Markets are definitely key. Take the economy +30 pick, and the morale +10. Population growth is a big help getting your early game running, because you get more taxes from a higher population.

You should always aim to have your main production slider at %100. Don't rush buy too many things at first, make a lot of market centers and don't allow your population to drop too low by colonizing too fast (if pop is real low it grows back terribly slow).

I usually build 3 basic colony types: all factory, all labs, and market worlds. The market worlds generate a ton of money so I can run my factory and lab worlds at full capacity. These market worlds are ALL markets, with one or two farms and two to four morale buildings. Its generally better to build more market centers and set a slightly lower empire tax rate than to have a high empire tax and lots of entertainment buildings to make up for the approval loss.

With research, I usually go for economy techs first, research techs second, and industry techs third. Getting the advanced governments can be a huge help, as can the early morale bonus techs. I start researching and building military stuff only when I see the AI is starting to build their military.

It helps in the early game to take the tax slider down until you have 100% approval, as you get double pop growth. This means that your econ is in the red but it will pay dividends. You have to keep twitching the tax slider a bit lower each turn to keep pop growth at 100%.

When I hit tax of 0% then I shift it up as high as necessary. By this stage your early colonies should have a significant boost. Your econ will look awful compared to thers in thetimeline, but as soon as you put the taxc slider back up (when you erecah 0% tax) then your econ line on the graph will shoot up.

Also I'd say that if you have another race asking for cash - if they are a real threat, and you have the cash, hand it over - I've often seen Yor et al suddenly turn friendly and attack another race (instead of me) within a couple of turns.

I agree with previous posters re market centres etc too - build plenty, you can always replace them with something else later when your econ is OK.

Cheers

Yipes! I send my initial colony ship after my survey ship. Then I immediately buy another colony ship just to wait for another open planet. Looks like I am shooting myself in the... galactic area... by doing this.

Hmm. Recruitment Centers must be a TA feature because I've never seen it in GalCiv2 Gold. However, I'll keep my eye on the tech screen. Ten percent economy is a gift in the early stages. It seems as good as upgrading a government level, money-wise.

Of course! More population means more tax later. Up until now I have always raised taxes up until 51% approval, like this was Medieval 2: Total War. So wouldn't this mean that a higher population bonus is equal to or better than an economic bonus? I ask this because I play a customized Terran Alliance. Anyway, my noviceness is obvious.

Castratica:

+Pop growth and +econ are both amazing racial picks, but I'd say +30 econ is the most powerful racial pick. The thing is once your pop reaches the maximum your pop growth bonus stops contributing, so it's biggest role is to get your worlds up and running faster. The early game is tough economy wise, so +pop makes it easier. However, the Super Breeder super ability is even more powerful than +pop growth, IMO.

KzintiPatriarch:

Thats true, but then your colony population will grow very slowly. Of course if you're just trying to get colonies before the AI you can claim worlds in a snap by doing this. Just be careful to not build too much on those colonies to avoid overspending until your economy is up and running!

Also, Castratica, I often buy a basic factory on my new colonies to jumpstart social production. Just be careful not to overspend!

Lastly, keep in mind the AI often leases a lot of early ships which hurts their economy in the long run. If you're a bit behind in colonies at the start you can still come out ahead if you get a strong economy going and take some of those worlds from the AI!

(Everything below is my text, but based on other ideas long past presented and practiced by others on the strategy forum).

One of the key issues that hasn't been mentioned is that building markets on low population planets doesn't actually work that well because the markets increase income as a percentage of population. So +10% of virtually nothing is still virtually nothing. What does work well is to not build anything on low population planets so the planets expenses don't overshadow its income by very much. Later when populations is larger you can build stuff to increase income or whatever. About the only thing worth building on a new planet if you want to minimize its impact on your income is +population growth projects with no maintenance cost.

Don't rush into Galactic Warfare quite so fast. It is better to raise your social, economic, and military production bonuses early on, and increase your money supply with better economic buildings. It is also better to get some faster movement technologies so your colony ships can win the race to other planets. Instead of trying to build a military early just keep on eye the diplomacy standings, and use your economic treaty and research treaty to keep the two races that dislike you the most early in the game from turning against you. This will give you some extra time before you have to build your military.

In the meantime set your sliders to 1% military, 99% social, 0% research. Then put EVERY planet you colonize on Focused Research. The way this works is the 99% social ensures that all your planets will build new buildings very quickly. Then any planets that are set to build ships will start building them very rapidly as the 99% social roles over to 100% military once all building projects are completed. Meanwhile any planets that complete all social building but which do not have any ship building scheduled will have no building expenses and so if their taxes are sufficient such planets will generate plenty of profits, especially if they have markets. Since all planets are focused to research they will also generate a fair amount of research, especially your ship building planets, which will have a lot of industry switched over to research.

With this method when you research a new building you will have big drops in cash as all planets start building it, but once the building is done you will build up big reserves until your next galaxy-wide update is discovered. Also if you do absolutely need to research something fast you can turn research up and social down, and with the focus already set to research on all planets you will have your research done in no time. Another advantage is that if you are low on cash you can just tell planets that have no social work to do to also stop building ships, giving you an immediate decrease in expenses.

There is one other interesting thing about this method... It does not require, or work well with, research planets. Focused market planets and focused industry planets are all you want, or need, with this plan. Sure if you have a 300% or 700% research bonus tile use it, but otherwise make all small planets market planets, all large planets industry planets, and split the ones in the middle based on need, though most will want to be industry. Under this method all industrial buildings are effectively research buildings as well, so +research is not needed. This saves you the trouble of researching research.

It can take a while to get used to playing this way, but it is actually easier to balance than the three-focused method, which suffers a lot more from one mis-balancing choice (having slightly too many research and/or economy planets is tough to deal with in a sudden war, while this method only suffers if you have way too many economic planets, and sometimes not even then if you want to rush-build everything). There are also many other methods that work, including things like the single-focus method in research for tiny maps with 9 players. So the best advice is to give all the methods a try on a medium map, see what works for you, and then try to expand or contract the concept for other map sizes to want to play with.

That sounds absolotely crazy! A population with research funding at 0% who persist in focusing on research. These people must be driven by science alone to say 'no thanks' to a weekly pay-check. I do like to rub my hands with this radical approach of exploiting the system.

To anyone out there: Do not dive into GalCiv2 thinking that your MoO2 experience equals mastery of the game. While I have the upper hand now, I took a close look at some of my planets to see mountains of building maintenance on a population of 0.98 billion. This is the legacy of a colony whose unconcerned governer loads up on transports to invade the Korath. My, how spacey these advanced troop pods must be!

A Galactic thank you to everyone in this topic.

I guess it depends on your definition of "early game."

Every game I play, I will start by adjusting my tax rate every turn to just maintain 100% approval on my home world until it's population approaches the maximum. With such a small population, even a tax rate of 100% would not be bringing in many BC's. And the difference between a tax rate of 59% and say 29% is not large.

By concentrating on moral, economy, and population growth, I ensure that I can raise taxes on some turns (moral), that whatever my tax rate, I'll see more income (economy), and see even more income because my population is growing quickly. And don't forget your sensors so you can get some more survey vessels!! I can't emphasize this last point enough. Use them to not only find anomalies, but to scope out resources and big, juicy planets.

Once I reach the max population on my home world, I'll start adjusting my tax rate to whatever works. This usually winds up at 49% for much of the game, which with my typical racial picks and a strong desire to keep my throngs of loyal subjects happy and loyal, puts my approval rating somewhere between 75% and 100%.