A major wealth sink for me is the research cost, more often than not it is more than half of my expenditure. Maybe playing with reduced research rate lowers this by a lot and wealth seems to be easy to come by?
Eh. I'm playing at 25% research speed right now and still having trouble with wealth. Research is certainly expensive, but it's not hard to spend everything you earn; just build more construction factories!
Yes... I think that lower research speed actually make wealth cost a more precious thing as you really have time to build more than you often can afford. Especially research, shipyards and troops can become quite expensive at times.
i agree, in my current game with research 20% i'm not so rich.. Yes, I have some money saved but i'm constantly in the verge of negative income and if i want to build or expand much more i constantly need more financial center for sustain this expansion.
This is without considering all the military infrastructure that currently i'm not building (i'm researching the necessary tech).. in that moment, my economy will probably have a big crisis.
I think the current wealth production/cost is fine but i agree that various extra options for "invest" the money you save it's a good addition for the game.