Master of Orion II: Battle at Antares/Money matters: Difference between revisions

*Maintenance costs of buildings, especially early in the game when you'd like have Automated Factories at even the smallest colonies. Population growth usually cures that problem by increasing the number of taxpayers. That's one of the reasons why [[../Growing your population|growing your population]] is so important.

*Also a little help for the new colonies with their Automated Factories, Robo Miner Plant and other production-oriented buildings, especially once they are half built and only cost 2 BC per production unit.

The problem of the CP deficit is more difficult, especially when you move from defense to attack. Exterminating enemy colonies can be effective in a small galaxy, where no-body has many colonies and the loss of 2 or 3 really hurts. But in a larger galaxy destroying 3 of an opponent's colonies only slows the opponent down a little because: the colonies you destroy are probably those furthest from the enemy's home system, and probably the least developed; the opponent's most important colonies are probably beyond your range and researching or building a fleet for the counter-attack. To inflict real harm on your opponent in a medium or larger galaxy you have to invade, because that: increases your resources as well as reducing your enemy's; extends your ships' range towards the most important colonies.  

You have to do this in the early stages, because at that time you don't have the production and research capacity to increase your income quickly. Generally the least painful way to reduce costs is to avoid unnecessary costs.

Spies can be a very dangerous weapon in the early game, as some races with espionage, financial or production advantages will use espionage or sabotage to weaken you long before they attack — think of Spies as a weapon with unlimited range. It's prudent to [[../Speeding up production|stockpile production]] and then produce 4 spies immediately you make contact with another empire. Unfortunately Spies cost 1 BC each per turn in maintenance, but that burden is less serious than having technologies stolen or buildings sabotaged.

At the very beginning the only way to raise extra money is to turn production or food into cash, at 1 BC per 2 units of production or food (but you get nothing for 1 PP + 1 food). Raising taxes is seldom a good idea because it reduces effective production at all your colonies and thus reduces the rate at which your "baby factories" produce population and the rate at which growing colonies develop. It's better to produce Trade Goods than to raise taxes because you can choose which colonies bear this burden - preferably colonies that have a reasonable amount of stockpiled production so that they can build new buildings quickly — especially income boosters such as Spaceports.

Non-Lithovores will usually have a small food surplus, which will produce a small income - usually only 1-3 BC per turn in the early game. Lithovores will only have a food surplus if they colonize planets with Natives; but then it's usually 6-10 food per planet with Natives, which yields 3-5 BC. It's seldom worthwhile to increase food production to raise money: even on a Terran planet an early-game farmer produces only 2 food (worth 1 BC), while an industrial worker produces 3 units (worth 1.5 BC as Trade Goods) even without an Automated Factory. But if you have to produce Trade Goods at such a high rate that you have large losses due to pollution: (a) you've really messed up your economy; (b) try producing some Trade Goods elsewhere, or try producing surplus food, and see which produces the larger income.

On the very first turn Unification and Democracy governments often scrap the Marine Barracks on their homeworlds to reduce maintenance and raise 30 BC to help buy things (usually Colony Bases or Automated Factories) - these governments suffer no morale penalty for not having a Barracks. Some players even think a Unification empire should scrap the homeworld's Starbase for the same reasons; the big disadvantage of that is that you can't use a Battleship as a production stockpile until you re-build the Starbase, because the largest warships that planets without Starbases build are Colony Ships, which cost only 500 PP, less than the 1000 PP or higher cost of a battleship.

Morale boosters are usually of most benefit to Creative empires. For non-Creatives, the alternatives to Holo Simulator are Supercomputer (research booster; the most common choice) and Positronic Computer (the first decent combat computer); and non-Creatives usually forgo Pleasure Dome in order to get Molecular Computer (the best combat computer) or Achilles Targeting Unit (a real killer warship system that makes enemy ships' armor ineffective); and alternative to Virtual Reality Network is Galactic Cybernet (research booster).