I kinda recall from the old Earth 2025 that starting off as a theo was not good. Think ppl typically started off as something else such as commie/indy, then later switched over to theo/reseller. Does that still hold true?

The best method is to start off as a theocracy techer and then switch over to theocracy reseller. You need a very big stockpile before switching over to theocracy reseller, and techers do that better than anyone else.

How big of a stock do u mean? And wouldnt an indy or farmer to techer to reseller be best? Or do u build labs/cs off the bat and research bus/res when u cant build a full bpt?

Ah yea that kinda sounds familar too! Thanks for the prompt reply, Rockman!

Rep/Farmer if you are doing an All x
Then Theo/Techer and Theo/Reseller

is there a rule of thumb as to what one destroys for buildings as then endset comes near?

if you wish to resell while theo, destroy your buildings whatever they may be and build military bases. If you intend to only jump off your private market, last day, in a shorter set (express) then you shouldn't waste the money converting any buildings, as your switch to theo will already give you the cheap military you want for jumping.

when you switch to theo 14% of bldgs are destroyed,rebuild them as Mb, then continue to convert farms to Mbs in the Bpt increments ( that you can afford ) according to $ *REM large amt of Mil tech points are a must as this keeps your private mil unit costs at minimum.

before you make a switch you should have stockpiled...
In tourney game b i just did it - at 11k acres it cost me around $300m to fully convert buildings to mb. so ideally you would have $300m + whatever you need to buy out your pm... Which will probably be somewhere around $800-1000m.
you should work out your costs before making the switch.

You don't want to just buyout your PM, you want to be dropping stockpile on your PM. The point of switching to TMBR isn't so that you can start reselling military, its so that you can get about 5.7 or 5.8 million networth for each $1 billion you have stockpiled beyond the amount needed just to switch over to TMBR.

Techers are more profitable per acre than MBRs usually, so you would stockpile as a techer and if you had 3 billion cash stockpiled (part of it as food), then you could jump 15 million networth from that stockpile as a TMBR, wheras jumping off public market military prices would give you only about 10 million networth. The real strength of TMBRs is not in their reselling, but in their ability to convert stockpile to networth.

yes, rockman is right... Stockpiling much more is better. I was looking at it more from the point of being a reseller, which is what i interpreted as the aim of the original post and some of it's reponses.
I changed when i did because someone had ab'd 1.5k acres when i only had about $1.7b stockpiled. I wasn't sure whether to rebuild as labs or mb. Didn't think tech prices would hold out as long as they eventually did. Would have been better as labs with hindsight.

what is the best strat in this game

Depends on market conditions

there's none due market is un-predictable.

Guys, another follow up question. Recall from the past that before switching governments, one should have sent out all offensive military on PS, and placed as much as possible of defensive military on the market. Does that still work?

yes it still works.