Research Strategy :

1) Psychology 1 then Applied Political Science 1-2-3 for Urban Pacification Center III by turn 19. All systems get a UPC III to keep the population at +20% Jubiliant. This just about bankrupts you in organics when you build the first 6 systems, so it is REALLY helpful to build 2-3 farms as soon as possible in the game, if necessary by scrapping mines on the homeworld. I generally find it necessary to stop ship construction for ten turns after about 6-8 ships are built unless I get a second farm early...

2) Construction 1 Mines 1 Explosive Warheads 2-3 by turn 40. For SMALL mines with either 1 or 2 warheads. You use the single warhead mines when the AI starts sending minesweepers, and reserve the expensive double warhead mines for when a fleet of warships arrives. Medium and large mines make no sense since a sweeper does not account for the size of the mines it sweeps. I keep a stockpile of 100 double warhead small mines at every breathable planet and replace them with single warhead mines when sweepers come around. I do not launch mines until an enemy ship comes near, and then only just as many as I need 5 at a time. As a stopgap before I can build mines I build a couple of small weapon platforms with missiles I on them.

3) Cargo 2-3 by turn 46, so I can build resource storage III of each type and stop throwing away my surplus. Until then I build a storage I as soon as I get within 2 turns of full instead of a facility. Later on when I have settled low productivity worlds I build new storage and scrap the old ones on high productivity worlds to build production facilities.

4) Applied Research 2-3 by turn 67 so I can build research center III, which the AI does not mind. Optionally Applied Intelligence 1 by turn 49 if I have a espionage problem.

5) Space Yards 2-3 by turn 72. You need a Space Yard II to build a research III per turn.

6) By this time I am doing 85-90k research per turn (of 225k target) PLUS what I get from trade about 20k (later 75k). So it is time to work on ships. There are several lines which run concurrently after the initiating tech is researched. I research several in sequence and do not split my tech points evenly. Just keep the 12 item queue full.

z) Missiles 2-3-4-5 turn 89 Just in case I need to build an emergency weapons platform. I do NOT use missiles for anything else. I Never use worthless satellites. The AI ignores the satellite and blows your planet up first....

a) Military Science 1 Point Defense 1-2-3-4-5 for PD V turn 79

b) Physics 1 Shields 1-2-3-4-5 turn 82 -6-7-8-9-10 turn 106 I usually take a breather at 5 and finish off to 10 later when the other critical components are researched.

c) Physics 2 Phased Energy Weapons 1-2-3-4-5 turn 80 for Phased Polaron Beam V.

d) Astrophysics 1 Stellar Harnessing 1-2-3-4-5-6 for Solar Sail III. turn 90

e) Chemistry 1 Armor 1-2-3-4-5-6 for Stealth Armor III. turn 91

f) Ship Construction 2-3 by turn 47 for destroyers to shift population. 4-5-6 by 81 for battle cruisers to defend planets where war is declared. 7-8 for Dreadnoughts by turn 120.

g) Propulsion 2-3-*4*(82) -5-6-*7* (101) -8-9-*10*-11-12 (112) The * indicates another added extra move. The Last two levels are optional since they only reduce expense, but that can be important if you have lots of ships.

h) Sensors 1-2-3 for Combat Sensors III. turn 85

i) Combat Support 1-2-3 for ECM III. turn 88

j) Industry 1 Computers 1-2-3 for Master Computer III by 93

k) Resupply 2-3-4-5 by 99 for endless supply Quantum Reactors - essential for power hungry dreadnoughts.

l) Mines 2-3-4-5 by 115 for Mine Sweeper V. I put four on each dreadnought to take care of most warp points. If two dreadnoughts cannot break through, I refit one with ten sweepers instead of four. That usually does the trick. If not refit the second dreadnought too...

