I disagree. A farm tile means you will require a multimedia tile to maintain the morale of that planet. I believe the balance is about 3 entertainment for every 2 farms (with no extra morale abilities/resources). Further to that, the last building in the run of entertainment adds an array of bonuses - including some morale. Someone did write an analysis a week or so ago.... but I dont bother minmaxing stuff like this so I mostly skim read it. It was basically down to PQ and each PQ band (eg. PQ14-18) had an optimal number of farms to achieve maximum economic income. You still need markets in each scenario.

Holy multiple farms batman!

I have never built more than 2 farms on any planet and that was a high PQ planet with no bonus farm squares and I usually don't have but one entertainment building per planet. Once in a blue moon I might have to build 2 on a PQ 20+ planet.

If you build 3-4 entertainments and more than one maybe two farms where do you build factories, labs, embassies, special projects, trade goods etc.

A planet with 17 billion population and one bonus farm produces as much tax income as a planet with 5 farms and the same population. All that multiple farms do is get you there a little faster and give you many more moral problems to deal with.

Not knocking your strategy, just saying....

Me i just normally go for the following: -

Set focus to Social....

PQ+10 Spaceport
Factory
Market Center
Factory
Entertain Network
(reset focus to cover all)
Research
All other tiles to Market Centers

As the game progresses i will substitute some of the Market Centers with other builds if req'd. However i never build more than one farm and never ever build a farm on your home world as the morale implications are frightening!!

There are many ways of maximizing your planets and to be honest its just a trial and error thing for most of us. We try things differently each time until we are happy with the way the planet 'feels'.

Oh and lastly i never build Embassies on any 'core' worlds, only on the 'rim' worlds next to other AI's

DG

As I understand it farms do nothing until the population reaches the food limit. On the homeworld that is 10 billion, every other planet it is 5 billion. The basic farm supports 4 billion and goes up with better tech. I only build farms when population approaches the food limit. The rule of thumb is one entertainment building per farm. Most worlds do fine with one farm and 9 billion max pop. Only large money planets (class 8 or better, hopefully a lot better) will get multiple farms.

My games don't last long enough for population to reach epic levels. They go off to fight in transports. 10 billion is an exceptionally large pop to me. Peaceful players may have different ideas.

Two useful tips: set the tax slider low early so approval is 100% for the pop bonus. This early population boost will help a lot and cost only a few credits. Use colony ships or troop transports so that each colony gets to 1 billion as soon as feasible. Planets with under 1 billion have much less population growth (a percentage instead of the fixed number).

Don't forget the Stock Exchange provides 10% moral in addition to the economic bonus, so a high PQ planet loaded with Stock Exchanges might only need one or no vitual reality centers!

factory
if(pq >= 9) factory
if(pq >= 10) factory
if(pq >= 11) starport
lab
lab
market
farm
entertainment
embassy
if(pq >= 12) fill the rest with labs

and I always use the best bonus tile available for a given improvement

In all the games I've played, I've only built two farms on a planet once. That was when I ended up with a monsterous PQ 30 planet. It took 6 virtual reality centers to get approval in the green at 80% taxes and 25B population (IIRC). I always run 15B population with approval buildings and 80% taxes. If I conquer a homeworld with a 10B base population, I might run 20B if it has unusually high PQ or a couple approval bonus tiles. So, my feeling is that higher taxes and lower populations are best for maximizing economic output. I'm sure that's debatable. Lower taxes and higher populations may work just as well or better. I haven't tried it myself so I don't know for sure. I think the main reason I always go the 80% tax route is that it keeps you from going bankrupt early in the game. Once I'm on it, I just stay on it.

The way income is worked out means the square root of the population counts, not actual population. Therefore 100bil is roughly 3 times better than 10 bil, in terms of income.

Also, the morale modifier is a steep gradient, reaching a point of -260% morale at 26billion, when population stops affecting morale.

Stock Markets > Farms. High population planets are NOT suitable for tax farming, but they are good for soldiers.

I like to have my taxes at the 79% cap. And don't forget, 100% morale has double growth, so it's always worth having.

AFAIK, you don't get any bonus for having your overall morale at 100%, only for individual planetary morale ratings. So if it's a case of either having 20 planets at 100% morale, with a tax rating of 59%, or 19 at 100% and 1 at 70% morale, with a tax rating of 69%, the second case is obviously better, even if it lowers your overall rating to 97%. If one planet has a situation such that it can't sustain its morale level at its current population level, then surely the last thing you want it is for its population to grow more quickly!

In short, don't let a few under-developed/over-populated planets drag down your revenue just to see a "100%" in your overall morale rating.