0% taxing

[Foxxy211]

In all my prewarp games, I like to set taxes on my starting planet to 0% taxes so that the population grows super fast, and then when its maxed out, I'll tax them. My GDP is far ahead of all of the other AI empires as they don't use this "trick" and I end up having large military which I then use to invade the nearest AI home planet. Then I apply the 0% tax rate to the new planet until maxed population and get even more money. I will also apply this trick to all the independents I come across too. Also because I have so much cash I end up paying protectorates to all pirate factions so they don't attack me, and I do lots of crash researches. Is this considering exploiting the game or do you think its fair to play like this?

Also I heard say turning on Tech Trading is considering exploiting the game too. Why is that?

[endoric_MatrixForum]

I forgot the mark i set, but i used to keep all my planets to 0% tax until they hit a certain population. Exploit, not so much, "gamey" yeah probably. Sadly it works great.

[dejagore]

The exploit with 0% tax to have a huge growth boom is not working any more. With v1.9.5.2 patch there was a following balance change :

- low colony tax rates do not increase population growth rates as much as previously, but now make colony more attractive migration destination

As for the Tech trading it was balanced in one of the patches for Shadows but I guess it's still somehow exploit. If You are playing with tech trading on, You can for instance sell a tech that AI player does not need, cause already have racial tech better but still he will buy it from You for big amount of money. As for me I usually play with tech trading off.

[Foxxy211]

I don't think that patch fix really balanced it. I'm using latest patch, yet my first colony still will be maxed out around the time I reach warp field precursors. Bear in mind I play with very expensive tech costs though. I do notice however it does not work as well on races that have lower growth rates (e.g. Dhayuts)

[dejagore]

I also use to play on v.expensive tech cost. As for the increased population growth it might be that there are migrants from Your home planet to Your first colony ?

[Raap]

There are a few gamey/exploity tricks available in the game:

1. Keeping tax on 0% until near maxpop on a colony. This one became somewhat less effective after the recent change, but it's still beneficial; you sacrifice some slight income in the early game to get more research points and lots more tax-income in mid/late- game. More effective the higher your race's base population growth stat.

2. Trading technology. Techs are worth a ton; a single tech can get you loads of cash, and the AI has no real idea of what would be a useful tech or not to trade for, so it'll accept anything. You can also use this to trade techs back and forth with AI empires and thus get all the techs currently researched by any empire in the game.

3. Using the 'initiate trade sanctions against empire' option. The worth of this one ranges from a few hundred K up to dozens of millions. You can cancel the trade sanctions right after announcing them. Exploiting this can thus let you get all the cash from all empires that currently have one or more enemies.

4. Running straight for tech wonders. Basically, as soon as you have the essentials in that tech three, go straight for all three of the technology wonders. Or do the first one immediately and the other two later. Build them on separate colonies to get development bonuses from each, then enjoy a huge research advantage for the rest of the game.