m) Repair 1-2-3 120 for repairing your fleets and self repairing your stellar manipulation ships. A note on repair. If you use tactical mode and a shoot-retreat strategy you can beat 20 beam battle cruisers with a single dreadnought because they combat move 3 while your dreadnought moves 5 (assuming they lack solar sails). Stay just out of weapons range AFTER they move. Missile/torpedo ships are tricky and the reverse strategy - close as quickly as possible, target half your weapons on one to cripple it and the other half on a second. Do this until all are crippled then finish them all off. You only have to survive that first heavy salvo, which is what shield regenerators are for. This of course assumes you have phased polaron beams and they do NOT have phased shields. If the opposition is too heavy, have your mine layer drop 24 mines and dare them to attack. If your ship is above one of your own worlds, no problem just launch mines same result.

7) Troops 1 by 91 Troop Weapons 1-2-3 by 94 Smaller Weapons 1-2-3 by 93. Troops 2-3 by 120. These are the Last techs I need for war, when done I start all my worlds building dreadnoughts and start on the techs below. I have a stockpile of 5-8 million minerals, 1-5-2.5 million organics and radioactives and am about to run a 250k deficit in minerals when the fleet builds. With colonization and conquered planets it gets worse to about 450-550k deficit in minerals but usually does not fall below a 7 turn supply.....

8) Computers 4-5-6 for System level computers III.

9) Minerals, Organics, Radioactives Extraction 2-3. You do NOT need more since the system computers do all the work and scanners etc do NOT stack with robotoids.

10) Applied Intelligence 2-3 Skip 4 you do not need it.

You do not need these any sooner if at all if you are only playing the AI, but they may be essential playing against humans. I do not mention the two colony types you lack since you should have them by AI surrenders within a couple turns of blitz war breakout about 125-130.

11) Stellar Manipulation 1-2-3 for Monolith Facilities. I use monoliths where the planet total resource exceeds 180-200 but none of the resources is 100+. Below that either make a tech world, intelligence center, or resource storage because the monoliths will never pay off. If you use my plan for 7000 planet quadrants, then anything less than 100 and a total of 280 or less should be tech/int/storage since 2/3 of the planets exceed 350.

12) Planetary Engineering 1 Planet Utilization 1-2-3 for Climate Control III increases population growth rate after 30 turns. 4-5-6 for Value Improvement plant III very slow payback but no upper limit on resource rate. 7-8-9 for Atmosphere Converter III, which I use only on nones if I did not include a race which breathes none. In any case you need it for moons which should have the same atmosphere/race as the planet they orbit to improve population growth rate and shift population when near full.

13) Stellar Manipulation to end, picking up asteroid conVersion, warp point manipulation, nebulae, black hole, and star manipulation, ringworlds and sphere worlds. All of these are very expensive in organics/radioactives which are in short supply but you can save a heap by building just a few of each type with self repair. A trick I use is to build a level one asteroid converter then refit it for level three, which cuts the build time significantly.

I do not use fighters, they die too easily. A single one of my dreadnoughts can kill 70 large fighters (in Groups of five) while retreating and regenerate its shields before the escorts can catch up. Fighters are a waste of resources just like satellites, though some people seem to like them due to the bugs, which will eventually be fixed.

I do not provide specific ship designs since it depends on your tech level, but you can always refit to upgrade. My dreadnoughts usually split shield space 50/50 between shields and shield regenerators, and have 7 point defense using heavy mount beams plus as I mentioned 4 mine sweep V. I never use missiles/torpedos on ships. Everything except colony ships gets a quantum reactor. Everything gets a solar sail III. The colony ship drops 2 engines and moves 1 faster, keeping 1 cargo bay III. Above range 50 I have something colonize with just any population then replace the population using a speed 12 population transport battle cruiser, which moves 1200 pop. You CAN put a colony module on a light cruiser and move speed 12 with 154 cargo but if anything at all is in range it makes more sense to cut maintenance cost on the distance lag by colonizing locally.

