[rextorres]

This all may sound obvious, but I'll give my 2 cents anyways.

SEIV is like any 4X game it's just a huge land grab. The key to winning is to expand, expand, expand. The best tactics won't beat an empire that has a larger economic base that can outspend and outresearch an opponent.

Build colony ships with your home planets almost exclusively. Switch to defensive ships when you have first contact - but continue to grow especially if your opponent is friendly - in a game with humans this almost always the case. The computer will invariably attack you until you get a treaty.

Start your new planets with a weapons platform so the enemy doesn't destroy your colony with the lone explorer ship then build as many research facilities in your home system as possible until you start going into negative - keeping up with the joneses on techology is a key to winning.

When you colonize the next system first thing you should build is your platform for protection then your next shipyard and start the whole aforementioned colonizing process over. Send a cargo ship with colonists so that the new colony doesn't run out.

Once you go into negative on minerals then you start building mineral facilities to catch up on resources.

Build the storage facility mentioned previously, but one should be enough if your expanding at the proper pace. If you have lots of excess resources then your not growing fast enough.

There lots of ways to optimize this growth, but I'll let others give ideas.