If I remember I think I did run through the tutorials but I pretty much just jumped in and started playing. I did start out in smaller galaxies and at beginner level but I didn't bother to finish the first game I played or even the 2nd or 3rd. I have never played a campaign.

At beginner the AI really doesn't do much of anything but it's as good a place to start as any just to get the idea of how to move around and colonize planets. Note that at beginner you get bonuses and the AI is pretty well crippled.

Don't dwell too long at a level once you become a bit more confident because it will let you develop bad habits. Once you get up to tough or thereabouts the AI is fully functional and you no longer get bonuses and the real game begins. This is the point you really start learning. The AI aggressively competes for planets and mining resources and most likely will kick your butt rather soundly, but keep at it and you will progress.

There's all different ways to play the game and strategy is a common topic of conversation but it's really hard to answer the inevitable question of what is the best strategy. I really don't think there is a best strategy, there's only the best strategy for you at this moment in time in your development that best fits with your developing style.

The obvious path to victory is to colonize more planets and develop them quicker than the AI does, but as you move up in difficulty this gets harder and harder to do. There are ways using diplomacy, of paying one AI to make war with another AI and then try to pick off the pieces. There are strategies that focus on one concentrated area of research to gain a critical advantage in that area and then use that to conquer one of the AI's. Generally speaking once you've conquered one AI you're usually well on your path to victory.

There are just so many methods to play this game it's not really possible to begin to discuss them all within the confines of a thread like this and even if there were you're not going to understand most of them until you get into the game and start gaining some experience. Once you do start to gain some experience then you'll need to ask many questions here and you'll get many good answers some of which will work for you and some of which won't.

The best questions to ask are the ones that are the most specific and detailed. The "big picture" questions are really the hardest to answer, the little details are most often much easier to answer. "Big picture" questions often get long rambling responses with not much detail (very much like this one).

Anyway the only way to really get started is to dive on in.

Thanks for the replies. I think I'll run through the tutorials just to get accustomed to the interface and proceed to jump right in then.

Just curious, do most people not play through the scenarios? If I'm not mistaken that's usually the best way to start off in learning a new game, no?

I didn't but certainly some people do. I wouldn't be able to hazard a guess as to how many start out that way and how many don't.

The best bet is try it and see if you like it. The thing is that there really is a very steep learning curve no matter how you slice it. Your first games be they scenarios or sandbox games are all going to be throw away games that you'll probably not finish because you'll get halfway into them and have learned enough to realize that you've been doing things all wrong. So you start another scenario/game maybe at a higher difficulty and see how that goes.

Well, if you want to get started learning things, I would suggest that you do the following:
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1. Before the game begins, spend your points to max out economics and morale (good for maintaining an economy), and put the rest of the points into population growth (good for getting a good economy quicker). You can worry about using a different point spend package once you have a good grasp of the economy.


2. Understand how the economy works, and it will save you problems in the long run. You will probally get most of you money from taxes, which is based upon the square-root of the population of each planet. As such, a high population is useful for taxes, but they can be a pain for morale as the penalties for having a large population grows faster than your population.

A good morale allows population growth and more votes for elections (different forms of government are unlocked by research), and allows you to maintain a higher tax rate (high taxes reduce morale). A bad morale can pause population growth, or even reduce it if its really bad, and it can cause you to lose votes which may result in you losing an election thus giving you many penalties.

P.S. The slider spending system is wierd. Don't worry too much if it doesn't seem to work right. Most players know its wierd, and the devs have said that they haven't had the time to go and fix it.


3. I would suggest you play a few games of Dread Lords before moving on to the Dark Avatar expansion. It will allow you to focus more on learning the core game mechanics before you have to deal with the changes in Dark Avatar. The changes include but are not limited to:
-A changed spy and ship combat system.
-Race specific super abilities.
-Special planet colonization techs.
-Minable asteriods.

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I hope this helps.