To UberTaco:

I wouldn't follow much of that advice Rripperr. Especailly the bit about farms on bonus tiles. That's the only place to put them on your high PQ planets. On low PQ planets there isn't even a point to building farms anyway.

Did I not put the farm in parenthesis and add 'for 14+ PQ'?
Also, your 'observation' about them being the only place to put them on high PQ planets is just plain wrong. It still takes 2-4 Ent.Centers (depending on the tile bonuses) to keep the extra pop. from lowering your approval rating, and slowing your pop. growth (and your Tax growth). If you follow my course, he shouldn't have any trouble keeping a 100% (double growth rate) approval rating.

Its also pretty worthless to buy a factory first, or even to put any production into soc/mil for the first 4-5 turns.

The reason for buying the first factory (along with the 'social focus') is to speed up the building of everything else! If you buy the first factory (w/ focus) you immediately start working on your build orders with at least a 7 'hammers' rating. If you don't , you only get a 3. Plus, the focus magnifies with each additional factory I construct. So, my planets probably finish in less than half the time then it would if didn't do it this way. So I get the full benefits of everything on that planet that much faster.

This is especially important on the homeworld. I usually finish constructing every thing on it in 10-12 turns. Then I can shift the focus to military production, and really start cranking out ships without the exorbetant money involved in purchasing everything.

Buy a lab, and set spending to 100% research to quickly get a couple of propulsion techs and UT if you have close neighbors (if trading is off then UT isn't needed at all really).

Let me get this straight.. First, you're going to buy a lab (and they're more expensive than factories), then you're going to waste time by setting research to 100%? Oh, you might get 10-12 more RP in the same time-frame than if he follows my set-up. And you're screwed in everthing else..

I also don't see much point in building scouts. Use your colony ships to scout with (and your flagship of course). The AI loves its scouts though, which is one reason why it sucks expanding often enough.

The reason to design and deploy ONE scout is because the first colony ship is slower than molasses in winter. Faster scout (with more sensors)= more areas uncovered= less time WASTED trying to locate good planets. It makes no sense to construct and send out colony ships 'blind', when you can build ONE ship that will do it faster and cheaper.

There is also no point in adding range to your colony ships unless you absolutely have to. Just establish colonies that allow you to expand your range in a sensable manner.

This is somewhat a matter of personal choice, but I'd rather have a longer range colony ship that might be able to reach that 26 PQ planet, than have to wait to build an entire base close enough so I can reach it. It can make a big difference in how much and where you control the galaxy from..

Of course if playing a custom race always take +70% pop growth and additional morale and sensors.

Again, this is a matter of personal style. I take a light pop. growth (+20%), some economics (+10), and a research boost (+5). I find that economics plays a big part in how much you can do in the game. A well balanced, growing economy, along with a balanced approach to planet building allows a broad range of opportunities to conquer your competition. If you keep the peoples approval rating high (preferably 100%) you really don't NEED a huge pop. growth bonus. This not only boost your taxes, but improves your influence as well.

With the right economy, you can pretty much BUY any fleet you want in a matter of 6-7 turns (depending on logistics and ship points). Plus, you have the empire-wide flexability to build/produce anything you need on virtually any planet. That's a pretty pontent combination in anybodys book..

I have to agree about the need to rush buy colony and factories to stay competitive at tough and above. Most of you guys are playing at large and above maps, I play a lot on medium sized maps and the crunch is a lot more than what you guys are talking about.

Practically speaking with 9 opponents, medium map, even with abundant settings, the best colony rusher can grab only a couple more than the average empire. You have to be somewhat lucky, plus a master at making use of steller cartography.

When I play large maps, and with fewer opponents, I can grab a lot more than average, and it's auto-win as long as I can built up before the AI gets angry...

There is also no point in adding range to your colony ships unless you absolutely have to. Just establish colonies that allow you to expand your range in a sensable manner. This is somewhat a matter of personal choice, but I'd rather have a longer range colony ship that might be able to reach that 26 PQ planet, than have to wait to build an entire base close enough so I can reach it. It can make a big difference in how much and where you control the galaxy from..

