[spoon]

Welcome to the ranks! Here are my general thoughts (all of which are debatable!)

Originally posted by Berkut:

1. I read a decent number of the strategy guides, such as they are. Are there any that deal specifically with race design? In Stars! race design was crucial to success, is that the case in SE? Does it usually make sense to play with the numbers?

What you do with your racial characteristics can make a huge difference. The most important are: Intelligence(research), Aggressiveness, Defensiveness, Mining, Construction, and Maint Reduction. Those should all be raised to around 120% (except Maint Reduction (only go to 110%)). To get the points to do that, drop Strength, Tolerence, Farming, and Repair to 50%. I usually drop Political Savvy and Refining to 80%, but still not sure if that is a good idea...)

Of the Non-racial advanced traits, I like Advanced Storage, Hardy Industrialist, Propulsion, and Ancient Race - though don't try to take all four in a 2000 pt game.

All the racial techniques are good, with religious being the strongest (though in MultiPlayer games, religious players get teamed up against to counteract that...)

Don't forget to choose a cultural type. I like Bezerker, warrior, engineer, and merchant.

2. Is there a combined and organized newbie FAQ anywhere? I have seen a few attempts, but many of them seem very dated, or not well organized. Lots of stuff about what to do in the first 50 turns, but very little about #1 above, economic management, etc.

I don't think so, but there is one in the works, I see... See the sticky threads in this forum, if you haven't already.

3. What are teh keys to econ development? In Stars!, if you didn't manage your population properly, you were screwed compared to those who understood the 25/33% pop breakpoints and how to use them. Is there anything similar to that in SE?

Big Key #1: get all the colonization types as soon as feasible. Trade for them if possible. Research them early if not.
Big Key #2: Get as many different breathers (alien population with different atmosphere types) as you can - through trade or Planet Capture (research Construction --> Troops)
Little keys: researching infrastructure helps too -- improved mining, computers, monoliths + resource conVersion. Population is slightly important, but I usually ignore it (it's the extra bit of micromanagement I can't handle...)

4. Is there some good reason I don't understand that the developers thought it would be a good idea to release a "gold" Version that would be incompatable with the SE IV vanilla Version, but not label it as a true successor; i.e. SE V? I am very annoyed that I bought and payed for SE IV only to find out that I didn't actually purchase the latest Version of the game, and there is no upgrade path.

Sounds frustrating - though you might be able to email Shrapnel, and exchange it. If you are going to want to play multiplayer on PBW(which you should!), you will want SE4 Gold.

Good luck! Have fun!