Report about my 7 games on Large maps
from 
Stardock Forums
Stardock Forums
As I promissed there is report about my last 7 games.
Settings:
Map size - Large
Clusters - tight
Planets - abundant
Bonuses:
Economics +20% (party)
Speed +1
PQ +5
Research +20 (In last game I pick +20 Diplomatic and it seems better)
Difficulty - cripling (all AI incredible)
All these games and strategy were devoted to get max score and touch that gold medal.
I used ctrl+N to get initial position in the tight cluster without AI in neighbor sectors. After that I saved game and 10-15 turns rushing scouts explore 8 sectors around starting sector.So, before real starting the game I had idea about initial directions for colonization. May be you will consider this as cheating, but I like be able to make some tactic planning before starting game.
Stage 1: Initial colonization.
Tax rate 50-60
Spend rate 100
Sliders 70-75/0/20-25 (with some one turn adjusting when next month research reported)
Research Communication, Translator, Diplomacy, Defense, Industrial.
After researching these techs I usually met some majors and/or minors and trade some basic techs with them. From this point I put sliders something like 40/20/40 building clolony ships in 5-6 turns and storing up production in a constructors.
My next goal is get tech to rush gravity acc and reserch shields to get battle axe. After I do it I changed on most of planets military from constructors to battle axe which allow me to compete in military power with majors.
Next step to rush Galactic stock exchange. I never could research advanced trade before AI, so I carefully check when major (usually Torians) reserched advanced trade. Immediately I by it at any costs (once I sell gravity acc for this) sell it for all others for profit and rush Galactic stock exchange to get important economic bonus.
There was some special case in initial colonization:
if there awere good 20+ planets in 2-3 turns range and Sol have planet 15+. In this case I land free colony ship in home system and immediately rush two colony ships (Earth and other planet in Sol).
This period of Initial colonization was finished for me somewhere from late 2179 to early 2181. The number of owned systems/planets ranged from 10/13 to 17/31, and population from 3.5 to 14.
Stage 2: Reserching battleships and dreadnoughts.
Sliders 20-30/20-30/50-60.
Nothing special about this stage. If I'm lucky trade from AI Large scale building and 1d phasing when researching battleships I immediately start researching dreadnoughts without changing sliders. If not after getting battleships I changed sliders to 60-50/20-30/20-30 build 5-6 battleships and switch sliders back for reserching dreadnoughts.
I got dreadnoughts in 2186-2187 with population 100-150.
Stage 3: War to achieve domination
Sliders 60-50/20-30/20-30
At time when I got dreadnoughts I had a lot of planets with pop 4000+ bad (less than 60) morale building constructors. I switched all that planets from constructors to Battle Transports. Usually I have 5-10 planets building dreadnoughts.
I accumulate my dreadnoughts and Battle Transports (5-6 each) in sector near most powerful Major and bribe as many AI as I can to start war with this Major. Then I grab 5-6 planets from Major make peace and repeat the same with next Major. I never grab planets which are ready to rebel.
With this tactics somewhere in 2189-2191 I have influence domination with a lot of AI planets ready to rebel. My population now ranged from 500 to 900. From this moment I use only one day wars to grab some resources, all AI are happy immeaditely make peace with me for my profit.
Stage 4: new colonization
Sliders 10-20/40-50/40-50
Hopefully at this time I had The terraformer or at least close to this. I start colonize all planets with PQ 14 and sometimes with PQ 13 and observe how my empire grow by joining the rebelled planets. If I have 2-3 influence SB its enougth, if not I build cultural SB
Stage 5: "milking" score
Somewhere in 2195-2197 I have pop 3000-4000 and last AI planet rebeled and I can get military win with around 4000. From there I just build morale improvments (to keep 100 morale everuwhere) where they needed returned rebeled 2-3 to AI reserch all tech besides Final Frontier and grow pop with rate 25-26 per month. When this rate decrease to 10 per month due to pop capped on many planets I have all tech reserched and finish game with pop 10000-13000 and score 6000-7000 (except last game with new version where score was abnormal).
