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MoOving In: A Detailed Preview of Master of Orion III
PART 6: LET'S CALL IT A DAY (Page 1)
By Daniel Quick | Apolyton CS Co-Owner/Administrator

It is perhaps an understatement when I say that there is a lot of material to cover in this article and, given that this is the sixth and final installment of my Master of Orion III preview series, it is best that we dive into it right away. I realize that it may be hefty going at times, but detail is what has been promised and detail is what is going to be delivered.

WHERE HAS ALL THE REVENUE GONE
Three weeks to the day that this article was published, I promised in an earlier installment of this feature that I would return to the 'Ledger' screen of the Finance menu. Unlike its cousin 'Budget', 'Ledger' is a summary screen where there is no direct action you can take here let alone are required to. I will get to indirect measures of action shortly, but first to analogize the 'Ledger' screen to Civilization III for a moment. CivIII's 'Trade' screen is similar in part to its said counterpart in MoO3. The 'Ledger', however, it is setup on a more macromanagement than micromanagement scale in mind. You are not presented with a meticulous breakdown of individual planets or systems of planets' income and expenses ratios but rather a balance sheet for your galactic empire as a whole. To see a more micromanagement-style setup, you will need to profile planets through the Planets screen – see page 4 for more on this.

You may wonder why the player has been given a “lump sum” treatment with the 'Ledger' screen. Recall that you are not required to individually oversee the cycle-to-cycle operations of your planets. This may perhaps be manageable to do at the start of a game, but over time it would begin to bog you down. One may then argue that the balance lies in the degrees of gameplay-control automation. I agree. MoO3 does indeed provide for this in various capacities – you can review Parts 1 through 5 of this series to compile a comprehensive profile of examples that demonstrate this.

The next set of succeeding paragraphs revolve around an in-game example of mine to practically show mostly general points of interest where possible. As opposed to learning substantively new material, you will be shown in-depth ways to look at previously introduced concepts and how they tie into one another. For our purposes here, I will only mention those points that are either a drain or vice verse on my books as per the said screenshot. For a complete definitional breakdown on the other points not touched upon in the following dialogue, see the appendices I-A and I-B.

As you can see from the related screenshot, the empire of Apolyton is carrying a net surplus of 3 AU per cycle (as of Turn 36 anyway). My 'Imperial Tax Revenue' constitutes the substantial majority of my empire's income (>90%). Without it, there would be no empire. Yes, I would be more comfortable with a larger surplus but such a gain in my favour would most likely damage my empire's social net that I have been so carefully cultivating. To my way of thinking, this is not an equitable trade-off but then again everyone's management style varies. My approach is only one of the ways to go about this. Nonetheless, in acting as the head of state a player such as myself can for once take comfort in knowing that one of the two things certain in life are taxes.

Nearly 7% of Apolyton's income is being generated by 'Orion Senate Trade'. In previous articles I have worked primarily to impart on you the political and militaristic advantages of being apart of this intergalactic body. You can now add economic benefits to that list if you have not done so already. Lastly on the “plus” side of the ledger to note is 'Inter-Civilization' trade. You will only see a value here if you have entered into one or more trade agreements with other MoO3 races. In Part 5 I mentioned such agreements being entered into between Apolyton and a number of its neighbouring races. In the aforesaid example, it constitutes less than 3% of my total income. This source of revenue is by and large steady for the length of such agreements, but do not expect this to provide a substantive cash infusion -- at least, not instantaneously. With all this talk of money, it is easy to forget that the gain of such trade is not as one-dimensional as the 'Ledger' might lead you to interpret.

As with any operation – public, private or non-profit – there are always expenses to contend with. All the income in the world will ultimately seem inconsequential if your expenses exceed them. Keen strategy players will already know that ambition in driving imperial expeditions, campaigns and tribute cannot overtake the ability to cover their costs for an extended period of time. It is likely whoever first coined the phrase “easy come, easy go” as it pertains to money was quite wealthy.