Well, in view of your Metaverse scores and different strategies you posted here, I'm not sure whether I'm "qualified" to answer you   

However, here my 2 cents since in peacetime I tend to run my empire as a financial corporation.
- Ship more colonists from your main planet to the others, using a troop transport module (if you have it; otherwise use colony ships). Your main planet may be more developed, but its approval is usually lower than on the other planets because of the high population --> move some millions out so you can increase overall taxes without your main planet's morale dropping below 41%
- What about selling 1 planet to a distant AI (hoping to reclaim the planet soon thanks to your influence in that sector) in order to decrease that -260 BC and get some cash on hand?
- More economical buildings even if it means giving up some research. I have to say I'm usually a slow starter though; economically I'm doing fine, I focus a lot on research but in terms of overall production or population growth I'm penalized because I build that many economical buildings early on.
- Selling more technology to underperforming AI's (temporary "solution" but a few 1000 could help)

Now hoping for some far more experienced players to come up with much better ideas...

I've taken another tack altogether.

Very fast tech and put a priority on all techs that carry innate bonuses to morale and economics.

Of course, my racial bonuses are also morale and econ heavy.

And last, but not least, Superbreeders!

I've found if you put them all together and get a little luck on the galactic resources and survey ships you can skim right over the traditional late year zero, early year one economic hump and come out the far end with a huge factory stack. It still works without any one of the three above, but with some obvious additional difficulty.

After you build some factories (and that is what ultimately wins the game--production), you have to concentrate on the economy while you are doing the colony rush. This means you still need research buildings so that you can get quickly from trade centers to stock exchanges. Improve your morale buildings. Improve your govt to ultimately to star federation.

Early in the game research the survey function and go out looking for anomalies with money. I usually have 4 out looking for stuff. They don't give as much money as in DL. Usually 100 to 1000 bc. At some point I still am hurting and getting close to 0 and I have may have to temporarily ramp back my sliders.

Then build aphrodisiac to get more population. A farm when you get close to your planet's limit (usually 6 bc). With federation, lots of stock exchanges, and growing population, you start building up large sums of money.

But ultimately I want lots of planets and lots of production. But you have to do a lot of stuff to keep from going in the hole.

You might try fewer AIs if you are really having problems and make sure you have a good starting position. If not, hit Ctrl-N til you get a good spot.

hahaha, that dousn't even work in DL! On higher difficulty levels, the AI colony ships are pretty much unstoppable. And once a powerful AI race claims some worlds deep in your territory, they ain't lettin go of them via influence, no way, not until the game is at least half over already or if you build a legion of constructors for building influence starbases - in which case it would be far quicker to build troop transports instead!

In Galciv1 definately! but planets are virtually worthless in DL.

It is funny when you get that announcement that some minor race working with you has stolen all the technology of somebody and it says they are particularly interested in star systems, then when you try to trade them a starsystem, you are lucky to be offered more than 3bc for it!! rediculous!!!

I wouldn't consider it as free money since you would sacrifice troops, meaning you're giving up some growth and tax potential early on.
I've never sold a planet though, so I have no idea how much the benefits would be...

Oh, come on, Iztok.

SOMEONE is going to have to figure out what is the perfect proportion of planets/colonies to try for in a 600 system game (give or take ~2%), to give the optimum chance of a win combined with a minimum chance of attracting an early war.
Who better than you?

drrider

Hi!

Arceans, 30% econ, 30% morale, 20% weapons (I wanted the advantage of first strike maximized), 10% soc and mil production, Luck, Technologists for bonus on focus to research.

Intended playing strategy: all-factories. Never played it, but it should be appropriate for lots of planets and fastest tech.

Build on HW: all factories, then focus on research and built each second turn a colonizer. When Industrial Capital available, converting one fac to it.

Build everyhere else: ~33% factories, rest Advanced trade centers. On planets class-8+ Starport after factories or the last tile.

