colony development?

No, labs and factories do not need population/food to operate

farms exist to raise population cap.

Populace can provide money through tax, influence, and soldiers.

Note that some buildings are based on percentages and thus you would want to focus the % together to get a big bonus.

Hi!

My guess is it’s best to use very specialized colony’s with production planets with nothing but factories (and a space port) with the odd entertainment network thrown in for good measure.

I wouldn't recommend doing that, or you'll face big money waste on social production queue on planet with factories. Currently unused social production is lost. Because of that fact specialization in production isn't cost-effective.

My way to develop (early) planets is to rush-buy a factory, queue another one or two, then some reseach facilities, and (if I have high taxes - low approval) a morale building. When money gets low, some econ buildings get priority. On better planets (8+) I let pop grow to it's max, then I build a single farm and a single morale building (always in pairs). So far (playing only campaign) I ignored compleltely the influence buildings - usually no room for that damn thing. And when I expect to need ships I build shipyards everywhere.

The usual queue is so:
1 production
2 research or more production
3 research
4 morale or econ
5 shipyard
6 farm&morale
7 research or econ

In GalCiv 1 I used to build every wonder I could. Here I build only the most important ones, because they take a tile forever (can't scrap them ) HTH.

BR, Iztok

wouldn't recommend doing that, or you'll face big money waste on social production queue on planet with factories. Currently unused social production is lost.

Bitenc, according to the manual that's not correct. this is what the manual says:

"Social Production, represented by hammers, is spent on projects.
If you have no projects queued, the number above the hammers
will be in parenthesis. In this case, the hammers are not drawing
bc from your treasury. Each hammer also represents one
manufacturing point."

Anyway, I used to do what you describe ( mixed colonies) but I always end up with planets with low approval, relatively low income and military production that takes forever.
Not to mention a very low influence compared to the other civs because, like you said, there’s usually not enough room to built the influence buildings on every planet.
That's why I was looking for an other way to develop my planets.
Besides, I think specialization is even mentioned in 1 of the tutorials?

Specialization all the way!

Haven't play the campaign yet but finished a couple of maps on Painful difficulty and I've got to say specialised planets work best for me (althought I usually have huge problems with cash until trade routes become well developed). Anyway I usually turn my first planet into a "mix" but with a slight focus to production. On a big map my aim is usually 3-4 production planets, then some 3-4 smaller research ones. If I'm building up an 11+ planet, the first buildings are usually 4 factories. Followed by an entertainment center and a farm. And then you build up the other tiles according to the planets specialization. Same pattern for the smaller planets, except use 3 factories and then when all tiles are filled upgrade a plant into another specialization building.

Hey Justas5, that's exactly what I had in mind: first a mixed starting planet, then specialize....

Thanks!

Hi!

Social Production, represented by hammers, is spent on projects. If you have no projects queued, the number above the hammers will be in parenthesis

I don't remember seing it in parenthesis, only the military production. Manual is wrong on those technical details in so many places it's hardly a valid reference. Better check with the game.

That's why I was looking for an other way to develop my planets.

There aren't many. The main obstacle is low number of available tiles. I just wanted to point out that specializing in production isn't quite viable. Specializing in research or influence can also fire back when you need ships or get upgrades done quickly. The only specialzation I see viable is economical one - big planet, that produces LOTS of money. However if you lose that planet, your civ also suffers big time. So I don't belive in specialization, but I use most tiles with bonuses to full extent (but food-ones - too much pop is hard to keep content).

However there's a thought that's naggig me since I have the game. I still need to check with the game, but at present time it looks like there's not much point in significantly increasing any production, if you don't "produce" enough money to run it at that increased level. So taking research resources, building production-increasing starbases, building manufacturing capital ... only increases ABILITLY to produce more. One still has to PAY for that. And if he doesn't have enough money, is that "upgrade" pointless.
If that is true, then building a starbase on research resource becomes quite less important, compared to other resources, and makes anything that gives you more money, or something for free, much more.

Seems that the quote in the manual on Galactic Economy
“Money makes the galaxy go round.”
Is much MUCH more important, that I thought previously.
BR, Iztok

Yeah the whole production thing is very hard for me. I just played 2 Normal Difficulty games and I can't compete with the AI at all. Usually 1 guy gets huge and starts killing everyone. Seems if you do build a special planet you will never really use it all anyway. If you only have 40% into military then it will only use 40% of that planets ability. And to keep up with the AI you can't really have the sliders set one way very long.

And my money problems are huge, I never seem to have any. And if you use the Farms to make more population to get better money, they are so hard to control!! Its almost like you need 2 Moral buildings for every regular farm. Forget about the bonus Tiles for farms... God I used on on a size 17 planet once, and not until I got 2 Wonders that helped moral did that planet go above 50% Approval.

I jumped back down to subnormal to help figure things out, but that AI (since it is a AI even with 75% money) can do things better then me.

Specialization in production or research doesn't work. You still need money to fund everything. On the other hand, you can rush build anything you want, as long as you have money. No factories required.

You can't rush research, but specializing outside of the planet that's your tech capital doesn't really work.

Taxes aren't supposed to be your primary source of income. Trade is, and tourism is to a lesser extent. Evil players therefore have a harder time; morale is supposed to be your weak spot, so you can't fund expansion easily with taxes, and the high pop counts necessary for your transports are harder to fill. The planetary minuses from taking the good choice doesn't seem so bad when you realize that your major economic drivers are independent of any planets: trade and tourism.

