Turning Off Tech Victory

I always turn off tech victory in Suicidal.  The AI bonuses are just too great.

Sometimes. I generally prefer to have the option, in case the other victory types become impossible to achieve. However, it also has it's disadvantages. I constantly fear, that the AI will go that route, thereby cutting my game short.

This was especially bad in one of my last games. I was playing as the Yor and had the third largest empire (about 80 planets). The Iconians were on second place, with about 100 planets, and the Altarians on first place, with slightly under 200 planets.

I was so worried about the Altarians, that I began researching up to Beyond Mortality. Just so I could rush to Tech Victory, if I notice them going for it.

In the end, I won that game via military conquest. Quite surprising really, considering that I was the underdog for most of the game. My first war was against the Akilians, who had initiated it. Just think about that. A minor race declared war on me, because they thought I was weak. I managed to teach them otherwise, but it was still embarrassing. Then the Arceans declared war on me. Shortly after that, the "War has expanded" event happened, and the Altarians, Drath and Iconians declared war on me too. Eventually, the Torians also joined in, because I was "attacking their allies."

I made a lot of mistakes during that game, but it was certainly the most fun I had in a while.

It's amazing to me to think of running an empire with 80 planets. and with 80 planets, you must have had thousands of ships! How do you manage it all?

Managing that many planets isn't a problem for me. They don't take that much effort. Managing that many ships on the other hand.

In any case, I would have loved to have thousands of ships during that war. Instead, I only had about a hundred at a time, and I needed to constantly replace them. The Iconians, my direct neighbour, had a huge tech advantage over me. They were using Phasors and large hulls, while I had just finished researching Particle Beams and was still using medium hulls.

Shortly after I managed to beat the Iconians, I began fielding dreadnoughts. I only used about two dozen of them to crush all the other races. Getting to that point, however, was a huge slog. It took me about four years to beat the Iconians.

Sounds like a truly epic campaign! I'm hoping my upcoming campaign is as good.

Any tips on mananging so many ships? Thanks in advance  

It was, but my current game (uncommon stars, rare planets/habitable planets) proves to be even better. Sort of, at least. One thing remains unchanged though. I'm once again at war with almost everybody. Bloody Drath.

You're asking the wrong guy. I may be good at managing lots of planets, but I totally suck at coordinating lots of ships. That is one of the reason why the war took so long.

The only advice I can give is, use rally points. They are very good at getting your ships where you want them.

I like games with few planets. just enough for each race to have at least six, while some will have 12-15. How big a galaxy are you playing?

I thought The Drath had diplomacy almost as good as the Terrans! Early wars can be fun. It's also good knowing that they will end... only to start again later. In lots of other 4x games I've played, peace treaties are never used (even though the game features the mechanism) because all wars are to the death. This is a huge problem in Endless Space. For my own personal immersion, I really like peace treaties (I think of the problematic Cardassian peace from Star Trek) and I like the idea of a second war, in which the loser of the first comes back with a greater tech advantage. The time in between the wars was a chance for the loser of the first to "put his house in order." 

Immense size. I prefer to play with max races, but don't like it when it is getting too crowded. Using those settings for stars and planets, however, was an accident. I wanted to use abundant all, like usual, but by the time I noticed it, it was too late. However, when I saw the Precursor Mine on Iconia, I knew I had to try it.

They do, and they were using it to ruin my day, even though we hadn't even met yet. My first contact with a major races were the Iconians (again). Shortly after that, they declared war on me. Saying, that they were payed to do so. A few weeks later, they also declared war on the Korx (payed again) and the Thalan (not payed).

A couple months into the war, I got the "War has expanded" event again. The Altarians and Drath declared war on me. Over time the rest of the galaxy followed suit, because the "Yor war machine needed to be stopped." The only races I'm not at war with (yet) are the Drengin, the Akilians, and the Scottlingas.

Well, at least I'm the biggest empire in the galaxy now. I have 8 planets. 3 where colonised by me, 3 are from the Carinoids, and 2 from the Iconians. The second biggest empire are the Altarians. They have 3 of their own, and 3 more from the Korx, who surrendered to them. Everybody else has between two and three planets.

How is this possible? I thought they were limited to a single homeworld. Mod?

Of course. I'm playing my mod, Autumn Twilight. Somebody has to test it.

I'm looking forward to trying your mod after I finish my current campaign.

I do Immense Galaxy with variable number of opponents.  Working with 4-6 nowadays.  80 planets would be the extreme top end of settled planets.  I use build lists a lot for planet management.  I fine tune planets that need attention and the rest just fill in the list.

I have no idea how many ships I have.  I do one or two per planet for defense and reactive swarming.   I set up one or two invasion fleets for all other military ships to rally to.  If I am either smart or lucky, the invasion fleet is in the right place when someone declares war.  Other times, they are either in the wrong place or nowhere big enough.  For war, I mostly move the big stacks around.   With outliers destroying resources, etc.  The defense troops wipe out stray fighters, constructors, freighters and such.  Or else swarm around an incoming invasion fleet while I desperately send reinforcements. 

Rally points.  Either the computer based ones, or just selecting one galaxy point and compulsively sending ships to that one point.  It may seem a bother to move all those ships, but they make such wonderfully satisfying battles.  Fleet after fleet pound away at each other.  Epic.