Economy

Colonization is the foundation of your empire, but you will still need to build a powerful
economy on top of it. In the early game, basic tax and extractor income is often sufficient, and
it's more important to put your money towards your military to expand and protect your empire.
However, that tax and extractor economy won't last you the entire game. Particularly on large
maps where loyalty becomes an issue, you will eventually need to move on to trade income.
Higher level civic technologies which grant economic bonuses also become important, but
you always need to keep a plan and build the economy that's right for your empire.

In the more competitive multiplayer games against humans, getting trade ports up as soon as
possible is one of the keys to winning in longer spacious games, such as 1v1.

Tax and Extractor Income

These forms of income are based on the allegiance statistic of the planet, and are most effective
on planets near your homeworld. However, as you move away from your homeworld, maximum
allegiance drops, and these income levels drop accordingly. You can slightly raise allegiance with
a culture structure here and there, but the underlying problem will remain.

Neutral Extractors

Sometimes extractors can be found in uncolonizable gravity wells. You can capture these with
colony frigates (Vasari uses their scouts instead; this is a major advantage since scouts are much
cheaper and faster). Unlike normal extractors, these are unaffected by loyalty, so no matter how
far away from your homeworld they are, they produce maximum income. They also benefit from
refineries built nearby. Holding on to these extractors is a huge benefit, and letting your opponent
control them is always a very bad thing: each neutral extractor is worth about as much as an
expensive trade port!

Trade Routes

When you decide to introduce trade into your empire, an important aspect is building your trade
route. The longer your trade route, the more money each of your trade ports will produce. For
instance, four trade ports built on a single planet earn 1 credit per second each (at normal game
speed), but if you built them in a line along four different planets in a row, they would produce
1.3 credits per second each. This means you get a total of 5.2 credits per second rather than 4
credits per second. This bonus only gets larger as you build more trade ports and a longer trade
route. As a rule of thumb, you should begin with at least a 4-planet trade route, and you should
attempt to build new trade ports in positions that will expand your existing trade route. Trade
ports stack indefinitely. If you build five trade ports on a planet, it produces five times as much
income as one trade port would. However, as mentioned above, it's always better to build a long
trade route rather than placing all your ports on one planet.
Be careful where you place your trade ports, as it's actually possible to accidentally shorten your
trade route. Traders will always take the shortest route from point A to point B. This means that if
you build a new trade port that opens a short-cut between point A and B, it's no longer your
"longest trade route" because there's now a shortcut. Tactically, it often makes sense to avoid
building trade ports on certain planets to force trade ships to take artificially longer routes.

In the original game, all uncolonizable gravity wells (including the sun) are considered to have a
trade port built on them for the purposes of considering your longest trade route. This could
allow you to potentially have very long routes with very few ports. With Entrenchment, this is
no longer possible, and to have a trade route cross an uncolonizable gravity well you will need to
build a starbase there and give it the appropriate upgrade. This is very expensive and means that
trade routes usually only cross uncolonizable wells when they absolutely have to.

Note that trade routes can stretch across multiple stars if you place starbases with the appropriate
upgrades on both stars' gravity wells. On large games this tactic, although expensive, can be
largely beneficial.

Refineries (TEC / Vasari)

Refineries work differently from trade ports, and can boost the income of extractors in nearby
gravity wells. All refineries have a 1-jump influence range in all directions, and will boost every
extractor by 0.08 metal/crystal per second (regardless of loyalty or extractor upgrades). Each
extractor can only be affected by up to three refineries, so they don't stack indefinitely like trade
ports do. However, refineries also don't require trade routes to be effective, so your first one is at
full effectiveness. Refineries are more expensive to set up than trade ports, and although they
have a significant payoff, trade ports quickly surpass them if you have a decently sized trade
chain. Most players prefer to build refineries on worlds that border an unusually high number of
extractors, usually in the range of 12 or more: otherwise, refineries often have too high of a cost
and pay off too little, which is why many players simply avoid building refineries altogether.

Resource Focus (Advent)

Resource Focus is a special mode of operation for Advent trade ports that boosts metal and
crystal income in one gravity well. Unlike refineries, this effect stacks and benefits from
extractor upgrades, but is also affected by loyalty. This special ability has been subject to much
debate and analysis by fans, and is generally regarded as inferior to normal trade port operation.

Civic Technologies

Each faction has access to different types of civic technologies. All factions have some
technologies in common, for instance technologies that improve extractor income or maximum
planet population. However, each faction also has other unique technologies that other factions
do not have. In general, the most useful technologies are those that require 1 or 2 civic labs to
research. These are cheaper to research and require fewer labs, which is a lifesaver. Most of the
higher level technologies are only useful for huge empires, and won't pay off well enough for
smaller empires. They're often very powerful technologies, but there is a massive cost associated
with researching them and larger empires will always get more effect. This means that the
highest level civic technologies are usually reserved for team games on very large maps.

The advantage of technologies is that you can research them so long as you have enough labs.
They do not require logistics slots like structures, and you don't need to capture a new planet.
This makes technologies the most convenient way to boost your economy, but cost-wise they're
actually the worst. You should use technologies sparingly to boost your best money-makers, but
only very large empires should seriously consider researching the majority of the civic
technology tree. Remember that civic labs are also very expensive; often times simply putting
that money into a trade port or a population increase rather than pursuing higher level techs is a
better investment.