I'll add something here that I wanted to share. It doesn't help anyone at all (unless you're looking to find a new playstyle), but I think it's a fun story regardless.
Galaxy Size: Medium
Everything but anomalies: Normal
Anomalies: Common (I think)
AI: Normal
No. of Civs: 8 + 2 minors (discovered over exploration)
My Civ: Yor Collective
After several failed startup games to see what the AI on Normal would do, I learned to colony rush. Spending almost all of the cash in my treasury, I managed to colonize 5 planets in relatively close proximity (Controlling about 9 sectors in total). Right off the bat, the Torians were getting my goat. I had an extra colony ship racing around and every time it approached a habital planet, the Torians took it one turn before I got to it. Luckily, I found another sector in the far corner (planets 4 and 5 in the Weber system). For every planet, I quick-built a factory and started queuing up the build order for each one (as my funds ran dry, one planet had to start entirely from scratch).
As an evil empire, I didn't care too much about approval early on, so I set my taxes and spending high to get everything built. Using a custom scout with the advantageous starting Ion Drive (I don't know if other races start with a faster engine), I found that the Torians had colonized 8 or 9 planets. Where on EARTH did they get the funding for that? Growl. Suffice to say that for the next few years, the Torians were the most powerful civ in the galaxy. Unfortunately, my aggressiveness waned after the initial colony rush and the Yor Collective dropped to 9th (one step ahead of the Snathi).
Over time, my planets became very production-focused and I put a starport on every single one of them. Normally I don't put starports on anything below PQ6, but seeing as I really needed to hang onto my corner of the galaxy, I wanted to start pumping out a tiny military to protect myself. My scout ships had pretty much determined that the AI was concentrating mostly on the space-expensive missile weapons tech and no defenses were researched yet. So I decided to concentrate on beam as my discussions with ambassadors revealed that other races were working on mass drivers. Since I had colonized 5 planets, my income was very minimal even though taxes were up and my approval was down to 65% or so. Spending was insane just to get stuff up and going. So I had to try a new tactic.
I did two things: First off was developing trade. As the Yor, I immediately sought out to make friends with the Korx and the Drengin. My initial trade routes went to them. Other trade routes found the Terrans and Arceans offering 30bc trade routes (probably that high because I was working on an economy starbase just outside Iconia - my main trading port). The second thing I did was completely experimental and opened me up to a whole new play style: I began to buy and sell techs. Keeping an eye on the treaty tab, I could monitor who was at war and see what they would most likely pay big cash for. Outside of me developing beam weapons and missile defense, I sold every planetary improvement, every engine tech (making sure I had at least one grade higher than everyone), and whatever else I could spare to the AI. If I developed something that would give the AI no immediate advantage (like Advanced Hulls - they'd still need to research Medium Scale Building on their own), I'd sell it. Most transactions would range between 400 to 1200bc per tech, depending on the race - but as I wasn't concentrating on diplomacy, the rewards got weaker toward mid-game, but it was still advantageous as I could regularly keep a treasury of about 6-7000bc. The main thing I focused on was selling the same tech on the same turn to everyone. That way, there would be no AI trading and I could stay on top of everyone even though I was ranked second-to-last amongst civs. As I've read, the AI gets a free trade period every time you load a game to prevent cheating (it sucks cause I can't really devote hours of play in one sitting), so I really wanted to avoid not profitting from their promiscuous trading habits - they seem to go for bum deals when dealing with each other, but never with me. I hates it! Hates it for-ever!
Anyways, the Torians didn't stop irritating me. I figured the best way for me to get a leg up on the competition would be to research trade goods and galactic accomplishments. EVERY time I came close, the Torians got it first and I'd have to go through planet management to re-organize the now-empty tiles. They were really making me upset. My scouts reported that the Torians, too, were working on missile defense for their planetary guards so I focused on researching up to ECM II. I began to build small-hull fighters with beam weapons, but my minaturization wasn't far along enough to give them defenses as well - but I knew the defense techs would be beneficial in the future. I was completely playing on the defensive side at the moment, hoarding up some fighters on each planet in case anyone tried to get smart. I continued to buy the techs i wanted and sell the ones I didn't care for. As I wasn't working on outfitting my current or future ships with missile weapons, I sold the much-desired Chaffs and ECM techs to the highest bidders - this was kind of a mistake on my part, which I'll get to later, but the cash income was definitely worth it - for now.
With a newly-designed faster trade ship with better life support (which looks awesome... I'll post screenshots if anyone cares, but forget about early-game galaxy shots - all them saves are gone), and me buying Advanced Trade from the Korx, my trade income finally started to kick in, offering about 100bc on all routes - not too shabby, but could be better. As my planets were mostly undefended until I could up my minaturization, I couldn't focus on getting constructors up, so the starbase building was slow. Meanwhile, I had missed an opportunity to colonize close to one of my borders and the Thalans snatched up the system fast. I threw an influencer starbase near it (as it was also close to my lowest-approval planet Vesta IV), and I noticed a significant hit in Thalan relations (they immediately became Wary).
