The Lost Economies of Guernsey

First off, this game is supposed to be about waging war across the stars, vying for position in a crowded galaxy and backstabbing your neighbours.  For that reason we have kept the economy as simple as possible.  Let's face it, only accountants enjoy micromanaging an empire of 100 planets in infinite details - the rest of us want to get on and destroy things.

The Raw Materials

People, also called colonists or crew, are your workforce.  Their population will slowly grow, allowing you to continually grow your empire.  More people means more work gets done - simple.

Energy: fusion, fission, solar, hydrogen, anti-matter, who cares?  All this game is concerned with is how much have you got, how much it builds and how much is left.  Simple.

 

Population Growth

Any colonists on a planet will procreate and the population will grow.  The rate of this growth is determined by a game setting called "popgrowth".  In a standard game this setting is likely to be 0.5. 

Just to complicate things, smaller populations will grow faster - possibly since small settlements have less exciting TV, but actually because it encourages players to expand their empires.  The following formula is used to produce the population growth each turn.

growth rate * √population

So, to make things simple, consult the following table for a range of population sizes.

Population	Growth	New Population
10	2	12
25	3	28
50	4	54
75	4	79
100	5	105
250	8	258
500	11	511
1000	16	1016

 

Mining

In a standard game you will start with 1000 colonists on your homeworld, plus a few more on board a ship.  Colonists prefer to be down on the surface of a planet, where they will reward you by mining energy and by procreating to increase their numbers. 

So, to maximise your energy production you need as few colonists on board ships as possible - just load 'em up, drop 'em off and let them do their stuff.  You don't need to issue them orders, you just need to leave them there. 

The formula for energy production is based on a game setting "mining".  Each colonist will mine 1 energy from the planet, multiplied by the "mining" setting.  In most games this will be 1, so on your second turn of the game your homeworld (with 1000 colonists) will produce 1000 energy.

 

Energy Reserves

Energy is finite.  Don't believe those crazy environmentalists, everything runs out eventually.  Every planet in LCOG will have an energy reserve that is reduced every turn your colonists mine it for energy.

Be careful not to leave lots of colonists on planets with exhausted energy reserves as you will be wasting their capability.

 

In Conclusion

Follow this simple formula and you can't be doing too much wrong.

• Transport colonists
• Colonise planets
• Have babies
• Mine energy
• Build ships
• Expand further
• Destroy aliens
• Colonise whole galaxy

Easy.