Just wondering, as I started a commie strategy on the express server last time around for a quick test, done a ton of research first, but then after a while of building, literally half of my income was being spent on buying food per turn .... is it best then to ensure I have some farms to just enough cover the cost of feeding my population and military??

Worth noting I built quite a bit of residential, so maybe that's where I went wrong, going for too much pop? But I was making over $1mil profit per turn (without cashing that is too)

yah you shouldn't build any residential if you are going commie indy in my opinion. some farms are okay. also you want to sell your military to keep expenses down.

Only build Indies and construction sites and nothing else. Don't tech. Sell jets and turrets to buy food and tech.

sfbob is right. part of the reason is that in order for farms to be useful you need a lot of agricultural tech so then you'd need to nearly max agricultural AND industrial tech instead of just one of them. Because of communist indy production being 35% higher its the go to strat for communists.

I don't get how commie works then if I don't have any population to pay the taxes my high capita creates?? And if I sell military, then surely I'm an easy target and have very litte networth??

I am not doing Indie, I'm doing Commie, @sfbob and @Gerdler...

generally it is recommended that instead of building all types of buildings, you specialize in one type and then sell the stuff you produce on the public market. because commie has a big + to industrial production usually commies just build mostly industrial complexes. they then have so much military that they can sell it on the market and still have lots left over.

commie industrialist is usually very strong at the start of the set, but can sometimes face problems in the late game.

As commie / indie you need to buy as much indie tech as you can so your productivity is around 150% or better.

To try and balance expenses buy business and Res tech but don't build those buildings and buy Military tech so your expenses are at least 90% but don't build military bases.

You need to sell a lot because you will be running at a deficit before too long but don't worry, if you need more military units you can replace whatever you've sold in just a few turns.

Basically you can't really sell all your military so you lose NW because you can only sell 30% of your military at any time, as you produce military every turn you will replace what you've sold and add to it.

I've got a commie guide somewhere I can probably send you if you are interested PM me.

I might give this a go next express set, it looks like a fun time now that I've developed more patience to see strats through in this game, I might actually like it, I tried in the past and hated it because I didn't have the patience to sell units and got frustrated easily by undercutters.

I'll be trying this next Express game :)

Keep an eye on the food market. Jets only go up.

Best build for a Commie is Indy (Industrial Complexes). Your build should be Construction Sites and ONLY ICs. No farms or other buildings. Produce military (jets and turrets only, tbh) and sell then for money to buy whatever else you need (oil, tech, food, etc.)

You'll want your Indy tech >150 first, then bus/res tech >150 to boost your turn income/reduce your turn deficit, etc.

So, I have software that calculates how much money you make per turn from troops/jets/turrets/tanks.