I'm also not a big fan of adding range to colony ships, because they tend to be so slow, that range isn't significant. certainly at the beginning where you can quickly extend your range with colonisers maxed with engines I don't see any point in colony with life support.

But of course it depends on the size of the map, the availability of suitable colonies to extend your range etc..

Early game until you're done with your colony rush and infra build you will find better performance setting the sliders to 100% and 0%. .

I have a sneaking suspicion you are right about maxing levers to 100% or 0% early game for micromanegment reasons, but I seldom do it, because (1) I'm lazy and (2) I still win easily anyway without doing that.

The reason to design and deploy ONE scout is because the first colony ship is slower than molasses in winter. Faster scout (with more sensors)= more areas uncovered= less time WASTED trying to locate good planets. It makes no sense to construct and send out colony ships 'blind', when you can build ONE ship that will do it faster and cheaper

IMHO, if you play on abundant settings, where there are abundant stars, abundant planets and abundant habitable planets, the value of using specialised scout falls, because you have an extremely high chance of hitting good planets even if you send colonies out blind each system is likely to have at least one decent if not amazing planet. A scout might allow you to grab slightly better quality planets, but in a galaxy, where these are plentiful, it's not as signficant, because what constrains your colony rush is the number of colony ships not information on where the good planets are..

Also because you use scouts and play on gigiantic, I'm starting to understand why you favour colonies with range.
The colony rush phase probably goes on a lot longer, for that strategy to pay off , so scouting+ colony with range is a necessity .

Also, your 'observation' about them being the only place to put them on high PQ planets is just plain wrong. It still takes 2-4 Ent.Centers (depending on the tile bonuses) to keep the extra pop. from lowering your approval rating, and slowing your pop. growth (and your Tax growth). If you follow my course, he shouldn't have any trouble keeping a 100% (double growth rate) approval rating.

Err... How high do you want your final pop on your cash planets anyway? Probably around 20B. If that's the case then one farm on one bonus tile will get you there. Why would you waste extra squares?

Also until your pop gets highish (over 10B or so) you don't need the extra +morale centers anyway, so no need to build them sooner, just build some more +econ buildings and you'll do fine. I've rarely had issues with morale running taxes ~50% in the mid game. You can normally grab up the +morale techs and if you are lucky enough to find a morale resource you'll be set. Really the 100% approval is a waste after a certain point anyway as you cannot possibly maintain it turn after turn without wasteing time screwing with your tax slider, or wasting production overbuying morale centers on planets.

For early game one farm (even on a bonus tile) and one morale center is usually enough to get you over 10B pretty quickly, at that point you can either build another morale center, or just accept approvals over 75% and keep your taxes higher.

The reason for buying the first factory (along with the 'social focus') is to speed up the building of everything else! If you buy the first factory (w/ focus) you immediately start working on your build orders with at least a 7 'hammers' rating. If you don't , you only get a 3. Plus, the focus magnifies with each additional factory I construct. So, my planets probably finish in less than half the time then it would if didn't do it this way. So I get the full benefits of everything on that planet that much faster. This is especially important on the homeworld. I usually finish constructing every thing on it in 10-12 turns. Then I can shift the focus to military production, and really start cranking out ships without the exorbetant money involved in purchasing everything.

Well like I said, I have 0 spending in social and military for the first handful of turns anyway, so why would I waste the time on factories? Focus is really a waste early game as well, but then again so is not setting your sliders to 100%.

Once my balance drops below ~1k I switch to 100% military and rush a few factories at that point (and star ports where needed) and continue to churn out colonizers if needed. Once I'm done colonizing I will switch to 100% social and finish up all important builds in a handful of turns anyway. One key to limiting waste in your economy is to not have a wide disparity in planetary development until you are certain to be able to handle it. Of course if you are running sliders at 100% its not such a big issue, but once you have to start splitting your sliders its more of a pain to have completely developed planets and others just starting out.

