Nov 24th 2012, 19:00:28
You need to pick a strategy
You should produce one good, and rely on the public market for everything else.
You can produce military and sell military at the end of each day, and then use the public market to get all your food, oil, and technology
You can produce food, and sell food at the end of each day, and then use the public market to get all your military, oil, and technology. Some countries choose to produce food and oil, and sell both at the end of the day (fascism only).
You can produce technology, and sell technology at the end of each day, and use the public market to get all your military, food, and oil. This strategy is more difficult because you cannot produce technology except when specifically using turns to produce tech.
You can also produce cash, with an even mix of enterprise zones and residences, and use the public market to purchase all of your food, technology, oil, and military. This is the only strategy that should actually have a positive income even when you have an appropriately big military.
And by far the most difficult strategy is building military bases, and then buying cheap military off your private market and selling it for a higher price on the public market, and using those profits to purchase your food, oil, and technology.
Since you've chosen dictator (my favorite government), I would advise choosing to be either a farmer or a casher. And you should build a lot of construction sites, maybe 150 to 200. Once you get the hang of the game, you should have even more than 200 construction sites because of the faster rate at which you hope to grow.