0) After the colony rush, the most important thing to focus on is ECONOMY. You need to get to the point that you're making some money while producing at 100% capacity. You need to start working on this even before the colony rush is over. I usually put a lot of my race's points into population growth, morale, and economy. One trick is to use 1% military spending and 99% social spending during the colony rush. Planets producing colony ships have nothing in the social queue and a focus on military production, and all the planets you colonize can start building immediately.

1) There is no truly optimal tech path. At game start, I like to have impulse drive, sensors 1 (to build survey ships), and space militarization/space warfare (for the boost to building ships), and maybe universal translator to start trading techs. But you have to decide if researching these is more useful than just building ships. For my initial social building, I want xeno economics, xeno industrial theory, advanced computing, trade, and xeno entertainment, and their prerequisites. Those techs will get you some nice universal ability boots, and the three capitals. After that, tech choice really depends on your strategy.

2) Build up your income before you have to drop your spending. Anticipate changes in your income and spending and prepare in advance.

3)i) Deficit spending at 100% approval is a good trick. Just make sure you won't be broke when you do switch to high tax/low morale. You might have to switch before your treasury goes down to zero.

ii)and iii) Planetary moral at 100% gives doubled population growth. Above 75% give a 25% boos to growth. Below 40% and growth stops, below 20% (I think) population decreases. There is no gradient, just these thresholds. Once you switch to a representational government, you need approval to be about 60% on election day to stay in power.

4) Spillover is added to the next tech in that line, so if you want to research laser 2 right after laser 1, then you don't need to adjust. But if you won't want laser 2 for a while, then try not to overspend.

5) Whatever line the aliens aren't defending against. Whatever line the aliens aren't using (because they'll build defenses to counter those weapons). The statistical differences between weapons are pretty small, even mass drivers have nano rippers.

6) I generally build new ships rather than upgrade. If I have some very experienced ships and a pile of cash in the bank, I'll upgrade, but neither of those things happens often.

7) No, population does no affect production or research at all. Population is only for taxes, influence, and soldiers.

8) Yeah, I use any colony ships left over after the colonization race to shuttle around population so that all planets are growing as fast as possible. And if I used up all colony ships, I'll build a few.

9) Don't let them declare war on you! That's how you lose! If they don't declare war, then you can't lose. Increase your diplomacy ability, give them gifts if relations drop. Use trade routes and choose your alignment to make them like you. And build a military soon after they start. You can fake your military rating by building cargo hulls filled with weapons. These are useless in actual combat, but they have a very high ratio of military power/cost.

10) Don't use focus, use the sliders. If you want research, then go 100% research, if you want social production go 100% social. It's better to get what you want now, than to get several things you want later.

11) The AI shouldn't have more research and more ships than you that early. You need to choose which is more important, and invest all your resources in that, so you can beat them where it counts. During the colony rush, you only want a few specific techs, but mostly ships. Also, the might be trading techs, so trade more than they do.

12) In ship design, little offensive ships > big offensive ships > big defensive ships > little offensive ships. Little defensive ships are always bad. A medium hull with decent weapons, no defense, and a few engines is good against just about anything.

10) Don't use focus, use the sliders. If you want research, then go 100% research, if you want social production go 100% social. It's better to get what you want now, than to get several things you want later.

So you leave the planets with no focus? Interesting, I may try it.

I am currently n the same boat. I won my first attempt with Masochistic, then next start was the worse I have ever seen. My homeworld was in the far far corner with only one other system nearby (a total of 4 PQ 7-9 planets) I knew it wasn't going to be pretty but I played it out. I tried an early aggressive path to try to take some of the closest AI worlds (Thalens) I took 3 or 4 early planets but soon they had Beam 12+ Beam defense 3+ to my little Beam 3 ships. I saved it and will most likely play it to conclusion but ouch. Masochistic is a big jump the AI goes from a 125% bonus to a 200% bonus.

The next game I am currently playing now was a much more even start, I am using the Drath for their Diplomacy bonus. Nothing special on the home world but a nice even distribution of planets and races. I play Huge Galaxy with abundant everything, normal tech and all 9 races. The game is still in the balance but I have managed to beat back the Alterans and defeated them after they attacked me.

