If the XXXXX (Drenin, Korath, whatever) are about to attack you...

Two words: spore ships.

On lower difficulties, there are several other amusing ways to win.  For example, blockade all the AI planets with unarmed ships then develop the galaxy at your leisure.

And if the AI could actually use them: Terror Stars.

I only play DA, so no TS for me ....

Ooooo.  I should try that.  

Yeah, I understand spore ships are a threat.  So I'm like: hello Korath.  Let me give you some techs and go attack the Altarians.  They're nice and juicy and a lot tastier than the bloated toad-like creatures that we are.  

Anyways, I'm moving up in difficulty.  I'll get there soon enough.  

Hmmmm - interesting. As a besotted Terran Worshipper at Painful level - I've always had to protect the peace by prepping for war. Usually building a Fleet Reserve with fighting ships and transports en masse, especially if fighting another opponent. Currently, I'm winning against the Krynn - even devoted me entire empire to the war effort and sure enough - those bloody Drengin"s just declared war and sortee'd their entire fleet against my semi protected sweet tender portions on me south 40

As Terran, can't you use your diplo to get AIs to declare war against each other?

That is, ID the AIs on your border, ID ones on their OTHER borders, and get one to declare war on the other.  I try to keep each threatening AI in not one but TWO wars.  I find that much more effective than creating any early fleet.

there's alot of truth in your posts. if you'll raise your difficulty even more you'll more or less find that you can't outproduce or outresearch the AI's anymore and they will gain occasionally space superiority. however that doesn't mean defeat, esp. not with breeder, for some of the reasons you named.

In this scenario I would ditch the points in military production and put them somewhere else. maybe soldiering, always 1 point in morale (you'll notice you get more than when you have 2 or 3 there) and 4 points in research (there's a hidden bonus multiplier on research which scales with the difficulty setting, in short, the higher the difficulty the more are your racial tech bonus worth)

and if you really want to have strong MP go evil built ASC

also I found concentrating on extreme col not really worthwhile. reason is most planets will be colonized by either Yor, Torian or Iconian who can colonize some of them by default.

finally, one major drawback of this tactic is that you won't have any MMR - which brings a big diplomatic penalty with it.

M&M Research?

I had no idea that chocolate was so important to the devs that they put it into the game system!.

@ Jim and Maiden

Haha, but thank you.  

Yeah, the diplomatic issues.  Playing masochistic now.  

True that - my achilles heel is that attention to detail stuff...I mean like later on in the game  as opfpr"d to the begining - my bad

I'm surprised that this works U would lose population this way. Why R they not going after Higher PQ planets Yoour ur capital and planets with wonder I would go after your high population centers even if I dont conquer them this would cripple your income Im guessing this is not enough to work

The AI isn't terribly effective at invading, this is the only reason this strategy may work, On the very highest level, getting ahead in the colony rush is... challenging. Expanding through colonization when under attack is generally not feasible because all planets have been colonized already by the time the transports arrive (at least in my experience). The only time I crapped my pants due to succesful AI invasions, was in a DA game that involved the Korath. Their sporeships were much more suitable to take down a player, but it's the only time I saw them used effectively, and that's quite possible because I didn't really have much experience in the game at the time. We statemated and they sued for peace, later surrendering to me to get out of a three way war with the Drengin and Thalans... Which I of course arranged...

What I hate about the AI is that he pretty much knows the location of every single planet right off the start. In an all-abundant setting it'S ok since you will get your fair pick of planets but since I play on mostly random I have to say it's pretty unfair if you have like 2 or 3 planets in your whole reach. Because, you won't get them^^

However, trading for freshly colonized planets with tech is a really good option but it depends highly on the diplomatic racial stats of you and your partner. With Humans, Drath or Torians it's no deal....

I'm usually not bothering with extreme planets. It's too much research. I'd rather research planetary invasion/spore and some additional soldiering an simply invade these planets early and then turn them into banks or research-planets. The -100% penalty to production doesn't hurt here although in an all-facs strat you have to buy all your buildings (just go with Fertility Clinics)

Actually going very early to war is one of the most efficient way to beat the AI, even if you just equip your ships with Space Cannons et al. Some of the AI will still not research weapons and are rather defenseless. However, I usually play with techtrade turned off or, at least, techbrokering off because I really dislike how the AI disseminates all techs into the whole galaxy one turn after it is researched (besides techbrokering in an all-lab strategy in also boring overpowered because in suicidal the AI will always make money so you can have 5k-10k bcs every turn just from that..)

In my experience, all the AIs in DA research weapons.

The failure of all AIs to do so in TA is just one of the problems with the game.