I need help making money...

I just got the game a few days ago, and I have been using the Terrans...

I cant really get my economy going. My planets dont make much money, and my spending is always high from improving the new planets. What am I missing? I cant make more than a grand a turn.

Locked Post

Advanced Search

Watch this post

Do not email me updates for this post Email me updates for this post

Successfully updated karma reason!

Play as a Federalist (+20 economy) until you learn all the ins and outs of economic management.

By the way a grand per turn is a LOT, probably a lot more than you need. My surplus is usually in the low hundreds (if I even have one). Reduce social and miltary spending (especially social, that seems to cost the most) and increase research spending and go after some economic techs early.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Wow, yeah, I'd dance a little jig if I was making a grand a turn and had a functioning set of colonies. (well, early in the game. Usually late game I'm making around that because of the insane Terran trade money).

My main suggestion is to have a couple of specialty planets churning out cash. If I luck out and end up with a planet that has decent PQ and 1 or 2 moral boosting tiles, I usually turn that into my cash factory.

I also tend to build 1 farm on each of my industrial planets. I've found that my industrial specialized planets can afford to give up a tile for a farm and a tile for an extra moral booster and still produce ships faster than I need them.

Research colonies I keep as research colonies. These are usually my cash drains since I tend to invest heavily in research.

My biggest suggestion though, is economy starbases along your main trade routes. I try to filter all my trade routes through a central area and then surround that area with +30% trade bonus starbases. Also, don't be scared to switch out trade routes; if you have recently researched a new life support and can access foreign planets that weren't reachable before, feel free to dump that 5 BC per turn route and trade up for an 11 BC per turn route. And the final trade suggestion; build economy starbases near foreign planets. If you have 3 trade routes going to the Iconian homeworld, then build a base or two there. The freighters generate more money when near the Iconian homeworld than they do when near your own worlds.

Successfully updated karma reason!

feel free to dump that 5 BC per turn route and trade up for an 11 BC per turn route

How do you tell which are your best trade routes? Since the BCs earned change depending on where they are in the route and on the trade window your averge is always equal to your current income, how do you pick which ones to replace?

Successfully updated karma reason!