I seem to have done a much better job managing my economy this game. I tried a different approach to colonies and it is going much better for me. In the past I have queued all the buildings I wanted to build on a planet from the beginning. This time I just put down two factories and a market and a starport put the planet on social focus and left it. I used to build the starport first. I think that is a bad idea building ships takes away from getting the colony up and running. During the inital colony rush I built all factories on the Drath home world and finished it off with the Manufacturing capital. This with the slider set at 60% Military had a colony ship lifting off every other turn. I bought the first 3 colony ships and the first 2 factories on the home world. I didn't buy anything else after that. I let everything build for a turn before buying it. Tech tree wise I built Impulse engines, Then went to Xeno Communications and Universal Translator and then Sensors I and Sensors II. Once I finished Sensors II I switched production on Dratha to Survey ships and built 3. By this time most of the PQ 10+ worlds in my immediate reach were colonized. By then I was starting to run out of money, I had to run the slider back down to about 50% production to keep from going in the red and to maintain morale at 70%. I try to always have morale at 70% at least. If I can afford to let the morale run higher I will. If you look on the Civ manager at each planet the 70% approval on the main page is an average. Some will be below 70% and some will be above. If you run at say 80% on the main page you will have more if not all of the planets above 70% some will even be at 100%. Since 70% and 100% are the magic numbers I try to keep most if not all the planets above 70% and some above 100%. You have to tweek the tax rate but bounce back and fourth between the Domestic page and the Colony Management page and you will see what I mean.

I then went for a bunch of the diplomacy tech that were not too expensive. I use these to trade and keep up techwise with the AIs. At the current point the the game I am in I have every tech any of the AIs have plus a bunch they don't I use any minor races as much as possible I will trade stuff to them that I will not trade to of AIs. I like to trade things like Trade, Advanced Trade and other techs that might help me out. I try to not trade Weapons, Engines and other war techs but I will if the AI is weak and I need a certain tech right now that they have. In this current game all the AI went down the Beam weapon path. My war with the Alterians involved mostly Phasors on their part. The Terrians were nice enough to research the Shield line of defensive techs and trade them to me for my war. I then researched missiles on my own. Nobody in the entire galaxy has higher than Stinger II. The Alterians had Shield techs as well so it was a slug fest for a bit before I got some corvettes built with beam defense and Harpoons. I took out specific planets with a High PQ and left the smaller ones. This mean every once in a while I had to take out a ship that the Alterians built on a smaller world in the middle of my empire but it crippled his economy. During the war 3 worlds then flipped to me. I had run out of Harpoon ships and needed about 7 or 8 turns to build my new Ultimate Invun/Photonic Torpedo/Hyperwarp 3 Corvettes and Cruisers at this point, so I sued for peace and let the Iconians take a few more worlds from the Alterians. They were down to about 6 worlds when I attacked them again after about 10 turns and took their remaining planets. One other thing I would mention the Alterians attacked me because I had the lowest military rating out of anyone. I had used Diplomacy to keep people friendly to me or make them fight each other up until this point. When the Alterians attacked I immediately elisted the help of the Krox and Iconians and had them attack the Alterians. Also my small fleet would have been no match for all the ships they had. I traded the Thalens for the some of the Invasion line techs and finished off researching Shock Troops, switched production from Corvettes to Strikes cruisers on border worlds (3 Adv Troop modules, survey 2, Enhanced support, and Engines lots and lots of engines) Had 5 SC 3 turns later and immediately cut a swath right up the middle of Alterians territory taking 2 PQ 5 planets, a PQ12 and finally the Alterian homeworld and another PQ 11.

At this point in the current game I am consolidating my positions. I have a few influence starbases built and working on flipping some planets in systems that are not completely mine. I just flipped a PQ38 world right before I saved and went to bed last night. I am also building economy starbases around my major production and research facilities. In the meantime the planets with over 150 production are building Capital ships.

Let me see if I can't go through your numbered stuff...

1) Tech is hard to say, there are things I like to get right away, I mentioned them above. After that its all up in the air. I really like the diplomacy line and anything that gives me more diplomacy bonus. Influence, Economy and Morale are up there too. I have been playing neutral lately so I will grab Xeno Ethics early instead of the terraforming techs. I research the weapon line nobody else is and research the defense line that will counter what weapons the AI is using. One thing about tech that I think is very very important is to be careful with you get the tech that upgrade your manufacturing and research facilities. If you upgrade too soon you can cripple you new colonies because it will take them forever to build the new building. I think as a rule of thumb I like to have 2 factories built on each planet for the current tech before I upgrade through trade or research it on my own. One thing I have noticed is the AI ignores most of the Invasion Techs. I always grab these early, the whole line. The later tech are cheaper than the plantary Invasion and Bombardment. The additional soldiering bonus makes it possible for one Strike Cruiser with 3000 troops to take even a world with 3 times the population sometimes 4 if I get lucky on the roll.

