I thought GDI was free in this server?

False advertising.

Think of it like auto insurance. Or taxes.

Its required by law. You have no choice but to pay.

But you can use 16 bonus points and make it free, which I highly recommend to do at the very start of the set

im just kicking my self for not noticing sooner!

One of the many beauties of this game is that the instructions are frequently wrong compounded by the frustrating fact that there is no where to go to get up to date information. Because there used to be active forums which resulted in multiple rule changes, the rules across the servers are different. Consequently Express's rule set which is a hybrid of primary rules and rules tailored to the compressed time of play makes little to no sense; the vagaries of GDI and DR being the prime examples.

I thought GDI cost was free in tournament

lol

Mandatory but not free. Do what Ti annichilisco says.

NO NO NO bad beerdrinker you don't agree with the ti!

it used to be free. I have no idea how long ago it was free but wasn't it?

I've been playing almost a year. I don't remember it being free. They do need to change the wording in the description.

Well that is what I do on all solo servers. I rarely come out of protection without free GDI.

In a new tourney set i prefer collecting +20 acres a few times before running any turns. In most sets this means during that time i've also collected the bonuses for free GDI with zero turns played.

The ingame description of GDI is old, maybe from pre-bonus days. If you go to the Portal page (the red Play Now link) and then look at the Details link under the Tournament header you'll see the correct description:

GDI
All countries are forced to join GDI.
The cost of GDI membership is $3 per acre.

I'm fairly certain that the Details link has the most accurate description of each server's unique attributes. It's where the game devs have listed server-specific changes as they were implemented, all in one location.

the 16 points on GDI isn't worth it especially at the beginning when spending turns matters

just pay the cost, its three dollars per acre per turn

at around 12k acres and 1100 turns into the set that is a bank breaking 36,000$ in expenses per turn aka a pittance; when your income at that point should be anywhere from 5-10 million per turn

you can get over 50% additional turns per set if you spend all bonus points on turns. this is the best option for flexibility by far. i also normally incorporate the B00Ms that coincide with my chosen strat at around the 1000 turn mark as well for extra income to spend on tech/retals

i concur with ironxxx, the absolute cost of gdi is small enough that you're probably better off paying for it and using the bonus points for something better. a supersized theo gets the most out of free gdi because "free gdi" covers the double gdi cost of the theo, but even $6/acre on 20 k actres is still only $120,000/turn or roughly $8 million / day at full size. across a full set, i doubt you could save a maximum $150m. the same points would get you 24 turns or 12 booms with 4 pts left over, which should be of a roughly similar value to that maximum $150m. so i think it's hard to make the case for "free gdi" on tourney.

ironxxx is absolutely right.
The bonuses on the server are insane, 6 food booms and you are drowning in bushels