I also seem to recall reading that in the upcoming patch, it'll be harder to stave off militarily stronger races with influence.

I guess I prefer $ over influence. I can buy whatever I need, includiing military power. If my influence is lacking, I can spend to get either influence resources or military craft. Money, I find, travels across the galaxy better than influence, which is localized around my systems. And if niether money nor influence does the trick, then I go in with guns a-blazing.

I'm not saying any of the above posters are wrong, it's just for me personally, I like the massive pile of credits over all else.

I like morale. Lets me tax more, and have higher populations.

I also love stock exchanges.

Can't wait for Advanced Farming to be different then intense farming so I can get the build numbers right for Farms to stock exchanges. 1 to 3 has been working well for me so far.

My last game crashed so I didn't get a chance to see if worked out in end game, but with abundant everything on gigantic I had 1/3ish of the map (1/4 to 1/5 of the planets) and had 200+ planets. But My profit per turn was obscene.

I wish it would stop crashing in my big games I enjoy so much

Back to the thread at hand, I tend to go economic/military. Not for the reason given above, I tend to burn money off as fast as I get it, and I keep a military and use the money to upgrade them batches at a time.

I think I'm starting to get a hang of this game. My last game I was well on my way to an influence victory, but got bored with how long it was taking and pumped out a few ships for galactic conquest to speed things along. Still, was at the top of production and economy for most of the game with influence 2nd, or 3rd, and never built a fighting ship until I decided to back off the influence victory. Pirates foiled that attempt this game.

I dunno, I think diplomacy is fairly easy. You build up a medicore military, trade a lot with the other races and sit for a while. Eventualy everyone will love you for the whipping boy (or girl) you are and you can ally them with little trouble at all. The most interesting victory I've had has been the tech victory. I had the Iconins and Yor wiping out my military but they had only a handful of troop ships to throw at my most populated planets. Suffice to say, I sat there for about fifty turns with maxed out research, ships getting fragged, waiting for my inevitable victory.

I found that in the earlier versions, influence and diplomacy worked well together and it was my preferred style of play. With the patches, the racial advantages in those areas (as well as some others) have been tempered a bit and now I find it next to impossible to put my focus there and come out on top.

The main obstacle I find is that influence is considered a threat by the other empires and influence starbases spark irritation just like military starbases do. Most of the time, I'm drawn in a war because my victim can't compete in the influence plain so he prefers to slug it out. In that respect, I believe you'll need a decently decked out military to convince your victims not to pick up arms against you as you spread your influence. But when that happens, I can bully my neighbours into an alliance and go from there.