Let me get this straight.. First, you're going to buy a lab (and they're more expensive than factories), then you're going to waste time by setting research to 100%? Oh, you might get 10-12 more RP in the same time-frame than if he follows my set-up. And you're screwed in everthing else..

You got it right. As I've been saying, with my slider set to 100% research there is no point in having any factories. It is important to get your drive techs as fast as possible, and I find it quite helpful to get UT before anyone else so that I can broker all the tech deals I want before the AIs will start trading with each other. Granted that depends on your set up and starting position. Its also good to rush to an early goverment or early Zeno Ethics (especially if you go neutral). Indeed spending the time up front to rush to those makes it that much faster when you do switch to infrastructure. Now if the AI were a credible military threat in the early game this approach wouldn't work as well. But as you can completely ignore building any military ship until someone hostile gets PI its almost too easy to get your economy in overdrive while the AI is dorking around building worthless defenders and slug like fighters. Hell in most games I've got frigites before I even think about building a military ship.

The key though is the first 5+ turns of 100% research to nab the speed boost techs and UT, and maybe some diplo/government techs. This will allow you to either trade/sell at an advantage with neighbor AIs to prolong your deficiet spending period, and to ensure that you have faster colony ships than they do.

The reason to design and deploy ONE scout is because the first colony ship is slower than molasses in winter. Faster scout (with more sensors)= more areas uncovered= less time WASTED trying to locate good planets. It makes no sense to construct and send out colony ships 'blind', when you can build ONE ship that will do it faster and cheaper.

Again, like I said this depends on the settings. On sparce settings you may be better served with a scout. On other settings I've not found them necessary or helpful. Then again I take sensors as a racial pick anyway, so my colonies actually see a little bit. After one has played enough games at various different starting setups one gets the feel for how many colony ships are needed and how much time one has to send them as 'scouts'.

This is somewhat a matter of personal choice, but I'd rather have a longer range colony ship that might be able to reach that 26 PQ planet, than have to wait to build an entire base close enough so I can reach it. It can make a big difference in how much and where you control the galaxy from..

What 'entire base' are you talking about? If there are other systems along the way, and you are spamming colony ships appropriately you make your own range extenders as you go. I never make SBs merely for range extention, its a complete waste until end game if you need it. If there is a PQ26 in a corner that no one can get to, then you've got to find it first, and by then you can design a specialty colony ship just for that trip. Why waste space and cost on your regular colony ships that don't need it?

Again, this is a matter of personal style. I take a light pop. growth (+20%), some economics (+10), and a research boost (+5). I find that economics plays a big part in how much you can do in the game. A well balanced, growing economy, along with a balanced approach to planet building allows a broad range of opportunities to conquer your competition. If you keep the peoples approval rating high (preferably 100%) you really don't NEED a huge pop. growth bonus. This not only boost your taxes, but improves your influence as well.

Population is economy though, the faster you grow it the better off you are. There are more ways to improve economy in the game than there are ways to improve pop growth, which is rather why I think it the best starting pick to max out. +10% econ means basically nothing early game, and by the time it migh be a factor you'll probably have increased your economy through tech or resources. Making an additional +10% not really very important.

Growing your pop that much faster gives you more influance early, more money early, and more population early for either more colonies or more transports. The only hitch is keeping your approval at 100% until your systems start to hit 10B, that can be tough sometimes early game if you have alot of planets being settled as the upkeep drives your bank pretty fast. However, assuming you survive that stretch (and there are many ways to do it) once your planets start maxing their pop you will have the biggest economy around. +morale is likely also slightly better than +economy as it will keep your planets growing faster longer. The sensors pick for me was initially a bit of a throw in, but it really helps your colony ships act as scouts, which also speeds your early settlement and thus pop growth.

There are many ways to approach this game and have fun playing it though. Yet there are (still) only a few ways to 'maximize' your growth and power curves.

Man, talk about some great beginning part of the game ideas. You all have really helped me not only understand the beginning part of the game more, but explained how different parts of the game interact with each other which is helpful during the entire game.

My thanks for all the help so far. I can't wait to try the enhanced pop growth to see if it makes a difference.