What can I do with my existing colonies to improve my economy?
It's hard to give specific advise without knowing more about your empire. How many planets do you have? Are they specialised or more general? What is the max population of your planets?
Still, here is some general advise:
- You can't earn taxes without a tax-base, so get a high population on your money-making planets. 15b is the minimum. If the planet has a PQ of 20+ then go for 20b. However, never go beyond that. A population of higher than 20b is just too difficult to keep happy.
- Increasing your population also has two more benefits: it increases your influence, and it increases the total amount of tourism income in the galaxy. Your share of the tourism income depends on how much of the galactic influence you produce. For example, if you produce 20% of the galactic influence, you get 20% of the tourism income. For this reason, researching the culture techs (or anything that provides an influence bonus) can be quite beneficial.
- Research the advanced governments, if you have them in your tech tree. Interstellar Republic, Star Democracy, and Star Federation increase your economy by 10%, 20%, and 40% respectively. So get them as soon as possible.
- Specialise your planets. This way you can better maximise your bonuses to manufacturing, research, and economy.
- Keep an eye on maintenance. There are several improvements which are supposed to be upgrades, but are actually not worth it to use them. For example, the Industrial Sector factory has a cost of 400, a maintenance of 10bc, and provides 12mp. Its direct predecessor, the Manufacturing Center, however, has a cost of 150, a maintenance of 6bc, and provides 10mp. So you effectively more than doubled the cost and increased the maintenance by 2/3 just for 2mp more. You're better off staying with the Manufacturing Center, unless you have a planet with lots of manufacturing bonuses to make good use of the higher base production.
What happens when I run out of cash?
Once your treasury goes into the negative, your approval rating will slowly begin to drop, and you are no longer able to rush-buy things. Once your treasury reaches -500bc or lower, all production (manufacturing and research) will stop until the treasury is above -500bc again.
How do you guys build a strong economy from the start of the game?
First of all, reduce your tax-rate until your approval rating is at 100%. Your population-growth gets doubled at 100% approval (even more if you have the Super Breeder ability). Try to stay at that level as long as you can. Your tax-base will be much higher that way later on.
Research anything that can boost your economy. The best techs are those that provide bonuses to economics, population-growth, and approval.
Building two or three factories on your homeworld is necessary to produce new colony ships as quickly as possible. However, try not to over-extent yourself. Each new colony costs 10bc.
Don't immediately start building improvements on new colonies. Wait until the population is high enough to pay for the colony. In some cases, it's necessary to begin building earlier. You have to look at the situation.
Don't spend all your money on rush-buying. Your starting money is your safety-pillow. Try to make it last as long as possible.
If you are playing as the Terrans or the Drath, and start out with other races close by, then it might be a good idea to go for Universal Translator ASAP. This way you can start tech trading much sooner. Due to your huge diplomacy bonus, you're bound to get good deals.
I probably forgot a couple things, but that should be enough to get you started.
