[Paul1980au]

This is how i got about a 255 system game with no neturals and 20 empires.

Usually encounter 1 or 2 to start with - go on the offensive if you are lucky and start with a rock race and they have gas and ice you dont wipe them out 100% get them to surrender point (invade smaller planets with troops) - then with their homeworld pop on 4000M take transports and swap their atmosphere to youre planets which are domed - undomed planets with capture enemy setlers house much more research labs etc.

Anyway by the time you have taken 2 out you can keep colonizing forward , the next techs to get are fighters, shielding and boarding parties.

FIghters are good early game esp against those with planets with missile defenses - cant target em so you can kill defensive WPs and invade with troops. - later on its harder with fighters but once you find youre fighter fleets are challanged get mines and lay as you invade each system.

Boarding parties are useful for capturing enemy ships with new technologies - get a repair ship with the fleet - repair then pull back to a shipyard for anayiseing. Also capturing their ships is good as you can repair then use without making new ships - you can reduce shipyards this way - just make sure you occasionaly rotate some ships out and get them upgraded (retrofit with new designs)

Anyway once you get surrender from inital couple of races you come up against 4 or 5 other slightly stronger ones - they can make mince of youre fighters so you need to go after shielding tech and long range shield skipping weapons (polarised phase beam is good) use heavy mounts on ships to - cruisers are good - make youre own designs with a few board parties and solar collectors (extend ship range) now you can skp their shields and keep fighters for defensive purposes ( a few WPs help to) - research cloaking early on helps to - if you have an invasion fleet (couple of carriers full with fighters - can be made in 2nd line systems away from the front - cruisers, a few escorts with point defense cannons - can take missile fire from defenses to protect transports, have a few transports filled up with ground troops) have a repair ship (add shipyard ship later on to with cargo to make fighter, mines and troops on the run) and just keep moving forward - get shipyard and resupply and miner planets first - take their edge empire planets - defend them and then pump out resupply ships etc. Then just keep moving out - backline planets can keep pop transport, colong ships and boarding ships coming.

Mid game you gotta move quick to tighten youre grip - move the weapons and shipyard techs up, pump out the ships upgrade the mineral facilities and try to defeat the larger empires or at least take a large chunk of territory. Then endgame you can use star destroyers and bigger ships with smaller escorts to mop up remaining resistance and utilise intel projects.