Expanded too fast. Maintenance cost > Tax revenue

I've been in this position and just started over. But I suppose you could take a look at your colony list and destroy your low quality planet colonies or the ones with the worst income/cost rate.

You should have built some moral boosting, and economic building before you ran out of cash. Sell some tech for the cash you need if you can. Other than that it's increasing taxes, or waiting for population growth. Then build some economy producing buildings. Morale boosting building let you increase taxes, but you need them on all planets if you do that since increasing taxes affects everyone. Good luck, and hope your survey ship finds some cash anomalies.

I started over and found I have to save most of the early hoarded cash to survive the cash burn until Population/Taxes start to slowly rise over Maintenance. In that game I had too many Class 4's and its 12 BC just for the colony.

Well, the AI seems to expand VERY rapidly, so i wonder how they survive this rapid expansion.

well, if you adjust the production bar back, I assume you have it at 100% And usaully if you drop social production lower and have military production higher you will save money there as well, both Social and research costs more then military. Next patch, 1.1 will have it so money wasted on social will go back into your pocket, not just wasted.

I sell techs, and push down the taxes until I get out of that rut. Sell stuff to other Civs, and you maight be able to stay afloat until you get your economy back on track.

Personally, I make my home planet an economic center (1 farm, 1 entertainment, 1or 2 factory, rest economy) unless there is a 700% bonus tile. Since I use magical PQ enhancer as an ability, I get a strong economy quickly, and can keep taxes low while prodcution is at 100%. A couple of these planets (one 10+ pure economy every 5 other planets) keeps you rolling in cash

I used to buy the first factory on every planet and buy colony ships. Now I don't buy anything until my economy is really cooking. . . I just set the social slider to 100% for the first few turns, until I've completed three factories on my homeworld. After that I've usually found at least one more habitable planet, so I crank military spending to 100% and am able to build a colony ship every second turn. Social projects don't get done, but that's alright; they'll get done when there's nothing left to colonise.

you need to build lots of the basic economic buidings on your initial planet. Unfortunately it's probably to late once you've reached the point where you have negative cash flow at 0% production.

Well, the AI seems to expand VERY rapidly, so i wonder how they survive this rapid expansion.

Unless you mean on the very hardest difficulty, I can easily outexpand the AI everytime. I think half the problem of the OP is not the maintenance cost of the colonies but he probably spotted some nice 300/700% manufacturing tiles and popped the factory down straight away. In the expansion stage you need to avoid using those tiles at all - build a standard factory, get your population growing, their morale high, a little cash and a little science. If you can see a lot of planets in range, consider slightly different tactics - rathen than buying all your colony ships, try building up some factories on your core world or 2 and pumping out colony ships instead of buying them.

In the initial colony rush on a gigantic map, I have had upward of 30 planets while still researching and building social projects. That's playing on tough - so the AI doesnt get any economic bonus, but should be playing at his max.

Well, the AI seems to expand VERY rapidly, so i wonder how they survive this rapid expansion.

Unless you mean on the very hardest difficulty, I can easily outexpand the AI everytime. I think half the problem of the OP is not the maintenance cost of the colonies but he probably spotted some nice 300/700% manufacturing tiles and popped the factory down straight away. In the expansion stage you need to avoid using those tiles at all - build a standard factory, get your population growing, their morale high, a little cash and a little science. If you can see a lot of planets in range, consider slightly different tactics - rathen than buying all your colony ships, try building up some factories on your core world or 2 and pumping out colony ships instead of buying them.

In the initial colony rush on a gigantic map, I have had upward of 30 planets while still researching and building social projects. That's playing on tough - so the AI doesnt get any economic bonus, but should be playing at his max.

If the colonies are still small, shuttle around some population in a spare colony ship. You get diminishing tax returns as population grows. So, an additional half billion colonists on a colony with maybe one hundred million colonists brings in more revenue than an additional half billion colonists on a world with ten billion colonists.

If you're capital is a economic center, this isn't that great a strategy. If your homeworld is a manufacturing center (mass-produced colony ships) , then it can make a surprising difference, though it may be somewhat of an unwelcome micromanagement. You may know this, but if you've already colonized a planet, you can land a colony ship on that planet without it being used up. Just launch it with 1 million people, the minimum, and send it back to your overcrowded capital or a growth center.

well, if you adjust the production bar back, I assume you have it at 100% And usaully if you drop social production lower and have military production higher you will save money there as well, both Social and research costs more then military. Next patch, 1.1 will have it so money wasted on social will go back into your pocket, not just wasted.

Actually, the military and social sliders both cost the same, with only slight differences if you used the focus on some worlds. They're both funneled through the same factories either way, so shifting from military to spcial won't matter. Research is funneled through research centers instead of factories, so its the one that tends to be different (usually cheaper per percent, but thats not always true).

Either way, it won't help when spending is at 0%. Moving the military/social/research sliders around is pointless when spending is 0% because you're not putting any money into them. The only solution is to increase your income somehow or else lower your costs. The 12bc upkeep on your initial colonies is murder if you have too many class 4 worlds in the early game, so don't colonize them till there isn't much else left.

And don't feel too stupid for doing this. I've done it before when I ran into several 1000 or 2500 bc anomalies and went crazy buying colony ships. Eventually I hit -500 bc from maintenance and ended up losing money even when all my production was shut off. I gave up on that game pretty quickly after that.

I have to disagree with that. I think if you have a military bonus (Drengin), you may notice a significant difference in spending related to the distrubution between military and social.

If you want to play it out, take the hit to your treasury (even when it goes into negative). Lower your taxes to keep your approval at 100% for double population growth. The initial colony population max (5 billion) gives the most taxes per population, so they will support their own maintenance cost once they fill up. Once you are able to start raising your spending again, work on getting a few markets on each planet. The best way to do this (just theory) prior to 1.1 social spending change might be to set your slider to 100% military (and make sure no ships are being built), then focus on social for the places needing to build. The production spent on military that isn't used is not spent at all. This will allow you to manage planets that need to be spending on social, and planets that shouldn't be spending anything.