[bearclaw]

Just thought of how currency could best be implemented. Instead of it being a resource or a trait, government funding in the form of currency could be represented as a Budget Slider.

Somewhere like int the Empire window, there would be an indicator that shows the portion of funding going to things like Ship Maintenance, Research, Production, Resource Extraction, Intel, Trade, etc.

If the indicator is left alone, then all aspects are produced as normal amounts. But if you needed a boost to one area or another, you would have to take it from another area. So if you needed to develope a new tech sooner, you could reduce funding to Resource Extraction and Construction to say 50% and it would boost your Research output up to 125%. Actual ratios would have to be analized to ensure game balance, but I think this would do the trick.

Perhaps a maximum/minimum funding could be set and be modded in the settings.txt. To go even further, there could be an option that certain planets have various funding amounts or it could be applied system/empire-wide. Funding could affect happiness as well. Underfund a planet too long and they won't be happy.

while some may say this will add too much micromanagement, this would also have the benifit that you wouldn't have to use it. If you wanted to just leave everything alone, you could and everything would stay at normal output amounts.