2. I think I mentioned it above but Morale above 70% if at all possible. Industry never below 50% but thats just a rule of thumb if it goes lower in order to stay out of the red then I consider it a necessary evil. I will lower my morale to 50% before I lower the industrial slider below 50%. I try to build 3 or 4 survey ships with the fastest engines I have in order to greb some extra anomalies to keep the economy afloat longer.

3. all mentioned above I believe the 100% bonus to population growth is actually normal growth x 3.

4. I never adjust the slider. Research carries over. I have researched 2 or 3 techs in a turn before. Especially the defensive tech I ignored before.

5. I start with Beam weapons. Cost/Size/Damage they are middle of the road. I will then switch if I see defensive tech being put on AI ships to counter the Beam weapons. Usually my defensive ships that I keep in orbit are beam weapons which causes the AI to do beam defense. I then shift to Missiles or Mass Drivers.

6. I sometimes upgrade ships if they have a bunch of experience but usually its cost prohibitive on a huge map. I think on gigantic maps you can get the economy going to the point where you can afford to upgrade more often. I however cannot play on Gigantic maps because my computer struggles with even the late game on huge maps.

7. No it does not.

8. I don't like to micromanage that much but it might be a good idea. I wouldn't move people just to even out populations however. If I have a planet that has a bunch of Stock Markets or their equilivant on it and low population and another planet with a morale problem and no stock markets I might move some people around. I think the effort of doing so however is most likely not worth it.

9. I build one ship small ship for each planet to keep those rogue transports from invading out of the blue. Then when each planet is garrisoned I start building Corvettes (Medium Class) I put every planet with a starport to work on them as long as its production is over 25 (make sure the social focus is off at this point). I crank them and Transports out until my military rating is somewhere in the middle of the pack. I then switch to constructors and build economy starbases around my major production worlds. I will start building the small ships just before the colony rush is over.

10. I mentioned some of my focus strategy above. I am just starting to use it now on the Masochistic games. It definitely helps to get the initial factories and trade centers up and running. After that I like to take a balanced approach for most of the game and if I need to adjust I use the sliders i.e. if I need more ship quicker I urn the military bar up and let social lag. I try to keep research between 30 and 40% most of the time.

11. 200% production bonus You can build more ships or out research the AI you can't do both. Your better off trading for the tech and building the ships. At least that is how I have been doing it.

12. Corvettes (mediums) make up the bulk of my initial attack fleets. I will always have a bunch of these in fleets with large ships as well. I think swarms might work will with Military starbases in a defensive role but I do not like to be in that position because if I am on the defensive I am losing. I will use swarms if I have to to build up a fleet quickly if I find myself behind. Current fleet composition is 1 or 2 Capital ships (Huge), 3 or 4 Cruisers (Large) and the rest corvettes. I use squadrons of small ships to protect resource starbases and starbase clusters. I used to use all Cruisers or Huge Ships in a fleet but eventually the huge ships take damage and get blown up. If I keep some corvettes in the fleets I usually just lose those to damage and the Capital ships just grow in experience. Those are the ones I will upgrade btw.

Hope this all helps. Good luck.

So you leave the planets with no focus? Interesting, I may try it.

I didn't mean to never use focus, but in your question, you said you set ALL your planets to social production. That's just pointless micromanagement, use the slider if you want your whole empire to change its spending. The focus is useful if you want some planets to be doing something different than other planets. I might have my developed planets focusing on military production, while the planets I just conquered focus on social production so they can build the improvements I want.

But I think one of the keys to winning is to fully use the flexibility that the sliders allow. I frequently switch from 100% spending in one area to 100% spending in another area. I almost never spend on all three areas at once. If you want to build better ships, then go 100% research until you have the techs you want, then switch to 100% military to build lots of them ASAP. If you used 50% military and 50% tech instead, you'd end up with the same total amount of military production and research, but some of the ships would have been built with old tech. Determine what you need RIGHT NOW, and get it as fast as you can.

First, I am currently playing gigantic, abundant all, fastest research, suicidal. I play the Torians with all points applied to economy and population growth, industrialist party. Your strategy will need to vary some based upon your starting settings.

