I'm a newbie in need of help!

~Low Population:
How can I make it grow faster?
Population growth is based on morale on a per-planet basis. The base growth rate per turn w/o modifiers is 6% at 100 morale, 3% at 54-99 morale, and nothing below that. So if you want to grow your population faster, lower your taxes.

Keep in mind that a higher population will in turn lower morale, so you'll need to either build morale-improvement buildings or keep dropping your tax rate to keep your planets at 100%. Also, PQ improvement builds vastly improve morale among other things - build them first.

~Low Income:
How can I increase it?
Several ways. First, more population = more taxpayers = more income. Second, don't build everything everywhere. Look carefully at the maintenance costs of a building and decide whether it's worth it to you to build it. Don't build production-increasing buildings until your spending is near 100%, because what they do is allow you to spend more a turn to build things faster. If the money isn't there to spend, you're wasting the maintenance to have the building. Third, the federalist party/econ picks/resources/changing government types will all give you bonuses to your economy, which means more income.

~Low Colonization Speed:
How can I increase it?
Most obviously, a speed pick will make your colony ships move faster, so you beat the AI to worlds and expand faster. Also, make suce to start off with your spending all or nearly all in military to churn out colony ships faster. Set spending to 100% until you burn through your initial 1000bc reserve. Don't buy or lease colony ships except in dire emergencies. Take military prod. picks if you want, but be aware that since that increases your spending cap, you'll also burn up your reserve faster.

Be aware of your morale - you need people to PUT on those colony ships, so a high population growth is your friend. However, you have to balance that against taxing so that you can maintain your spending burnout longer. NEVER let a planet fall below 54 morale early on, and keep them at 100 if you think you can afford it.

-EtherMage



~SDC~

Another source of funding for me is "leasing" trade goods and technology to minors and weak majors. Since the computer does not look at long term cash projection, you can oftentimes get them to sign for a small amount of money over a long period of time. Do this a few times and you can add a huge drag on their economy as they sink farther and farther into debt (it's the same thing that happens whenever you lease too many projects at once). Remember that the computer plays (usually) by the same rules that you do, and over -500bc of debt their production shuts down to pay off their deficit. You can use this time to either attack them, catch up on the tech race, or go for trade goods that they would have otherwise produced if they hadn't gone into debt.

Greetings to the board.

I am a newbie also and playing my first game after purchasing it this weekend.
I have since browsed the Unofficial Terran Strategy Guide and realized I am
doing several things in an inefficient manner, but oh well. I am still having fun
and winning at the lowest setting.

I was wondering something about production though:
Is it better to have one super production site with all the achievements
(Hyperion Manf Cntr, Manf Cap, Omega Power Plant, etc) or spread them
out on a couple of planets? Is there a real or effective cap on production?

Thanks for any advice and also to Strategy First, et al for the game. So far
things look good and what I have heard about the beta 1.09 will be welcome.

Well, I have managed to answer my own questions after reading the econ/prod
explanation in the library. I think all the aliens like me because I have been
playing on their lower level so far. At least a few battleships make me
feel warm and safe.

The game is great so far.

Hrm. I could not edit my first post, but can the second. It is all some evil
minor races plot to confuse me.
[Message Edited]

You can only edit posts for 15 minutes after you first post them.

Glad to hear you're enjoying the game! If you ever feel like adding to your experience, consider joining an empire (like Fellowship http://home.earthlink.net/~nascarfanatic/)

DarkHobbit,

I would actually suggest you make your own thread next time. Hard to notice questions buried in a thread sometimes.

There are soft caps to production. It is 10xPQ for paid production and 3xPQ for free production.

Usually, I would put most if not all of those of one mega planet designed to build all my trade goods and wonders.