The advice the last poster gave was spot on.

Just to build on what moosetek13 said, find a high quality planet 15 or higher,put one farm on it a couple of entertainment centres and use all but one tile for stock markets..the spare tile you left out should be for an economic capitol..i did this and one of my planets generates 538 credits on a class 26 planet..hope it helps

I'd like to add that for the 1 farm to 1 entertainment to work, you need to upgrade the relevant technology up near enough the same time otherwise you have too much in 1 area. I think for every farm upgrade you make, you need 2 entainment upgrade to even out the morale problems.

Economy starbases are fantastic. A huge populate planet, built as an economy capital, surrounded by fours economy starbases brings you lots. Especially if that planets is used for trading too as the trade lines will beneifit from the starbases.

yeah, try to get at least get part-way up the econ tree and get better econ buildings started before you have to reduce production % for the crunch... and try to keep morale up above 75%, so your people don't slow down their breeding, even if it means you need to reduce production even further.

when the crunch gets really bad and you can't even keep the 75%morale, at least try to keep it above 50%! the farms and entertainment centers advice is key, as you need to breed up taxpayers, without suffering morale problems from the higher population that would depress the birthrate.

if you find a big farming bonus tile, go ahead and build a farm on it! don't be afraid: just make sure you zone an extra entertainment center. and to make the world an economic powerhouse, zone maybe 4 tiles for econ buildings... don't even bother with any research buildings on that planet, if you get short on tiles.

once you get out of the bad part of the crunch, and can keep 75% morale, switch to Republic. of course, if you didn't start researching towards it before the crunch, it will take a long time to get it... make sure you're at least close to it (and stock markets!) by the time the crunch hits.

as for the econ starbases, only half of the bonus they give needs to be payed for, so they make the money that you do spend go further... in this case, hopefully into building stock markets!

I don't think economic starbases actually increase the amount of money you make, do they?

That was my understanding as well. Am I wrong?

Only with Trade modules and trade routes AFAIK

If you go broke, you aren't winning FYI

You're building more production and research than you have the economy to support.

Two main tips:

1) Get morale to 100%. If habitable planets are going to be fairly limited (say you expect to end up with 15 or so) then the earlier suggestion by a poster to reduce the tax rate in the first 10-20 turns is OK. If the colonization phase is going to be long, it is better to get morale up by building entertainment centers on every planet instead. This way you keep the 100% morale even after you put the tax rate up. During colonization I have the tax rate at 59%, but you can go to 69% if you're colonizing only high quality planets or you have a racial morale bonus. Build 4 entertainment networks on every planet if you do this (enough to maintain 100% morale up to 5B and beyond)

2) Factories and research labs cost money to maintain even when they're not being used. So don't build them until you can afford to run them. (Actually, you'll find that your economy starts to grow really quickly so you can actually start buildling a little BEFORE you can afford to run them...you'll get better at judging this with practice) On the other hand, financial buildings (built, not bought!) will pay for themselves in less than 10 turns on a planet with a reasonable population (2B+). Build them whenever you're waiting for your economy to grow enough to support more production. You can always upgrade them to factories or research labs later.

Well...

Try to rush-research to Stock Markets. Im experimenting with Technologists and +20% research and some others with a custom race, its going well... except I find myself in the same situation as you, or rather, my economy is so slow that I eventually get bored and want more events... sigh.

Anyway, Stock Markets are your big boy friend.

Wow, wow, what? You're kidding right? Of course economic resources increase the amount of money you make.

Economic *resources* do, economic *starbases* do not. (Well, they can do with trade modules, but it's not a significant increase unless you put loads of work into trade)

You doNOT need 100% moral, 75% moral gives one a population growth, while producing more taxes to support more building or more military.

You don't *need* 100% morale, but going for it on every planet in the early game will in the long run make you more money than lower morale plus higher tax rate...at least it did when I first posted on this thread (I admit I'm sad enough to have run this through spreadsheets!)

The lower bonus to population growth doesn't compensate.

This is all pre 1.31. Following the nerfing of morale buildings, I seriously doubt you'll be *financially* better off gunning for 100% morale any more because you'll either have to build a ridiculous number of morale buildings, or have a horribly low tax rate.

