I just started playing Dark Avatar, and at the risk of exposing my ignorance, I'd like to make a beginner's observation regarding the economic model. This is mainly for other beginners, because I'm sure this is old hat for the more experienced players.

When you want to increase the income on a planet, it's not a simple matter of building more markets. You need to take into account your tax rate first.

Bad Strategy 1:
I know that my tax rate affects my approval rating by planet, and my approval rating by planet affects my population growth. So my first strategy was to lower my tax rate to max out my population growth, and build markets to make up the difference.

Why this doesn't work:
The contribution markets make to my economy is based on my tax rate. As my tax rate slides into the 20's and teens, my markets have negligible effect on my income (8% of 20% doesn't amount to much in the early game).

Better Strategy 2:
Since a higher morale lets me increase my tax rate without sacrificing approval, I build entertainment networks, rather than markets. This lets me keep my tax rate in the 40's and 50's, while still keeping an 80% approval rating.

I experimented with a gigantic galaxy with only one foolish opponent, and stayed on my homeworld for the entire game. I was able to win a tech victory by keeping my approval in the 80's and my tax rate in the 40's. I ended up needing four Virtual Reality Centers (the ultra-morale structure) for a population of 16 billion, and the rest was devoted to markets, factories, and research, as needed.

Obviously, this isn't anything like an optimal strategy. Just a beginner's observation. Generally, morale is more important than markets when trying to make a planet economically profitable.

Now a question for the more experienced players:

Earlier, I made the observation that it would be nice to gather information on an enemy without sabotaging one of their tiles. That didn't get any responses, so let me phrase this in the form of a question: Is there a way to gather information on an enemy without sabotaging one of their tiles? If there is, I don't see it. I'm not talking about exploits or workarounds.

Thanks!