Seems Diplomacy and Influence are all you need

Key for that particular style of play yes. However there are many paths to victory in this game. Sure some seem *easier* then others but then that mostly boils down to personal preference and what the individual playing has an easy time grasping in terms of game concepts.

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

Its the key to winning every game if you get the appropriate Galactic Resources.

You can achieve such incredible economic dominance that if anyone does declare war on you, you can simply shift to military production, crank out the most advanced ships you possibly can, then sue for peace. The combination of your newly created army and your diplomatic advantage = peace.

GG.

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.

on higher difficulties, its not so easy. "Genious" comps for example, build starbases to counter your spread, if that fails they simply run you over with ships.

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 prefer +50 diplomacy, max economics, +10 morale. Money can be leveraged into any kind of advantage you want, be it a larger military or higher morale (due to lower taxes giving you enough income) or sweetening your diplomatic offers with the extra cash. If I want influence, I can afford a lot of influence starbases.

Diplomacy is very useful, but saying that Diplomacy and Influence are all you need is like saying that a big and powerful military is all you need. If you play that way, then of course that's all you need. You can either focus on one path to victory and only use what is relevant for that, or you can take a more mixed approach like I usually do, leveraging the versatility of Economics and Diplomacy into whatever strategy appeals to you at the moment.

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.

MIlitary is easiest.

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.

What difficulty level are you playing on? Try playing on Masochistic or higher. Granted, the AI needs a lot of work to compete with really good humans, but these higher difficulties compensate by cheating (higher output and more starting ships). This may help you loss more.

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.