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Is there any point beginning the game with harsh conditions in your empire's home system? I prefer to play this kind of game with minimal prior development (single colony, basic tech), and expand on my own merit as much as possible, but it appears that any such race is doomed before they begin. I just began a game as a Dhayut Republic, and am already set to lose 9,770 Monies per Arbitrary Time Period.

How can I push my economy into the black from this position?

This is my favourite way to play [;)]  I also set the AI to this setting and they can handle it, they do take a long time with 1 colony though, and then all of a sudden spring to life and colonise a lot at once.

Harsh is the only way you are guaranteed not to definately have a second habitable planet in your home system too, all other settings will give a second planet (and on rare occasions Harsh will too).

Some tips, not all are always necessary:

• Don't pay off pirates but try to fight them, if they destroy a mining base of yours you can rebuilt it out of the private budget, so don't worry too much about the monetary cost of losing a base, but of course try not to lose more than one.  On that note, set pirates to the minimum setting (or off, but I don' like off) or it is likely you will struggle to get the Empire off the ground, and so will the AI players.
• Buy information on independent colonies from the pirates if you can afford it.
• If you are really struggling disband your entire military except for one Destroyer and 1 troop on your homeworld to save maintenance costs.
• Don't build Spaceports unless you can afford the maintenance costs!!!! <----- important
• You can not afford more than 1 explorer early game, so stick with the 1 for a bit
• Get free trade agreements ASAP!  If there is another Empire of the same race as you, they will start close to you and probably like you, so find them as quick as possible and try to get a free trade agreement, the 1 or 2 k foreign trade bonus makes a big difference!
• Either a) retire reclaimed ships because you can't afford them, or better b) retire one of your own ships and have the reclaimed one replace it because maintenance on them costs less than your own
• Don't buy Spies or Troops until you can afford them (not until your Empire economy is strong with multiple colonies)
• Try and get 1 source of every strategic and luxury resource, you don't need more for a loooong time (dependent on some of the game settings you chose)
• Don't get more than 1 Constructor, it costs too much maintenance, until you can afford one
• Don't let your ships get destroyed, the 1000 - 3000 they cost is nothing under normal settings, but under Harsh home world its critical to save as much cash as possible
• Don't give anyone anything for free!!!! e.g If they want to trade territory maps say no, open up a trade with them and give them your territory map for theirs AND the extra cash that yours is worth!  Unless theirs is worth more, in which case say yes (open up a trade window before clicking the link for their trade offer to check the values)
• Sell tech or maps if you are in trouble (and you found someone who has enough money to buy)
• finally, the money in the top right can be misleading, and usually you are doing better than what it says, it can say you are set to lose several thousand and yet your funds go up [&:] 

Edit: A couple of things I forgot, I played Human Republic and did fine, but if you are struggling try race and government settings that combine maintenance savings and approval bonuses.

Colonyships are important, they cost loads under these circumstances (5 - 6k is one hell of a lot under these settings) and they cost I believe about 2k maintenance, make sure you build them before you run out of money, and make sure they don't hang around too long costing maintenance, in other words find a potential colony and build a colony ship quick. The best way is as soon as you encounter pirates buy independent colony info *pray its your race or a friendly race* and build and send colony immediately. Be careful there is no pirates guarding the independent colony, check it with your three military ships, or if already engaged fighting send only the Destroyer, its less likely to die, send it to the star, not the planet, so it doesn't arrive to an ambush. You may need to fight or pay the pirates protection just once to get your colonyship through alive.

Also, make sure to explore all ruins, sometimes your explorer will find a system with ruins and not investigate them, as soon as you see the ruin sign on the galaxy map send a military ship, preferably your Destroyer, in case Kaltors or Pirates pop out of it, same for deserted ships, send Destroyer, because if they explode or come to life as a pirate ambush the explorer will cost 1000 to replace!!!

You made need to have your colonies only satisfied with you and not happy for a bit (i.e raise the taxes until their approval is only +5 or so rather than the usual +16 for happy). This might earn 1 or 2 k extra for you.

My current Empire after 30 game years, with Harsh Home Worlds, Minimum Independents, Very Slow Tech and Lowest Quality galaxy planet settings, at the moment I'm on about +3k with a total treasury or 15k, one of the most powerful Empires, but there are a couple of super powers as you can see [X(]

Interesting Woodman, I had just thrown out the idea of starting Harsh home systems. However, it looks like it ADDS to the game in a lot of ways!

It would be interesting to play a 1400 system game with 20 empires set on harsh with starting techs and starting expansion, but have galaxy developement and expansion really high, and set Independents so that they can become empires. Set Pirates "many", and let the games begin lol.

Personally i feel this game to be challenging early on but become easier and easier as the game progress. Such setting would be hard early on, but become inconsequential in late game. What i need is a setting that help keep the challenge later on when my empire start to be well established (this is when i start to lose interest).&nbsp;