Economic Victory

[MercantileInterest]

Cornering the global energy market is extremely difficult. By the point I can afford it, I can either elect myself supreme leader or conquer the world in less than twenty turns anyway. Has anyone managed a consistent strategy for economic victory?

Does a higher probe rating make cornering the market cheaper? Does the Nethack Terminus make it cheaper?

The strategy would be a lot more viable energy banks prevented economic crash random events.

[Yitzi]

Cornering the global energy market is extremely difficult. By the point I can afford it, I can either elect myself supreme leader or conquer the world in less than twenty turns anyway. Has anyone managed a consistent strategy for economic victory?

Not consistent, but commerce is the key.

Does a higher probe rating make cornering the market cheaper? Does the Nethack Terminus make it cheaper?

No, but a high commerce rating (from commerce techs, 3+ ECONOMY, and playing as  ) does, and makes it harder for your opponents.  And allows for more energy income to have the cash to pull it off.

[Nexii]

Well I don't think that economic victory was intended to really be any easier than the conquer or diplomatic victories.  Arguably it might be a bit too difficult compared to diplomatic, but that one's the easiest of the four.  Realistically to get economic you would need to be similarly dominant, having a majority of the world population or close to it.  And above average economic efficiency per population.

[MercantileInterest]

Have always found economic victory to be far more difficult than any of the others. You don't just need to have the majority of the world's population - you also need to stockpile vast energy reserves and then to wait for twenty turns.

[Nexii]

Yea though you could mod economic to be immediate (0 turns), its in alphax.txt.  I'd have to play some more games, compare when it's feasible to go for economic versus diplomatic.  I feel like diplomatic is perhaps too easy.  Conquer takes 100% population but diplomatic only takes 75% (granted diplomatic comes later).

[MercantileInterest]

Didn't know you could mod the time to victory in alphax.txt but the twenty turn scramble to protect the HQ sounds like a lot of fun. Making cornering the market cheaper gives a more distinct victory option.

In my last multiplayer game, the Peacekeepers had to ally with the second biggest faction ( ), nuke the Hive's capital and launch a immense orbital drop attack on Morgan's and Aki-Zeta's largest cities. It took a lot of work beyond simply having a massive population.

Now imagine if Morgan and Aki-Zeta decided to fund a Hive attempt to secure economic dominance. Planet would be plunged into civil war as the other factions desperately strove to stop them. It'd be a much more satisfying game than them simply winning, you know what I mean?

[Eadee]

I think the main problem is that cornering the energy market is  a way to simple game mechanic to make it easy to achieve.
The game sinply checks if you have enough EC. If yes you win (20 turns later).

Conquest on the other hand is easy to observe and a lot of RNG is going on. So having a large army is not a auto win, you still have to use it in a strategical profitable way and other factions can intervene at many points.

Noone can directly influence your chances in cornering the energy market. They can only stop you by military means. Yeah, if they build bases and units the prize for cornering also rises, but thats a "blind" defense since noone can calculate how much must be built to prevent you from cornering.

If the economic victory would be separated in different stages that can be observed by anyone, that would change dramatically and cornering the market might get cheaper. That however would require major modifications to the game.

I think of a concept in which you can "corner" of the energy-markets of each faction separately. When you declare to corner an energy market, your potential commerce-rating towards this faction is translated into inefficiency for that faction making them loose energy. They might have to sell facilities or make loans to keep their bases running. That way you weaken other factions so they can't compete with your economy in the long run.

After that is established you might be able to force a single faction into a pact to serve you by paying a large but not ridiculous sum of ECs. After that you could command your servant faction to support you in your economic warfare against an enemy. Adding their commerce-rating to inefficiency of that enemy faction as well.

A faction forced into a pact could be "freed" or "taken over" by similar means of an opponent so you have to invest a bit into your new ally to keep them save.

But since economic warfare is not like that, but a simple check of your bank-account and nothing more... it kinda has to be hard and expensive.

[MercantileInterest]

Have the distinct feeling that cornering the global energy market requires a player to 'buy out' his own bases and units. The cost seems to increase in direct proportion to my empire. Sisyphus would be proud. Do any of our .exe modders know whether this is the case?

[Yitzi]

Have the distinct feeling that cornering the global energy market requires a player to 'buy out' his own bases and units. The cost seems to increase in direct proportion to my empire. Sisyphus would be proud. Do any of our .exe modders know whether this is the case?

I'm pretty sure that it is not.  (It certainly isn't supposed to be.)  It does, however, grow with your opponents' empires, which are likewise growing.

(Oh, and commerce rating has a huge effect on the cost, so a high (3+) ECONOMY rating and lots of commerce techs are important, as is keeping your opponents from having the same.)

[scient]

Not pretty but you can sift through code.

