What research path do you take?

[tetleytea]

I play Medium/Crippling on 1.0.4, and I follow what the AI does, only do it faster. Communication+Translator, then Defense, Industrial, Medical, Deflectors, Democracy, Basic Enviro, Nano Metal. All the AI's pay a ton for those, except keep the last three to yourself until you've got the Trade Goods. Democracy and Basic Enviro try to wait till the very last minute to sell, because those actually benefit him. When the AI manages Photons and Phasers, buy those out and research Corvette. Sell. I'll even sell Battleship, if he pays more than the research cost. What do I care, I can off Battleships with Frigates.

[jshelr]

Time Line That's Worked Decently So Far

I've been playing on the bright level and large map. An extreme 50% military and 50% research setting at the start worked well. However, the 50% military is really misleading. The effort is put into colony ships, scouts, and constructors. The advice about speed and language techs above is a must. After that

1) Get those resources to mine -- "empty" sectors far from home can sometimes be exploited if you scout quickly and get those constructors moving
2) Concentrate on military techs
3) Sell to minor civs and lagging major civs regularly -- you can make a ton of money
4) Trade with major civs whenever they have techs you don't. Because you are running at 50%, you will probably be ahead along some line. Resell the techs you trade for.
5) Pay bribes for peace -- grovel -- it works
6) Don't build any military ships until battle axes, risky perhaps, but it seems to be ok.

When you are satisfied that you can't win races to resources any more, then shift to social spending and battle axe building. Hopefully, the Dregins will be fighting someone else. If anyone declares war, you should have a big hunk of gold from tech sales and also some techs to bribe anyone and everyone to attack them. Spend freely get everyone on your side and then defend your bases with the battleaxes. It seems to work like civ III in that you can get the AI to tear each other to bits.

[tetleytea]

Lately I've been delaying putting out Constructors. He can have the resources--goal #1 is to get all the Trade Goods. I can always go to war later and take the resources. 1 Frigate takes out an upgraded Starbase easily. That way, if I don't have any Starbases, I don't have to worry about defending them. And then later I've got Impulse, Warp, etc. that gets the Constructors there faster anyway; and those kick-butt modules like Hyper Mining, Nano Mining, Extraction Zeta, etc. start to kick in. And now I'm finding out Shipyards apply to Starbases as well.

There's something to be said for an early Starbase with +5 Def to soak all the Corvette attacks, though. I haven't been able to pull it off yet.

[Harry Seldon]

How do shipyards affect starbases? I thought they only affected the quality of ship built on that planet.

Edit: Serious grammer problems fixed.

[tetleytea]

I haven't tested it myself, but someone else has, after I brought it up. Apparently Starbase hitpoints are a function of the Constructor's hitpoints, which can be increased through Shipyards.

[jshelr]

I'll try the delayed constructors route soon. Up to now, I've been using starbases like cities in civ III. I build defense to the max and try to stack ships in the starbase for safety. That gives you control of a large area, IMO.

[The Aerain]

usually i try to get bank first because i always do well at colonizing

[muxec]

If i play customized race with +15% planet value I research env. control. This gives me a plenty of 19-21 planet that give fast grows. Once i achieved 30B. population before 2190.

[Jeltz]

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sorry, wrong forum