As I was purely focusing on techs that the AI was not working on (by the time I mobilized, they STILL hadn't developed beam defense techs), wars tended to break out on the other side of the galaxy and I was feeding both sides with some expensive-for-them techs. In the meantime, my research was benefitting from the acadmies I'd gotten through trade and my civ really began to kick into gear. Medium Scale Building (which I refused to sell) was mine-all-mine and I began to work on a beam cruiser (4 beam atk, 2 missile def). I was still on the defensive, but the Drengin AND the Korx both contacted me to warn me about the Torians mobilizing against everyone. They controlled the deep center of the galaxy and had added about 3 more planets to their empire. If I was going to go after 'em, I needed to hoard up a good military.
Over the course of the early game, I had researched engines and weapons, but never really put them to use. As I unlocked Laser V and ECM II, I started designing and upgrading my ships to become a force to be reckoned with - and it was eventually strong enough to put me into 2nd place, just below the Torians, but hugely overshadowing the Korx. I decided that starbases were not going to save me in the long run, but I'd had enough to confer advantages on my home turf at least - so I needed ships that didn't require help.
During the course of my beam cruiser production (4 of my five planets were pumping them out), I discovered the costly mistake of selling ECM to everyone. While planetary guards for EVERY civ was missile-based, my scouts discovered that Torian mobilization fleets (and other civs, as well) had outfitted their fleets with mass drivers! Eek! Before I pumped out more cruisers, I re-outfitted them with some Titanium II (which I'd gleaned from the Dark Yor), which set production back by 2 weeks. No big deal as I wasn't going to war just yet, but still, I had to radically change a lot of my invasion forces to fix up the gaping hole in my defenses. Luckily, nobody had worked on beam defense and since I was giving people some lower-than-mine-but-good-for-them weapons in the missle class, they had completely ignored the fact that I was building a beam-based military. Yay for me.
To stay in good relations with the Snathi and the Dark Yor, who seemed to possess a lot of techs I wanted (Advanced Logistics, Planetary Invasion, and Master Trade), I gave them help whenever they asked for it. The Torians seemed to be working really hard behind the fog of war. There was a LOT going on that I couldn't see on the opposite corner of the galaxy, but reports from the other civs as well as the treaty panel showed me that there was a lot of action going on. The Torians were becoming too powerful for my taste and I needed to get revenge on 'em. Luckily for me, their homeworld was right next to mine and none of their economy bases were defended. I figured if I could distract them long enough to move their mass-driver ships away from Toria and Toria IV, I could take them before they got a chance to retaliate.
I'd finally accquired advanced logistics (man, the AI does NOT want to give that up), so it was time to get my fleets together. I had designed some no-engine planetary guards with high defense and beam weapons so everything else could up and go. When all was said and done, I had about 8000bc in my pocket and 5 fleets with an average beam atk of 12-15 and an average mass driver defense of 6-9, with some of my beam cruisers still retaining their ECMs. All in all, I was set. I had waited until I got the Advanced Troop Mod and beefed up my starbases before mobilizing and sure enough, when my fleets moved into Torian space, I wiped out not just the Torian system, but the Bond system and some other system I can't remember the name of, all within two sectors of Toria. Since speed was key, I quick-built transports on over-populated worlds (simply taking 4000 billion people from Vesta IV increased my approval there by 20%).
Within 10 weeks, I had taken 4 Torian planets and they were NOT happy about it. The distraction mentioned above was me convincing the Drengin and the Korx to attack the Torians while I slipped in from behind. The Drengin were already at war with them, but the Korx needed a little persuasion. As I noticed another civ had developed Medium Scale Building, it was time to sell it to everyone and work on superior hulls for myself. This helped out with the invasion, but the Torians were sending all their fleets back from Drengin and Korx space back to Toria, hoping to take it back.
Unfortunately for me, not only was my military now stretched thin as well as rapidly dwindling (their mass driver cruiser was insanely powerful... never did get those stats), but the Thalans, who had been keeping a close eye on me, joined the war against me in an effort to take my precious Vesta IV (thank god for the approval increase). Using the diplomacy screen, I could see that the war with the Torians had been expensive for both sides. While I had lost most of my ships (leaving very few to defend the planets I had taken), the Torians had taken a greater toll and was quick-building to deal with my Collective. Their treasury alone had been brought down to a mere 750bc while I managed to retain about 1200bc after the insane invasion. The Thalans were NOT making me happy by trying to sneak in. My one surviving fleet had to rush back to Vesta IV while the other ships left behind were scattered to defend the Torian planets I now occupied.
Thankfully, the Thalans concentrated on the super-beefy influencer I had put near them (and as a result, their planets were god-awful in terms of tile management), but they sent 4 fleets after my single one made up of one medium-sized beam cruiser, 3 heavy fighters (2 beam, 1 driver defense), and 2 light fighters (2 beam, no defense). As I knew the Thalans would eventually try something, they were the one civ I sold no military techs to and luckily, nobody seemed to like 'em enough to trade key techs to them that could have trampled my entire invasion effort. I once again incited the Korx (who were also neighbors with the Thalans and myself) to take up arms against my thinks-hes-so-clever enemy. Unfortunately, the one thing that the Thalans did that no other AI civ did was... CONCENTRATE ON MISSILE WEAPONS!