Code: [Select]

char Console::corner_the_market()
{
  int v0; // eax@1
  size_t v1; // edi@3
  int v2; // ebx@3
  int v3; // esi@4
  signed int v4; // ebx@11
  int v5; // eax@11
  int v6; // esi@11
  int v7; // eax@12
  int v8; // eax@17
  int v10; // [sp+10h] [bp-8h]@6
  int v11; // [sp+14h] [bp-4h]@6

  LOBYTE(v0) = g_GAME_RULES2;
  if ( g_GAME_RULES2 & 4 )
  {
    v0 = has_tech(alphax_tech_preq_economic_victory, g_CURRENT_PC_FACT_ID);
    if ( v0 )
    {
      v1 = g_CURRENT_PC_FACT_ID;
      v2 = 0;
      if ( g_TOTAL_NUM_BASES <= 0 )
        goto LABEL_10;
      v3 = 0;
      while ( 1 )
      {
        if ( LOBYTE(g_BASES[v3 + 2]) == v1 )
        {
          bitmask(FAC_HEADQUARTERS, &v11, &v10);
          if ( (unsigned __int8)v10 & *((_BYTE *)&g_BASES[v3 + 70] + v11) )
            break;
        }
        ++v2;
        v3 += 154;
        if ( v2 >= g_TOTAL_NUM_BASES )
          goto LABEL_10;
      }
      if ( v2 >= 0 )
      {
        v4 = corner_market(v1);
        parse_num(0, v4);
        v5 = game_year(g_CURRENT_TURN_NUM + alphax_turns_corner_global_energy_market);
        parse_num(1, v5);
        v6 = 2099 * v1;
        if ( dword_96EA5C[2099 * v1] <= g_CURRENT_TURN_NUM )
        {
          if ( *(int *)((char *)&fac_struct_energy_credits + v6 * 4) >= v4 )
          {
            v0 = popp((char *)SCRIPT_TXT_ID, "CORNERMARKET", 0, "econwin_sm.pcx", 0);
            if ( v0 )
            {
              v0 = diplo_lock(50);
              if ( !v0 )
              {
                dword_96EA5C[v6] = g_CURRENT_TURN_NUM + alphax_turns_corner_global_energy_market;
                dword_96EA60[v6] = v4;
                *(int *)((char *)&fac_struct_energy_credits + v6 * 4) -= v4;
                synch_leader(v1);
                message_data(9295, 0, v1, dword_96EA5C[v6], v4, 0);
                diplo_unlock();
                Console::update_data(0);
                v8 = game_year(dword_96EA5C[v6]);
                parse_num(0, v8);
                parse_num(1, dword_96EA60[v6]);
                LOBYTE(v0) = popp((char *)SCRIPT_TXT_ID, "CORNERING", 0, "econwin_sm.pcx", 0);
              }
            }
          }
          else
          {
            parse_num(1, *(int *)((char *)&fac_struct_energy_credits + v6 * 4));
            LOBYTE(v0) = NetMsg::pop((int)"CORNERNOTYET", 0x1388u, 0, 0);
          }
        }
        else
        {
          v7 = game_year(dword_96EA5C[2099 * v1]);
          parse_num(0, v7);
          LOBYTE(v0) = NetMsg::pop((int)"CORNERALREADY", 0x1388u, 0, 0);
        }
      }
      else
      {
LABEL_10:
        LOBYTE(v0) = NetMsg::pop((int)"CORNERNOHQ", 0x1388u, 0, 0);
      }
    }
  }
  return v0;
}

signed int __cdecl corner_market(int a1)
{
  signed int v1; // ebx@1
  int v2; // esi@1
  int v3; // eax@3
  int v4; // eax@4
  signed int result; // eax@9
  __int16 *v6; // [sp+8h] [bp-4h]@2

  v1 = 0;
  v2 = 0;
  if ( g_TOTAL_NUM_BASES <= 0 )
    goto LABEL_13;
  v6 = &g_BASES[2];
  do
  {
    v3 = *(_BYTE *)v6;
    if ( v3 != a1 )
    {
      v4 = fac_struct_diplo_status[a1 + v3 + 2098 * v3];
      if ( !(v4 & DIPLO_PACT) || !(v4 & DIPLO_HAVE_SURRENDERED) )
        v1 += mind_control(v2, a1, 1);
    }
    ++v2;
    v6 += 154;
  }
  while ( v2 < g_TOTAL_NUM_BASES );
  if ( v1 >= 1000 )
    result = v1;
  else
LABEL_13:
    result = 1000;
  return result;
}

[MercantileInterest]

Just loaded up a game with 12 or so cities 100 turns in. Cost to corner: 12562 credits. Destroyed every city except the capital. Over the next five turns, the cost fell in increments of about 500 credits down to 10000. By about five turns after that, it had risen up to 12600. Of course, sacking my bases did earn me a couple thousand years of sanctions.