So I've been tinkering around with many different strategies. I have attempted to build a mix of planetary improvements on my planets. That was rather unsuccessful. I then moved towards a Heavy Industrialized society. By this I mean I would build a starport, 1 - 2 entertainment improvement, 1 diplomatic center, and the rest industrial centers. This worked decently, but my economy suffered greatly and as a result, any form of approval degredation could not be fixed.
My last, and currently favorite method of playing is an Economic society. It is pretty much the same as the Industrialized one, but instead I focus my research efforts to get the Stock Market Research. Also, I have noticed that something rather interesting, and I cannot find any reference as to why this works in the manual. If I were to build a market center (level 1 economic improvment) on a tile, and before it is built, improve it to a stock exchange, then buy the stock exchange, I would be charged 420 bc. However, if I had built a stock exchange from a fresh tile with nothing already planned on it, I would be charged 5560 bc. I don't know if my explaination was rather clear, but hopefully you understand.
So, my early turns start out with me buying as many colony ships as possible and populating the best planets that I can find. I then put research at roughly 70% spending and tech towards stock markets. This takes a while, but I then immediately upgrade by economic centers that have not but built into stock markets and pay only 420 bc for them. I then proceed to tech diplomatic techs, and then proceed to buy/trade for weapons technologies. Towards then mid game (I play on gigantic galaxies with 9 opponents set to normal) I generate roughly 1000-2000 bc a turn and towards the end game I make roughly 3000 bc. The cons of this strategie are that I end up paying 20-25 bc per capital ship in the end game, but also I lag behind opponents alot technologically and numerically, as my fleetsize is restricted by how much money I can generate.
Bottom line, is there something I can tweak to maximize this strategy? or do you all have any suggestions as to how I can play better?
