[Tomgs]

Well my one recomendation I always make to make the game easier is to create some long range scout ships with few weapons and a lot of supply storage as early in the game as possible and scout. If you know where the AI is before it knows where you are you will almost always win. The first couple of fights untill you secure your borders might be intense especially if the AI has a high bonus but after that it will get a lot easier. I always research cargo early and while that might not seem to be an aggressive strategy it allows me to keep all those resources that otherwise would be lost without storage units and have extremely long range ships. With a large amount of stored resources I can keep building ships and never get to that point where I have to stop building them because I am short of resources.

Another tip is to have propulsion expert as one of your racial picks it really gives you an advantage early on if you do tactical combat. You will be as fast or faster than all the other races out there so you can at least force a stalemate sometimes in battle even if you can't win the fight because of lower tech.

[This message has been edited by Tomgs (edited 09 January 2001).]