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MoOving In: A Detailed Preview of Master of Orion III
PART 3: THE JOURNEY BEGINS (Page 5)
By Daniel Quick | Apolyton CS Co-Owner/Administrator

AUDIO CLIP TITLE	LENGTH
Intro Movie Audio	(2m:49s)

Last but not least is a 'Balanced' approach, favouring a system where planets work to have a little bit of everything. Basic infrastructure is laid and maintained. This is key. It forces local authorities to wean off heavy dependency from other planets and permits for a reasonably sized market for trade both internal and external to your empire. It provides for the strengths and weaknesses of 'Natural' and 'Specialized' in moderation. I admit that while it's likely under this policy most planets will be able to support themselves, they may not be using the planet to its utmost proficiency. At least in my book, I consider this an acceptable trade-off in most circumstances.

Finally, we come to the 'Labor' policy. Here you are first deciding whether or not to permit Forced Labour within your dominion – that itself needs no further explanation. Moral and ethical questions aside, if you answer in the affirmative you must then decide how well or how poor slaved labourers will be treated. Even when providing them with the best treatment possible, make no mistake that we are still talking about slave labour.

We now move full-steam ahead onto the substantive portion of the Finance menu.

ALL OF THE MENUS LINED UP IN A ROW: FINANCE (PART 1) Whether we like it or not, part of being a savvy MoO3 player is being able to manage your revenue. On the 'Budget' screen, there are three policies to look at: 'General Budgetary Policy', 'Military-Political Economy' and 'Tax Levels'. For starters, let's learn some more about 'General Budgetary Policy'. Here there are three plans to choose from: 'Balanced', 'Savings' and 'Spending'. The first applies pressure to your accountants to only permit spending what is made in a given turn. Hoard your treasury hostage from would-be financiers by selecting the 'Savings' option, or burn a whole in your imperial pocket by choosing to go the 'Spending' way. If you can afford the time, you can work to maximize the benefits and minimize the disadvantages by carefully balancing the 'Savings' and 'Spending' policies. It's not a perfect science, so be prepared to make adjustments as need be. You will have to monitor matters carefully when utilizing this pattern, however, and this can get trickier or at the very least more tedious as time goes on. I personally kept my policy at the 'Balanced' level here throughout my game and almost always had a nominal-to-modest profit flow.

The 'Military-Political Economy' screen is straight forward as its effects are easily quantifiable. How much money you want to devote to military purposes is expressed here. From the game manual:

During times where conflict is at a minimum, the “Peace And Prosperity” policy will use no more than 10% of your income for military purposes. The “Peace Through Strength” policy increases that to 20%, allowing you to build up your armed forces slowly while still developing other facets of your empire. If you are engaged in wars with one or more opponents, the policies of [']Limited['], [']Total['], or [']Holy War['] will devote up to 30[%], 50[%], or even 67% of your imperial revenue to military spending. [ MoO3 Manual (Page 78) ]