First, for developers, of things to work on that I have learned:
NOTES:
Burlust passive missiles. Far too slow and fragile. Completely worthless.
I can research unique techs for races? seems silly.
Usual tactics still work. Federation for peace. Get closest race next. Kill the other four.
NEW TARGETING IDEAS:
ONE, focus fire. Automatically target one ship, keep targetting until it dies, regardless of effectiveness. A bit like if you normally target one ship, but said ship is out of range, the firing logic defaults to a different ship.
TWO, focus fire on non flagships. Sometimes I want to just remove the clutter of those annoying frigates.
Anyway, from my playthrough.
I started with the bugs as my original space faring race. The burlust's start had useless missiles (see above) but the thought of another gravity lance could be helpful. It was. Kudos to that ideat. It made up for the fact the starting kit of the bug race flagship hurts. Short ranged weaponry hurts. No good. But I managed. But when I finally got a mini gun game the game went into easy mode.
As far as the solar map goes, things were interesting, but the dice kept rolling in my favor. After the bugs the evulks (spelling. I'm sorry. Spellcheck does not help here) and the skylaxions went space faring. I kept them as chummy as possible. The burlusts were next. I didn't help them. Then the two warlike races then started attacking each other (because I kept the bugs at zero space strength) I got a quest to help the other invade with troops, and I happily stroked the flames of war. For the rest of the game, these two warlike races killed each other, while I strengthened the two peaceful races.
Boarines became space faring on their own. They did nothing interesting. I did not waste time on them. Andors became space faring on my own accord. I didn't want them to be bad toward me, but I didn't feel a need to support them either. Eventually I gave space tech to the birds and to the capitalists.
Now, I pursued my usual method of maintaining a balance of power while the lovey dovey races get along. It was easy. Two of the warlike races killed each other. The actuians were a pain, but got the pacifism virus. For the rest of the game, they were a non-entity. I am not exaggerating.
When the actuains got the pacifism virus, I could afford to ignore them for over 50 years..
The highlight of my game was when I brided the andors and the skylaxions to stop attacking the burlusts....not because I really wanted them to stop, but I didn't want the world to be overwhelmed by bugs. So after they went to peace, I myself killed the bugs....and then a decade later the birds bombed the planet into dust.
...
Ah, anyway, more observations:
Once I managed to tie up the warmonger races, it was super easy to get the pact for safety via the birds to go. I managed to get the quiet scientists into the federation as well through a lot of work / natural infinities with skylaxions. The other races just fell to this uber-alliance via conquest. The skylaxions / other scientists would secure space, and the birds would bomb until there was no one left.
So a couple of solar map notes:
It hurts to say it, but the skylaxions are too strong. The dominant space race + the back door into federation race by default makes them my allies no matter what. I never can find a reason to betray them.
If the aggressive races can be turned against each other, they will just keep killing each other and effectively be ignored. On a similar note, if a pacifying plague stops them from attacking, they also can be ignored.
On harder difficulties, when it is possible to form a federation, a quest should occur to give appropriate carrots / sticks (keyword giving both, not just one or another) to form the federation immediately, not wait to form a mega federation of 4 races when there were none before.
Speadshots and gravity lances suck. Short range weapons need more power to compensate for increased risk.
The birds conquered 4 other planets. I found that funny. I found it funnier that in my peaceful federation they were the only ones with the nerve to actually take planets. Very satsifying. Please don't change that.
