BGForums

Alright, i've had SR2010 for a few months now. I'm more or less familiar with how it works, but the complexity of the game still manages to sneak up on me. In just about every game I play, my economy somehow manages to wind up in a tail-spin.

What I think would really help newbies like myself is if some of the experts could give a step-by-step guide to show how they stabalize their own economies.

http://www.battlegoat.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=6821

And tons more in the econ&tres. section...

EDIT: Gah! Forgot about the Wiki...

Well I can't offer much - I haven't been able to play for a while because of life and technical issues, so my memory of the game is clouded by other games at the moment - but self sufficency is definately very high on my priority list. It's not possible in every scenario of course - many maps just don't have the resources to support the whole thing without the WM - but you want to rely on your neighbors as little as possible, partially because you never know when they'll turn on you, but mostly because they (the AI, I mean) aren't really thinking about the long term. Your problem could be as simple as a neighbor you've been importing from the whole game suddenly collapsing, pulling you down with him since there's suddenly a regional/global shortage in oil/uranium/whatever, or you can't afford the higher prices of the region that takes his place as your primary supplier.
Think of it this way: If third world nations stopped producing oil, the price of oil would skyrocket. This wouldn't necessarily just be a supply and demand deal (assume that the supply rises to meet the old demand for scenario number two), but because workers in the new supplying countries get paid more, resulting in a higher price despite the supply not changing in size. The problem could be as simple as workers being paid more and working in other nations (so no tax income to you to compinsate).

Of course, then you get into GDP/c stuff (the higher wages), so I'd wait for more expert-y advice on dealing with that one. I am but a mortal within these realms.

Samuel the Great,
You need to build your economy and strive for self sufficiency if possible. Nifty things like synthetic fuel plants, other and fusion power plants and composites plants can go a long way to helping achieve self sufficiency. If your victory condition isn't complete but say unification or total score then don't bother with building your military, heck scrap some of the crappy stuff. Just keep the AI's at bay with small daily bribes. Nothing worse than war to wreak your economy. Make sure you get your domestic markup high enough to make a profit. Don't engage in deficit financing unless you've got a good reserve and don't borrow. Turn off military goods production and you'll see how that cuts down on industrial goods needs which you can cut down to save resources. Don't build military units if you can, or keep them to what you really need. If you go to war let the AI declare war on you and try to pick on an AI with resources or something you need to make your economy go. If they have a nice treasury that's also a way to turn a costly war into a profitmaking enterprise. Also research some of the techs that help boost the economy or infrastructure or conserves product usage. Boost up your infrastructure investment to over 100%.
Thanks,

Eric Larsen

One very specific practical thing you can do is to keep an eye on 'efficiency' investments in your various industries. These can sneak up on you in terms of the drain they represent when a given sector begins to blossom or when populations and prodution increase. I t is difficult to gauge the cost of this value, as it is stated in terms of a percentage of production (it's really vague). In any case, this could be a contributing factor to a tailspin economy if you aren't monitoring it closely, particularly in run-ups.