Wow man thanks for the reply, Ill reply in line.

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Quoting Illauna,

reply 1

 I personally like Maddjinn but he streams many game and will play what is popular with his fans. - Good to know thanks

As far as tech orders I wouldn't have a set order per say but consider some targets. As of right now you need to research 12 techs before you can take planetary invasion. Plan on getting this as soon as possible. Not only do you need it to invade planets. It allows you to shuffle your population around. I generally try to get these techs early on:

Techs

Interstellar Travel - Engines, Support Module and Improved Sensors for exploration. - Yeh I currently do this

Xeno Instrialization - One of the specializations - Advanced Construction - Solar Power Plants are very nice for jump starting your industry. - Yep always thought manufacturing was the most important part early game so its often my second tech - is this correct?

Planetary Improvement - First terraforming tech and Colonial Hospital. Build the hospital and put 2/3 Farms around it. Don't worry about the approval the goal is to get people. - I usually get these about 8 techs in currently (well not right now, as my current games a synthetic race )

Universal Translator - First or second tech (generally second) if tech trading is enabled. - always forget this one.

Lastly, I try to clear a path to Planetary Invasion

Survey Ship - Don't auto explore

Your survey ship is your best early scout it can generally see all the planets by being two tiles away from a star. If you see a "goodie" tile grab it. - I currently do this as well, I noticed how much more effective he is when controlled.

 

Exploration

For efficient exploration take your ships sensor score and subtract 3. This is how many tiles from a star you can be to see all the planets around that star. Make scouts with at least a sensor range of 4. This will allow you see the planets around a star if you move adjacent to it. Also, try moving to uncover as many tiles per movement as possible. - Great hint, i often spend a few turns flying around stars to make sure all the planets are discovered

 

Ship Designs

I have a few designs that I start off with some of these require early tech

Cheap colony, cheap constructor - Place the appropriate module and click save. Although you want to add modules later for now I just want to rush cheap versions of these ships. - Haven't tried this before... will now

People mover - Colony ship with 2 colony pods. Later this will have 2 invasion pods. I shuttle population from my people farms to keep the moral high.  - cool idea, ive started to do this but not with a custom ship, just with a standard colony ship. And also with a synthetic race but the idea remains the same

Small Survey Ship - 1 or 2 extra ships with survey is great for scooping up anomalies. Don't bother adding weapons but don't survey ship graveyards with anything but the starting survey ship.  - Yep, having 1 ship only is annoying!

Better Colony Ship - bigger engines, more life support modules and I would consider 1 sensor module. This will help them avoid pirates. - I always love building super fast colony ships asap

 Military Production - 

I generally build 2 or 3 scouts (build not buy) early on. If I see a nice planet I rush buy a colony ship. These scouts have a hyperdrive, life support and a sensor module. I tend to do a couple upgrades as tech becomes available for better engines and better life support. - never tried this before, generally i just pump colony ships early on


Planets

For most planets try to match the bonuses. Many special tiles have a On tile bonus (green arrow) and a adjacency bonus (4 arrows pointing up down left right). For population tiles I like to toss my colonial hospital here it has a 5% bonus per pop level. Even though it's not displayed the game remembers a few decimal places that are not in the tool tip. 

As you play more you will find different power combinations such as making a half ring of production buildings and putting the solar power plant in the center. 

Try to balance wealth, manufacturing and research. The later two are kings of the early game. Wealth is needed to keep your empire accountant happy. - generally the way ive been playing I try and utilize the tile + building bonus's as much as possible, and early game for each planet i generally build a few factories with a power plant, then if theres a good bit of space for a ring of research buildings ill start pumping those. Then later game focus more on wealth via markets/tourism (Dont really understand tourism that well though)

Idealogy

Just pick one. Consider getting the building second or third. They offer pretty good adjacency bonuses. I don't pick it first because they are expensive to build in the early game and usually don't have the production to take less then 10 tuns. - generally play benevolent and try and get the bonus's asap, they are pretty good.

 

Here is how I set up all my games.

Custom Race

Home System - Lv16 Planet

+2 Racial Traits

(25%) Production, (20%) Clever, (20%) Economical, (25%) Capacity, (+2) Fast

+1 Racial Traits

+1 (15%) Influential, (+1) Content, (10%) Fertile, (10%) Militant, (15%) Farmers

-2 Racial Traits

(-25%) Traders, (-25%) Popular, (-25%) Courageous, (-25%) Resilient, (-2) Likable

With this set up I get a good bonus to production, research, growth, ship space and faster ships. The negative traits are useless to me in my play style. I only send out trade ships to build up relations with aliens I want on my side. The negative planet defenses are worthless because I rarely let an AI get near a core planet.

