Like you Led I dont have the patience for large maps. And welcome.

Like Motti I take the Altarians, however that is where the similarities stop. I take points in social, military and econ. Politically I tend to take Insustry. They tend to be very difficult but keep me playing the game.

I have.  In fact it was my first suicidal game, you can seee it in my profile, it's the 316,000 point game where I played as the Thalans.  It's Dark Avatar, which means it's gigantic instead of immense but whatever.  I didn't even know of any advanced strategies beyond the all-factories approach at the time.  I just basically hunkered in, and stubbernly refused to be defeated.  It was tough, and took a long time.  I'd invade one planet, wait a few months to recoup, then try to invade another... 13 years later I was finally able to build enough ships to take out the Iconians, who still held a large corner of the map.  That game got scary, I was on pins and needles most of the time.

Without knowledge of the all-factory strategy, I probably would have lost that game, though.  So i guess it depends on how you feel about all-x approaches.