What is your winning MP strategy?

What you need to do is pay attention to the following:

- What colonies are the other players? This drives the costs.

-What resources are on the map?

- What is everyone else producing? Too little? Too much? How about fuel prices/shipping distance?

And from that, figure out where the market shortage is will likely. Then you want to target your production towards that, as well as use the black market to enhance the situation. Nuke water tiles if theres no water. Emp/powersurge to stop other players production, hopefully forcing them to buy on the market increasing prices. And so on. 

There are a few ways to really make money end-game, some are better than others. Selling stock, selling highly price resources, shipping stuff off the market. Each can give you cash in blocks of 40-50k, so to make money you have to figure out where the shortages will be or, make them happen yourself. There is no cut and dry method for making the cash. You win by accumulating over time and using money efficiently. It goes for every colony type. If you have a bad start or bad midgame, you'll likely have a poor endgame because you'll be chasing.

I've been trying to have a stable economy before I hit level 4, meaning I'm cash flow positive. I feel like if you expand beyond level 3 and you're losing money, then you're expanding too quickly. So my overall strategy, as I continue to learn the game, has been focusing on getting a stable economy. It seems like energy is usually pretty valuable in the first half of every game I play, so I also focus on being energy sustainable by level 2.

I've played science more than anything else and I think I've won more than I've lost so take this for what it is but here's what I like to do:

I look for a huge patch of aluminum and drop on top of it and then immediately build 2 steel mills as close as possible. If that's adjacent great if not and I'm shipping no biggie. The 3rd claim I like to look around is there a lot of aluminum on the map that others are building? If so and I landed on a big enough pile to upgrade then I'll look to build a solar panel or even glass factory, if aluminum looks scarce of I don't see many mines then I'll build one mine on the highest resource I can find. Note about these first 2 steel mills is to make sure there is a 3rd Iron that you can build a 3rd steel mill on, because your going to do it with either the black-market claim or as soon as you upgrade to tier 2.

next I sell most of my starting resources to get enough cash to buy the first black-market claim and once the clock gets to about 5 seconds I spam clicking on it to get it asap. And yes this mean I'm selling my food and water for 20ish and immediately going into debt. those first 2-3 claims and selling off the basics all happens within the first few seconds of settling. If I could macro it to make it happen instantly I would So for the first 30-45 seconds of the game while I'm waiting for the black market to come on line, I'm usually sitting on 3-4k in cash and my debt is slowly climbing and I have 0 (other than the starting 20 glass and starting aluminum I'll need for upgrading, dont sell that) resources until my steel starts shipping.

Once I've bought the first claim I build what ever is selling for the most at the time that's not a raw material and if nothing is crazy expensive I build my third steel mill. Usually at this point though energy is creeping up so I build a solar or if Im lucky a geothermal. Most science games I refuse to build water, iron, carbon or silicon. I'd rather those prices be high to hurt others while I'm building the factories directly on top of the raw material. One of the best games I ever had there where only 5 irons on the map I was able to land on one and build 3 steel out the gate leaving only one iron mine for the other 5 players to divide between themselves. Iron and steel where crazy expensive the whole game!

Also most games the only building I have adjacent to my base are my labs and my OFT launch pads, everything else is spread around the map to wherever I can get 3 buildings next to each other.

And that's my opening. Things I've learned with this:

• if a lot of other people are also prioritizing steel and it gets driven sub 20 your kinda hosed as the expansive players will have more claims to roll you. 
• 3 techs are really crucial, carbon scrubbing, slant drilling and teleportation basically in that order, Carbon scrubbing because your never building carbon and if you want to build chemicals or electronics you'll need it (more for the electronics as you can put them on silicon the carbon becomes free and aluminum is usually cheep)
• someone else getting an auction for early pirates and putting them on your steel REALLY blows. If an early pirates comes up you basically have to go to the wall for that auction 200 steel at 60 - 80 each is 12k-16k not to mention the time lost, I'd probably go as high as 18k on that first pirate if I had too. Once you get teleportation you can ignore all further pirate auctions if you want to.
• if you can win a first claim auction and a first blackmarket claim your golden for a while
• researching at upgrade 3 is a must. I've considered doing it even at upgrade 2 if prices are still low and I've been able to buy a few extra claims.
• really keep an eye on energy. and don't just watch the price, watch what others are building if at upgrade 2 there's no energy production building on the map build 1 or 2 of them
• Something i've wanted to experiment with is aiming to settle on high ground so I can build my power adjascent to my base. Too many times I'll have to build power early and by mid to late game powers worthless and those claims can really be used for anything. So concider building power either next to your base so you can recycle those claims to turn into research or OFT, or throw your solar panels on top of silicon so you can turn them into glass or electronics if the markets calls for it

Thanks Sresk2!, this is very useful!!