Settings:
Map size - Large
Clusters - tight
Planets - abundant
Bonuses:
Economics +20% (party)
Speed +1
PQ +5
Research +20 (In last game I pick +20 Diplomatic and it seems better)
Difficulty - cripling (all AI incredible)
All these games and strategy were devoted to get max score and touch that gold medal.
I used ctrl+N to get initial position in the tight cluster without AI in neighbor sectors. After that I saved game and 10-15 turns rushing scouts explore 8 sectors around starting sector.So, before real starting the game I had idea about initial directions for colonization. May be you will consider this as cheating, but I like be able to make some tactic planning before starting game.
Stage 1: Initial colonization.
Tax rate 50-60
Spend rate 100
Sliders 70-75/0/20-25 (with some one turn adjusting when next month research reported)
Research Communication, Translator, Diplomacy, Defense, Industrial.
After researching these techs I usually met some majors and/or minors and trade some basic techs with them. From this point I put sliders something like 40/20/40 building clolony ships in 5-6 turns and storing up production in a constructors.
My next goal is get tech to rush gravity acc and reserch shields to get battle axe. After I do it I changed on most of planets military from constructors to battle axe which allow me to compete in military power with majors.
Next step to rush Galactic stock exchange. I never could research advanced trade before AI, so I carefully check when major (usually Torians) reserched advanced trade. Immediately I by it at any costs (once I sell gravity acc for this) sell it for all others for profit and rush Galactic stock exchange to get important economic bonus.
There was some special case in initial colonization:
if there awere good 20+ planets in 2-3 turns range and Sol have planet 15+. In this case I land free colony ship in home system and immediately rush two colony ships (Earth and other planet in Sol).
This period of Initial colonization was finished for me somewhere from late 2179 to early 2181. The number of owned systems/planets ranged from 10/13 to 17/31, and population from 3.5 to 14.
Stage 2: Reserching battleships and dreadnoughts.
Sliders 20-30/20-30/50-60.
Nothing special about this stage. If I'm lucky trade from AI Large scale building and 1d phasing when researching battleships I immediately start researching dreadnoughts without changing sliders. If not after getting battleships I changed sliders to 60-50/20-30/20-30 build 5-6 battleships and switch sliders back for reserching dreadnoughts.
I got dreadnoughts in 2186-2187 with population 100-150.
Stage 3: War to achieve domination
Sliders 60-50/20-30/20-30
At time when I got dreadnoughts I had a lot of planets with pop 4000+ bad (less than 60) morale building constructors. I switched all that planets from constructors to Battle Transports. Usually I have 5-10 planets building dreadnoughts.
I accumulate my dreadnoughts and Battle Transports (5-6 each) in sector near most powerful Major and bribe as many AI as I can to start war with this Major. Then I grab 5-6 planets from Major make peace and repeat the same with next Major. I never grab planets which are ready to rebel.
With this tactics somewhere in 2189-2191 I have influence domination with a lot of AI planets ready to rebel. My population now ranged from 500 to 900. From this moment I use only one day wars to grab some resources, all AI are happy immeaditely make peace with me for my profit.
Stage 4: new colonization
Sliders 10-20/40-50/40-50
Hopefully at this time I had The terraformer or at least close to this. I start colonize all planets with PQ 14 and sometimes with PQ 13 and observe how my empire grow by joining the rebelled planets. If I have 2-3 influence SB its enougth, if not I build cultural SB
Stage 5: "milking" score
Somewhere in 2195-2197 I have pop 3000-4000 and last AI planet rebeled and I can get military win with around 4000. From there I just build morale improvments (to keep 100 morale everuwhere) where they needed returned rebeled 2-3 to AI reserch all tech besides Final Frontier and grow pop with rate 25-26 per month. When this rate decrease to 10 per month due to pop capped on many planets I have all tech reserched and finish game with pop 10000-13000 and score 6000-7000 (except last game with new version where score was abnormal).