until you reach your target size you want, ideally should tech as little as possible. you need to tech just enough each day so that you get enough cash from sales to cover the costs of building the land you acquire and buying enough military to avoid being grabbed.

you need to get as big as you can make it as fast as possible so that you can stock. last set i had 12k tpt on 35k acres on day 43 (ish) but i got to that stage too late. bobbyata, played the country Planetry, and got to about 8.5k tpt on 25k by day 28 and beat me by about $50m nw.

because he got there so much quicker he was able to buy bushels at $42 when he was stocking and then convert to theo mbr.

so, not only is size important, so is timing