The best tactic

Weapons - as long as you always attack first!   

There a many debates on what tactics to use and when to use them

There's certainly a lot to discuss here, and the answer changes a lot at different times in the game. But if I had to pick only one thing to focus on that would be the most generally applicable, I would pick speed. If you have speed you can avoid battles that are unfavorable to you and strike targets of opportunity of your choice.

Speed
Sensors
Soldiering

The three "S's" of SucceSS

Conquesci, that looks very reasonable... Sensors aren't very difficult to research anyhow. How far down the engine tech tree do you recommend going in your average game?

I would pick speed. If you have speed you can avoid battles that are unfavorable to you and strike targets of opportunity of your choice.

Fast fleets are also useful for intercepting enemy fleets on their way to invading your planets or taking out your mining starbases.

Well that explains why my 'Speed Kills' posting 5 weeks back got no air play.

Lucky Wheel didn't see it or I'ld have been walking around with a 'Captain Obvious' stamp on my forhead.

I would convert your startegy based on what planets and resources you have at your disposal. If you have a lot of military and econ resources conquest is your game since you will be able to sustain a large army, if you have nice pq planets and good research bonuses maybe the middle path of research and war, if you have a few influence and you get ahead in diplo techs start culture bombing. With anything but conquest i recomend researching weapons/engines every 2 - 3 other techs just to stay in the power game and not be considered a quasi-power by the other empires.

I prefer speedy, midrange, well defended ships. I feel they are more survivable, allowing me to minimize my military upkeep. I can bundle them with cheap attack units or just avoid fleets I can't beat.

I always use the stratagy of big, expensive, quick ships. They take a while to build, and are only worth building on a few key industrial planets (due to the time involved). I usually will have certain planets that I will rally the fleets to, then have the fleet cover between two to four star systems (which is why speed is neccesary) along my empires perimiter.

I figure that the best defense is a good offense, so even if I am not attacking, I use the fleets to intercept anything coming in before they reach my planets.

I usually play on gigantic galaxies, with rare stars (tight clusters), and aboundent on eveything else (it gives it a big empty space feel), so I don't have a whole lot of planets initially to maintain huge numbers of ships (if I have a hundred ships then I am usually stretching my economic limit). So, the smaller fleets are good for my economy.

The size of ships that I use are:

Tiny- At the startup, they are cheap and quick.

Medium- My next step up from tiny, form my intial backbone, and it is here that my fleet stratagy really begins to come into play.

Huge/Massive- Once I have this I stop building mediums and switch over.

diplomacy- to stay out of war.
infulence- to flip planets.
engines- hit and run.

It's hard to go wrong with fast medium ships with no defenses and decent weapons. They're fast to research and cheap to build, and plenty effective against almost anything.

Speed
Speed
Speed

I'm not sure I understand. What good are fast ships, if they're too weak to actually do damage to opponent fleets?

What good are fast ships, if they're too weak to actually do damage to opponent fleets?

Currently you can get attack ships up to about 40 moves and still have plenty of fire power. Speed on transports is pretty self explanatory. 

Edit: btw One "cheese I've heard about is pile a hull with engines, get it across the galaxy, then upgrade to heavy attack mode. Kind of like having transformers. Car mode=speed/Robot mode=attack 

Edit: btw One "cheese I've heard about is pile a hull with engines, get it across the galaxy, then upgrade to heavy attack mode. Kind of like having transformers. Car mode=speed/Robot mode=attack

That can be awful expensive cheese. This could easily cost 30K per ship. It can be done but why would you bother?

This could easily cost 30K per ship

ouch.. That's a lot of dough. I was thinking more along the lines of a 2500bc upgrade. I usually use medium ships at best, by the time I have ships that cost that much it's mop up time. That is the smaller galaxies though, so I don't always get to the high end weapons and such. I currently have ships that can change to half their speed and almost triple their weapons for the amount above. I'm also not talking much speed difference though, since I got a personal limit on that right now. I've once or twice got up to really expensive ships, but they just weren't needed at the time. Now I may research all the way through , but rarely build above med.

.... if it weren't so expensive.... dang! thats friggin ingenious!