When you start your game, (new game), there is a button for game options.  There you will find quick start, fast income, fast build speed, etc.  Also, if URa newb, turn off pirates until you get the hang of the game.  Pick a small system and lock your ally(s) in to start off.  And, you can make your enemies (and ally's) dumber or smarter, too.  TEC will start faster with more money, but peak early.  There are a number of threads (search strategy) outlining how to play each faction and how to use the entrenchment upgrades.  Best thing to do is play.....play........play.  This game will suck a lot of hours out of your social life, if you have one to begin with, that is .

pek

Thanks for the replys so far guys/gals.

Does anyone have a reply for #'s 2-4?

-to make the opening more fun, don't waste your income in fortifications and expand straight to your ennemy. Usually, i am attacking the ennemy in less than thirty minutes and i am sure i am kinda slow compared to really skilled players here. By the way, put everything to fast in the game options. Trust me, once you have tried fast speed, you will never go back to normal or slow.

-The differences between the three races is a fairly large subject.

To summarry, TEC are good in a the beginning of a game, thanks to good eco and cheap LongRang Missile unit and can become petty though once armor upgrades are researched as hoshikos cruisers prevent your fleet form dying. For capital ships, the kol is strong and the marza is incredibly powerful thanks to the mighty missile barrage (ability level 6) and the dunov is great too.

The advent, well, they have a hard time at the beginning with a fragile disciple vessel and the illuminator vessel needing 3 military labs but when they have started, they are incredibly powerful. All their capital ships can combine their abilities to make great combos, they have a really powerful support cruiser, the guardian. Combined with the halcyon cruiser that reduces the cooldown of ALL of their weapons by up to 22% and the mothership that regenerate shield, well, they can get through a twice bigger fleet if they are used skillfully. Really freaking firepower.

And then the vasari. They have good first units to begin with : the assaillant can be researched with only ONE military lab and is a pretty good unit. Later in the game, they can have a battle-winning unit, a cruiser that disables your fregates and your cruiser : get 10 of them and you can disable a whole fleet. They have other useful toys like phase gate but they are pretty expensive. To summarize, they deal less damage than the other two (particulary the advent) they are more about some tactical tricks. By the way, their mothership is their greatest capital as it can eat other Capital Ships with nano disassemblor and razing planets with its ultimate ability as well as colonizating.

Ah, i almost forgot, vasari scout can take control of neutral extractor around gas giant or in some asteroïd belt! It is just great ! (huge boost to your economy, the neutrals, check them out)

I advice you to start with the TEc, then going advent and finishing with vasari as they are the more difficult to masterize, at least for me (but vasari mothership and assaillant rush do not need to be a genius).

Thanks for the new replies people!  

Although, I'm still looking for the Superweapon replays and the mods for the ships.

I only recently got this game and im finding there are just a huge number of tactics,

Personally i hate to spread a bit and then hunker down and amass an army, just reminds me of age of empires,

I've found its fine to use fleets not containing capital ships early on, also its fine to lose planets, by this i mean early on strike out, colonise for mines, and basically farm them and use this little boost to build your interior so when the enemy does come he can take your shitty buffer zone while you fall back and plan your master stroke form your empire proper. Obviously this depends on your opponent and your playing race and the map size.

With this game i also really feel their is big distinction between your tactics and your overall strategy, just love this game.

I dunno about any vids of what each superweapon does, but I can give you a rundown of each. And if that fails you, you can always play a large single star map against one easy enemy to test it out.

TEC Novalith Cannon: the most straightforward of the three, it's a big bomb shooting cannon. It hits planets for damage, and more than 3 in your empire can focus fire any planet. It's got it's uses, namely to break choke points, but against a good opponent it's pretty much negated, as they will learn to keep colonize frigates near. Still, hitting one then moving on is a decent way of winning a resource war if you fould yoursel losing it (which, granted, as TEC you shouldn't.)

Bottom line: Planet shooting gun, fires even across star systems (but slow), can be nice to help give you an advantage in late game stalemates.

Advent Deliverance Engine: In essence, a bi gun that shoots culture, it fires a "signal", and when that hits a planet, enemy culture disappears, and friendly culture spreads from there for awhile. This thing really plays off being an advent, if you neglect culture before this point, it can be an easy way to get back in the game. If you haven't, it can be an easy way to reduce hostile culture before or after attacking a planet (before gives you a slight culture bonus, which might fade, but's still nice; after speeds up the process as you don't wait as long for culture to spread, and gives you a slight boost.) It's nice to have one, if you can afford it, and certainly helps in multiplayer, but not vital to winning as Advent.

Bottom line: Speeds up a game you've already won, and adds nice bonuses to areas for you, but if you have the creds to spare, probably best to just build a few more ships.

Vasari (Returning Armada?): I don't hardly play Vasari, though they're great fun, so I don't know much about their tech tree, but I'm assuming the ultimate weapon of theirs is RA. You get out what you put into RA, again, it's a very good mirror to what a Vasari empire should be, full of phase gates. If you've a large empire with many phase gates, this is the key to "not losing" I've yet to see a player in an evenly matched game lose once they've a good RA groove going.

Bottom Line: in smaller maps it's not necessary but nice. In larger maps, you've already got the infrastructure there, just buy it, and you're not going down without a fight.

So, I guess superweapons are exactly what they imply, powerful weapons that were primarily designed to break stalemates and decide a winner.

There are a lot of good tips here, but one of them I don't completely agree with giving that you're new and just learning.

If you turn the game speeds on fast, it's going to amplify any pauses or mistakes you make.  If you're used to clickfesty games like Starcraft etc, yes this is a slower paced game, absolutely.  It sort of falls in between RTS's and 4x type games, hard to properly compare it to them as a result.  But if you're still trying to figure yourself out, keep in mind the computer doesn't have pauses or have to click around figuring itself out, and it's only going to allow it to do more against you while you are doing these things.  Plus in single player you can change the game speed on the fly with the keyboard. I know each player to their own etc... but generally I find the "has to be fast speed or I won't play" types are the first ones to drop out of a game if something doesn't go their way, or they're forced to use any amount of patience in playing... it's not a desirable trait.  Honestly if a player has so little focus they can't wait 5 minutes in a game lobby for players to join before flipping out and leaving, neither I nor anyone I play with wants them in our games.  I'd suggest slowing it down while you plot your moves, then speeding it up for the times you're 'waiting' for things to happen; but you can't do this in multiplayer so at best it's a crutch.  Game length issues; play smaller maps.

For me, the really slow pace is a huge plus.  It feels more turn based, which is exactly what I want...

That and the hot Advent chicks.

The AI doesn't build superweapons, and typically multiplayer games rarely reach this stage.  Either someone wins before the game reaches this point, or someone has to quit because the game's taking too long. 

The superweapons aren't meant to be instant game-winners, they're supposed to be stalemate-breakers.  They exist to give you an offensive edge to make a decisive push into enemy territory.

1) just the central star

2) I don't know I never played the ugly Vasari much because i am too fond of the mighty and powerful Unity of the Advent

What is the weapon that the Vasarri use on their capitals to bombard planets (because the frigates use kinetic bolts)?

This may be a bit off topic, but what do you guys think will be the startegy of the race that's hunting the Vasarri down?  VERY heavy fighter/bomber use?  Defensive structures? Maybe their super weapon blows up the enemy's planet (at the expense of the super weapon so you'd have to build a new one.

The vasari use energy lances (BIG LASERS) to bombard a planet on both their frigates and caps. i think advent are the ones that use the kinetic bolts, while the TEC use nukes.