Never trade with the Drengin or Yor. You'll grow dependent on that revenue, which will disappear when they declare war. And you'll help fund their expansion, which is ten times harder if they had to do it with taxes alone.

OK Bitenc, I understand what you mean about needing the money.

As for the manual: you could be right. I’m not at home so I can’t check on the parenthesis. Although the explanation given in the manual sounds very logical, actual in-game mechanisms might be changed / broken / bugged…

Anyway, as I see it right now (but of course I could be wrong) given a set amount of money concentration of factories on one planet allows for very fast production, but one ship at a time, while factories spread over different planets will ‘dilute’ the money and allow for multiple building queues but at a reduced rate per queue.
ehm...if you understand what I'm trying to say

Anyway, thanks for the input!

GoatRider:
The manual is currently wrong about social production. It's not entirely clear whether it's a bug or a feature, but right now unspent social production is wasted. It is not returned to the treasury. There have been quite a few threads about it not working as described in the manual.

Unused military production, on the other hand, is not wasted.

Hi!

And my money problems are huge, I never seem to have any.

Some advice:
1 don't rush-buy everything. Just the first factory on few early planets and (maybe) first colonizer. The starting money you get is for bridging the "hole" your first colonies will make. Just buying a colonizer will take away 1000 BC - that's enough for 1 colony running for 20-30 turns;
2 there are several ways to get money:
a) from higher taxes: same pop, higher taxes;
from pop: more pop, more revenue from same taxes;
c) trade routes with other civ: get trade ship to the civ you don't expect to go to war with or be conquered soon and is away from the one you'll be atacking. I still didn't test it it GC2, but in GC1 it was important to get trade route between BEST planets;
d) selling stuff: usually tech. I don't sell warfighting techs - I need to have an edge somewhere. Sell that tech to EVERY other civ you know off, because if YOU don't, they will do, and will receive "your" money.
e) tourism: depends on influence, but with low number of planets isn't exactly a game-breaker.

My usual approach is a mix of everything above, in about the same order. However I don't sell tech if I have enough money. I start with immediately increasing spending to 100% and taxation to about 50%, and am decreasing it only to keep planets above 50% approval. Then I let pop grow close to the food cap, an if a planet has enough tiles to support moral buildings, I build a farm (on really big planets it is on 100% food bonus, I don't touch the 300% one). At about 10B pop and one trade building a planet can usually generate extra cash. HTH.
BR, Iztok

Usually I have about -100 credits income per turn until I research advanced trade and set up the routes. But it's easy to compensate for that if you sell your technologies to the AI, especially to minor races. That way my balance is about 2000 and even if for some reason I suddenly cant research a new technology and sell it before the offers, I still have a "cushion" of about 20 turns.

Okay, so maybe I didn't read the manual closely enough, but farming does not produce population, it just raises the population cap for a given planet, right?

So, what are the driving forces to increase population, morale?

Also, if you don't need population to have production (just the money from taxes to pay for it) why am I building all these darned farms on tiles that could be used for research or production? AHH!!!

I guess I am in the old mind set of the TBS that says farms=people.

I gotta go back and re-read the manual...

Okay, so maybe I didn't read the manual closely enough, but farming does not produce population, it just raises the population cap for a given planet, right? So, what are the driving forces to increase population, morale? Also, if you don't need population to have production (just the money from taxes to pay for it) why am I building all these darned farms on tiles that could be used for research or production? AHH!!! I guess I am in the old mind set of the TBS that says farms=people. I gotta go back and re-read the manual...

Population increases on it's own, given morale is greater then 50%. It reaches it's cap rather fast. So yes, in essence farms do = people.

and those tiles are not wasted production or research. They're an opportunity to good money. That's how I treat them, anyway.

Okay, so maybe I didn't read the manual closely enough, but farming does not produce population, it just raises the population cap for a given planet, right? So, what are the driving forces to increase population, morale?

Yes, farms increase your cap.

I know population modifiers didnt' even work in the first few versions, every planet got 200 million each turn, but the manual says Anyway the manual says you have to have 100% morale to get 400 million per turn, 99% gets you no bonus. Racial bonuses and leader traits can also increase your growth rate according to the manual.

Either way it's not much of an issue, because population always seems to grow at a very nice rate in this game.

So, what are the driving forces to increase population, morale?

Prioritized according to my play style:

1) more people=more taxes collected
2) more people=a harder to invade planet
3) more people=more influence

I like a mix of specialization and generalization. I specialize one world each for the tech/manu/econ capitals (assuming you'll have enough planets) and I like a few production heavy worlds for serious ship building. So far I've been putting shipyards on every world, even the tiny ones, so they can produce constructors long term (takes em for ever but at least they contribute over time). A lot of worlds are simply too small for extensive specialization so I'll give em a few extra factories, labs, or econ structures since you can never have too much of any of that. I also couple (one) farm with an entertainment structure. I'm iffy on +influence structures since I typically expand via aggression and I don't know how much it helps to have a high influence on core worlds.

I could see getting rid of shipyards on smaller worlds once you get rolling in favor of more research or something. Once you conquer more nice worlds you don't need the less optimal worlds building ships.

I usually don't worry about wonders til tiles are opening up via terraforming tech. And on "tough"difficulty the AIs seem to go nuts for wonders, at least early on, so I don't even bother with them much. It's easier to acquire them via conquest.