1) If no mine or trade route bonus, tax bldg 1st
2) +Infrastructure bldg and 2nd tax bldg if over 300+ base income or there is a mine and enough room. You may benefit from this taking awhile as influence only calculates at the end of a cycle.
3) Start off with cheaper ships, preferably carrier types to minimize upkeep. Use them in hit and run attacks, picking off picket ships first (anything with "Laser"/"Maser" vice "Turbolaser"/"Megamaser"). Leave their base station, take out Builder, Eco, and Defense stations (this helps keep them from launching at you when you jump in, and reduces their number of ships, especially "free" ones).
4) Go for the higher earning planets as possible, or weaker defenses.
FTGU is considered a harder mode for exactly this reason.

play conservatively at first and always go for whatever planet you have nearby that makes the most base credits

- Dont buy anything unless its on hero administrator discount
- as JC said, Put 1 miner on each planet that doesnt have less than 150 credit income. Two if you think the second one will earn more money than the upkeep of the influence building that you'll have to get to prevent uprising
- Trade stations should be prioritised for planets with 5 connections and increased trade bonus, then 4 connnections, and 3 if you have any left by then (I think 15 is the limit).
- Fill planets with factories for reducing ship upkeep and working towards the bonus discount you get for filling most of your planet's building slots. I believe you can track your infrastructure score in one of the buttons to the left

As for Units, I kinda save money by keeping what you start the scenario with alive:
In ground battles, I tend to look for a bottleneck where I can capture a Command Post and have all my units hold out until the bombers/bombardments arrive before marching in.
As for space, I only buy smaller ships if they carry a lot of fighters/bombers otherwise I just save for capitals. I prefer free respawning fighters/bombers than buying corvettes. I send them in first along with the weakest ships to screen the more powerful ones firing from the back (just like they do in the EU books )

I've noticed the AI will target the closest ship, so sometimes I just send a ship forward on a suicide run through their line so they're targeting them, not the big ones or heroes.

Oh and keep your heroes alive haha

Anyone know what to do with unrest? Seems every turn to just go up, any world you take is only yours for 3-6 turns then it rebels. I don't see anything for this in game.

Originally posted by DirtyVaderDaddy:

Anyone know what to do with unrest? Seems every turn to just go up, any world you take is only yours for 3-6 turns then it rebels. I don't see anything for this in game.

- Tax buildings / unit production speed boost buildings decrease Influence.
- Goverment, influence or unique planet buildings increase it.

Low influence over a planet leads to unrest.

Are you putting more than one Tax building on a planet?

I had more than one on some of my home systems, but not the systems I captured which are the ones that keep rebelling. Reading some of the other reports, I get the feeling the devs never bothered to test or balance the influence system for the campaigns. So it might just be a matter of finding a submod to fix their failures.

So, usually your default influence is 6. You add a tax bldg and it will drop to 4, at the end of the cycle. You add an infrastructure bldg and it goes up to 6 again, again, at the end of the cycle, and it costs you 250, then you can add another tax bldg. THEREFORE, this is only advisable on planets that earn a base of 300+, and even then it's questionable (based on how much it will take build those buildings, how long you will have the planet, or how much defense you have to commit to hold it).
If you put in a tax bldg and the influence still reads 6 (because you didn't wait until the end of the cycle) and then you add another, it will drop to 2 and you have unrest. Certain planets have other modifiers (Kashyyk will ALWAYS have low influence except with NR). And then NR leaders have all kinds of modifiers to their leadership (certain planets, +1 to all, rewards good regardless of actual influence level).
So ... learn to read your bldg tooltips.

JC, I read the tool tips on the building, they weren't of any use which is why I asked the questions here.

Ran another campaign, influence seems to only have value on worlds that start as friendly and that the AI doesn't have unrest influence in. If the AI has unrest value on the world, even if you max out your influence, it will rebel and the AI gets a free fleet and army out of it. Same thing is true on worlds that aren't player controlled at the start that don't have enough credit value to afford the infrastructure building, however that building is only plus 1 or 2 and the AI causes 3-8 points of unrest depending on "whatever its doing" at the time.

Originally posted by DirtyVaderDaddy:

I had more than one on some of my home systems, but not the systems I captured which are the ones that keep rebelling. Reading some of the other reports, I get the feeling the devs never bothered to test or balance the influence system for the campaigns. So it might just be a matter of finding a submod to fix their failures.

I've completed almost all the campaigns on Admiral without this issue, I dont think this is their failures here.
What do you build on a planet after you've won the Space and Land battle? Or what buildings do you have on the planet before you lose it?
Usually just a Palace and one Tax levels it out so it doesn't change, but you need more Influence buildings/less Tax or Labour Camps to remove Unrest stacks.
And I mentioned Space because enemy fleets above the system also reduce planet Influence.

Originally posted by DirtyVaderDaddy:

JC, I read the tool tips on the building, they weren't of any use which is why I asked the questions here.

Pretty much all I've ever needed to understand the system, but you can press the Heart button on the left side panel for more detailed info on this, it'll tell you exactly what numbers you need to remove Unrest. I think it's 6+. And assuming you have subtitles on, when you click on a planet, it should display some brief info at the top left that mentions Influence level too.

Originally posted by DirtyVaderDaddy:

If the AI has unrest value on the world, even if you max out your influence, it will rebel and the AI gets a free fleet and army out of it. Same thing is true on worlds that aren't player controlled at the start that don't have enough credit value to afford the infrastructure building, however that building is only plus 1 or 2 and the AI causes 3-8 points of unrest depending on "whatever its doing" at the time.

Did you mean 3-8 points of Influence? You can only have 3 Unrest at maximum (the fist icons next to planet is Unrest ((if any)), the bar to the left is Influence)
Well, you can still put an infrastructure building on a planet if it exceeds the planet income. It doesn't work as upkeep, per planet.

Also want to know what difficulty you play on and what faction/map you're on.
I always play Admiral and never seen the AI sitting with unrest on their worlds.

Remember, any changes made to a planet only take effect on the next Cycle so it might not read your changes straight away.

And another tip: Building the max amount of buildings on a planet will also increase influence by a point, even if it's all just Barracks. And maxing out a planet will work towards your Infrastructure score, which eventually leads to anything you want to build getting discounted