So whats the best way to run your economy?????

bumpage

Using sliders is an absolute must. There are no possible arguments to say it's better to leave sliders alone entirely. The sliders decide where your money goes, focus merely emphasis it. Not as useful, but still very good to remove unwanted research in favour of military, and vice versa. Don't bother building 2 or 3 things to enhance the economy, build a farm on every +11 planet, and make sure that you have one planet pure economy (needs to be fairly big) for every four. If you have a +30 that has 100bil pop and loads of modifiers, then you can cut that number down. But still, economy planets really help the game.

High population, high approval through entertainment and as high of a tax rate as you can manage without cutting your population growth rate too much.

This is my usual formula. Only Once you have many people on a world, use economic buildings to amp the benefits...especially stock exchanges (since they benefit morale like entertainment does). Its crucial to keep them entertained too, otherwise you'll have poor growth rates and you won't be able to amp up the tax slider as much

I use this combo because high population has so many other benefits that I like: Increased industrial activity on a planet, increased influence, increased resesarch output (even without labs) and increased ability to fill transports for invasion. Plus, higher taxable population means that each percent of tax increase translates into a greater increase of weekly income.

This may not be the best way to go about economy building, but I find its easy to implement early in the game without sacrificing too much research time on the economy, entertainment and farming branches of the tech tree. In fact, I almost always trade for the items in these branches. The AI usually doesn't regard them as being very important next to other items like weapons and defenses. A paltry attack-2 or 3 weapon is generally enough for me to buy stock-exchanges for instance.

well, your in luck, i happen to think i'm bad ass at economy.

1) Economy Race Bonus
2) Moral Race Bonus

and there you have it....keep those 2 things high (Second choice or higher).

I'll give you a run down of what *I* do when i start a new game, Economy wise. First i jump my spending to 100% and raise my Tax as high as it'll go without dipping under 50% Approval. Then i put Research up to 50% Military to 15-20% (depending on a few things) and Social to 30-35% (depending on Military) then i make damn sure everyone is happy, my planets USUALLY have 2-3 Happiness Improvments.

From my experience, keeping people happy is more important then most things....and if you can find Moral/Economy Resources in space jump on those before anything else. remember to keep putting your tax up to compliment your approval rating.

Like i said tho, this is what *I* do and since i started doing it this way, i've beaten the crap out of every game (economically). Most times i don't even research trade i find if you force yourself to do without trade, then when you lose it, you won't care (and you WILL lose trade routes; war, politics, pirates, etc)

Like i said tho, make SURE happiness is something you pay attention too, even after you get taxes up 80% going below 50% approval, once it gets up past 80% approval and your taxes are at 80% aswell start researching Interstellar Governments. THis method will keep you ahead in research and since research costs less then Military or Social spending you end up making more money from dropping those 2 sliders.

I use this combo because high population has so many other benefits that I like: Increased industrial activity on a planet... ...increased resesarch output (even without labs)

Erm, are you sure about these two? To the best of my knowledge and experience, military/social production capacity and research are all unaffected by population... Or am I missing something?

It was true for Galciv 1. Now its only for economy and troops

[QUOTE]Does anyone have a solid enough grasp of the economy to explain to me the benefits of using the sliders vs focus on planets and which method is preferred?

The sliders apply to all planets and make a straight % difference to the balance between social/military/research, nothing is lost in using these (barring a little rounding). Using the focus buttons on an individual planet has the advantage of control at a micro-level, but at the loss of efficiency. Thus, use sliders to set your overall levels, and then you can tweak individual planets by setting them to focus if applicable. If you find your setting all your planets to focus on one thing - don't. Just adjust the sliders instead.

High population, high approval through entertainment and as high of a tax rate as you can manage without cutting your population growth rate too much.

I totally agree with this. Some people prefer to set higher tax rates, which will get you more money in the short term, but in the longer term if your approval drops below 80% then your population growth suffers, and thus so does your longer term income. Therefore, I try to keep the tax slider such that happiness is 80%+, even 100% if it doesn't hurt the economy too much.

high population has so many other benefits that I like: Increased industrial activity on a planet, increased influence, increased resesarch output (even without labs) and increased ability to fill transports for invasion.

Research and military and social production have nothing to do with population afaik. But the other reasons are reason enough imo - not to mention more defenders if any enemy transports to get through.

Other tips for economy:
1) Any planet with >10 PQ, stick a farm in when it hits the pop cap, and at least one or two economy improvements, unless its a dedicated research/production planet. This helps your influence too.
2) Find one very high PQ planet, pref PQ 16+, keep it at 100% happiness, build ~4 factories and then just build economy improvements. Add more farms as you hit the pop cap, and keep the happiness up at 100% so it gets the double pop growth bonus. Make this your economic capital. Do something similar (minus the capital of course!) on a couple other decent PQ planets.
3) Don't research too quickly up the tech tree for buildings, or it takes too long to setup new planets. However, once you start hitting 5-10B pop on your planets, stock markets make a huge boost to the economy so research in that direction fairly early on.
4) Trade with the AI, giving them tech in exchange for cash whenever you are running dry.
5) Don't spend too during the coloniztion phase, and don't over-expand faster than the economy and population can keep up.
6) On huge/gigantic maps, get a second survey ship, with lots of engines and +range. Those anomalies really boost the economy in the early-game.
7) Economy improvements are worthless without population, so don't worry about them until the planet has > ~2B people or even more. Focus economy improvements on high population planets.
8) Research up to the first govt type fairly early on. The extra diplomacy means you can trade techs with the AI for even more cash, and the +25/50/75 bonus is enormous.
9) On larger maps, focus on scouts to ensure you find and subsequently grab as many economy and morale resources (heck, any resorces!) as possible - and of course those high PQ planets too.

I tend to go for some +morale and +pop growth in my racial picks, and get the +20 economy govt type. You can never have too much money as its always convertible into buildings/ships/bribes as required.