There has got to be a better way....

from GalCiv2 Forums
Noob question. I'm starting the game off, I'm buying all the buildings instead of waiting and all that jazz. At the beginning, I keep getting strapped for cash, and the only way I can seem to make it is by having 3 entertainment centers per world. I end up jacking my taxes up to 80% and it's just seeming a little stupid to me. Is there a better way to start off, be making at least a little money, and be able to aggressively colonize? What are your build orders on the world and what do you buy and what do you let build?
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Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Generally I buy the first factory and let everything else go naturally (a second factory, research, economy, and entertainment). Start off with ~60% taxes (whatever you can manage and keep above 51% morale), 100% spending, and mil/soc/res at 0/50/50. Spend your starting reserves on colony ships until you bottom out, then rasie mil spending back up and balance things out as you continue building colony ships the slow way. That may nto work as well though in 1.1, as I've not tried it yet (I hear the AI is much better at the initial rush now?).
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Buy first factory then build a entertainment market lab etc. and buy 3 colony ships at start. Set the sepndeing to 100% in the first turn and the taxes to ~20% to keep 100% approval as long as you can ( huge bonus to population growth) i always play with anomalies so i just rush the engines/sensors tech build 2 10 speed surveys and just sweep the map of all the 2500 cash anomalies Its not smart to set taxes high at the beginning becouse it means less approval - you get a little population bonus at 75% and a big one at 100% and more ppl means more money
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Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I tend to do a combination of Darth and Butcherski's methods, sort of. First off, I always put at least a few ability points toward econ AND morale, especially if I choose a political party that has neither. Usually population growth, too.

First turn, I purchase one cargo hull loaded with engines and sensors, and one factory on the home world, then park the starting colony ship in orbit (unless there's something juicy in sensor range). Then I send the flagship toward one promising star and the new deep-space scout in the opposite direction. Meanwhile, I let the starting planet build a fast colony ship and other planetary improvements naturally, saving my cash for the first good planet sighting. Mars (or Bupkiss III or whatever) isn't worth colonizing at this point.

At the same time, I try to keep approval >= 75% for the 25% population growth bonus. I usually do this for the first few turns, but once you've colonized a couple of planets, you need the production points from high taxes more than the growth bonus.

Each time I find a 10+ PQ planet (or smaller world I can't do without), I purchase whatever is left to buy on the current colony ship and send it there, then start the planet building another one. When I first colonize a new planet, I purchase one factory and set the focus to social production until I have a reason to change to military or research (which will be several turns, at least), and let everything else build itself.

I also try to keep my spending rate positive, sometimes adjusting it every turn to keep a 1 - 10 bc positive flow into my treasury. In this way, I keep a little cash on hand for each starting colony through the first seven or eight planets. Buying just that first factory on every world makes an enormous difference later on.

This also makes sure that I usually have a cash reserve for emergencies like invasions, or for finishing the Restaurant of Eternity a few turns early to make sure my good neighbors the Torians don't get it first. Don't get me wrong, the Torians are great... er... amphibianoids and good all-around neighbors, but they are horrible cooks. They put things on their grills that make roadkill look like haute cuisine. And their beer! Don't get me started.

Back on topic, though - one thing that I've found is that if you wait until an improvement (factory, research center, etc.) has only one turn left before it's finished, you can often finish it dirt cheap - sometimes the last build turn costs like 12 or 18 bc. It still costs an entire turn if you let it go normally, though. I call this the Halliburton Effect.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Important is to note that the 75% bonus is BETA-only. So if you're on 1.0X the only bonus is at 100%.
Personally, I go for 50% tax right of the bat and compensate with entertainment. Works at sub-normal, but perhaps that'll change as I progress.
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Sweet, things are working much much better. I'm doing fine even when I'm losing some money per turn to get the population up, but I realized that the biggest problem I was having was that I kept on buying everying and burning the cushion money I had to start with into the hole. Letting these things build is working a heck of a lot better!
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Yes. You have to spend, but you must control the rate of spending. Moderation in all things! If you spend too fast, or jerk around your tax rate too much, your civilization will suffer economic "rubberbanding" as your citizens try to cope with the changes. That affects their morale, their ability to produce, and the amount of money you can expect to get.

Of course, one easy way to help yourself to more money is to give your civ big financial bonuses for their abilities and pick a political party that gives you financial bonuses.

I find that it helps when designing your starting colonies to not have specialized planets -- each planet should have factories, food, entertainment, diplomacy, commerce, and research. If the planet can support 3 factories, then it can have a Starport, too. Later, after you have a few planets, you can re-build things to make production, research, and political worlds. Unbalanced, specialized plamets tend to drain other resources your civ needs in the early game.

For instance, I used to make my biggest planet my production planet, and fill it with factories. Unfortunately, the people were upset, the planet was not influential, and my civ went broke trying to build large, antiquated designs.

Especially if you have research, and make a bee-line for trade, once you start talking with other civs, you can trade older techs for money, which will greatly increase your treasury after the anomalies run out.
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

You're buying all your buildings and wondering why you're running out of cash?

Uh, stop buying all your buildings?

The starting money is there for you to eat into while your economy and population develops. The only things I'll buy on a new planet is the first factory, and then usually only if there's a manufacturing bonus. Otherwise just let the planet build its own items and save your money for buying what's really important early in the game: Colony ships.