New player with some questions

You establish trade routes by building freighters, which you have to research a technology to build them. When you do get one, just send it to any planet of a race that you are not at war with, and the trade route will be established, not much more management is needed after that. Starbases are mainly used for mining galactic resources, but can be used for other things, such as making terror stars, or giving bounses to your ships, increases trade revenue, and helping with cultural victory. Others can elaborate more if you wish on those two, for the first, I am not quite sure.

Thanks Fenix but I still need advice concerning Moral.
Also is it worth it to assign more than one freighter to a trade route?

hi ceetee1 - morale is a function of planet quality/population/taxation so

1. increase Planet Quality
2. move people offworld
3. build morale boosters (eg entertainment centre)
4. research morale boosting techs
5. mine a morale resource
6. reduce taxation

i'm sure there's more, but my brain az gone funny

Why not? If the planet you trade with is rather far away from origin, is rather developed and planet's owner is among those you want to trade with, you can establish all available routes with that planet. Remember: the longer way - the more trade income. But Take care of the routes being at war.

I usually have ~60% approval rating, so I increase or decrease taxations to keep this level, but I don't get more that 65% taxes(my convictions). And I keep morale level of planets more than ~60-80% building morale boosters in time and using other ways (see above).
If you colonize new planet at high level of game, don't worry if morale will be 1% or even 0%. Don't build mass morale boosters at that time. Just keep building usual buildings. Whwn you see that morale goes at level ~10-40%, build booster to make it >50-60%. I heard some people killing population of planet just to keep morale better... I don't act that ugly, it's not a foundations of good. But it's your own business.

Starbases are used for the following:
1. Giving bonuses to you/ally's ships (armor, speed, damage) and disadvantages to enemy's ones.
2. Mining resources (they give you some bonuses).
3. Giving your planets in this sector production bonus(to balance production of some sectors or to balance your income with your expences).
4. Increasing trade revenue.
5. Increasing your cultural influence in this sector.
6. Increase your range(so your ships may go further).
7. Make terror star (it can move slowly & destroy entire star systems).

Hey CT,

I'm a noob too, but here's a few things I've learned.

Re: Morale, this topic has pretty much been covered, accept for two things. If, on the planet screen, you click details, (In the lower left corner) there's a way to spend locally on propaganda. Each planet has it's own. This is a good stop gap when building the next morale-boosting structure.
At the other end of the spectrum, keep an eye out for morale boosting technologies. I believe these help you Empire wide.

As too Starbases, these nice folks have answered your question except for one thing probably too basic for them to think of, but obvious for a noob like myself. HOW do you use these starbases to gain these effects? Simple, you build another constructor ship, and have it move into the same space as an existing starbase. You will get a pop up asking if you want to upgrade, which leades to the various ways your civilization can upgrade starbases. The ways will grow not only with other technologies, but some items built will pave the way for more advanced options. I found them very useful when trying to win thru influence, which actually allows for a 3 or 4 tier palace of sorts. (No graphics really on the palace, the base just gets a little big bigger.)

Hope this helps...

Piestar



~SDC~

What did confuse me at the beginning is that the "Mining" category on the bottom does contain modules which increase military and social production.

This is the same thing the modules in the "Economic" category do. These effects are only active on planets in the same sector.

Only when you build the starbase on a galactic ressource (these colored minerals) you can build mining modules here. These are effective civilization wide and can be very very helpfull. (You already gain 5% by a starbase on a ressource itself.)

Which ressource is important depends on your strategy and your empire. e.g. one economic ressource (the green ones) is usually enough due to the income caps on each planet. But you can never get enough military, research or influence.

Moral can be very important, too. It works hand in hand with the economic ressources. When you have higher economic abilities you need less tax to utilies your potential up to the caps and vise versa.
[Message Edited]

Threats in the main forum do vanish very fast. Thus I would like to proceed with this message
http://www.galciv.com/forum.asp?BID=GS&ID=203976 in the Strategies forum.