Indczn1, could you please elabirate on this? Let's say half the palyers are one type of faction, how does each faction usually affect the market?

view for costs by colony type: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1TTBSBI95C1vhax-jVFCCBu-kyWsnnoWqWvEGOOwvm1c/edit#gid=0

Since the prices are supply/demand driven, I'll use the simplest example, we will go with an 8 player FFA where every player chooses Scavenger. There will be zero demand for steel, except from the central colony, since none of the players require any steel for buildings. Also, the demand for iron will be very very low, since it is an input for steel, and therefore the price will be low. On the other hand, demand for carbon will be through the roof and the price will be driven up because of the high demand.

Unfortunately, a game is never that simple and there will be a mix of colonies types and the demand will be a combination of the above. However you can usually predict what the demand will be based on the building requirements. By looking at the other players and the map, and what they are mining/building you can generally get an idea of what resources are going to be over or under produced since you can see approximately what is being made. So... back to the scavenger example. Since scavenger hits a huge carbon sink at level 5 and offworld (1080 carbon), we can assume that the price is likely going to rise quite a bit since players rarely have that much carbon on hand since upgrading to level 5 used it up, and will build the offworld market as soon as possible. Even one scavenger can spike the price of carbon, which presents a selling opportunity.

Power is one such option, since you can see all of the physical buildings on hand, and you will know if the power consumption is exceeding supply or not, based on whether the price is rising or falling. You can also get variations based on what type of power plant is most built. If there are mostly solar power plants build you can expect that power will rise over night and fall during the day.

Anyway, these are just a few examples of the ebb and flow of resource consumption over the course of a game, and recognizing the inputs and uses can help you make a bit of extra money over the course of a game by being proactive instead of reactive like everyone else!

start of game : 
- Are the other settled earlier and can I wait for the extra claim?
- How does the map look like is there any good clusters I can use to gain an advantage?
- Can I place my colony so that it is not long transporation times to the future industries I will build as well so I save money on teleportation patent? 

Players put down colonies:
- Are the other players steel colonies or are they carbon colonies. Are they going to be self sufficient on steel or not (Most likely yes they are)
- Are there a lot of geotermals on the map and should I grab an early black market to steal one of my opponets geotermal for 2 minutes.
- are there many robotic colonies or will food be in high demand?
- Is there a good spot for aluminium (3 cube mine) or should i buy it very quickly at start of game before others drive up price.

First expanision:
- Can i get the first claim for 2000 or should i expand?
- are many building geo termals (steel will have price pressure then)

- is there a good 3x cluster for wind power at 0.8 each? 

- Are the opponents going to be power shortage and if so can I buy a claim on auction and pay it back with a power profit?
- Is someone ahead of me that I should sabotage
- Am I ahead and should i protect any of my industries with either goon or patent reducing sabotage time
- Underground mines where are they, can I screw someone compleatly over by reducing his mine to 0 (and is he not scientist so this will affect him?
- My next industry wave are the others doing glass or electronics mostly? Get what everyone else is not getting.
- Are many players putting up upgrade buildings ? Get chemical!
- Are 2 or more players doing pleasure domes ? Get more power! (In a 6 or more player game)
- are there any idiots getting solar (sadly this game models solar bad as even with capacity patent they are not worth it and will cause price pressure during the night and extremly vounerable to day time takeover for a terrible night cost) if so get some base load power. Btw I wish this game models solar + battery solutions better as this clearly is the future. 

2nd expansion:

- Claim or expand more? (10k or less) 
- Is someone in debt and should I acquire them on the cheap now so I have a solid base for when I do offworld and bloat my own share before others think about buying me.

- Should I switch my industries? What is the off world highest comodity? How is the fuel price and is everyone ready to do the off world now are they building fuel? If not go fuel in big scale.
- Do I have a large stockpile of a resource nobody else is producing? Should I get hacking for this to boost its profits?
- Is there a goods I do not have production that is high price I want to short?

3rd expansion:

- Claim or expand more first? Is claims cheap ? (20k or less)
- Hacker is now too expensive if i used it more times so scrap it and expand something else. Perhaps offworld 
- Who is the threat I will buy out idenfity and start to screw him over with sabotage and buy out

4&5 boost whatever is high price vs what other is producing (in many games this will be actually food water oxygen and chemicals at this point)
Make sure you got enough electronic glass and steel for offworld. Offworld your ass off and buy first anyone with shares in you (since you thus get shares in yourself if you manage to buy them out.) 

Btw +1 to the guy in his game looking for monopolies like say only 5 iron in the map. Extremly powerfull if the map has this option and you see it before everyone else.