be more focused on a credit economy, and stop the AI from falling apart, it would be much easier and require fewer changes to let the player steal the rest of the blueprints. Once you have all of those, you need not actually buy anything ever again... credits only remain useful in that your stations technically need a non zero amount to "trade" with each other. And if they had pretend civilian economies in the style of Helium Rain, we could even source our own credits. So if you want to achieve a fair footing with the AI that seems like a much simpler route.

[flywlyx]

X4's economic system lacks the depth for a true simulation, as the entire universe operates without taxes on trade or mining. Imposing a limited credit system would only create problems that can't be properly addressed.

[vvvvvvvv]

Imagine playing Stellaris. But while

The comparison is unsound, because this is X4 and not Stellaris, and player is a different type of entity compared to civilization.
A better comparison would be: imagine playing stellaris as a citizen on one of the backwater worlds with no military, financial or political power, while your opponent is an awakened empire.

Worth keeping in mind that the game is significantly scaled down for player convenience, and effectively is a space skyrim. With realistic approach, XEN infected sectors like Atiya's Misfortune, for example, would have billions of ships and it would be impossible to kick them out because you're too insignificant, plus for every K you destroy they'd build a few thousands in a hour. In practice, the game gives you a chance to matter by twisting odds in your favor.

Also, economy is out of whack. See lore blurb about 18 billion sector. Apparently 18 billion credits is supposed to be more than entire budget of Boron kingdom. However, it is not even difficult to reach those amounts in less than a month. So why don't others reach this values? Because the game is designed to let you win.

[jlehtone]

Because the game is designed to let you win.

Exactly. You continue an X4 playthrough until you no longer want to. (One can totally botch the Galaxy, but usually the "enough of this" is due to other reasons.) Could go on "forever".

Strategy, 4X, whatever games do make you aim for to quit the playthrough as quickly as possible. Compete and defeat (or get defeated).


How about this: readjust all NPC prices so that every NPC station does "make profit". That they buy low and sell high. There prices are then (close to) uniform: hauling between stations will make no real profit for the traders. This experiment does not even require to remove the infinite credits; such pricing is what "competetive global markets" go towards, isn't it?

Naturally, if the trading is "nerfed" to non-profitable, then all other means to accumulate credits should be made equally useless -- to "maintain balanced options for player"?

We haven't touched the factions' credits or logic yet, but we have made it impossible for player to gain credits. Was that actually the real problem in "infinite credits" -- that it is too easy for the player to gather assets and thus credits are meaningless for the player (no matter how finite they formally are)?

[flywlyx]

Exactly. You continue an X4 playthrough until you no longer want to. (One can totally botch the Galaxy, but usually the "enough of this" is due to other reasons.) Could go on "forever".

Strategy, 4X, whatever games do make you aim for to quit the playthrough as quickly as possible. Compete and defeat (or get defeated).

From what I’ve seen, most 4X games offer players the option to continue playing indefinitely.

How about this: readjust all NPC prices so that every NPC station does "make profit". That they buy low and sell high. There prices are then (close to) uniform: hauling between stations will make no real profit for the traders. This experiment does not even require to remove the infinite credits; such pricing is what "competetive global markets" go towards, isn't it?

Naturally, if the trading is "nerfed" to non-profitable, then all other means to accumulate credits should be made equally useless -- to "maintain balanced options for player"?

We haven't touched the factions' credits or logic yet, but we have made it impossible for player to gain credits. Was that actually the real problem in "infinite credits" -- that it is too easy for the player to gather assets and thus credits are meaningless for the player (no matter how finite they formally are)?

In my opinion, limiting the player’s ability to earn credits is boring—for example, reducing income from the wharf or shipyard. A better approach would be to increase expenses.

The biggest issue with X4's current economy is that, once players obtain blueprints and get their shipyards running, there's little use for their credits. There's no taxation, maintenance costs, or crew wages.

However, addressing this problem would require a complete overhaul of the game’s economic system, as there’s no simple solution.

[Falcrack]

The biggest issue with X4's current economy is that, once players obtain blueprints and get their shipyards running, there's little use for their credits. There's no taxation, maintenance costs, or crew wages.

However, addressing this problem would require a complete overhaul of the game’s economic system, as there’s no simple solution.

Yeah, I was putting this idea out mainly for X5, not X4. I know that changing this in X4 is not realitic or desirable. I hope for X5 there is more depth in terms of the economic simulation, such as taxes, maintenance, civilian economy, factions with limited credits, etc.

[flywlyx]

Yeah, I was putting this idea out mainly for X5, not X4. I know that changing this in X4 is not realitic or desirable. I hope for X5 there is more depth in terms of the economic simulation, such as taxes, maintenance, civilian economy, factions with limited credits, etc.

Yeah, I’m quite disappointed hearing Bernd say they’re not done with X4 yet. X4 is okay, but its game design feels too shallow, with the poorly designed economy system limiting the overall experience.
I still hope they can improve the battle AI to enhance the game, but with resources being wasted on the current economic model, that doesn’t seem likely.