my recipe for DA economy

i've read and replied in several threads about economy in DA - how to maximize money, population, etc.

in the game i've got going now i tried a new method. i put two farms on every planet (except my homeworld, which only got 1), but held on researching the last farm tech. this resulted in the population on every planet being 18 billion, just below the 20b cap where morale plumits. one VRC on each planet, plus 5 morale mining bases, all the morale-boosting trade goods, the krynn's 50% morale boost plus an extra 20% i bought, and the morale boost from playing neutral, and i'm taking them at 79% with an approval of over 80%. if i were at home, i'd post more concrete stats.

this is late-game level development. i've got all the terraforming techs, and only 3 of 51 colonies are below PQ 10. planets of 10 or higher get:
1 starport
4 industrial sectors
1 quantum reactor
2 farms (second to highest level)
1 VRC
1 counter-espionage center

extra tiles are either stock markets or NLCs. my few PQ 8 and 9 planets are sans 1 farm and/or 1 industrial sector.

if i were playing a smaller game and were willing to handle the micro-management, i'd disable the governor upgrading on all my planets, research the last farming tech, and upgrade only 1 farm per planet (resulting in populations of 19b, or 13b for the signle-farm colonies). but when you've got 51 planets and aren't playing for an MV score, it just ain't worth it.

cheers,
nik

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Can you be more specific and explain your economy when in the early, mid, and end game phase? It would very helpful

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that up there is a description of what i hope for by the end game. the main point was talk about the max population i've been able to achieve, and how i did it. basically, i secured every possible morale boost i could, and built my planets along those guidelines.

early game i don't have much of a forumla. i try to get as many anomolies as i can by building extra surveyors, and hope that'll float me through. there are lots of well-established threads dedicaded to early game economy, if you're having trouble with that.

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for example, here's a forum with a healthy conversation about early game tactics: "How do they do it?"

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It would be interesting to see more threads of how people are doing mid-game economy, especially in 1.50X and if you're Good ethical alignment. How exactly do you handle flirting with the -500bc mark and turning your economy into the black?

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hmm i don't play good often. it kinda sucks.

personally, i'm always willing to run my economy into the red at times. certain ship upgrades justify it, as do certain galactic wonders if they're really worth it. i feel that you can often make money back so quickly with all your spending off that it's worth losing the turns worth of production and research. but that may just be me.

also, in my mod setup, in include the option to buy points in 'interest rates' which isn't implemented by seems to work (and does AFAIK). it gives you better financing deals.

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You should consider specializing your planets more. Put a high population and lots of stock markets on the same planet, because population and economy buildings multiply with each other to produce taxes. On planets that have no stock markets, you don't need farms or morale buildings, so you can build more factories and labs.

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Hi!

plus 5 morale mining bases

You must be in a gigantic galaxy. In my large I scanned ~90% of it, and found only two morale resources.

And Drath have beten me to one by 5 parsecs!

The 1-farm rule is for such galaxies, where one can't count on getting even one morale resource.

BR, Iztok

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Hmm, I don't usually go below 1k bc, here's how I do it (playing tough):

-Don't develop newly colonized planets until I'm getting positive cashflow. They'll drain the bcs I need for my homeworld factories building colony ships.

-Try to keep 100% approval as long as possible at the beginning, especially at homeworld if nowhere else. I don't even drop below 75% approval.

-Research xeno entertainment early, because +15 morale is a lot for such an early tech.

-All planets get 1 farm, 1 entertainment and 2 banks as a packet program.

-The 1st colony I develop will be an economic one, meaning it will be filled with banks (2 farms and 3-4 entertainment buildings if possible).

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most of them are specialized. i have industry and starports on all my planets, so i think of specialization as a secondary thing. it's not hard to eventually have mostly planets of PQ12+ since terraforming now affects lower quality planets so much. i like having higher population planets as an added measure against invasion, and because it's nice on the economy. but generally, very good planets (PQ16+) have their second focus as research (a research coordinator and NLCs), and lower quality planets usually have the extra tiles only as stock markets.

You must be in a gigantic galaxy. In my large I scanned ~90% of it, and found only two morale resources. And Drath have beten me to one by 5 parsecs!

The 1-farm rule is for such galaxies, where one can't count on getting even one morale resource.

it's still possible to get your taxes pretty high w/o morale resources. and i have played on medium maps and seen 5 of the same single resource; but you're right, it's not something to be relied on. planets with a 100% morale bonus tile can help a lot - i'm perfectly okay with some planets' morale being in the 60% range, as long as my average is about 75%. your point is still well-taken. i didn't mean to suggest this as some end-all, be-all method for economy, i mostly wanted to see how high a population i could get and realistically maintain.

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