The Value of Money

[Chaos Theory]

How much interest would your ECs need to bear to be worth holding, if you could spend them efficiently (say, on formers, crawlers, good facilities, etc)? Ignore such concerns as rounding of gains; this is merely to establish an ideal value. I realize this will vary according to faction, circumstances, and progress into the game, so just pick your best guess, and explain your reasoning.

[Petek]

I assume you're talking about giving a faction the INTEREST bonus? I played around with giving a faction +5% INTEREST and that was way overpowering. You quickly gain so many credits (even with normal rush builds) that you can buy most of the early SPs.

I voted for 4% and even that may be too much.

[Chaos Theory]

Actually, no. I'm just interested in how much ECs now are worth compared to ECs later. However, the topic of the INTEREST faction ability is closely related to this.

[Commy]

I voted for 5%...I'm having a tricky time understanding this question...

If I understand correctly, you're saying that you collect interest on ECs that are just stored up...your question is, what interest rate is necessary in order to make me hold on and store ECs rather than spending them?

If so, I think 5% would be a pretty good choice...if you had 1000 ECs stored up, you'd be getting 50 extra per turn...this sounds like a lot, and I guess it would be mid to late in the game, but since most players, I think, constantly spend ECs and usually finish before late game, I don't think it would matter...

[Chaos Theory]

Yeah, one way to look at it is: would you rather spend 1000 ECs productively this turn, or would you rather spend 1000 + interest ECs productively next turn, for each amount of interest?

[Commy]

I have to say, this is one of the better polls/questions I have seen for quite a while, as it truly can help one determine the value of the energy credit...

[Mead]

Depends.




Upon what else I could do (or need I have) with the cash.


Easiest is if I am being invaded and I need to rush a military, then I prefer to use my EC for military uses and it is very unlikely I would bank the ECs unless an exorbinate interest rate was paid to me.


If, I don't need (or want) to rush/upgrade a large military and I'm in a building phase then I'll look to the return I could get on my EC's otherwise.

Because it's too complicated for me to create and maintain detailed formulas or spreadsheets (is there anyone out there who has done some serious anaylsis on this?), I go with what 'feels' right.

Generally, I'll spend the ECs, if I have good stuff to spend them on such as:

Reasonably priced units (crawler/former/CP) rushes, especially ones that already have 10 mins;

Base facilities that will increase my capabilities
(Pop, energy, mins, LABS, etc.);

SPs that I really want and I'm afraid of losing to the competition (usually, I'll just disband enough crawlers to make them with a moderate EC rush to finish the SP).



All the above being said, if I have real good uses for my EC's for other stuff, it would take a high interest rate for me to bank the ECs.

On the other hand, if there's not much else I'm ready to spend my EC's on without being wasteful, I'd be more willing to accept a lower rate of interest.




The rate of interest I would want would vary throughout the game in each in every game I have played. There is no set rate that would appeal to me througout the entire game.



Mead

[dojoboy]

I'm no finance wizard, that's for sure. But, I voted for 10% because of the risk of losing the exponential effect of rushing facilities ASAP. I do not micromanage this completely, but I like to get cities producing benefits ASAP. Hope this makes sense.

[Phenix]

Tricky question.
I don't have any exact maths to prove it but going on my feelings I would say it's somewhere around 5% per year. (hey, that's a lot better than in the real world atm )

[Lazerus]

I voted 1%, mainly because the main factions that will have enough money to save are already powerful and theres no point in making the rich richer, but atleast 1% does encourage people to save. 1000ec = +10ec per year

[Chaos Theory]

I'm not planning on simply adding the INTEREST ability to any pre-existing faction. If I did add it to one of the core 14 factions, I wouldn't necessarily pick a rate as high as this poll's consensus, and I would need to remove other advantages or grant disadvantages. I certainly wouldn't just grant INTEREST, X to every faction.

[Lazerus]

hmm i'd go for 3% then, i remember once playing with 5% interest and the money soon racked up faster then i could sensibly spend it

[Sebed]

20% for me - it's really hard to stop me spending money

[binTravkin]

3%!

5 is too much, 1 is too little

[livid imp]

I built a faction with a 10% interest return.....whoa, way too powerful. So I lowered it to 5%, then it seemed to present a balanced number for the limited number of rounds I playtested said faction. At 5% I was more tempted to save than spend, which put me behind in development, but when the sh!t hit the fan (a strong neighbor attacked me) I was able to buy off enough enemy troops to reverse the attack.

Now I am not a top notch SMAC player. I would need a better player to test the faction to see just how good the interest is. 5% maybe too high, but I'd like to see more proof on it.

Originally posted by Sebed
20% for me - it's really hard to stop me spending money

You realize in 5 rounds you'd double your money at that rate.