Economy, if you've ever played other RTS's you'll kinda be ahead on this. The basic rule is, don't spend more than you make. What I do from the getco is go up the tech tree centerting around upgrades for factories, research, and economy. I build only factories, economy, entertainment, and research buildings, no farms. In the beginning, a lot of farms will topple your empire, as the pop goes up, your morale goes down, and in the early stages your entertainment buildings are well...basic.

On large maps, I continue to stay on the economy tree for a while, even if my military suffers. The way I see it, the computer is pretty steady, and if he were to attack, he'd wallop me no matter how many basic ships I built. So i chance it on larger maps and build a foundation first, then concentrate on ONE of the weapons trees.

On small maps, the AI will attack faster. I still base it on economy techs but also mix in one of the weapons trees. Doing this ensures long term survival...you probably could afford to just buy ships if the AI declared war...you'll have the money and income flow to do it.

Dear (Citizen)vmp0514,
I have read a posting that says anomalies that boost tech research by 25% are Ship Graveyards and if you hold your cursor over them they will say this. So a strategy the player mentioned for this is to change your research to large ticket items before investigating them and then change back afterwards so your original tech is uninterrupted. That would be ideal for research buildings ...

Are you battling on a custom map? if so it often mean that you have edited something you souldn't have.

If you get a chance please read my story, it's 'Alantians and Dread Lords'

Hope my knowledge helped you

From Red Raven: Elemental God Of Fire!

Actually, they're the Civ Graveyards. The Ship Graveyard anomalies usuallly (or always?) give the survey ship some kind of upgrade.

Dear (Citizen)CornhuskerMac, thanks for the correction. Is the Civ Graveyard a DA only or is it DA and DL both?

Dear (Citizen)RedRavenGodofFire, If your referring to my game map, it was gigantic tight clusters, abundant everything. I have only played one game in DL on cakewalk with random players, randon intelligence, advanced AI algorithms selected. After that I began making senarious to test stuff I read about - wiki using cheat codes to set up and test the results. After a month of reading stuff on the forum and testing how it works I just started playing my 2nd game on a gigantic map, tight clusters, abundant planets, random everthing else, beginner level, random players,and random intelligence. I'm completely overpowered by the Iconians, but have managed to survive by using a diplomacy strategy I read about in this forum. I will read your post ...

I wish the game had some tutorials for this