Managing your economy
(previously known as "Imperial Economic Management)
by Sharkman

Actually this should be simply called Managing your economy, there isn't any real difference between the methods you should use managing your economy as a fighter race and imperial management as any of the others. You just want maximum MC, maximum minerals and everything all where it's needed right? Well if only the galaxy could be so perfect :-P

In this article I will detail my ideas for getting the most out of your planets. You _CAN_ prevail, even if you think you were shafted even in the master stage of the game - "Oh no! I've got all these crappy planets near me, my best one in like 30 worlds is like a Reptilian participatory, fair enough government but its only got 3 million natives!!!" (This actually happened to me in one of my games; I didn't actually lose because host suddenly decided to stop hosting, but I did manage to keep a rampaging Privateer at bay with the Empire, possibly the worst possible race for fighting the Priv's with!! And this was in a game with starting conditions 5000 MC, 1 million colonists and mineral normal - an absolute horror for the Empire which _NEEDS_ a ton of minerals and MC for those huge starships)

In the next article, Logistics, I will detail my ideas on how transport and supply should be implemented. Remember that everything here is just one player's ideas on imperial management, and I make no guarantee, in fact I seriously doubt that these are the best possible actions to use, since there are so many variables in each individual game and it is impossible to encompass them all; secondly I am _NOT_ exactly the best VGA Planets player around, I do make a lot of mistakes, real bonehead ones at times...

Still not discouraged yet??? Excellent! :-) You can now read the good news!

Normally I place fairly highly in games I do play, a few near the beginning of last year I didn't go so well, but since then I have become more accomplished (as well as becoming registered!!! Support VGA Planets, register now! if you haven't already done so).

Secondly my strength is in imperial resource / funds management, I am not terribly good at inventing / implementing military tactics, my gameplan relies on me having more, bigger and better ships than the enemy (so if you're in the same game as me, and see me near the top of the scoreboard because that's where I'll usually be, don't hesitate to attack, you won't meet much resistance... Just kidding! Run while you still have legs to run with!!!) That is why I love the carrier races :-)

Usually I will have 15, 20 or if I'm lucky, even more tech 10 carriers by the time the ship limit is hit, and yes some of them will have transwarp engines. And a wave of support capital ships. It depends on the race. If playing Rebels or Colonials, usually there will be a greater number of tech 10 carriers since there isn't much that has any sort of power below that. In contrast, with the Imperials and Cylons, the fleet will have less tech 10 carriers since they have good smaller carriers which are often necessary (eg. Super Star Destroyer, Instrumentality, and arguably, the Automa) for a balanced fleet.

Bored yet??? Ok, let's get to the meat of it all. Firstly, the big picture. My surveys from games I host, talking to other players and chatting on EFNet #VgaPlanets conclude that a lot of players don't pay much attention to taxes. They simply set it at the highest yellow rate (the rate where the Happy Points or HPs don't change) and forget about that planet. Well, let me say this, if you want to get anywhere, you can toss those ideas out, you will get pitiful growth and when you see the amount of MC you could be raking in, you will start feeling rather poor.

So, how do I get more MC I hear you ask? Well if you're not the number-crunching type...you'd better become one, now!! Change your life, personality, residence, career if you have to! No, only kidding :-P if you don't wanna get through all this heavy maths (I do! because I'm a wizard with calculators & kicked ass in high school maths... NOT!!! :-P :-) then there are some strategies for you to follow.

Qualitative Side Strategies

Ok, so you're not interested in the formulas or the linear programming or anything like that. Here are some basic strategies which should improve your (imperial) management.

• If the natives are already overpopulated (ooops sorry, it does involve formulas!) Here is the formula for the max. native populations:
  
  MaxNativePop = sin (temp*pi / 100) * 15000000
  
  then you should tax them down to 41 HPs, then keep them at the highest yellow rate. Tax management stops right there, there ain't anything more you can do to maximise it. This strategy can be refined slightly, see the Quantitative Side Strategies section.
• If the planet is extremely cold or hot (< 15°C or > 85°C) use terraformer ships if you have them, or see if you can get a good trade for them if you don't (Lizards will usually give you one in return for a Patriot or something). Make sure you clone it! Or you'll be there forever waiting for them to finish terraforming the planet. This dramatically speeds up native and colonist growth and lets you cram more of both onto the planet.
• Alternating between pissing the natives off (red level tax) and encouraging their rampant carnality (green / low blue level tax) is often better than leaving it set at a specific rate. I have seen some players leave their tax rate even on the highest level of blue, meaning that once the natives hit 100 HPs, they are not going get any happier, and if you're still taxing them in the blue rate... you'd better ask for a cash donation from your nearest neighbour and hope they're pretty damn sympathetic!) The reason you alternate is to combine good growth while still taking in heaps of tax. Obviously, toss this out the window if the planet is already crowded to its limit.
• If you're the Lizards : don't forget to use your Hiss mission! Concentrate hissing on more valuable worlds, you do _NOT_ need to hiss at every single planet with natives that you own. A fleet of 7 ships hissing can maintain a tax rate of about 40% while keeping HPs above 69 which is what is required for growth. Remember to look at the config file to see if host has changed the hiss rating or max. number of ships allowed to hiss. Should you find a unity planet (yes, they do exist!) you will be earning at least 2000 MC, sometimes as much as 6000 MC each turn! If you don't believe me, you can look at my RST file, which I will put on line once my current game is over, and you can see for yourself just how much MC it is possible to earn with this mission (provided I don't get wiped out, which is pretty bloody unlikely since as of June 7, 1998 when I am writing this HTML, at turn #51 I have 36 - that's right, THIRTY-SIX starbases and over 100 capital ships!)
• If you're the Rebels : you may be surprised to find out that RGA'ing yourself is actually a _GOOD_ move, in the right circumstances - when I get around to it, check out my Rebel Scam page in the Rebel Guide for details on how to implement this.