political parties/abilities

I don't know what "best" is but I usually take the Federalists because I like the +20 econ bonus. Some culture-bomb players like populists and some militarists prefer the war party. Each has its own flavor.

Once you pick your party where do you put the extra 10 points? Diplomacy is always nice to have. On large, huge, gigantic maps speed bonuses are nice for both colony rush and military advantages. On tiny and small, speed may not be as big an issue but the +5 PQ bonus is nice because it allows you to easily colonize a 12 PQ and turn it into a 15 with soil enhance & habitat improvement. Also on tiny, small, medium it is harder to get all the tech without some tech bonus. Try all the different combinations. LOL. Hope this helps.

Rick
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I'm not usually good at everything initially, but I boost my research stats with the Technologists and have + on research and economy. With the massive amount of research I do, I usually dominate the late game.

For masochistic games, I take Populists/+60% diplomacy/speed +1. The speed helps me get a colonization edge and the huge diplomacy bonus is essential for tech trading.

I think diplomacy is the best pick--it can do everything. It can give you all the benefits of research (through tech trading) or economy (through trading for cash on most levels), it can buy you a military in a pinch, plus it gets you better relations in general.

a massive diplomatic bonus gets you money and tech of course, but what it is really fun for is conquering other civs, in a three step process:

1. move transports next to all of vicitim's planets
2. convince them to give you all their remaining star bases, war ships, tech and money in return for X credits for 100 turns, where X is usually reasonable.
3. invade all of their (now defenceless) worlds

Can any other starting bonus let you do *that* ? The best part is the other AI don't catch on so you can use it to take over the whole galaxy. I've only tried this on crippling so far.

Did you do that on a Tiny map, oPseudonym? Planets are extremely expensive and I believe they cost in excess of 100,000 bcs to buy. So I'm wondering if this strat is too costly on bigger maps.

ray, yes this was on a tiny map, but no I did not 'buy planets'. I bought the ships defending the planet, and some times paid 500bc for a core detonation during the assault. I also bought their remaining cash in return for $X for 100 turns, though, so often I ended up making a profit.

Do you know if tribute payments stop after the payee has been killed? I assume this is the case, but my monthy tribute was rather high at the end of the game. I also had a fair bit of excess cash at the end.

Hmm, funny why I thought you bought planets.
How much did it cost you to buy up their ships, etc? How many bc per 100 turns on average?

Tribute payments don't stop. It was meant to stop abuse (buy at 100 turns, declare war/kill AI to stop payments) but it works the other way as well (sell at 100 turns, etc).

Ah I was wondering about the tribute thing... at the beginning of my final war, I had 7000bc in the bank and was paying 400bc/turn in tribute, and had to hurry to conclude things before I went broke.

A typical payment would be 50bc / 100 turns for the defending ships, a starbase, and 1000bc in cash

In my opinion, a better way to stop abuse of this sort would be a measure of your reputation -- i.e., killing people whom you owe money makes people less willing to lend to you. This is harder to program in than the solution taken though.

I have to say either the Univeralists or Populists. I like the Univeralists for their all around abillties and the Populists I like because 20% morale( to keep people happy) and 20% diplomacy( to keep the alien civs off my back).

~SDC~