A way to pop bank, some use different strategy:

Race to chose:
-Revalons are good with 60% income but they only have 30% science and no space amazement. They only have -10 magic penalty and 10% pop growth that can help

-Partaxian are safe since they have 70% magic and your large amount of wizards will be used for other thing that defense. They only have 30% income and 30% science, which make them safe bad incomers...

-Quantam have 70% science, since you will have to work on eco%, cons% and welfare% that can be very useful. They only have 30% income but that can be compensated in big part by high science. They also have 25% pop growth which is usefull for faster growth, lot of useful ops and droids for better defense

-Custom can give you a good mix. Try not to make a race weaker that predetermined races, as I see often. You can't have all in custom, for sure go 50% income and space amazement, then make your mix between science, pop growth, and ops. You are nearly obliged to have -30% magic because you have no point left to make your race.

Exemple of race that you can take, some prefer less science and more pop growth for a faster start (they will use a different start that I will tell you)
Population growth: 10%
Income: 50%
Research: 50%
Attack: -30%
Magic: -30%
   
Spells
Space Amazement
Operations
Planetary Infrastructure
Specials
Tax Office

-------

Step1:
Start with CFs only, expo first, receive prebuilt planets first.
You will have 25-30 planets when some others will still have 1 planet. So you better be very active on sending aid because 75% of your fam income will be you.
Now you will stockpile 24 eships and let you population grow.
Try to never let your population stop growing. LQs take 8 ticks to build so try to build them in order they arrive just in time. Too late you would slow your growth, too early you would use some resources that could have been used somewhere else in you family.
If your planets has 10k max pop do the math 10000 divided by 600 (pop for 1 LQ). It gives 16.6666. Build 17 LQs. You have choice to raze 17 CFs in order not to have some overbuilding cost or OB over CFs until 10-15-20-30% then replace. That has the advantage not to keep ur income higher but that costs a bit more.
Now you max pop on this planet will be 20k so next time you add or replace you will have to build 34 LQs.
At start a gc is a gc so take the time needed to calculate what you must build planet by planet.

Step2:
Your CF bankers during the time you were stockpiling eships started to have decent income, that should make enough cash to send your eships.
Build research centers on them and set your science 100% economy. That will save iron for your CF bankers to OB 100%. Plus that will prepare your step 3.
If you receive empty planets build RCs on, if they are prebuilt ask RCs if it's close to day1 of step 2, maybe CFs if it's close to step 3.
Stockpile 24 eships. During this time bring your old planets to 100% full LQs. Your pop growing multiplied with eco% will start to give you decent income and catch up on CF guys 100% OB.
Replace RCs with LQs same as step 1.

Step 3
you have like 60-70 planets, 25-30% eco. Your income is decent, let's multiply it again without adding pop.
Expo 24 or 32, build TOs, receive planets, ask them empty to put TOs on.
If you did it well by the time they come in, your RCs will be all replaced by LQs.
You will have to start funding your science. Put back your eco at a good level since it dropped a bit, then work on cons%, that will make your plts step 2 cheaper to OB 100% with LQs (your empire size starts to be high with all this pop, so buildings cost a lot).

Step 4
Take the more planets that you can to reach 250 planets
Put TOs on, OB step 3 plts 100% LQs
Try to have 50% eco, then prepare 35-40% cons%. Have your familly to save 3-4 days iron income for your jump.
If your family needs iron elsewhere, you have another way to increase your pop without using iron: work on welfare. the first 20% will be easy to reach for a good payback. Above you will have to seriously invest on it. That will make your pop grow, so your NW will also do. As a consequenece your eco and cons% will go down. You will have to fund them again. Importance of good science in the race you have chosen.

Step 5
Jump 300%
You calculate the price of it multiplying the price of buildings on 100% planets by 2 and the number of buildings you want to add. Remove like 30% to total amount. That will give you an idea of what is needed.
When the saves are ready, raze all your ground, all your wizards (keep some if you want to be safe), keep good amount of agents (you don't want to be nuked).
Have your population hypnoed by your pax or a revalons 3-4 times (according to your saves).
Your NW will go down a lot, that means that your empire size cost will go down as well (100k nw=10% empire size cost) and your cons will grow
Build LQs first (they are more expensive), then finish with TOs.
TO rate after jump can be 30 to 50% according to what you plan and according to food prices in market.
Having 30% TO means that you will have to add less LQs next jump so it will be cheaper, but you will use much more food.
Rebuild fleet with good cons%.

