Unfortunately the game doesn't show anything regarding movement costs. Anything at all.

As a fun story I was not able to realize myself that 3 tiles on this picture are Mountains, while the rest of similar tiles are Hills. Mountains are ones with larger shadow.


There are several planet types: Normal, Frozen, Jungle, Barren, Megacity. But the game doesn't tell you. You need some experience to determine which planet is which. For example Swamps exist on Jungle and Megacity only (and it's not difficult to say if it's Megacity or not). Frozen planets can be easily determined by frozen Ocean tiles.

There is TERRCOST.DAT which you can read for fun, but practically there is very little info you can get and remember out of there. In particular because calculations are not that easy and basically lots of data there.

Here is few points we can remember and use easily:

1. Moving to a road tile costs 1 Movement Point. Cities are always considered being a Road.

2. Air units (not Hover) also need 1 MP for any tile.

3. The most open terrain (like Grass) requires 2 MP (3 MP for Wheeled at Desert)

4. For rough terrain the cost may go much higher. But Foot units are better traversing rough terrain than Wheel or Tread units.

5. Jungles are more problematic than other forests.

6. River crossing is very problematic. But much better at Delta.

7. Ships can move along Rivers.

Here is the picture explained all the production chains in the game:


Note. It doesn't show how much a resource you need for production. Also, while most of Manufactured Resources are produced in 10 items per turn, the Singularities get only 1 per turn.

Basically there are 3 Basic Resources: Food, Metal and Fuel. Food can be exploited almost from anything especially after researching Arboriums (exception may be Barren and Megacity planets until you research Arboriums). Metals are harder to find, look for mountains and ocean tiles, beside Hills. Fuel is typically retrieved from Ocean (beside special deposits). Btw you can actually build Wells in deep ocean (use ships with Engineers)

Everyone of course tries to exploit special deposits:


Then we have 3 Rares: Exotica, Gems and Trace. Exotica and Gems can be only exploited from special deposits. You don't really need them in the beginning (unless to sell). I've included also Trace to the list of Rares even though it may be exploited even outside of specific deposits. We'll talk about Trace later.

And finally there are few production chains which we can only produce using Basic Resources and Rares:

1. Chemicals -> Biochems -> Ceramsteel -> Wetware
2. Electronics -> Monopols -> Singularities

Exotica is mandatory and is only required for Biochems -> Wetware part.

Gems are only required for Singularities.

Trace is required... for EVERYTHING. Especially abundant for Ceramsteel -> Wetware part.

Money (Firebirds) is one more resource required for many things:

1. Paying maintenance costs (units, Labs)
2. To train some some units (Engineers require 100 FBs, Officer - 500, Spy - 2000 etc)
3. You can also use FBs in Diplomacy or to buy something from the League (Agora)

If you don't have enough money to spend for Maintenance you get Loyalty penalties! This can cause rebellions, further decrease of income, more rebellions and so on.

The main source of FBs is Tax.


At the start of a game the Tax is at 25% level (there is no numerical indication of that anywhere in the game). Every tick on the House screen is +/- 1%. Every such tick also reduces the Loyalty of all your Cities and Units by the same +/- 1%.

25% means 250 FBs income per turn per each 100% Healthy citiy you control, this applies to every planet where you control the Palace (the planet name on the Galaxy Map gets your House color in that case). Note than new cities start from 50% Health on so give you twice less Tax (as well as Production) until they fully grow (heal).

While the starting Tax level is 25% the starting Loyalty may vary depending on the House Traits (and so somehow on Player Difficulty) chosen during Game Setup.

"Noblesse Oblige" and "Rule of Law" each increase Loyalty for all your Cities and Units by +10%. Without these two the starting Loyalty will be 80%. (Note: Religion Sects may also influence this).

If you want to overcome this you'll need to decrease the tax from 25% to 5% (basically 5 times lower). This is to reach 100% Loyalty in every city. (At 80% the cities basically produce 20% less)

Note. Dealing with Units loyalties has more options. Having a Noble in the Palace also gets +20% Unit Loyalty on the planet. Btw Units starting Loyalty is at 75% because you are paying 75% of the maintenance.

At the start of game you need to deal with Tax and Maintenance to not go Bankrupt and/or get Rebellions, same time getting productive cities and capable warriors.

1. You can build as much Manufacturing Cities on a planet as you have Fuel.

2. Amount of Gems deposits may easily tell how much Singularities you can produce and so how many Spaceports you may theoretically need on the planet.

Similarly amount of Exotica deposits limits you with Biochems and Wetware.

3. However, the Trace amount you can collect is the main limitation out of all.

Beside deposits you can exploit Trace from various terrain: Desert, Tundra, Swamp. The most abundant in Trace are Barren planets.

Since Trace is so limited and so important - seriously consider exploiting it instead of other resources like Food/Metal/Fuel. You may not need so much of them anyway.

4. There is normally no problems with Food or Metal abundance. Exception may be for Barren or Megacity planets (but until you research Arboriums), in what case you may need to supply those from other planets.

Food and Metal are cheap in the League (Agora) and you can buy Food and/or Metal in the beginning to expand faster (as soon as you can afford). Because they are required for Engineers and so for building new Cities (to exploit/produce more and also to get more Tax).

You can of course buy anything else too in small amounts when you need to build something but yet do not have your own production established. In the long run however the trade might be problematic because of the known event about the League. Also, Agoras present not on every planet.

Interesting question is what to sell to the League to get some money (FBs).

For example. there is absolutely no reason to spend 10 Fuel (cost 10), 10 Ceramsteel (cost 60), 10 Biochems (cost 60) to produce 10 Wetware (cost 130) to sell it. (You in fact also need 10 food). Beside may be that transporting 1000 goods is simpler than 3000 (1 stack vs 3 stacks).

Similarly there is no reason to spend 10 Exotica (cost 20), 10 Chemicals (cost 35), 10 Fuel (cost 10) to produce 10 Biochems (cost 60).

However, producing 10 Monopols (cost 480) is VERY profitable: 7 Electronics (cos 35) + 10 Fuel (cost 10). The only problem you need research some Technologies to try that.

Manufacturing 1 Singularity (cost 6000) is not profitable again: 10 Monopols (cost 480) + 7 Gems (cost 300) + 10 Fuel (cost 10). This is in fact very bad choice for selling.

The best and simplest goods to sell is obviously Gems (300): basically 1500 per turn from a single deposit. You don't need technologies and you don't need Gems in the beginning either.