Help please

to win cultraly build influence starbases right next to an alien plant, then buy all the influence upgrades,most cost 200.

The problem with this is, even tho the computer wont do anything (unless war). If you faced humans they would know what you were doing and blow them away. But still ive yet to actually "overtake" a planet later in the game just by influence. At most had 4 starbases (probably more if you count in the influence field from other starbases) near 1 planet. I never got it, at this time i had the whole "yellow" tech tree completed. Sure the computer liked to send me his warnings about a party in a starbase near his planets and he didnt like it, but he never did anything about it. And i never got the planets...

you can't go zero military. you need enough military to keep them off your back while you try other strategies.

as to your tech issues, perhaps you are not building enough labs. if you don't have the research infrastructure it matters little how high you set your research priority. also remember you can buy some techs from the ai to save yourself the time of researching them yourself. that works best with the techs that you can only sell one of per trade. notice how if you try to sell miniball and miniball2 the ai starts whining? it won't pay for any but the highest. this works both ways. buy graviton driver and get singularity driver, mass driver, miniball...all for free. that lets you concentrate your research efforts on techs that don't get bundled like that. also make sure you upgrade your research techs. the ultimate is neutrality learning centers, you have to get xenoethics and choose neutral to have that option tho.

it also sounds like your not making good use of mining starbases. owning one of these does two things:

helps you in whatever area it applies

denies your enemies the same

one of these grants research bonuses. that could be why the ai is researching so quickly.

now for influence. there is a influence minable resource (blue) that you want for the above stated reasons. there is a super project(resturant) that improves influence. there is a whole tech branch that is about nothing but influence(starts with xeno business). all the government techs have some influence bonus. influence starbases act like planets to radiate influence where you build them(need to add modules to make them effective). influence is highly dependant on population, pump up your population. you have to out influence an planet by a factor of 4 for there to be a chance of it flipping(4.0 when you mouse over the planet IF you have the espinoge to see it).
note: washing ai planet with influence pisses them off. make sure you can keep them from letting you have it if you are gonna try to flip alot of planets at the same time. check the thread on preventing wars for more details, that is critical if your trying influence warfare.

I didnt know that thing about population. On most my planets i have 1 farm most of the time, filled with alot of stock exchange and a couple research labs. I tend to keep research labs on their own planet. Im not sure what population actually does tho, beside lowering morale and making you add more entertainment to keep them happy.

Btw, is it best to stick with 1 branch of the war tree when picking a weapon or should you go for "all of them"?. I tend to stick with one atm, so i get it faster and ready for war. I usually go for bigger hulls and weapons first, then take the fluff later. This probably isnt the smartest way to do stuff tho. Never said im good at strategy but im learning

Influencing always works for me. But if cultral victory isn't on it counts as militry

Another thing i was wondering over, how can the computer be so insanely fast at colonizing planets?. In the beginning they pretty much get everything including "resources", i end up getting the smaller planets and stuff the AI just left behind.

I tend to play on smaller galaxies btw, usually under medium size. I tried play vs computer on masochist mode and i went down so fast it made me chair spin. The computer was all over the galaxy in a few minutes and in the end it had some insane research going on it just made me drop my jaws to the ground lol.

I find the computer slow at colonising. You have to continually optimise your ship designs. After Xeno Labs, you should sit on the engineer tree till you get impulse drive. Redesign your colony ships with each improvement - they'll be either cheaper or faster. Don't be afraid to upgrade your ships in mid-flight either.

Another thing i was wondering over, how can the computer be so insanely fast at colonizing planets?. In the beginning they pretty much get everything including "resources", i end up getting the smaller planets and stuff the AI just left behind. I tend to play on smaller galaxies btw, usually under medium size. I tried play vs computer on masochist mode and i went down so fast it made me chair spin. The computer was all over the galaxy in a few minutes and in the end it had some insane research going on it just made me drop my jaws to the ground lol.

Thats just because you cant handle a difficulty level that high, stick to normal.

The comp does things we dont have the time or the will to do like reconfiguring taxes and industrial capacity every turn they also know what best to research and they trade like crazy with others. Plus they build about 5 colony ships in the beggining by just buying them thats why their treasury is so low after a few turns pay attention to some of the graphs and see which techo advanced civilization you want to sweet talk.

Btw, is it best to stick with 1 branch of the war tree when picking a weapon or should you go for "all of them"?. I tend to stick with one atm, so i get it faster and ready for war. I usually go for bigger hulls and weapons first, then take the fluff later.

This really depends on what type of weapons or defences your enemies are researching. Put money into espionage so you can see what types of weapons and defences your current enemy/enemies is/are focusing on, then research accordingly. You may have to upgrade/redesign your ships if another enemy is using different defenses.

Didn't say what kind of processor you're running, but there's a sticky thread on AMD dual core CPU's here.

I like to keep peace with the other races until the end of the game when I'm ready to conquer the board. There are some tricks to keeping other races from attacking too early.

Keep an eye on your relations through the diplomatic screen. Check relations every few turns. Relations will move to hostile before a race declares war.

If you play "good", you don't get as may bonuses, but it improves relationships with other good races right out of the gate. That's half the universe you'll have an easier time with.

Although it's better to colonize higher PQ planets first, aliens get touchy when you share star systems with them. Try to claim all habitable planets in a star system before the other races get to them. One trick in doing that is to buy a starport on a newly inhabited planet, then buy a colonizer with nothing but a colony module on it. Load a few colonists and send it over to that neighboring planet.

