Owning a planet seems to be the goal of every young Fedder from the time he or she signs on as a mere Groundhog. However, to avoid being a PO’d PO, there are a few things you should keep in mind.
First, your initial treasury. When you promote to Founder, your company balance is converted to the treasury on your planet. Except, of course, that the shareholders must be paid. So, only your company shares and your personal shares are converted, meaning if you hold 500 shares, and your company owns zero, you will get 5% of your company balance as your starting planet treasury.
Nevertheless, it’s time to put that money to good use. If you haven’t read the FIG (Federation 2 Idiot’s Guide) at Federation 2 Idiot's Guide, do it now. Rather than rehash everything here, please read the FIG. It will explain the basics of viewing the information on your exchange and your planet.
[Note: Another great link for analyzing your planet’s production is Dupree’s Analyzer. Make sure you follow the instructions for uploading files though, or else your information won’t be properly listed. Check out the posts at the Fed Labor Union Board (FLUB) for more discussions on planetary economies.]
What the Federation 2 Idiot's Guide doesn’t tell you, however, is NOT TO PANIC when you first realize your treasury is being rapidly depleted on day one. No, it’s not hackers looting your treasury. It’s simply the cost of doing business. Your planet makes some commodities (commods), and doesn’t make others. For each commod, your DI EXCHANGE will show the production and consumption level – those with a net positive production value will be stockpiled, to be sold later, and are called producers, or prods. Those with a net negative production value are consumed (or eaten) more quickly than you can produce them, and are commonly called deficits, or defs.
When you produce a commodity, your exchange pays the producer its value; likewise, when your planet consumes a commod, the exchange is paid its value. These planetary prod/def numbers are completely unrelated to player owned factories. Think of it like government controlled sweatshops. When your citizens produce woods, for example, your planet will pay them a small pittance for each ton produced; however, when they consume those woods, they must pay your planet. This all occurs behind-the-scenes, and only the net is added or subtracted to your stockpile.
Defs can never go below -525 tons. Prods can go as high as 20,000 tons, but you can control the maximum for each commod individually. And since unless you get an extremely, never-before-heard-of roll where your planet eats more than produces for everything, you will be producing, in total, more goods than you consume. This my friend, is why your planet treasury is being depleted. As you build up those stockpiles, you are paying the sweatshops their due; however, that value is “stored” in those commods and then some, so when you later sell those goods on your exchange to merchants and such, your planet will make money on those goods. You are converting cold hard groats into goods which you can later convert back into more groats through selling your surplus. It’s the Federian way!
A thing to remember about deficits (or for that matter stockpiles) is that any bay sold to the exchange when the stockpile is at 0 or above only credits half of the bay to the exchange. That means the other half is simply lost, gone, kaput. If your exchange is paying 100/ton for a commod with a stockpile, you would pay 7500 for the 75-ton bay, but only keep 37 tons. So, you basically paid a little more than twice as much as you thought. The recommendation for deficits, then, is to set your minimum at 126 and your max at 200; this way, you minimize the opportunity for overzealous haulers to overfill your exchange and deplete your treasury.
Now, you somewhat control the amount you can make on those goods by changing the spread and minimum/maximum values as described in the FIG. You will have to weigh the pros and cons of changes to the spread based on how you want to handle your economy. There is no one “right” way.
Some swear by the idea of setting spreads very low and encouraging trading, or the “I’d rather make 100 groats 1000 times than 100,000 groats once” kind of concept. One advantage is that if there is increased trading, your stockpiles may not sit at the maximum very long and you can keep producing more and more goods to sell. One drawback is that if there is little activity, you won’t make money from cheap goods that just sit around.
Another method is to set spreads very high so that purchase prices are inflated and anyone selling a def to your exchange is going to make very little on the transaction. This keeps groats in your treasury since it pays out little and sells high. However, it can discourage trading on your planet, so unless you are up for some all day hauling sessions by yourself (and losing personal cash in the meantime), it too can be a low-money maker.
Some like the idea of making money by simply hauling off prods and refilling stockpiles; then, lather, rinse and repeat. Others make groats by feeding their populace, and hauling in defs that their citizens can then consume, paying the treasury as they eat. Remember, once you haul in enough bays (7) to fill the -525 def, only half of any more bays sold will go to the stockpile. Any 75 ton bays sold to an exchange where the commod is at 0 or above will only put half to the stockpile; the other half is immediately consumed by the planet.
Of course, you can combine these methods and set some commods high and some low depending on what you want to try to sell/buy. Merchants are always looking for good deals, and factory owners (FO) and planet owners (PO) also need cheap inputs and high prices for outputs. And it is very hard (some say impossible) for a planet to actually lose value; it’s just a matter of how much hauling gets done in and out of your exchange that can determine how quickly that value gets converted to groats.
Now, what to do with those groats? A good place to start is at Builds. These pages discuss BUILDS, the lifeblood of a planet and its progression to each succeeding level. Builds come in many varieties: some last one level and others last much longer; some can be built at any time while others can only be built at specific levels; some are used to make economies more efficient while others can increase population, decrease disaffection, or increase production of certain goods. The one thing they have in common is that every build costs 10Mig from your planet treasury. But one thing to keep in mind: some builds are required for specific planet levels. And another thing to keep in mind: some builds that are not “required” are extremely important to have in place before promoting to the next level. When planning your build program, you should take into account the builds that you will need for the next level before using up all of your money on builds for your current level.
Right now, there is no auto-promote. You can promote from Founder to Engineer at any time after you have completed 30 builds (as long as you have also built the pre-requisite general school). Auto promote has been threatened for 35 builds (although presumably if you still don’t have the general school built, you still wouldn’t promote), and if it is ever implemented, you must consider carefully what builds to do and how much money you want to have in your treasury for promotion. Remember, at promotion, you get an entirely new exchange roll, and some builds may become obsolete.
