Gold

Gold (GC aka Gold Coins/Galactic Credits) is of vast importance to your empire. Every Unit and Building requires Gold to build. It can also be used to invest into your empire's research, in addition to or in place of Research Centers.

Smaller quantities of gold are also required to send out Exploration Ships and military fleets. Because of the significant role Gold plays in the galactic economy, many empires dedicate themselves entirely to Banking. Bankers focus primarily on the production of as much gold as possible, either for their own benefit or as a critical part of a Family's economic strategy.

Gold can be produced by building Cash Factories, and/or by increasing your Population which is in turn achieved by building more LQs.

Any gold you have on hand each tick is partially destroyed by Bureaucracy. This 0.5% per tick expense is intended to encourage a more active playing style, with more wars and less saving up for weeks on end. Bureaucracy can however be partially avoided by storing low bids on The Galactic Market that people are not likely to sell to. Unlike other Resources, gold will not decay while on the market like this. However, there is a still a 10% withdrawal fee for taking bids off the market so this strategy may or may not be effective depending on the circumstances.

Advance formula for calculating Gold income:

Theres a nice formula for income that goes like this: Income = (100+ (pop/30) + (CashFactories * 8)) * (1+RaceBonus/100%) * (1+(2 * TaxOffices/(TotalBuildings + 1))) * (1+ EconomyScience%/100%)

As you can see from the above formula, there are two main ways to get gc, through population and through cash producing buildings appropriately called cash factories. In addition, a few other factors can raise your income. Lets focus on the income sources first.

Population Every planet has a base population and every Living Quarter (LQ) adds to this max. For a more detailed explanation about population see section - How does population work?.

Every 30 people give you 1gc as an income. So every 500 population (=1LQ) ensures you 16,67gc income.

Cash Factories (CFs) Every cash factory gives you a base income of 8gc.

Now the different factors that enhance your income:

Race Bonus (1+RaceBonus/100%) This means that with a 50% income bonus you can multiply your base income with 1,5 (1+ 50/100) A -30% income bonus means you should multiply with 0,7 (1+ -30/100).

Tax Offices (1+(2*TaxOffices/TotalBuildings + 1)) Every 1% of TO's you have in regard to your total amount of buildings gives you a bonus of 2% (add one to your total number of buildings). For more information see section - How do Tax Offices work?

Science (1+EconomyScience%/100%) You can invest in economy research. This will give you a certain research percentage. Lets say you get 50% economy science. Then you can multiply your base income with 1,5 (1+ 50/100) With 20% economy science this means multiply with 1,2 (1+ 20/100).

Note: With the mentioned profits of LQs and CFs the maintenance costs weren't discussed. Also, population needs food to stay alive so part of the income will have to be spent on buying food or building farms to produce food.