Ok so I have a Diplomatic Vic all lined up.  My Economy is booming, Im finaly(!) spanking the Drengins and, in one fell swoop of backstabbing glory Ive taken about 6-7 of their planets in about 2-3 turns of blissful bliztkreig.  Im playing as Terran, its not my first ToA game but up until this point I'd played a few Maso@Medium no tech trade custom games.  I wanted to explore the new, and familliar, game mechanics and economic systems.  One thing I must say before I get to the game.. if youve yet to play or are a newer player to this game, the most important ability choice you can make is to get +2 speed.  This costs 8 ability points, but more than makes up for that in money and production you save.  How is this you may ask??  With this ability, and Impulse drives I, you can create ships WITHOUT engines!!  Thereby saving you production time and money on all your units.  Not putting engines on the majority of your ships, over the course of the game, will go a long way towards beating the "cheater" AI's. 

Custom Game

Large Galaxy Map

Common//Loosely Scattered

Ascenion Vic OFF (more on this later)

All other Vics enabled

Slow Tech(First Terran Game, I want to explore the tech tree, but also want the techs to "impact" the game)

8 AI's, Set to Masochistic (Im still looking for my first Win, gimme a break )

3 Minors (With the intent to play a more peaceful, diplomatic AKA I pay everyone else to go to war kind of game I dont want tons of random minors to have to be diplomatic with.  I really liked what I saw as far as how powerul a Diplo Civ can be in this game, but the interface still feels a little sluggish IMO and it would be a pain to talk to any more than 3 or 4 minor civs, also JMO. (not a typo, just my opinion

I pick Terran Civ, give myself +2 Speed and the rest went to a Morale boost.  I forgot to pick 1 pt Creativity Oops!

Gov is default Federalist and I left it there.

And so the game begins...

COLONIZATION

    The Terran race is very well designed, and really is a great civ to "learn" this game on.  First of all, who doesnt love Recruitment Centers.  THese babies are the talk of the forums, and they deliver.  A Early game tech rush of the first two war techs will give you a net of +20 bonus to Military Production and the ability to build RC's.  Plop these down on all of your Colonies ASAP.  They will generate a small profit and give a 20% boost your pop growth (VERY nice, Population=taxable income and, later, an interstellar army). 

    So I settle in and, lo and behold, 'we have joined the intergalactic community and so forthbla bla bla' whats on my planet Click Click.  Garbage bonuses and awkward starting location with little to no room to expand.  Not quite what I was looking for.  I like a challenge but I also dont mind to Ctlr+N for something a little more appealing..

    Precursor Mine and Prarie is definately sexy and the map looks promising.  Im at the bottom of the map, and my most obvious opponent is the Drath.  I really hate these guys since they "manipulate" everyone to go to war with eachoter... which is exactly what Im supposed to be doing.  I want to control the tempo and feel of this game and I dont want the meddling Drath to foul up my plans.  They are to my immediate right, with the Drengin above me.  Normally I'd hate to see these guys as they will not hesitate to go to war with just about any civ anytime, but that was before I was playing as Terran.  As a Super Diplomat I plan on playing the Drengins aggressiveness against the other civs and eventually against itself.  Theres little to no habitable space between us which works which bodes well for moderately decent relations, at least we wont have border conflict!!  To my left at 8 Oclock were the Altarians who were also conveniently separated from me by a tract of inhabitable space.  Rounding out the civs were the Thalans at 12, Korath at 3 with the Arceans to their left, sandwiched between the 12 Thalans and the Drengin directly above me.   9 corner was Yor with what looked like only 4 systems, and 11 Torian. 

                            Thalan

             Torian                     Arcean         Korath

Yor            Drengin                        Drath

       Altarian               Popsursocks

    As I see it, Im going to play for a Neutral Civ which should put the Arceans and Altarians in my corner.  The four major players should turn out to be Torian, Arcean, Drengin and Altarian as these guys all have what looks like good amounts of closely spaced systems to claim.  If all goes well the Drengin will be my attack dog early, and as it turned out they were actually really useful to have around. I sent my first Colony towards Drathi space along with my flagship, harvesting anomolies as I went.  I bought a factory on the Precursor Mine as well as a brand new Colony Ship from the Starport.  I set Industry to 100%, taxes so morale was at 100%, and research to 100% on Galactic Warfare.  I upgraded my miner to a Colony Ship, then pressed Turn.

    The Colony phase went well for me, I beat Drathi to the systems we would later dispute thanks to my 5move colony ships, and had my pick of the best planets.  The highest PQ I saw there was a PQ 14 extreme atmosphere world, but I had no  qualms about snagging the nice cluster of 10-12s scattered around nearby.  My Second turn saw me lowering research to ~75% with the rest towards my 4th Colony Ship (initial colony, upgraded miner and the colony I purchased my first turn).  After a nice +10 to Military Production from Galactic Warfare I switched to Space Weapons for another +10 and the ability to build Recruitment Centers on my planets.  I add one to Earth's build queue and set all of my colonies to building them, adjusting spending accordingly to optimize my results.  I dont have screens from this point of the game but my early tech order was something like Galactic Warfare - Space Militarization - Artificial Gravity - Planetary Improvements.  I've found that with most races in ToA you want to limit social production on your worlds early.  Too many improvements on your planets early before your pop has had a chance to grow will cause your economy to take a 180 nosedive into the red.  This game is all about balacing what you build with what you can sustain both in terms of economy and production.  Sounds simple but with a tech tree as large as ToA's theres tons of different ways to go about doing this. 

