Depression Planets

[Hydro]

Ah, that explains why truly needy but 'developed' planets are starving, and a newly colonized planet is getting 500K in grant monies (as I've seen in my later games wehn my economy is huge, and newly colonized planets small). I can see it now: "Greetings from the Emperor - Congratulations on founding the colony Po Dunk Two! Here's a half million dollars. Spend it wisely!"

This means that setting Imperial grant budget to very large percent of your total budget in mid and late game is completely pointless since it makes the planet econ AI go into the deep red. Basically, it can't spend the money even if it wanted to because the economy can't utilize that kind of cash.

Early in the game I always set my grants at 60% or more to goose my early development. Of course, I'm dealing with relatively small amounts of $$, so the AI can't waste it to the same degree. Now I'll back off to target at total allotment of +50K/planet for 10 planets (total 500K) or less.

[Whoha]

How does additional research spending work?

[BenRipped]

Also UNCHECK the PAY BACK to the EMPIRE BOX!

Late in the game set your planetary build sliders to just hit the light Yellow. This leaves money in the planet's bank for future use instead of blowing all of it on POLLUTION management.

[WhiteCrow]

does it worth that micromanaging economy of 100+ planets? I think not.

After all, I can't tell if the slider is yellow or red if it's at 2% or 3%

[bakalov]

I currently have ~260 planets. They all do very well. I use imperial and system tax at 0%, and most of the planets are at ~37%. The only micromanagement I use is to keep the spending on the 10 richest planets (with largest income) at 1% building and 1% science, so they have their banks overflown and are giving the excess money to the empire. This way my empire treasury is filled with ~5M AUs each turn so there is a lot of money to be used by the developing planets. This way my developing planets can use all of their income (not paying imperial or system tax) and some are getting pretty good grants too.

[bakalov]

Hydro, later in the game I found it more efficient to colonize with colonial armadas (12 colony ships with many colony pods each). A big empire can afford it and in result it will have a functional colony for a few turns rather than a puny colony struggling for life. This way the planet will be directly full of pop, having a good starting economy. Of course you can want your new colonies half full, or 1/4 full - just colonize them with the proper amount of ships.

In the previous MoO it was allowed to build "housing" in order to increase pop faster. Here is almost the same - you spend production and in result you get more pop. The difference is that it is not the same planet which is spending the production.

[WhiteCrow]

That makes sense -- I'll try it right now. By chance I'm just planning to crush my neighbor Ithkul empire...

[Hydro]

Bakalov, later in the game I've found that by colonizing with one pod then setting migration I get a huge influx of people from my overpopulated worlds at the core. This can be destabilizing since it raises unemployment, and if I have no or little ship garrison then pirate attacks run rampant. So, I'm not sure I like your massive colonization idea since the extra population doesn't produce much except for the intrinsic (but minimal) industrial capacity of a population.

That said, I'll try it just to be sure!

[bakalov]

Hm, the industrial capacity may be quite good with the apropriate techs - the last "antaran x" tech; the imperial university gives influence at once; neural implants give a boost from the start too. You can start with several hundreds of industry.
Other benefit is that the planet can be fully terraformed in 1-2 turns; you can choose the race that will live there (of course, I like most my own) .... Your way may bring several races to the planet, and this may lead to the inefficiency of the planet later.

Probably I can bring several more reasons but of course, there is much truth in your words too. I completely agree with the need of garrisoning. Probably both of the colonization ways have their plusses and minuses.