Favorite way of winning and how to do it

Unless TA is different than DA in this regard, I believe the AIs are suffering under a handicap at the "Normal" setting.

In DA, at any rate, any difficulty level below "Tough - Max CPU" has the AI playing with a negative handicap. At that setting, the AI gets neither a handicap nor any bonuses.  The AI does not begin to get bonuses until the difficulty setting is advanced further.

Unless TA is different than DA in this regard, I believe the AIs are suffering under a handicap at the "Normal" setting.

In DA, at any rate, any difficulty level below "Tough - Max CPU" has the AI playing with a negative handicap. At that setting, the AI gets neither a handicap nor any bonuses.  The AI does not begin to get bonuses until the difficulty setting is advanced further.

I have played Dark Avatar mostly, just bought the expansion packs. I would also play the military win angle - won all but higest setting.

Tax set to 55%, research max, mil max, social prod about  20-30.

1) Research minimize 3 levels, then engines, then sensor so I could build survey ships 3-8(get the goods), engines up to but not warp yet. Customizing ships as I minimize and dev engines(faster san and colony vessels). Research "Scaners" to level 3 allowing nano recorders (10% boost in research). Research(2) , mfg tree(2) , banks (2).

Next morale so as to keep happy and tax more and Goverment as they give 10, 20 then 30% increase in funds.

Watching funds so I can still "buy" even if it drives me in debt I research good/evil, chose Evil, research to end. This gives mind control center that when built gives 100% increase in money(gets us out of debt quickly). This will also give the buildings for increaseing mil production(slave center), no mercy invasion (0 invasion costs), temple of evil(taking part of trade from other evil races).

Trade for shilds, armor, wepons, etc when possible - do not research till later.

Research habitat improvement - build/buy aphrodisiac - 50% increase in pop growth.

Research hulls and customize atack ships as hulls increase in size. 30% hit points is good to start building to keep them from attacking.

Put some money to spying so you can see what their ships have for wepons/defense and build to their weakness - ie shields/lasers mean build shilds/missles or guns.

Research chaff tree - at end is another research bonus hyper computers.

Build/buy correctly and you will be able to have a small fast fleet (3-5) that takes out 6-9. Transports of 100 pc to get them there fast.

GALACTOPEDIA allows look at tec tree and gives info on abilities/bonus/costs.

Note: In the new combined game the $ increase with mind control went away!!!!

I wouldn't say I have a favorite type of victory per se, but my most common type of win is definitely a diplomatic victory, because I don't like to break alliances. The AI never breaks alliances outside of a few random events, and I feel as though I'm abusing the alliance system if I create alliances intending to backstab my 'allies' when the AIs don't do it. I don't play Metaverse games so I don't care that diplo wins score lower then military wins. That said, while some of my diplomatic victories are "true" diplo wins where I play a peaceful game and have four or five allied races, others are really just military wins where I happened to have an ally.

There is no one method I use to win; I play with lots of different settings and no one strategy really applies to them all. There's lots of little tips and tricks I use - such as trading minor races the technologies to build various capitals, then invading so I have up to 3 or 4 manufacturing capitals et al -  but I don't have a planned research path like some of the above posters. Just as one example, normally I tend not to focus on the extreme colonization techs, but in my last game, when six radioactive worlds of PQ 10 or more were within a few sectors of my homeworld, I made that a priority.

Here's what I like to do:

1) I start on tech, like lasers, planetary invaisions, military stuff. BUT, I don't build any war ships. Yet.

2) I get as many colony ships, and take as many non-colanized planets as possible, getting more power in the UP.

3) As soon as I have a mighty empire, and have tons of money, I build as many war ships as possible.

4) Invade the closest enemies' homeworld, usually meaning I get the entire empire in one battle. (I personolly prefer invading the Thalan or Arcaen Empires.)

5) I get more planets, untill I have over half the power in the UP, so whatever I say, goes!

6) Repeat step 4, untill all but my allies (Usually the Terrans, Drengin, Yor, and Korx) thus winning!

How do you manage that when the three combined can only equal 100%?

My favourite way is to make a custom, super breeder race with high morale, then get approval to 100% and get farms ASAP, then when I meet another race, In the galactic federation meetings, I have more than half of the votes even after I've met all 9 other races! so what I vote on, happens

Sheer Technological Superiority.

For reasons of being a dweeb, I play tough, max cpu, because it annoys me to handicap either the AI or myself;

And then I play around and expand my empire as non-militaristicly as feasible getting one or two massive university planets, getting or trading the spy center from the Krynn for the research points if I can, and everyso often going "I should research weaponry . . . Naaaah" until someone that hasn't noticed that I'm way ahead on everything else decides to attack;

Then I go to a wartime footing and blow them out of the sky, reduce their worlds to a glaze, colonize what I like, and go back to playing around with my empire - {G}

Jonnan