As a commie indy, when should I start spending cash on industrial tech? It's really expensive right now, but I feel like even a slight percentage is going to help me a lot. Should I wait to buy tech until reaching a certain amount of acres?

You should allocate a portion of your sales from the previous day to buying tech. Generally speaking, you want to maintain your indy tech % at a decently good level (say 140%) or higher.

Start buying. :)

Some players play "delayed" i.e store turns until they have are nearly full on turns, then play them 1-day-delayed in order to buy cheaper techs.

Generally speaking, tech points pay for itself from the extra production they make your country produce. You want to be in an upward spiral (have tech to increase income to be able to buy even more tech), rather than a downward spiral (not enough cash to buy tech, so your tech % drops even lower).

Don't buy tech until its price is less than 2.5x your acres. In general this means to start buying indy tech at around 2k acres. And by the time you're 4k acres, you want to be buying it pretty heavily. The sooner you get to 140% indy tech, the better. By the time you get to 8k acres, you should have over 140% indy tech. If you grow quickly, your indy tech should fluctuate around 140% to 145%. You should slow your growth if you find your techs lagging. It is better to slow your growth, than to let your techs fall behind.

I have seen people spending $6000~$8000 per point buying the first techs on the market early in the set (usually business/residential/agricultural), are they really worth their price?

Only if the production you get will reimburse you for the price difference of where it will be.

For example. $6000 industrial will benefit you $20 per turn.
You expect it to be priced around $3000 in 200 turns.

Well 200 * $20 > $6000-$3000 and therefor it is worth it.

However tech prices tend to drop much faster than that from $6000, and there may very well be a better investment for your money at that time.

But that is the concept.

Agricultural gives you about a 220% boost at good tech levels, whereas Industrial gives you about a 155% boost at good tech levels. Agricultural tech helps a farmer a lot more than industrial tech helps an industrialist. Business and residential techs give an even bigger boost than agricultural tech when combined together - 165% each bus/res tech gives a 272.25% boost to tax income (1.65*1.65). That is why people are more willing to pay an exorbitant price for bus/res/agri than they are to pay so much for industrial technology.

I am not sure if its good practice or not but I try not to buy tech above $3000. Sometimes you are forced to however...

I am a nub. Total messed up my start, but now I am a democracy hoping to make most money buying and selling in the market.

If I make it to the end of the game I figure I did ok

Cheers
Qazulight

I bought $4500 tech on Team all reset long (avg price $4700 for whole of last week). That's res/bus techs.

I prefer to buy rathurnser to spend t

Buy tech from turn 102 onwards.

Is it better to do the delayed start in single player servers such as Primary or start quickly? I have wondered this because for example do you want to come out of production as say a farmer or casher while other commies and tyrannies have 2-3x your NW? Also as a techer is it a good idea to come out of production as quickly as possible to take advantage of the high early tech or wait? Also would these answers change for Alliance which has tag protection?

in alliance with tag protection its good to come oop as soon as possible, non-tag servers it is wise to wait a while before coming oop.

I don't think there is a perfect answer. I tend to play delayed. In Primary I almost all set I log out so that next time I log in I will be at 86 (80) without having lost a turn. This is dangerous and probably not best practice though. I like the flexibility of being able to play more turns when prices are rising and fewer turns when they are falling.

Well AndrewMose, it's dangerous because your tech might not have sold and you can't spend turns when logged in at 86(80).

That is correct, I have had to sell turrets on private market to allow this, and I have had real life issues come up so that I have overflowed turns. I dont think playing delayed is the best way to go.

If you are running a land grabbing strat like commie or tyranny is it best to come oop quickly in single servers?

yes since if you wait others get their defs up.