For instance, disaffection doesn’t come into play until you promote from Founder to Engineer. However, if you don’t plan ahead, you can be in for a nasty surprise when your planet becomes a Resource world, and if you don’t have the money set aside in the planet treasury for additional immediate builds, you can be hurting for several days.
Remember, you must have at least half of your workthingies (WTs) employed or you will suffer some disaffection. Before you promote to Resource, make sure you have enough player factories employing more than enough WTs so that you don’t risk too much unemployment. One thing to remember is that a factory that produces a commod that takes raw inputs directly from your exchange may suddenly be left without those inputs when you promote. And if the factory has no inputs, those WTs will find themselves unemployed. Not a good thing! Give your FOs plenty of warning and be on the lookout for unemployment.
Also, Resource planets not only require that extra general school, but also require 2 Atmos, 2 Pollutions, 2 general Clinics, 3 Housing, and 2 Police. Each of those can be built while still at Founder except for the Housing – you will have a maximum 85% efficiency at promotion to Engineer no matter what, since the Housing build can’t be built until you promote and won’t take effect until the following reset. So, set aside at least 30 Mig in the planet treasury specifically for immediate builds of Housing. Without the clinics, you will suffer a loss of 10% of your WTs for each missing clinic. Without the Atmos, Pollutions or Police, your disaffection will increase 5% for each missing build. You can see, if you promote without any of those 7 builds, you can have 35% disaffection to START your first day as an Engineer. You can see that with the introduction of disaffection at Resource, this becomes your #1 priority since riots can cost you money, stockpiles, and more.
Of course, you can also do builds at Founder that will decrease disaffection. They will have no effect at Founder, but may come in handy when you promote. Biodiversity will subtract 1% disaffection each, and Dole can also be built at Founder although it will penalize you 5% population at Founder (which will return at Engineer). Read the FIG for more info on maximums and build effects. As you go from Resource to Indy, you must keep the Indy builds in mind too. More clinics, schools, atmos, pollutions, police, etc…
So, what to build? [Ed. Note: the following recommendations are personal and are not the only builds to consider. Read the FIG and determine your own plan]. Well, especially until auto-promote is in, you have a free reign at Founder. Probably the main builds to do first, especially if you will be hauling or encouraging a lot of trading at your exchange, will be 4 Schools and an Agri college. These will give your agri commods an 8% efficiency boost until you become a Technocrat (three ranks away). The next 5 builds should be Canals – each one gives a 1% boost to both agri and resource commods until Mogul. If you are rushing to Engineer, and want to promote at 30 builds, you only have 20 more builds to go. Take into account the “requirements” for Engineer (atmos, police, pollution, clinics, and general school) and there are 9 more down. The other 11 will probably depend on your roll and your strategy. Heliographs and Bases can be built, up to 5 apiece, and will give 1 extra production point (not efficiency) to a single commod (agri or defense, respectively). However, that production point is lost upon promotion, so unless you are using the point to even out production and consumption on a commod, I don’t find these builds worth pursuing.
There are still several options on what to do next. If you want to increase your population to provide more WTs for factories (the POs greatest friend), build (up to) 10 Families (10 more WTs per). Just remember, when you increase your population, you had better keep them employed when you promote!. Also, increasing population by 100 increases consumption in consumer goods, so watch your net production accordingly. You can increase your population even more by building 2 clinics and 1 hospital for 10 more WTs, and you can repeat that pattern up to 5 times. Families and Clinics/Hospitals can be built at any level. Just make sure when you build a hospital that you have enough general clinics to meet the planet’s requirements.
You can also build Biodiversity to take away some potential dissatisfaction in upcoming levels. Looking ahead is never a bad idea. In fact, if you start plotting out your building program for Resource, you will find that some prerequisites can be built at Founder: you can build 4 more schools so that you can build the Mining college right away; you can build more Atmos and Pollutions so that you can build Coals (and the Insulation) right away without suffering additional disaffection; you can always build more Police to have them on hand when you promote to Mogul, etc….
The same concepts apply at Engineer. First, you must make sure you have the disaffection-affecting builds done as previously mentioned. Next, Housing is required to get your exchange back to 100% efficiency. You need 3 now, and will need 3 more at Mogul, so I would build 6 at this level. Of course, you can’t build more than 3 housing until you have at least 2 railways, but that’s not a problem because after you build your Mining school, I suggest 5 Railways next. After Railways, then attack the coal plants, building one additional Atmo and Pollution per Coal (max 5). Then, Insulation (5). If you do have some disaffection still, at Engineer the Dole build (only have 1 at Resource level) is the most effective as it takes away 3%, and will not cost you any population as long as you only have one at Engineer. The telegraph acts like the heliograph but for a different set of possible commods.
You will still have the same considerations for planning ahead. Mogul requires another extra general school, two more extra general clinics, two more atmos, three more pollutions, three more Housing (total of 6), and two more police. Some builds vanish at Mogul, and if you plan on building Oil, you will need biodiversity, dole, pensions, etc. planned to offset the disaffection associated with Oil.
One other thing to keep in mind: it is considered good form to pretty much leave your exchange alone on the first day of a planet promotion so that Traders can take full advantage of the great futures a brand new exchange usually offers. It’s not required, and you can certainly do what you want, but the Traders will be most grateful if you can leave the spreads and min/max values alone for 24 hours.
This guide has been written by Desaxman. 
Please direct any enquiries to desaxman13@section3vball.com
Read the complete Federation II Strategy Guide By Desaxman at http://www.section3vball.com/guide/guide.htm