Racial Abilities

Patriotic – Immune to large empire penalty (I like large empires)

Intuitive – Free research (Huge starting bonus)

Iconian Tech Tree

I like this because of the bonus to capacity, ship regeneration, and colony management. This fits my play style of building an empire while researching techs to build and maintain many fleets.

Turn 1

Racial Ability Intuitive Picks

Interstellar Travel, Transportation Specialization, Precursor Traditions, Xeno Industrialization

(These picks give me the ability to build a constructor with three modules and a specialized colony ship. The ship has 6 interstellar sensors, 4 environmental supports, 1 Hyperdrive, and 1 Colony module. These are my early game sensor barge with a colony module as an add bonus.)

Home Planet – Rush lv1 research building

Economy – Set to 100% research (You bought a building nothing to put production into)

Research – Planetary Improvement with the goal to get to Xeno biology for a growth bonus early game

Ships – Scout closest stars to look for a planet and colonize the first Lv9 or higher planet. Once you find a planet select the pragmatic choice. Select Constructive Ideological trait and upgrade the 3 free constructors to the specialized colony ships

Shipyard – Move the shipyard so it is within 6 tiles of both the home and colony worlds

Turn 2

Home Planet – Rush lv2 research building

Economy – Set to 100% research (You bought a building nothing to put production into)

Research – Enhanced Production (should have completed Planetary Improvement)

Ships – Continue to scout and look for anomalies. You should have found a planet to colonize by turn 2. If you have upgrade the free constructors to the specialized colony ships.

Colony Planet - Rush lv1 research building

Turn 3

Home Planet – Rush a second lv1 research building

Economy – Set to 100% research (You bought a building nothing to put production into)

Research – Enhanced Production (Goal is Xeno Biology)

Ships – Continue to scout and look for anomalies. The 3 upgraded colony ships should be ready and a large section of the map around your home planet should be visible. Locate two nearby planets, I look for lv12+ and send 2 of your colony ships. Goal is to get two planets colonized and select the Outreach ideological trait for another free colony ship)

Colony Planet - Rush lv2 research building

Turn 4

Home Planet – Rush the second research building to lv2

Economy – Set to 100% research (You bought a building nothing to put production into)

Research – Enhanced Production (Goal is Xeno Biology)

Ships – Continue to scout and look for anomalies. The 3 upgraded colony ships should be ready and a large section of the map around your home planet should be visible. Locate two nearby planets, I look for lv12+ and send 2 of your colony ships. Goal is to get two planets colonized and select the Outreach ideological trait for another free colony ship)

Colony Planet - Rush lv1 factory

Turn 5

Home Planet – Rush lv1 factory

Economy – Set to 100% research (You bought a building nothing to put production into)

Research – Enhanced Production (Goal is Xeno Biology)

Ships – Continue to scout and look for anomalies. The 3 upgraded colony ships should be ready and a large section of the map around your home planet should be visible. Locate two nearby planets, I look for lv12+ and send 2 of your colony ships. Goal is to get two planets colonized and select the Outreach ideological trait for another free colony ship)

Colony Planet – Rush a second lv1 factory

Turn 6

Home Planet – build 2 factories, 1 farm, 1 hospital, and terraform the best tile

Economy – Set to 60% research, 40 % production with slider bar 100% to social building. Then go into the planets that are sponsoring the shipyard and set this to 50/50)

Research –Xeno Biology

Ships – Continue to scout, look for anomalies, and colonize with your remaining colony ships

Colony Planets – build 2 factories, 1 farm, 1 hospital, and terraform the best tile

You should have a combination of 6 planets and or colony ships. You should have 7 researched technologies. Your economy should have around 50-60 research and 25-35 production points. Your wealth should be about 500 and losing about 4-8 credits a turn. Do not worry about the income your flagship will survey enough credits to keep you going for a long time, if not put about 5% into wealth.

After the first 6 turns I focus on getting my area locked down with planets. I select all pragmatic choices unless it’s the 1 tile bonus. My goal is to reach Inventive (lv3 builder pragmatic trait) and start setting up mining Starbases. What is nice is you can build the constructor with three modules and can make 3 Starbases with lower cost than building 3 single module constructors. When I look for a sweet spot I always think the starbase radius as +2 because I unlock that Age of War tech as soon as I can.

For technology I work on  getting Universal translator, Xeno commerce, supportive population, Manufacturing specialization, advanced construction, and as soon as I am able support field mastery to give +2 radius to Starbases.

Diplomacy I normally trade a few strategic resources for all the techs I am missing. I almost never use any of them in the first 50 turns and you get them back after 50 turns. The only one I use early is Promethion for ship drives. Much later I use Durantium and Elerrium.

This should give you a very good start. 

Thanks a lot for the detailed reply, both of you.

Not exact but similarish to what I am currently doing - which is good to know im at least on the right track! plenty of little things i learnt though, thanks guys.