Katoran

Thank you. That tutorial helped. Apparently, I was doing several things wrong - when I colonized new worlds, I was buying a factory and immediately queuing up other structures, including farms, so all my worlds were spending far more than they were taking in. I was turning the tax rate up and production down so that I wasn't losing thousands of BC each turn. When combined with the overpopulation that all the extra farms produced, my citizens all hated me. And since production was turned way

I read the newbie guide stickied in the forums here, I watched the tutorials, and I still suck at this game. No matter how well I start out, by the time I've colonized the four or five decent planets I can reach, I've started running onto other races, who always seem to be able to do *everything* faster than I can. I'll be struggling to get basic weapons, and if I offer to trade techs, they'll have phasors. Not that it does me any good, since I usually have to offer to trade three or four of