I'm interested in this too and was going to start a thread about "How do you build a money world?"

I usually shoot for a decent sized PQ world with 12-19B population - whatever I can get away with without using any +morale buildings. I'll usually have 2 factory buildings and a powerplant at first, to get everything built, then eventually replace even those with stock markets. I'll have 1 farm minimum - sometimes 2 - if it won't put the population over 19B. All other tiles get stock markets.

A lot of times I can't have pure money worlds right away - I often start with more balanced worlds then specialize them over time depending on how the colony rush and early conquests go. So, the 2fact+pplant often do a lot more work than simply build/upgrade money structures - until the final money world layout is hit, at least.

Are any other buildings you might put on a money world, or other ways of designing them?

Influence can help with tourism income - but I don't know if it's worth having a +influence building over a stock market.

I've seen some who say not to go above 12B pop, but I don't usually have a problem with approval, even with no +morale buildings, because I'll usually have a few morale boosting wonders, probably +morale racial, and my production/research planets are going to usually be at 6B - 12B with high morale (good to fill troop transports from somewhere other than money worlds). According to the wiki on taxes, morale/loyalty have nothing to do with tax income, so the only real consideration would seem to be keeping approval level under control empire-wide. More population does provide more taxes - but dunno if the benefit is that huge over 12B pop.

I usually build 2 farms and two morale buildings for economy and influence worlds. production and science worlds get none!

1 farm is the maximum economic efficiency, and i should probably stick to that except where bonus tiles are involved.

Yeah I've been experimenting a bit over the last day with a +70% pop grown and maxing out all the morale bonuses, having an economic capital with 2 farms still needs 4+ entertainment buildings to keep them happy when it hits max pop, On big worlds though (16+) I think it's worth it because you can still put in 6-8 stock markets and make a killing.

When my population starts to hit 20B, that tells me it's about time to send in a cruise ship and whisk some of them away.

Depends how you treat those worlds (amongst many other factors, I'm sure).

AI worlds usually have a starport - if you use up the production already tied up in it then remove it, that saves some bc.

If you remove all unnecessary structures (usually any +moreale, +influence, OFM, defense) that saves some bc.

If you halt upgrading of structures, that saves bc (often you already have all the research and production you need, so upgrading those types of structures is pointless). You might let factory type buildings upgrade if there's a lot of building or refitting to be done. But you might also move those down the queue and build some stock markets ahead of them so the world can pay for itself quickly.

It also helps if you put some people on a newly conquered world so it has some taxpayers and repopulates faster. The biggest reason conquested planets generate no money and crush your econ is lack of people to pay taxes. I'll usually dump and extra 1b on after an invasion.

Then you start adding stock markets or replacing other structures with stock markets.

And you have a new money world to pay for your core and warships that doesn't ever really cost you much or costs nothing.

You probably won't always convert a newly acquired world to a money world but unless you have a definite plan for it as a research or production world, then it's probably a good idea and it'll help keep your "expansion costs" under control.

I haven't played on anything bigger than large maps so far though (PC could handle it, but dunno if I could!). I'm not sure I'd enjoy the micromanagement involved with a 300-500 planet empire.

How does it *force* you? Just leave them unhappy whilst you get a few entertainment buildings down.

This has never happened to me. I usually set my taxes at either 59% or 69% and can't say I've ever seen a newly conquered world unhappy, the unhappy worlds are always the big pop worlds. Regardless even if they were unhappy I'd still rather let them stay unhappy until an entertainment building goes up than pull taxes down and screw the rest of my economy.

Agreed. With all the global morale bonuses, I almost never build entertainment centers except on bonus squares. The AI actually builds more of them than I do. I almost never have anything but 100% morale on newly-conquered planets. I'm even frequently upgrading the entertainment centers on those new planets to factories.