Where's an enemy when I need one?

[Paul1980au]

Technology wise id invest in getting some troops on all planets - but also build up youre propulsion abilities and go for supply upgrades and stellar harnessing - that way you can spread quicker deeper and find new enemies - that you can attack.

Even on the higher difficulty (hardest AIs) in a 255 game galaxy i have spread so quick (research tech and mining tech and stellar hanessing (solar collectors) that they put up no more than a token fight - also having troop transports to capture smaller frigne planets of the AI is so easy.

[primitive]

Jim;
You don’t mean “Bloodthirsty” ?

Playing with bloodthirsty is a ***** due to the happiness penalty for colonization (-10). IIRC, UPC 3 only gives you +6 in addition to your standard happiness increase.
You need to build troops, loads of troops. Stop colonizing for a while and use 2-3 turns for building policetroops (+2 for each trooper) on every planet. Pretty soon your guys will be like happy puppies again.

[Alneyan]

The bonus for UPC III is +3 (facility.txt), but I believe it is in percentage rather than in tenths of percentage, which would make +30 in the happiness file. At least, it should be something along these lines as you wouldn't otherwise be able to offset the natural decrease of 20 per turn.

A lot of troops would work here to solve the matter, but the hit to colonizing planets does hurt. However, it seems like you do not suffer if your planets are being glassed, so that would help a *lot* if you are under attack. You will take the regular happiness hit if your planets are being captured though.