0) Okay, I moved this from #13 to #0: Complete this statement: "After the colony rush, the most importnant thing to focus on is..."

Upgrading factories, get survey ships running, find and claim galactic resources. Priority on Military, Morale and Economic galactic resources.

1) What do you consider the optimal tech path? I find it remarkable that I cannot find, anywhere on the web, a detailed discussion on the matter. Many generalities, but no actual listing, in order, of proven tech paths.

I usually have universal translators by turn 3 or 4. Immediately start trading with all alien races. If you have set the relationship slider during game startup, you will be able to trade with them immediately. The only tech I research is anything with a diplomatic bonus, the planetary invasion techs (I trade for the first one or two before researching the rest) and the sensor techs. I usually beat the game before the tech tree is finished. I will research planetary improvement techs, miniaturization, and the rest of the missile tech tree if I don’t have them by the end of the game.

2) When I start running out of cash, I reduce the industrial output and build trade centers to boost cashflow. I suspect this is where my demise 25 turns later begins. What is your rule of thumb for balancing taxes and industrial output?

I never turn down the industrial slider. I deficit spend pretty much the entire first year. Trade and survey ships carry me a good distance. About the time the survey ships start to run out of gas, I am usually getting at least one Morale or Economic galactic resource online. Some of the diplomatic techs are also cash bonus techs, so that helps some. Any planets that “get ahead” in their build queues either get specialized toward factories or economics, depending on the planet and my balance sheet. The very fast research setting also helps here, I can usually trade for social and economic techs with bonuses. Also I move the research slider up, this is always the weak link in my planetary builds, so increasing research spending, reduces my deficit.

3) Population and Approval:

i) Is it better to run a huge defecit at 100% approval rating in order to boost the population and tax base? Or balance the books by keeping cranking up taxes thus driving approval to 50%?

Always run at either 75% or 100%. 100% when I feel flush, 75% otherwise.

Nullspace has the right numberss on this, cut and paste his into this so it’s complete for what I do 
Planetary moral at 100% gives doubled population growth. Above 75% give a 25% boos to growth. Below 40% and growth stops, below 20% (I think) population decreases. There is no gradient, just these thresholds. Once you switch to a representational government, you need approval to be about 60% on election day to stay in power.

ii) Are there certain thresholds to observe, like never have approval dip below 50%?

iii) I know there is some kind of population bonus at 100% approval. What, exactly, is the bonus? Is it a gradient bonus (90% approval gets 90% of the bonus) or is it all or nothing at 100%?

4) Do you adjust the research slider with each new tech being sought, to make sure you dedicate just enough research points to acheive it at xx weeks without spillover?

I do. Even if the research is not wasted I yo-yo my spending between production, social and research. Especially during early game, I’m looking for every BC I’m spending to have an immediate return. Unused research on a tech may not be wasted, but it’s not returning value either.

5) What is your preferred weapon line and why? Missiles seem to get the most bang for the buck, is there another consideration?

Always missiles. Best bang for buck reason. As soon as one race develops some missile tech, I seed it to the rest of the computer players to increase the likelihood of other AI’s picking up on it. I like to have at least two researching missile tech for me (yes, this is how I view it), just in case one is sluggish in developing the tech.

6) When it's time to move up to a newly designed ship type, do you upgrade your existing fleet? Or do you just build all new and leave the old ships in orbital defense roles?

I used to upgrade ships, I never do now. I don’t defend my planets at all. I move all older model ships towards the border of the AI that I am most likely to attack next and try to use them in taking the closest border planets. I use the newer ship designs for deeper penetrations.

7) I know population affects the tax base, but it also determines the social, military and research outputs of a planet, yes?

No

8) Do you try to balance your population after the colony rush by shuttling citizens from the homeworld to the thinly populated planets?

No

9) I'm always the low man on the miltary totem pole and the focus of early aggression, no matter how much industrial capacity I throw at shipbuilding. What am I doing wrong? How soon do you start building your fleet?

Get spin control. Start building military as soon as the AI does. One of my AI neighbors is almost always slow doing this. Instead of being jumped, see if you can be the jumpee. It makes a huge difference if you can jump an AI at this point.

10) After the colony rush, I always set the focus of each planet to social output, thinking that more factories will build ships quicker, and more trade centers will grow the tax flow and allow me to keep my industrial output maxed. What's your focus strategy?