When an AI surrenders, one of the first things you do (after UPC III) is build a population transport battle cruiser to settle the proper atmosphere on worlds in your home space. This increases the production of those worlds by at least a factor of five... Similarly you move your own population into the newly liberated zones and of course colonize like crazy everything of any value. To do THAT you need shipyards, which makes colonization of moons about as important as mineral planets. The payback comes in even faster colonization as soon as the yard is built. Unfortunately, this also increases the rate at which you deplete your resource stockpile, mentioned above. You have about 20-30 turns to reach breakeven, win, or go bankrupt. The battle cruiser transports move along a string of systems dropping off population as fast as possible. Smaller local transports shift population within a system and to nearby systems.

I used to mine warp points, particularly for black holes and nebulae but have not found it necessary lately. If the alternative is posting a ship, mine the point. Most of your allocation of mines is used in planetary orbits.

If it is necessary to invade with troops, use an invasion battle cruiser which moves 6 in combat versus 5 for a dreadnought. Have a decoy ship move in range to get missiles launched, then run in with the troop ship. Be sure to blow satellites and stations BEFORE you drop troops otherwise they will fire on the planet. I drop 150 large troops, which puts paid to most planets immediately. A system near the border runs replacements in as fast as they are needed, and the high troops in system brings happiness up to Jubiliant pronto. The first thing you build is of course an urban pacification center III even if that stupid message comes up about it being redundant. It is NOT redundant because its rate is MUCH higher than the alternatives.

Using the standard files you become an evil empire at score 500k. You split this score into production of 125k minerals 30k organics and radioactives, 225k research, 30k intelligence, 30k ships, and 25k for research levels (0.2 per learned tech). The remaining 5k is contingency. I exceed in all categories and replace by storage as my tech , intelligence, and ship quotas fill up. Backup and scrap if you have over 500k at start of turn. This is of course cheating, but the alternative is a tedious evaluation of production coming out every turn to see if you are going to pass the limit and trigger war too soon.

I use an Ancient Race to know all the quadrant from the start and colonize to be within range 3 of every system in the quadrant if possible. I settle only 39 (of 100) worlds so this stretches me rather thin at 255 systems. On the other hand a few good planets are usually in easy reach of every colony world, and after the first round of ships a world can build a second ship to guard itself while its dreadnought guards a same system minerals planet. Unlike the old world the new one does not have a stockpile of 100 mines... The new world has to build a space yard III anyway so the first thing it does after building is a few turns of mines, letting its guard ship move on to yet another planet. Within 20 turns of blitz start I am generally colonizing 40-50 worlds per turn while one world per system builds system robotoid factories.

Population is generally not a problem since I include all atmosphere types and my own race selects +20% population growth. That fast growth rate pays off in higher productivity if you shift population around with your transports early in the game. My homeworld splits its population 39 ways taking into account the population on ships. By the time the blitz starts I am up to 300-500k on every base world. In the blitz colonization more than 100 per world usually makes no sense until you can put 100 on every world. Generally the game is over by then...

See my post "really big games".

All this strategy applies to a standard 100 to 255 system map. I do not yet have a strategy for a 7000 planet map, but expect that I can colonize 390 worlds instead of 39 with the AI change I mentioned. That leaves me about 1000 more of the proper atmosphere to colonize after the super blitz of 390 dreadnoughts rather than 39. Yet it is still an average of less than two worlds per system in the initial colonization phase. Since the evil empire increases by a factor of ten the new quota is 1 million research, 2.5 million minerals, 500k each for organics and radioactives, 250k for intelligence, and 250k for ships etc which allows about 40 battle cruisers. Yet on the blitz turn the deficit will be 3k x 390 + 6.6k x 390 = 3744k minus 2500k about 1250k minerals per turn. So I will need to store about 32 million minerals or 800 x 40k which is 45 worlds (or 3 minerals per world) for minerals storage alone. A similar scale up of organics and radioactives storage is necessary... I just did the map yesterday so I have not yet tested this strategy. The research quota may be excessive...