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3  ECONOMICS


3.1  BUILD POINTS   The "currency" for income and spending in Empires is build points, usually abbreviated to BPs. BPs represent your economic capacity and military power, not actual cash. BPs must always be spent immediately: you can't save them up or carry them from turn to turn. The balance of BPs available for you to spend in the coming turn is given in your game report.

3.2  INCOME   The income (in BPs) you get for each area you own is equal to the population in that area, and is added to your balance at the end of the previous turn. Supply costs (3.3) are deducted immediately, so the balance shown in your report is the number of BPs available for the coming turn.
Note: Don't mix up your total income with your balance - some of your income will probably have already been spent on supply costs.

3.3  MAINTENANCE COSTS   There is a cost to be paid to maintain your armies, ships and fortification costs. This is deducted from your income. If your income isn't sufficient then the only penalty is that you'll have no BPs to spend at the start of the turn (you won't be able to do much, except try to fix the problem for future turns).
Maintenance costs are calculated separately for each area (not just for your total armies, ships, forts and population) and is shown in the "areas owned" section of your game report. The total for your whole country is also shown.
ON-LAND:  For land areas the maintenance cost in each area is half (rounded down) of the total of armies, ships and forts less the number of population (that's subtract the population and then halve it - not half the total and then subtract the population). Ships that are laid up don't count. If the calculation comes out as less than zero then the cost for that area is nothing (you don't get any cash back for the areas with no troops).
AT-SEA:  For sea areas where you have any ships the maintenance cost is the distance of the ships from their base. The number of ships (and any armies they're carrying) doesn't matter.
RESERVES:  The cost of maintaining your army reserve, navy reserve and air force is 1 BP for every four strengths. Each of the three is counted separately, and fractions are ignored.

3.4  TREASURY   Although build points must be spent immediately, one of the things you can spend them on is increasing your treasury. This is a separate balance which acts as a "reserve" of BPs. The STASH action is used to increase your treasury, and the CASH action is used when you want to spend it.

3.5  STASH ACTION   The STASH action is used to put build points in your treasury at a rate of three for one (ie. three 3 BPs in your current balance for each one BP in your treasury). Usually it's better to spend BPs right away.
Format [ "STASH" ] [ BLANK ]  [ BLANK ]  [ NUMBER STASHED ]

3.6  CASH ACTION   The CASH action is used to move Bps from your treasury to your current balance, where they can be spent (immediately). There is no cost. Any BPs that are unused at the end of the turn, up to the number of treasury points cashed, are returned direct to your treasury. This means you can safely cash your whole treasury if you want (you don't have to re-stash it at 3-for-1 if you don't spend it) and you can even spend the cashed BPs and earn them back later in the turn.
Format [  "CASH"  ] [ BLANK ]  [ BLANK ]  [  NUMBER CASHED ]

3.7  UNUSED BPS   Any unused BPs left over at the end of the turn (other than points from your treasury) are automatically spent on building new armies in your reserve if possible (as for an ARMY action, rule 5.3) and the last one or two BPs after this are spent as for an ORDER action (see 6.2).

3.8  TAX ACTION   This action adds two BPs to your current balance. There's no cost, except it uses up an action. When you've got nothing better to do or you're short of BPs, fill the gaps in your turnsheet with TAX actions, and then spend them.
Format [  "TAX"  ]  [ BLANK ]  [ BLANK ]  [    BLANK    ]

3.9  GIFT ACTION   The GIFT action transfers BPs from your treasury to the treasury of another empire. The "ALL" and "ALL BUT" formats can be used.
Format [ "GIFT" ] [ BLANK ]  [ WHICH EMPIRE ]  [ NUMBER OF BPS ]
Note: BPs received in GIFT actions go into your treasury - they need to be CASHed before they can be used.