[Beck]

Renegade 13 said:

Price spikes? Could you elaborate? I'm getting close to that stage as well, so would like to know

Trust me, it's not worse than mine; coal and uranium. No one wants uranium, unless they want to buy nukes; other than that it's nearly useless. The strategy I used to get trading partners is to target players who have obviously just created a nation, and send them trade offers if they have resources I want. Since they're new to the game, they usually don't know that uranium sucks to be trading for

The price/upkeep on infrastructure jumps 22.2%. Thus at 1000, you make thousands less income than at 999.99. It's called a jump because you need to be able to purchase a huge block of infrastrcuture at the same time to avoid making less money than you were before you made the jump. The amount needed varies depending on your resources and improvements. In general 80-120 infrastructure will see you clear it easily. Some can make it with as little as 5-60. Here is the formula if you want to do the math and get a more accurate estimate.

Excerpt from Feperier's Nation Building Guide

Alright, now that I have tackled the costs, I’ll talk about infra jumps. Infra jumps are those times that a nation breaks an infrastructure upkeep cost barrier; the most important ones are the 1000, 2000, 3000, 4000 and 5000 infra marks.
1000 infra jump:
This jump is by far the worst percentage wise, it’s a 22.2% infra upkeep cost increase, translating it into real numbers (using a Trade set I setup), your 88,000 bill will go up to 104,000 with a measly .01 infra purchased. It’s a total loss of 16,000 in income. To calculate how much money you will need to “make the jump” use the formula (provided by Cheesejaguar)

(x)(Population Gain per level of infra)(net income per citizen) - ( (999.99+x)(New Upkeep)-(999.99)(Old Upkeep) ) = 0

And you solve for 0.

x is the amount of infra you need.
New upkeep = ((999.99+x)*0.11+20)*infra upkeep reducers
Old upkeep = (999.99*0.09+20)*infra reducers

Calculate how much x infra costs. To do that, divide x by 2 and add that to 999.99 and apply the cost formula to 999.99+(x/2).

2000 infra jump:
This jump raises your infra upkeep bill by 18.2%. Use the same formula as the 1,000 jump, but don’t forget to replace 999.99 by 1999.99.

3000 infra jump:
This jump increases your infra upkeep bill by 15.4%. Use the same formula as the previous jumps, just replace the infra purchase cost multiplier (25 to 30) and the infra level to 2999.99.

4000 infra jump:
This one increases the infra bill by 13.3%. Use the same formula as the previous jump, just replace the infra purchase cost multiplier (30 to 40) and the infra level to 3999.99.

5000 infra jump:
The last infra jump increases your infra bill by 3%. Use the same formula as the previous jump, just replace the infra purchase cost multiplier (40 to 60) and the infra level to 4999.99.