| 2. The tech trees are too complicated. |
No. The tech tree itself is quite simple.
They aren't technology in the Civ sense of the term. They're just something that you research that provides you with abilities (buildings, ship parts, etc).
What the tech tree is is big. And long. It's not complex once you get the idea that every kind of building, ship part, ability, etc has its own branch of the tree devoted specifically to improving that. See below.
Spend some time with the Galactopedia application. That is the easiest way to get a real handle on how the tech tree works.
| 3. How do I decide what to research next? |
What do you need? That answers the question of what you should research.
If your diplomacy is starting to fall behind, and you feel that you're going to need that in the future, research diplomacy techs. If you need research, go get some.
Determining what you want is far more difficult than figuring out what you need to get there.
Of course, since the game purposefully hides lots of information, it's difficult to know if what you think you need to perform task X is really what you need to do it. That unfortunately requires prior game experience and playthroughs.
| 4. What is the best research path for whatever? |
? I don't even understand what that question means.
In general, I don't believe in using/providing exact numbers for taxes, production and so forth, because the game is not obviously deterministic. It's generally better to say, "set your sliders to where you can build stuff fast enough". Indeed, most of the time, except for the critical first few turns, I don't even change anything but the tax rate.
In general, I find a global moral of less than 90% to be unacceptable, so my taxes are set to where you get to 90%. I avoid over-population (2 Xeno farms on farm worlds). Because of the latter, my focus infrastructure wise is on getting industry tech (everything but the last. Usually, by the time I can quickly research the last industry tech, I've probably already won), banking tech, and research tech, in that order. Neutral is what I play, so the PQ bonus and NLCs always come into play. Without the high-end happiness buildings, you're not going to have mega-population worlds, so 17Billion is probably a good maximum. Plus, since I get banking tech to the end of the line, I get my money from banks, not farms.
If I don't have lots of worlds, then starbases become very important. Economy starbases for buffing your planet's output are extremely powerful, though less so with the 4-per-sector rule (unless your planet happens to be in the corner of a sector, which is always good
). Starbases, basically, exist to compensate for having fewer worlds. They allow you to take mid-grade planets and turn them into both production capitals and money makers (because their bonuses are only half-paid for), so you don't have to specialize nearly as much.
Economy is life. Economy comes from population, so population is life. However, more population means less morale, so the most important thing you can do is have a high morale. Morale buildings are OK, but a high morale bonus is good too. Custom races work well for this.
Dealing with other civs comes from a combination of good diplomacy (my modified Yor easily make up for the intrinsic Yor penalty) and keeping them busy. If someone is growing in power, start a war. Also, a faux defense is imperative; I have a special small fighter designed specifically for this; it's not fast or powerful; it's just there to keep early game murdering from happenning. After that, research/buy trade, and trade with people; that'll help them avoid dealing with you until you are ready to deal with them. Government techs are also good.