Go for those yellow diplomacy techs. Diplomatic bonuses make it easier to maintain good relations.

Trade with the other races. Trading improves relations. Set up trade routes with the ones that are harder to please. Buy techs off them. If you see your relations falling off with a particular race, pay homage to them with cash or other gifts.

Some galactic wonders and special projects are "must have" Watch for those. They become available when you research various techs. The detail view of the research screen tells you what techs provide what bonuses and projects. Galactic Bazaar and Spin Control Center are two I can think of off hand. Restaurant of Eternity is a good one. Diplomatic Translators are a big help.

Military strength improves relations. It's sometimes the only way to keep the Yor and Drengin at bay. If they are afraid of you, they will suck-up. Start building military ships when you see other races doing it. (look at the graphs in the cockpit of the main view). I take a medium hull and stick nothing but missiles on it. Then I build them and leave them in orbit. They're cheap to build and they give the illusion of military strength when actually, you have little.

Don't put military ships in alien space until you are ready to fight. A few troop transports too close to alien space can cause them to declare war. I keep them parked next to my planets, then line them up along the borders of my space just prior to invasion.

Take advantage of war you are not involved in. You can form an alliance with a losing race providing a high change they will surrender to you when they give up. Wait until you see their military strength getting close to zero. Then form an alliance and supply them with ships and cash to improve relations. You'll inherit their remaining planets. If your alignment is very good, you get the Concepts of Righteousness tech. That tech provides a project called Hall of Empathy which further improves chances of alien surrender to you.

Ok, have fun!

Didn't say what kind of processor you're running, but there's a sticky thread on AMD dual core CPU's here.

I like to keep peace with the other races until the end of the game when I'm ready to conquer the board. There are some tricks to keeping other races from attacking too early.

Keep an eye on your relations through the diplomatic screen. Check relations every few turns. Relations will move to hostile before a race declares war.

If you play "good", you don't get as may bonuses, but it improves relationships with other good races right out of the gate. That's half the universe you'll have an easier time with.

Although it's better to colonize higher PQ planets first, aliens get touchy when you share star systems with them. Try to claim all habitable planets in a star system before the other races get to them. One trick in doing that is to buy a starport on a newly inhabited planet, then buy a colonizer with nothing but a colony module on it. Load a few colonists and send it over to that neighboring planet.

Go for those yellow diplomacy techs. Diplomatic bonuses make it easier to maintain good relations.

Trade with the other races. Trading improves relations. Set up trade routes with the ones that are harder to please. Buy techs off them. If you see your relations falling off with a particular race, pay homage to them with cash or other gifts.

Some galactic wonders and special projects are "must have" Watch for those. They become available when you research various techs. The detail view of the research screen tells you what techs provide what bonuses and projects. Galactic Bazaar and Spin Control Center are two I can think of off hand. Restaurant of Eternity is a good one. Diplomatic Translators are a big help.

Military strength improves relations. It's sometimes the only way to keep the Yor and Drengin at bay. If they are afraid of you, they will suck-up. Start building military ships when you see other races doing it. (look at the graphs in the cockpit of the main view). I take a medium hull and stick nothing but missiles on it. Then I build them and leave them in orbit. They're cheap to build and they give the illusion of military strength when actually, you have little.

Don't put military ships in alien space until you are ready to fight. A few troop transports too close to alien space can cause them to declare war. I keep them parked next to my planets, then line them up along the borders of my space just prior to invasion.

Take advantage of war you are not involved in. You can form an alliance with a losing race providing a high change they will surrender to you when they give up. Wait until you see their military strength getting close to zero. Then form an alliance and supply them with ships and cash to improve relations. You'll inherit their remaining planets. If your alignment is very good, you get the Concepts of Righteousness tech. That tech provides a project called Hall of Empathy which further improves chances of alien surrender to you.

Ok, have fun!

And whats this about smart AI? feels like playing the worst possible AI ever lol.

Actually, the AI knows exactly what you're doing. You're getting yourself killed with a poor strategy. Just because you don't understand it doesn't mean it's bad. It means it's better than you.

So a funny thing happend, pirates... they spawned right BESIDE my frecking planet on a wicked evil fleet with attack power over 250? or was it 500,, it was absurd.

Bad luck. Those buggers are damn near impossible to kill, and very rare. But towards the end game, a fleet with 500 attack isn't absurd, since you can make ships with 250 attack.

How can the computer be so fricking fast in the reasearch appartment while making huge armies and tons of cash, makes no sense to me

Learn to micromanage properly.

The problem with this is, even tho the computer wont do anything (unless war

Again, that's because it's intelligent. If I played you, and you tried to go for influence with no military, I'd have you killed by about 3 races as soon as I could make them say "ooh shiney"

Read the manual or the wiki for max population, generically putting one farm down is a total waste. And you need morale to back it up, and should always have at least 2 factories. Also, making all the planets the same = poor strategy. Specialising planets produces more gain.

I tend to play on smaller galaxies btw, usually under medium size. I tried play vs computer on masochist mode

That's because the AI is a) excellent and cheating on masochist. Try something easier, and don't assume you can handle a high difficulty without the slightest knowledge of basic game mechanics. Learn to play the game, then try on a higher difficulty.