I was in deep trouble, so I had to hit them as hard as I could to force them into a retreat. Most of my ships had be re-outfitted with mass driver defenses to deal with the Torians, and those that still retained missile defenses were too far away and guarding against Torian retaliation (thanks for the free fleet managers, froggies). Fearing that this could all go sour (and it really could have if the Thalans concentrated on my other sectors - thankfully, they kept wanting to strike against that influencer and use their close-proximity sector as a staging area), I needed a quick income. I begrudgingly sold some of my best techs to the Korx, the Drengin, and the two minor races the Snathi and the Dark Yor (which meant that in the future, I'd have to ramp up research to stay ahead of everyone). Again, Vesta IV became dangerously low in approval so I had it fire out some transports, but my invasion of Torian space had dwindled most of my main colony populations so I had to reach out to far-away Weber to get another transport out. The invasion of these two planets (class 9 and class 5... ugh) would give the Thalans something to think about.
Meanwhile, using hit-and-run tactics, I'd move my faster fleet far enough to keep the Thalans from getting the initial strike, and had managed to take most of their ships down before I was left with only two ships - both of the light fighters. As the transports made their way to the war zone, I had to quick build some ships and anything produced in the new former-Torian worlds (the production on Toria was a godsend) was immediately sent to the sector under fire. The light fighters got some breathing room as the initial wave was destroyed - but I could see three more Thalan fleets of heavy fighters outfitted with missiles coming my way (they stopped long enough to kill some of my freighters, the sadistic bastiches). The Torians, having been stretched so thin due to all the warring between myself, the Korx, and the Drengin, begged for peace. While there were still some juicy Torian worlds to take, I neither had the time nor the strength to take them, so the peace treaty was immediately gobbled up by yours truly. While this didn't really help things with the Thalans, I could at least not worry about Torians trying to re-take what's rightfully mine (Bwahahaha).
The diplomacy screens showed me some interesting facts, then. The Thalans were not too happy about losing so many ships and they were beginning to re-think their not-so-clever scheme. A quick look at their treasury showed that they, too, had spent a lot of money quick-building their heavy fighter fleets to come after me and I was now sending enough ships to the sector to wipe out their expensive troop transports - however, they still refused peace. By the time my transports had taken the relatively weak Thalan planets, I had just enough fight left in me to ward off one of the three heavy fighter fleets. As there was no fleet manager built, I knew that leaving my ships in orbit to defend the planets wasn't going to help against my no-defense against missiles. The Thalans had stopped playing with my frieghters long enough to come dangerously close to re-taking one of the planets and I had only 1 beam cruiser and 3 heavy fighters to ward them all off. Forced to launch my ships as the Thalans were coming close to next-turn attacking, I created a pathetic fleet to at least delay them. There was no way I was going to survive if this war continued. I decided to leave one fighter behind in case my tiny fleet ate a donut and it would at least delay them for one turn.
Meanwhile, the other planets I had were quickly dumping out light fighters, which i had redesigned to hold missile defenses. It wasn't much, but the turn-around was quick and I had them covering the rear. My funds were incredibly low at this point, so if I couldn't stop the war within the next few turns, all of my efforts would have been for nothing.
In one last ditch effort, I sent my fleet after the first block of heavy fighters (5 on 3) and before my fleet bit it, they managed to take out 4 of the fighters. Right behind the surviving fighter was another fleet of 3 heavy fighters and yet another with 4 of them one parsec away. The light fighters I had been dumping to space were now close enough to get at the back of the convoy... and looky here, weakly-escorted troop transports! On the same turn, I took out 3 transports with just my fighters alone. Their escorts managed to kick their effectiveness down to nothing, but the damage had been done. And just before, the Snathi helped me out by joining the war on my side! I didn't know squirrels were so cool. The Thalans had no money left and quickly went for peace with only a small step away from kicking my sorry butt.
The war was incredibly expensive for all involved and it showed on the conveniently-timed quarterly report which came up right after the Thalans ditched their war effort. The mighty collective had dropped to 5th place and the Thalans to a lowly 8th. The Torians were now dwindling at the bottom just between us and the Korx were now top dog, followed by the Altarians and the Drengin. I was actually exhausted after all of that.
But within a few weeks, I had managed to regain my power, selling useless techs once again (I had stopped selling techs for most of the warring) to fund my rebuilding. Suffice to say that after all of that, I controlled over half the galaxy and the Yor quickly jumped back into first place. The Thalans paid very dearly for their past transgressions, and the Torians didn't stand a chance against my new military. Soon enough, everyone was paying me tribute and as my military and trade grew so insanely large, it was easy enough to go for an allied victory. All in all, one of the best games I've ever played.
