OK,
just won my first medium galaxy with the new build. Took a bit of doing though. Decided that I couldn't beat the computer players in the colonisation race and so focussed on transports. Built lots of these and sent them to every newly conquered AI planet (only 3 enemies races were near me). Because the AI purchased the colony ships (thanks for revelaing that Brad ) it couldn't afford to purchase defenders! Once I had transport ships discovered I switched to Cruiser research. The few AI planet which did build defensive ships fell to cruiser attacks. By the time the AI did recover I held over half the galaxy! Every time an AI transport was abou to take back a planet I traded it to the remaining race who loved me and allied with me to defeat the other 3 races.
Only problem was that the metaverse still doesn't receive most of the scores I send! Damn!

Paul.

Just a thought, But if as frogboy suggests the alian races already know where all the good planets are, surely they would already have all the best ones and stoped expanding as there is nothing viable left. Therefore the only way the terrans could expand would be terraforming and stealth. So terrans need those tech advantages at the start rather than much later in the game. as I said just a thought.

David,

Also in Brad's description is that the other races have not colonized other planets because getting to them without a FTL drive is too impractical. Gates have to be built at both ends to make the trip viable and if a star has no gate you can't get there with anything less than a generation ship, which, I guess, they were unwilling to take on.

Also, we terrans made a big mistake, being the big hearted impulsive race we are: We told all the other races about the FTL invention (this is the last event before the start of the game).

There is a lot more information about the game in the encyclopedia (click on the "encyclopedia" button at the top of this forum and then click on the picture titles that are presented).

Cheers,
Jack

' Because the AI purchased the colony ships (thanks for revelaing that Brad )'

The other option, which I usually take advantage of, once you have diplomatic relations with the major races, is to buy the colony ships themselves as the AI builds them.

Yea though I did tweak that so that the AI is much greedier with ships than it used to be.

That's why I specifically go for colony ships (and later in the game, transports). More colonies for me, and I don't have to spend my entire treasury and give away all of my technological advantages to do it.

I let attrition deal with the combat vessels.