These techniques are what seperate the excellent from the good in Earth.
#1) - Startup : There are 3 main types of startups.
i) - The "mixed" startup. It's similiar to a mixed strat, and unfortunately employed by about 90%
of all people who play an ind start. It's something like 4 cs, 6 ind, 4 cs, etc. It's horrible. If
someone tries to give you that as an ind startup, kick them in the shins and run fast and far away.
ii) - The short term startup. It is 40 cs, followed by exploring + ind sites. It gives you the absolute
most ind sites out of protection. The advantage is you'll be producing the most military out of
protection, and thus can make the biggest landgrabs, and grow the fastest.
iii) - Long term. This is something like 60cs, followed by exploring + ind sites. This is what
I currently employ. The theory behind it is, if you reach your goal BPT faster, you'll spend less
turns building, and have more turns at the end, when you're cashing 30M a turn. Thus, each
turn saved = 300,000 NW.

#2) Bottom Feeding : Bottom feeding is hitting targets significantly smaller then you for land. The largest you want
to hit is about 1/2 your size, the smallest is about 1/4. To find these targets you use the Search
button and put in a random two digit number. In 1A if you are in an alliance of any worth, they'll
have a country report where you can find targets. If you are bottom feeding, you can often go
without spies, allowing you to
a) save turns,
b) Pay alot less upkeep.

#3) Alliances :
I always try and have filled out def, off, research, and if I can scam it, intel alliances. The costs
are minimal compared to what you recieve. While you do lose alot of jets from offensive allies,
they should double your offensive while bottom feeding, more then making up for it. Research
allies are fairly easy to scam out of techers as they don't know WHICH ally is contributing to it.
As for intel alliances, you can sometimes get them from a kind off/def ally. Do not scam research
alliances, unless you have enough tech to get the benefit from it.

#4) Stockpiling :
The reason you stockpile is to avoid military expenses. You lose alot of NW attacking, and thus
you stop attacking about 3/4's of the way through a game, and spend the time just cashing. This
is not just for cashers, it goes for inds as well as farmers. The only strats that don't do this are
techer and MB reseller (techers tech, and MB resellers don't take turns at all). Anyway, the reason
that you store cash is that if you spent the money right away, even as a casher you would end up
with negative income. However, the max you can store is 2B$ (due to a bug in the programing).
You can not go over 2B$. If you try, you'll just lose all your money in excess of 2B$. There are
two solutions to this, storing tech and storing bushels. Both involve buying the items at their peak
and reselling for much less. There is a 2B bushel limit as well, so you have to juggle bushels on the
market. It's very hard to store more then 2B bushels and not end up losing alot of them. That's where
the Foreign Aid in the next section comes in. The tech is easier, however it's also riskier and the
tech market is hardly as lucritive.