Research (or what I intended to research):
- prop to Ion drive for colonizers,
- Planetary improvements, Space Militarization for bonuses,
- Sensors 1, built some Explorers,
- Impulse engine for +1 speed,
- Xeno industry(?) for Factory and +10% social production bonus,
- Xeno biology, Xeno medicine for 10% growth,
- Xeno entertainment (+15% morale), increased taxes.
- Diplo tech up to Trade for more "pluses" in relations, no free production for traders,
- basic weapons for fake defenders (most AIs already militarized, so I needed SOME mil score)
----- here I ran out of money
- Toxic planets colonization (Drengin already have it, there are ~6 toxic planets in "my" space),
- Xeno trade centers, upgrade old buildings,
- Advanced trade, built more trade ships for a bit of money and a + in relations,
- Xeno Ethics, choose Neutral,
- first, second terraforming,
------ from here on it would depend on the situation:
Peacefull:
- Republic for more diplo (+ in relations) and +10% econ,
- enhanced factories,
- Xeno research, Advanced computing, Basic miniaturization to increase space for life supports on trade and Explorer ships,
- more trade and diplo tech, better infrastructure buildings,
- morale trade goods.
Warlike:
- Xeno research, Advanced computing, Basic miniaturization to increase space for life supports on trade and Explorer ships,
- Basic logistic, Life support for better range,
- Medium hull,
- Impulse engine 3 for medium hull,
- better missile techs,
- defenses, lots of,
- Planetary invasion branch,
- Warp drive for +1 speed,
- more miniaturization...

That's about it. OFC I'm constantly adjusting that schedule, trying to follow the peacefull one, and at times fully diving into the warlike one up to the certain breakpoint: usually a target warship configuration achieved. Then I put in production needed number of ships (warships, troop transports), and turn back to the peacefull one, until next breakpoint in warfaring tech is needed.

BR, Iztok

Hi!

I'm affraid that will not be me: I call ~40 colonizable planets per player lots of planets. Am not going to touch 600-planets game, not even with a long stick. I leave that job to someone who thinks managing each GC-2 turn for three hours is fun and not grind.

BR, Iztok

Purge, I take a similar tack. Trading with the minors (and getting research and econ treaties from them) helps supplement what your explorers are bringing in during the "economic dark ages" early in the game before your front-line colonies are self-sustaining. During the early parts of my games, I'm constantly trolling the minors for money and tech.

Well I normally trade for the AI planets but I think some of what I do can apply here:

Your homeworld has 8 billion people starting on it. Do not build anything on your homeworld that is not an econ building.

Maintenance costs and PPs and RPs are huge cash drains. With 100% research and focused production I'm usually at 19 spending per planet.

I ignore morale at the homeworld and set taxes to 100% based on my highest less than 6 billion pop worlds.

If you're not going to trade techs for planets or play the diplomacy games then technology doesn't really matter too much. You need morale boosters and xeno ethics and neutrality ASAP.

The more planets you have the better the deal you're getting. More planets is more important than tech, wonders, trade goods, starbases, and military ships. Some trade goods like Nano Recorders make things more difficult economically. Aphrodiasiac is awesome!!!! It's more important to get Aphrodisiac if you're trading for the AIs planets as higher pop planets means you have to trade more tech.

If you only build econ buildings it's really easy to change between 100%'s on the production sliders.

So goals:

-Colonize as many planets as possible and get your population as high as possible
-Research xeno ethics ASAP and the terraforming techs

Build all econ's on every planet(except one starport at the end), use 100% social, only build colony ships, after the planet has a starport set the focus to military and churn out colony ships. Rely on research treaties for your research and just stay focused on Xeno Ethics, the terraforming techs, and colonization techs.

If you don't have enough races to rely on research treaties, I don't know! I'm just so used to relying on exploiting Diplomacy that it's hard to imagine playing the game another way.

Is that the number of Star systems in a Gigantic map?

You will get over 900 planets on a gig abundant all DA map.

Regarding trading. I can usually only get a maximum of one or two useful trades in the entire game on suicidal with the majors under DA...But the minors are a different story.

One more benefit to minors. They are out there claiming galactic resources early. I have no problem knocking off a minors starbase on a galactic resource...I do NOT take their planet, so that I can avoid the negative hit on my diplomacy with majors. But who cares if you are at war with a minor. Anyway, this is one way the minors help me secure more of the galactic resource pie and if one of those resources is morale or economic, it will help get you out of the economic hole.