Economy Question

Go with the flow.

Higher PQ planets can support larger populations. Lower PQ's can't.

No farms for low, more for high - with morale buildings on the high PQ's, and econs on all. Then adjust the tax rate for best results.

It is all a question of balance.

In ToA I build a farm on every planet except my homeworld. Once you research intensive farming, the population cap will rise to 14 billion without using a bonus tile. With one entertainment structure per planet, you can raise taxes to 79% and maintain acceptable morale as long as you fully research the morale/entertainment tree and all the morale trade goods. I will use a 2x farming bonus tile - which raises population cap to 20 billion - if (and only if) the planet has 2 or more entertainment bonus tiles or if I am fortunate enough to find a defensible morale resource. I have seen no indication PQ affects the population cap. I typically build a farm, entertainment building and market center on my PQ4 colonies and develop them as economy worlds as I research the terraforming techs. There is no problem getting them to 20 billion population, and the game is designed so anything more than that will kill morale.

it depends somewhat on your map settings, but generally:

1 farm per planet. TA's farms are a little different, but basically you want to get to 20 billion without going over it. the only "morale" building i use is the counter-espionage center (+20% morale). after that, spam econ buildings. the only exception are PQ10 and lower planets. i don't usually build a farm on those.

you should still be able to tax at a high rate (79%+) if you get the morale trade goods and 2-3 morale mining resources. you should also research to the end of the morale tech line, for the passive bonuses.

finally, there's also a UP vote about a galactic festival or something. vote for the maximum donation (1000BC). i've taxed at 100% after that vote occurs.

I'm trying to download myself out of the habit, but I still play DA.

As everyone else said, get up to 20 billion pop max, a morale building or two, the rest stock markets.

But me being the power-hungry oppressionist that I am (in the game), I research up to Advanced Farming, Virtual Reality Centers, and Stock Markets. If I find a PQ 26 or higher, I will place 10 advanced farms (100 billion pop cap), if I'm feeling generous, I'll throw in a few entertainment buildings to keep the masses happier. And the rest Stock markets. I usually have to put at least 7 VR Centers to keep them at 70% happiness (by then I have alot of morale resources, I go for them quick as hell on gigantic maps). From that one planet I am usually able to cash in 500K BC's per turn (I go for the Econ resources faster than I go for morale). Go to my "All Economy Strategy" post, it gives you a more in-depth look at my gaming style. The post is sortof long though, so I suggest that you have at least 5-15 minuites of spare time to read it (depending on how fast you read, for me it takes 5 minuites).

Hope this gives you something to ponder.

Till next time.........

LET'S RAGE!!!!!

Dystopic's one of those scoremonsters who can stack up zero-year wins like my mom could produce pancakes. If you're not a short-order superstar (or aiming for long-game mega-scores), it seems to me that it's necessary to pair morale buildings with farms. At least if you want to keep your pop growth as strong as possible--that growth bonus for 100% morale adds up if you can keep it up.

I believe I could improve my overall score (efficiency) if I replaced most or all morale buildings after most of my worlds hit their fully terraformed and farmed pop caps, but that's too much clicking for me, and you never know when you're going to want to pull a couple billion folks of a given world.

Very good insight Swicord!!!