I'll writ very briefly down, what I think matters:
you need bucks both for adding allies and leveling up since books come per level
so lets start there:
buildings are modifiers fo production, generating money per round, and their stuff per surge
without theese it seems to be roughly:
money=people x level
to keep population stable you need
people=food=bliss and
energy=money
I need only the half bliss but I assume its bcause my moral setting is max.
if you have both city core buildings and surge them simultaneously food and people surge is balanced, you have neither a surplus nor starvation. the problem is the energy you need for the people