Agreed on economic starbases. They don't increase the money you *make* (much) though as I said, just what you can do with it. The exception would be an excellent trading setup all emanating from one planet in much the same, or even identical, direction. Even there, it can take quite a while for the trade boosts to equal the constructor costs putting them in place.

you CANT go broke on small map. he's obviously speaking of large maps

(well, in thery you could go broke on small maps if you play really insanly badly... that would deserve its own medal)

all that talk about economic research is a bit pointless too. if you're at that point, you obviously didn't get broke, did you ? the usual problem is starting up... it's easy to get broke... just colonize every planet on sight and build factories and research centers like a maniac... you WILL run out of money and face a -1000bc/turn at maximum taxe rate (80% ?) with all planet having negative pop growth... sweet ... a dead end...

****Here is what the usual problem is***

At 33% a 5 billion planet give you 17bc and cost you 12bc just for colony maintenance plus extra for production and research. there is also a bug that cause the social production to be charged even when building nothing (at least was there in 1.2, couldn't figure if its fixed yet... didn't seem to be)

It's a no brainer that it's very easy to get broke, since the population of a starting colony is very low. with a single colony module (typical fast speed colony, the standard model come with 2 module, if you take one out and put more drive you outrun the competition) ... so I was saying, if you start with a full colony module, it takes 20 turn to reach 1 billion, after which the optimal growth is .25/turn (max morale) it's still another delay before you reach 5b. in fact you need a farm, and usually somewhere above 8b to reach break-even on most colony, from population alone

your problem is obviously morale

here is some data that can help you

planet quality affect morale (a lot)
>> colonize big planets first, the small ones never get big, if you surround them and the enemy colonize they will get absorbed. especially true for all those size 5 planet

exception: colonizing a full sector give an influence bonus. so if there are only two planets in a sector, it may be worth to colonize it to strengthen your influence. also, you don't want your size 37 (yes, 37) planet to be surrounded by enemy planets and rebel against you ...

morality affect both morale and planet quality !!!
neutral race get a big morale bonus, that tech (morality) also give you access to the crystal achievement (trade goods) which give a +20 moral on all your planets
neutral races also get all upgrade tiles availlable immedialetly.... see... I wasn't kidding... size 37 planet indeed

>> morality is an early research target, but after you got some speed drive research done


racial habilities:
planet quality: +20% - this is more important than max morale bonus !
there are tons of morale ressources out there, tons of morale galactic achievements, and as stated before, planet quality DOES GENERATE A MORALE BONUS... a multiplicative one in fact, if you check the formulas
moarale bonus: the 2 remaining points give you +25
political part: your choice, a +10 morale is availlable, I prefer +20 economic, but I might try different next time... just because morale is so critical early on

money and population growth:
morale at 100% give you 2x the pop growth
using transport to ferry population from high pop planet to low pop planet will both raise morale and help pop growth. remember the 20 turn to reach 1 billion... you can make this 20 turn go down to zero with transports. it also allow you to build colonies with very few peoples (250m ? or even less... so you don't shrink your planets) while using transport for the actual population transport

greed: don't be greedy !
I mean two things.
don't go full research on production/research/commerce/etc right away.
the basic facilities are ultra cheap and ultra fast to build. try to finish your colonisation and planet setup first. that way planet are unproductive... but hey ! production cost money... so this is a bessing ! it allow you to build a setup that look like this

starport (buy, it's only 152bc)
3 factory (nice number, more for capitals and military starport)
1 farm
1 entertainment
3 commerce
1 embassy (+% accross the galaxy.... nice... get some tourism, big influence, absorb planets)

if you're in a thought spot, setup the worst planets like this:
1 starport
1 farm
1 entertainment

once you're all set with that and the economy goes right, research production first, followed up by trade and then research. don'tt worry you get 1-2 years before the badies look at you - after that it's time for the big diplomatic squeeze

early on (before all that production/rsearch/trade thingy), all research should
be geared toward speed: ship drives, miniaturization, logistic/range.
your goal is to spread and strengthen pockets of your civilisations through the galaxy. target the really big planet first.

How do you target those big planets?
you DONT build colony ships early on.
you DONT colonize the planet next door.

instead you start with the custom race, remove the hyperdrive tech (2 turn to research at 100%) and add sensors. buy some factory (cheap) while you build so really fast custom designed survey ship. you will have a fleet of scouts, you will find the planets first, you will grab all the anomalies for big $$$ and big %%%.

here is the secret: you build colonies when you find those planets. now they will grow, you will transport peoples there. you CAN upgrade at any time your scout (survey) ship to get faster drives OR you can upgrade them and turn them into transport or colonies (very cheap) and back to scout if needed. or turn them into deadly vulture and kill enemy constructors/colonies/freghter/etc or even turn them into contructor (lol that's a dirty trick ! but very realistic... why engineer couldn't do that, hey ?)

speed speed speed.... $$$$