MIDGAME

    After Planetary Improvents I had to make my first real tech choice.  Xeno Industrial Theory looked good for its bonus to social production and Manufacturing Capital but it was still too early for me to start building facs on my colonies, so I went for Advanced Coloniztion which at this stage is an expensive tech and looks like a gamble.  Somewhere around 15 turns when youd ideally want a higher tech to cost about 8 turns.  But there were a couple juicy planets left unclaimed around my start including that PQ14 I told you about before sitting right on Draths doorstep.  I may have bought an additional colony outright sometime during this stage of the game from anomoly funds, but for the most part I was letting my civ grow its pop as I slowly started to "turn on the lights".  I built a few facs on bonus tiles and 1 fac on my economy planets, keeping my morale at 100% on most worlds and running a small but manageable defecit. 

    Resource-wise I did well.  I got a research and an infuence starbase smack dab in the middle of me and the Drath.  Drath got the second research resource in that area, but I got the military resource hidden below his systems and immediately across our border, as well as claiming a second military resource on the far left side of my territory.

    After my Extreme World techs I went straight to the Diplo/Trade branch.    Xeno Communications and Universal Translator were 1 turn cheap techs, but were actually quite valuable trade techs.  I wanted to really utilize Terran's Super Diplomat skills by being friendly with most civs, allowing me to trade my way through the tech tree and avoid unwanted conflict and harrasment from my neighbors.  In my previous games of ToA, it was my experience that the AI's had a tech trading lovefest without me and basically ran all over me.  But no sir!  As a Super Diplomat I am able to talk rings around my opponents and get excellent value on all of my trade offers.  I really used this extensively to my advantage throughout the game.  I sent early freighters to my most obvious supporters the Arcean and Altarian.  Next to receive my charity were the Torians, I needed them to go after Drengin early to keep them off my back.  But, being the crafty Terran that I am, I also sent trade to Drenga, paying them to go after my friends the Altarians.  "Whats that??" you say.  You conspiring bastard I thought you said you were friends with the Altarians, why would you have them attacked by the evil Drengin?  The answer is simple of course, f**k you Altaria.  You want to try to out tech me and bully me around with your "Advanced Logistics" and your "Medium Scale Builing".  Ill show you whos boss, meet my new attack dog the Drengin.  Nuff Said. 

    I continued to research Diplo and Infrastructure Techs making stops for cheap stuff I needed along the way.  I was able to trade certain key techs to other civs in exchange for weapon techs, engine techs, and also unique civilization techs.  These are new to the game in ToA, and they are a Diplomats dream.  I got speed enhancing techs from Arcea, and research enhancing techs from the Torians.  These race specific techs can improve all different areas of your civ, from the aforementioned research and speed bonus to economy, morale, and even planetary invasion.  They can also sometimes be good trade fodder.  For example I picked up the tech to build slave pits from Drengin and added it to deals with other civs in order to raise the apparent value of  the trade I was offering.

    By now it was clear that me and Drath were going to come to blows sometime in the very near future.  The only reason he hadn't already declared on me was because he was a little busy dealing with the rampaging Arcean and Korath forces in his the territory thanks to yours truly.   I built  two military starbases which managed to protect my colonies and resources as well as extend to cover most of the worlds I was planning on conquering.  My southern border was lightly defended as we were both focused on the more habitable areas of contention to the north, but it was something I was aware of, and I did put 1 or 2 light scouts out for advance warning.  There were a couple problems with the coming war however, the biggest being our "overlapping" borders.  We both owned planets in eachothers territory, and I was really nervous about AI cheese.  A lone Troop transport into the heart of my territory had the potential to cause me a lot of headaches and more than likely some gold as I desparately try to build a last second defense.  Suffice it to say those worlds were on the top of my list of targets. 

    As it turned out the Drath did finally declare war, but not before I secured an alliance with my friends the Arcean, who promptly resumed their war against the Drath.  I may have brought another player into the war with Drath I cant remember.  I was not planning on writing this AAR until something that happened much much later in the game caused me to go "holy shit, I cant believe this just happened...I gotta AAR this one".  Stay tuned for more on that later

    The first few turns of the war were a little dicey.  Despite me knowing it was coming for only mmmmm the WHOLE GAME, I was not as ready as Id like to be for this war.  Serious warship production was only just coming online, until that point Id been busy building mixed freighter/constructor/transports, which was why I think in the end Drath did declare war on me.  My transports werent sitting on his border, but they were definately visible, and there was definately quite a few of them .  I grabbed one last invasion tech, bought a few brand new Battle Hammers (Medium Ships with Stinger Missile tech and Titanium Armor) and cobbled it all together (somehow) into conquering 75% of Draths' Planets, the rest being a token system or two which Id let the Arceans handle.  We declared peace and that was the last I heard from them.  I didnt want a long war with Drath, as I didnt want them drawing others into it against me, and I also wanted to maintain my good-guy rep with the rest of the civilized galaxy.

    By this point my population lead is finally starting to tell.  It had been a good race between me, Altaria and Torian for the tech/pop lead, but the planets I had just absorbed along with a GREAT economy was starting to put me ahead as the clear front-runner civ.  But I still had work to do, and more havok to wreak upon the unsuspecting galaxy...

Conclusion to follow..