well, for starters what I like to do is the tried and true colony rush. Now this may pose as a bit of an economic hurdle, but with a little luck you'll do ok. I might build some factories on the first two plantes, but everything else I colonise is starport only (and they build, that's right, more colony ships.)

Once I've researched the first economic tech, I make sure to build the econ structure on all of those planets. Generally it's an apporx 10% gain, but it helps. The second structure might be the recruiting facility - 10% econ + 10% pop growth for 1bc maintenance - the thing pays for itself!

Then, when the trade tech is a three turn item, I'll go for it, and build freighters from my highest PQ colonies (I don't know if having more population means more trade, but to me, it makes a psychological difference.)

Once the "rush" is over, I tend to focus on on setting up trade routes and econ starbases with the trade upgrades.

Now, sometimes I do get myself into some econ trouble, but I hope that my flagship finds a few 1000 bc anamolies.

When I start to run low on the moula, I'll simple sell my techs to the other races - the minors usually have money to burn, so I mainly sell to them.

I may also have to reduce my production capacity as well, but I'll continually move it closer to 100% as more money is generated. This may only last for a short period though.

I've managed to use this strategy with almost every race. Some are easier than others. I've found the Yor requires a little more research into the econ tech tree, but it's still doable.

Good luck!

To win this game, the number of planets you colonize is everything. So make lots of colony ships and get the catography tech so you know where the planets are. Set your taxes higher until your approval is 65%. Buy one Lab and one factory. Ignore the 4 point planet, look for 10 or higher at first, you can get the smaller planets later on. Set your controls for 100% research until you have enough factory power to make ships in 8 turns or better. In the mean time buy a colony ship every turn. When your factory is ready, make a survey ship or two, then go back to making colony ships.

Your economy is proportional to the size of your colony. Hence get the population techs asap. Once you run out of cash you should be ready to build your own colony ships. You can build ships faster if you get the military techs.

Just remember, its all in the balancing of population (taxes) vs expenses. When you get in the red, reduce your manufacturing, build farms to allow more population and wait for your income to increase before you populate any more planets. Most of the time you will find an annomaly that will give you the cash you need to raise your manufacturing again. Then when you are in the red again, the cycle starts all over until you can get some trade routes going to increase you income.

This has worked well for me. I have not lost very often.

But I do think that the economy battle is excessive. Too much effort is spent on managing money. I would prefer to focus on the fun parts of the game.

I second that.
Plus I use "Ferry-Ships" to transport my population around asap.
Early on I use ColonyShips with 2 modules, but switch to Troop-TRansporters with 1M as soon as possible.
Then I take population off my high-population worlds and ferry it over to that worlds that have been newly colonized and/or are low-pop.

An early game strategy i use is to lower taxes until approval is 100% (on all planets, cos the homeplanet will have a higher pop. so more effect in the average) then i just buy my first factory on my homeplanet and set the investment slider quite high, (but not -ruin the economy in 2 turns high) then i just colonise, and military prod. focus on homeplanet churning out colony ships, in this way the pop. massively rises so that it get less hard later on, then i tend to concentrate on the first few eco techs and espically trade, this strat works pretty well for me but may need some fine tuning depending on your play style.

If all you have is basically your starting planets I would try to get the first terraforming tech rather quickly to get the class 4 up to snuff and turn it into a money planet. I would then use the homeworld for Tech/Man. but only focus on one thing at a time to get max output for what I'm working on at the time. Tech up then turn on the production machine. Snatching some minor's planets quickly can help you out too, since their worlds are class 15.