Step 6
Let your pop come, that will kill your science, so work on it.
Put back asap your eco and welfare at 50% at least. Fund 25% your income, or better if your family is rich have it funded like 300m gc for a fast payback of your jump.
Let other bankers catch some planets, some may be fed up that all goes to you. let them go to 350 planets, grab some planets if attackers are moaning that it takes too long time to pass, expo when you have 32. Map should be soon full. U dont need to go above 300-350 plts.
Realize that with 10m+ NW, buildings cost 1000 times more than at start and it will take ages to reach pop size, so better leave the planets to CF bankers with only 2-4m NW, that will payback faster for your family.

Step 7
Jump between 500 and 700% according to saves that your fam prepared.
You prepare it and do it the same way you did the first one.
Have TO rate between 40 and 50%.
Work on eco and welfare
Don't take anymore planet
Wait for end of round
You won (if you didn't blame your attackers )

---

Defenses:
You will be the guy to kill in the family, so have the ground and op defenses that fit.
Read ennemies infils and build ground that they can't take more than 5 planets at the same time, if you don't have the infils in the forum ask the fleet of your main attacker and adapt.
Some will try to nuke you, they have 2 chances over 9 to hit your buildings so keep a good amount. If they pass 1 or 2 the odds are for you, if they pass 7 the odds are for them...Do the same that for ground to know what you need.
You will probably lose your pop 1-2 times in the round, above you will be called noob!
Have a high amount all round, 1-2-3 estorms on you won't hurt, 10 will kill your income 2 days, more...

Don't kill your income having too much defenses, don't ruin your fam saves having too low defenses...
6 millions units is safe but it costs 144m gc upkeep and food a day...

-----

Activity

Lot of famous attackers go banking to relax, they pass from 16 hours a day to 30mn each 2 days...it's definitely not the good role for them.

You need to have lot of activity, because your fam invests a lot on you and need to receive cash back asap and as often as possible.
Plus you must be aware of what happens in the galaxy in order not to expo stupid places (since you will be target 1), have the fleet that feets to your relations and to react asap if you are attacked and opped.
You need activity to build your LQs in time, calculate what you need to build instead of just mass building without preparing anything.

----

Some players don't start with CF and go pop straight away, it's another way to play it.

I am a little lost on this strategy but i want to learn why i am lost...

Can you explain this a little better???

If your planets has 10k max pop do the math 10000 divided by 600 (pop for 1 LQ). It gives 16.6666. Build 17 LQs. You have choice to raze 17 CFs in order not to have some overbuilding cost or OB over CFs until 10-15-20-30% then replace. That has the advantage not to keep ur income higher but that costs a bit more.
Now you max pop on this planet will be 20k so next time you add or replace you will have to build 34 LQs.
At start a gc is a gc so take the time needed to calculate what you must build planet by planet.

So basically you really don't care about your construction bonus side right now you just want to keep your pop going correctly per planet...

and if a planet needs it you demolish your CF's and Build the LQ as needed

and when your don with that just double your LQ per planet if they need to be double

Living Quarter
Image     Increases the maximum population of a planet by 650.

What Gondor says X(

go to meetic X(

great strat Kollop

Thank you again for posting it

Recently most of the pop bankers have been going Revalon race. Come to think of it, I have not really seen a custom for at least a few rounds

Revalons are better first days/weeks before u start to seriously work on science. Then all the additional income goes to compensate the 30% science vs 50% on customs + expoing costs u a lot  without SA + u can spend a round without casting a spell or ops with revs. When the camaar and u are the only 2 in a chat u are 2 blinds wanting to cross a motorway.

Start is probably the most important part for fam eco, so rev is good, on long term and more useful it's the custom.
Quantam the science can compensate a big part of the lost income since u will spend much less cash to fund ur science. For sure it will be a much better incomer than the pax. I would maybe wait to have a nice eco before turning pop maybe with some OB with RCs on the first planets.
+ you have plenty of usefull ops, pop growth 25% for a faster return on investissement droids to defend better and retakes and on long travels, the 20% speed is always appreciated.
I would advise not to try too hard ops as popper, first because ur nw makes u a fail machine, second hard ops are often shown in ennemy report when u fail, then u become a target time u rebuilt. When ur fam spent 200m iron on u, if u get nuked back because u failed urs, they wont be happy!

Rev is best, partax if u wanna do ops. Custom isnt worth it, but its not far behind revs if ur desperate for some ops or SA. Reached 75 mill income as rev this round, anything above 85 i think is unnecessary.