Well, before I offer advice, I'll admit to being biased... I think the Iconians are a poor race, and have thought so ever since DA. So take this with a grain of salt:


Often trade takes more than a year to start to break even, so this is a money sink at first. How long are your games?


This depends, are you running at a 79% tax rate and happy with your morale? If not, time to build more morale buildings. As for farms, keep your pop range in the 9-15 billion ish range on every world, through a mix of bonus tiles and farming techs.


This needs to be a priority.


Yes.


They have been at the bottom end for quite a while. They were almost the Grand Galactic Losers!


I don't know what difficulty you are on, but trade trade trade. Not the freighter kind, the trade screen kind. Whore out your techs to as many civs as possible to get the cash you need to hit your enemies hard. As usual, the more planets you have the easier it gets with them.


Also, check your economy screen (the one with the triangle around the stack of coins) - where is the money you are spending going? Leases? starbase upkeep? ship upkeep? production? That should tell you a lot about where the fat you need to trim is.

Hope that helps,
~ Wyndstar

Thanks for your feedback, Wyndstar. I have managed to subvert one planet and conquer another and am using your suggestion to just make them flat-out econ worlds. Also since my last post, I have managed to get harmony crystals, an econ treaty, and galactic stock exchanges (!). I'm running about 50% taxes and about 72% approval...you said I should be able to set taxes at about 80% and still keep morale up, so I am a bit off there. I will probably buy all morale buildings with the next (and last) terraforming tech.

My economy has finally leveled out. It kind of irks me that it has been so difficult to get my economy squared away because I have had to make great sacrifices in order to do so, the major one being having to put off getting a tech capital until mid-game. I simply could not afford the real estate for a research capital. Fortunately, I have managed to get an edge on diplomacy, which has helped me stay in the hunt technologically.

Where to go for the win? Well...heh, a tech victory is out of the question. I have two allies, so I must needs go for an alliance victory or a cultural victory. I would like to go for the grand good vs. evil war, but will probably take a chunk out of my allies with influence starbases...just to insure I slow down any ideas they might have for a tech. victory.

But what the heck is wrong with the Icons? I mean, what if I had disabled tech trading? There is NO WAY this race would be viable without trading for alien tech, and that, I think, is a shame.

Everything Wyndstar said is pretty much true for the Iconians, they have high maintainance buildings that cost a lot for upkeep, but are extremely high quality and space efficient. You have to be very careful initally to balance your economy out, but you will be rewarded with tons of power later in the game. Here are a bunch of strategies i went with, on a large galaxy with 4 other, randomized Gifted-Incredible AI and no initial economy, morale bonuses.

- Don't go too crazy on the inital colony rush. I don't feel that the Iconians need too many planets to succeed early on. You can invade someone later on but you need the economy initally to support it. Also, the nice thing about the Iconian's super ability is that you are generally guaranteed one or two worlds to colonize midgame.

- For new economy planets, i go 2 Factories, then a Recruitment Center, a Trade Center, some Emporiums if there is enough space and a Precursor Archive, in that order. When the population is finally getting large, a Farm and then Dream Conclave. You can substitute certain buildings for others but the Trade Center and Archive are most important in my opinion.

- Addition of Precursor Libraries on bonus research tiles and mid-high PQ planets.

- Have 100% morale until you reach Trade Centers for population growth. Without the Centers, any tax is too small to support you anyway.

- Keep in mind you can replace base Factories later on with more Emporiums or a Refinery after it has finished most of the buildings.

- Don't build Dream Conclaves and Farms until you really need them. On low PQ planets without a Farm, you will probably never even need one. They both cost lots to maintain so its important you build them last.

- If anomalies are abundant, go early Sensors and Ion Drive. Make the approprate amount of survey ships and they will help keep your economy afloat. When they have explored everything, decommision them. Don't let them sit around doing nothing.

- You need Merchant Trade Complexes as soon as possible. Sync your social production and research so that when you are done building the 2 Factories and maybe Recuit Center/Precursor Archive on your homeworld, you can immediately start a Trade Center. When you get the tech, eventually build one on every planet you have. Start with only one Trade Center if you have no money. They will start the trend to having positive economy so its important you do this as soon as possible.

- Once you start getting out of debt and have a positive economy, research Interstellar Refining. Definitely build one on your main world and later on, when you have the economy, on other production worlds. But only on production worlds, the maintainence cost is huge. After it gets finished on your homeworld, use the military production and go for a second round of colonization, surveying, construction, trading.

- I went with mass drivers and mounted two guns on tiny hulls when i got into a war early on. With one turn build cycles on two of my production planets and low maintainance, they did the job well.

- Some important techs early on (Sensors-Ion Drive) -> for surveying, if there are enough anomalies. (Xeno Medicine) -> for +15 population boost. (Organic Materials) -> +10 minaturization, for weapons, extra engines (Space Militarization) -> Recuit Center, for population boost with economy.

- Once you have one or two high production worlds, i usually pump out Frieghters and go trade with a neighbor and augment my economy. You can also probably start a war. The point is to use the military for something. Eventually, augment production with Molecular Fabricators, go with Xeno Ethics for all the free bonuses and research down the Organic tech tree. The heal rate is pretty impressive, around 7-12 as far as i can tell, in a single turn.

- One of the best bonuses for late game Iconians is the ridiculous health boosts. You can create some near invincible large-huge hulled ships that constantly regenerate. If you are careful, you can probably not lose a single one. I also ended up having a huge technology lead over the AI and built said ships to crush him easily in the end.