When you colonize a planet, try to build first pop growth accelerator buildings, best is (in TA) the recruiting center, otherwise a fertility clinic (assuming you already got the appropriate tech perfected), then only a factory.
As a rule of thumb, don't rush buy factories during the initial colony rush on every world, since your economy will be in the red for a while, almost every bc count. You can still rush buy a factory on high PQ worlds (16+), but only if you got enough cash to support your deficiting econ for at least 10 turns, since it will help those large worlds to be functionnal faster later on.
As I said in the "starport on every planet" thread, a nice social building queue (with or without starport, it's up to you) could be:
1)Recruiting Center (or fertility clinic) => the faster the pop growth, the faster your econ will get back in the green.
2)Factory (one single factory, in some cases, it may be usefull to order building an older one, since it will be build faster and cost less weekly maintenance)
3) Embassy => Strong Influence, even if the "cultural victory" is turned off, is a key for strong empires, since first at all, it helps increase your overall tourism income, and also helps to future flipsiding those low PQ worlds you won't colonize yet, letting the AI colonize and grow it for you
4) Entertainement Network (or any entertaining building with only 1 bc/week maintenance, upgrade them later on) => high moral on every worlds means higher tax revenue. On late game (bigger maps), you can, in TA, push your tax load to 79% (!) keeping approval over 80-90% with only one farm and one entertainement improvement on every average worlds (and I have to say at least one morale starbase and/or each morale trade good at your disposal)
5) Starport (if needed) or an Orbital Fleet Manager, since this building is maintenance free, place it wisely on some strategical border worlds, it just use a tile, that you could change later for an industrial/econ/r&d improvement when you'll be sure it won't be attacked.
6) Another factory on initial PQ 8+ world, if needed, otherwise an econ building fit here.
7) Econ building
7bis) A farming improvement (one per planet is merely enough on every common worlds, beware for incoming low morale due to overcrowding) ONLY if you're near the top pop planet cap, since otherwise it is a weekly maintenance cost lost, cheap, but still lost.
8) R&D building => R&D early on without any labs is fine, if you set wisely your 3 social spending sliders, those buildings have high maintenance cost, a young empire can't afford them. (Technologist party ftw
), but it is wise to build at least one lab on every planet, since if you focus R&D you'll get a much better bonus with even a tiny lab than no lab at all.
9) DONT OVERLOAD SOCIAL BUILDING QUEUES EARLY ON IF YOU DONT WANT TO BOTHER WITH MICROMANAGEMENT WHEN NEW BUILDINGS UPGRADE BECOME AVAILABLE!!!
Don't be affraid to run a deficit economy, try to keep global spending around 80-100%, but most important of all keep morale at 100% during the colony rush (100% morale means *2 pop growth, *8 with super-breeder ability, 99% morale means only *1.25 pop growth), it will be your life insurance later on.
Don't forget to observe how AI do: most of the time they wait their worlds to be almost pop full before building anything on them, only buidling on some somewhat strategic worlds (at least at their eyes, even on masochistic, AI don't alway make good use of those special bonus tiles).
Only research (or trade for) better factories (and labs) when your economy can bear it. It is when global spending is at 100% and you earn =~ +50 to 200bc each turn. Or when all your buildings queues are almost empty, but better then research (or trade for) econ improvement upgrade (or morale improvement).
Needless to say, don't neglect your military, otherwise you'll be quickly eaten, by other civs, even those who are supposed to be on the "good side of the light" (damn those pesky warmongy Altarians, they looks like humans, that's not for nothing!
), but don't build a big army unless you plan an early invasion since it will tear down your still fragile econ.
A wise move could be to sell those already obsolete ships when you get new military techs available (upgrade ship design often), but IMO I prefer upgrade my defensive fleet often, since I don't want those aliens to know how I design my ships!
I'd rather prefer selling them weaps techs of a given area (usually beams weaps) since I'll then know that I'll have to focus almost only on shields research for defence, and MD &/or Missiles as weaps.
Another wise move, if you don't want to build your defensive fleet yourself, is to trade for AI crappy ships for some low tech goodies (i.e. sensors (BUT DONT TRADE SENSORS IV if you havent build the must have "Eye of the Universe" wonder), or R&D tech if you successfully managed to have research treaty from everyone
But I'm now off topic, and time to me to go party, so see ya everyone and fly safe!