I never use focus. If a planet is too much of a laggard, I simply let it sit until I get to the end of the Evil alignment special projects. Once I get the 100% economic bonus that lies at the end of that rainbow, I will go back and buy up factories on the laggard planets.

11) How does the AI research so quickly? I swear, 15 turns after the colony rush, if I go to trade with them, they all have 5 to 10 techs I don't and I have nothing they don't already have. And yet the all are able to field many, many more ships than I can by that point.

I agree. There is no way to keep up with their research. Trade is the answer, it allows you to greatly reduce your research and narrowly focus on only a couple of branches.

12) What is your preferred ship size and fleet composition? I just tried building only "small" swarms and lost to big battleships.

First war is medium ships, since I am usually jumping an unprepared AI. Two ships to a fleet will do it for most of this first war. Second war is large ships. I put them in groups that are only large enough to deal with what they are facing. Once again this is usually two or three ships in the second war. I rarely fill up my entire logistics ability, until I reach the point where I have extra ships with no duties…

I've employed a lot of your suggestions (some of which was re-inforcement of things earlier successes had taught me) and had some success last night. Well, if you want to define success as merely not having someone declare war on me...

I started by re-allocating my abilities. Playing as Torians, I choose a 30% econ bonus and a 50% military bonus, my in game stats read as econ +60 and military +60. So far, I like it. And perhaps the game tries to give you what it thinks you're looking for, since I started with two military resources very close by.

I was able to get through the colony phase and initial factories and trade centers without ever having to back the industrial slider from 100%. Maintaining modest cashflow after the first night's play.

I'm trying the cargo hull full-o-weapons ruse to keep me out of the military basement. The Drengin and Korx have both been 'hostile' toward me and since I don't have any techs to gift them, I have instead opted to give each one 20bc every turn (in hopes that there is a boolean test that doesn't permit an AI to attack you on a turn they accepted a gift). Well, it's better than nothing.    I have also sent freighters to both, as well as other civs that have tried to bully me out of cash.

I'm still breathing. So far, so good.

Thanks for all your advice and keep it coming!

Make sure you upgrade to 1.4 if you haven't already done so

0. Starbases and diplomacy. Grab the starbases you want and make friends with everyone you can't beat with you military (if you even have one at all).

1. Engines help colony rush (more valuable with larger maps). You can also trade them away toward then end of the colony rush when they don't help the computer as much but the computer still values them as a good tech trade. Then get diplomacy toward the end of the colony rush when you start bumping heads with empires.

2. Account for you economic decline before it happens. Find the approximate ratio you need between econmic specialized worlds and production specialized worlds (ie factories and research centers). If you don't keep your industrial out put at max you are paying the maintanece on your factories and research facilites without utilizing them completely. Maintanence is always the same amount but the cost of your manufacturing and reserach varies on how much output you have. For a concrette example that could be ture. You set your industrial capacity at 50% but you are still paying 65% of your overall expenses. So even if you set your industrial capacity to 0% you are still paying maintanence on your buildings, which is the same a burning money.

3. Balance the books first. That being said, if you can predict your future cash flow accurately you may want to run deficits in the beginning to get your population up. Never drop your approval below 45% because past that your population does not grow. There are bonus thresholds at 45%, 75%, and 100%.

4. You can do that if you REALLY need a tech at a certain time but I never have. Keep in mind spill over simply gets you further on the next tech in that line (no tech points are wasted).

5. There are advantages to the weapons/defenses tree but your BIGGEST ADVANTAGE (by far) is to counter your opponents weapons line by matching their defenses and having different weapons than they have defenses for.

6. Don't upgrade your ships unless it presents a significant advantage (ie nearly doubling the ships capabilities or completely changing the weapons/defenses types). There is a small fee to simply upgrade and if you upgrade too often you are wasting that money.

7. Population is only about taxes. Social<--Both linked to factories--> military, and research are seperate from population. They are determined by the buildings alone on your planets.

8. Generally that is what I do.

9. The bigger the better in general.

what?!!?!?!?!?!? am i missing something. I never knew there was a 100% eco bonus for evil civs. And to think that I've always been so good...

Mind Control Center is bugged in DL (haven't checked DA). It doesn't affect defections at all. It actually gives a 100% econ bonus. When you build it, it even says so in the little boxed description.



I'm still playing DL, but in DL it adds 50% to you base military production (so it's also adding 50% to any other military bonuses you might have)

Between the two of them, this is a huge boost.